There is a misconception about who founded the All-Pakistan Music Conference. My father, Rauf Ahmad Ansari and Hayat Ahmad Khan met one day at the Coffee House, Lahore somewhere in 1958 and decided to set up an organisation to help poor classical singers. This was mentioned by Mr Hayat in an interview that appeared in Dawn’s Tuesday Review.

Coffee House was my father’s favourite haunt. He was then the Secretary of Thal Development Authority and Managing Director, Thal Industries Corporation. Poets, musicians and painters flocked around him. They saw in him a reflection of his ancestors who were big time patrons of arts and culture. With the abolition of the ‘zamindari’ system in India, the level of patronage at our end got scaled down.

One day, as my father entered the house, my mother asked him why he was so happy. He said that that Syed Wajid Ali Shah has become the patron of the conference which was a good development. The Conference would grow.

Unfortunately, my father only lived two years after the founding of the conference. He died in 1961. For the next five decades, Hayat Ahmad Khan, the convenor of the conference, ably directed its affairs. He instituted the Rauf Ansari Medal which was given to the winner of the amateur singers contest. The first medal was given to Nayara Noor. I remember my mother’s face beamed with joy as she put the ribbon to which the medal was tied around Nayara Noor’s neck in Lahore. This happened some 51 years ago.

Azmat Ansari

Karachi

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2014