It was a cold winter’s night in Lahore more than 50 years ago when this scribe came face to face with a living music legend at a gathering held in a haveli inside the walled city of Lahore.
It was the first week of Moharram and mourners were cherishing the memory of the martyrs of the Karbala tragedy in various gatherings despite the bitter cold. Besides the poetry of Mir Dabeer, Anees, Munis and others, learned speakers of different hues and standings would dispense their oratory at many traditional places in the old city reserved for such gatherings. The audience would follow these speakers and reciters from one gathering to the next as a ritual to satiate their sorrow.
At one such assemblage in a narrow street inside Mochi Gate, a maestro of his time and age arrived unannounced to pay homage to the memory of the Karbala martyrs. Halfway through the proceedings, a hush fell on the audience present as a big, burly person in his 50s entered the place and sought a seat in the last row. A reciter who was already making his presentation to the audience stopped his repertoires abruptly, as if out of respect for the visitor, and vacated the rostrum. The host then invited this stranger (at least to this writer) to the dais with the words, “Tashreef laiyay, Khan Saheb.”
Who was this Khan Sahib and why this special treatment? One learnt later on that this was Khan Barhhay Ghulam Ali Khan, a storm on the horizon of classical music. Out of respect, one shuns the word Budday for Barhhay as English transcriptors usually prefix his name. It came to be known later that he was visiting his native place after many years of absence from Lahore, in the aftermath of the events of the Partition of the subcontinent. This living legend of the world of classical music began his rendition in a low-pitched tone with sadness emanating in each and every word of his elegy.
His voice was in resonance with his body language, the gesture of his hands and face doubly expressing the sadness of his dirge. Each note emanated from the inner depths of his heart and without any effort for the sadness it conveyed. His rendition of yonder years still reverberates in my ears to this day. A novice could not have believed that such a burly figure could pitch his voice to such a low tone to convey the moroseness and sadness the rendition demanded. Then, after a short recital, he vacated the dais and left after being seen off by the host with respect and a word of thanks, the maestro all the time bowing his head in return. Later in life, this scribe learnt that Barhhay Ghulam Ali Khan Sahib, on return to India after struggling in his native place, had chosen to stay on in that country where he spent his twilight years.
Another maestro and namesake of Barhhay Ghulam Ali Khan was the late Chhotay Ghulam Ali Khan Sahib, whom I saw in his youth as a budding musician. He would practice at a takia adjacent to the high school where this scribe got his early schooling (and what a school it was — in a muffasil town with a galaxy of unassuming teachers of all academic specialties and heights, such as the late Mumtaz Mufti, Fateh Ali Shah and Syed Faqir Hussain, all headed by the late S. Saeed-ud-Din Ahmad, a luminary of high school education in those days).
In the formative years of Ghulam Ali, his voice was so loud and penetrating that it attracted the attention of even those who had no ear for raga or sur. At times, it disturbed the ongoing classes in school. But no one minded the disturbance, as those were days of extreme tolerance. Later on, one would see him at functions and at many yearly gathering at mausoleums situated around the city along with his troupe. His voice would reverberate and spread out over the choruses of his fellow singers.
After a gap of many decades, having settled in Lahore, I again saw Chhotay Ghulam Ali Khan in various gatherings and also teaching at the Al Hamra music classes. By this time, he had attained the status of a maestro in his own right, frail but still with the loud and rasping voice of his youth. His voice would still be carried afar and reverberate in the neighbourhood of the crumbling buildings of the inner-city havelis where he would hold court. His style was all his own and he would mix classicism in his rendition of elegiac couplets, ending with a prayer for beloved Pakistan, his health which was in steady decline and for remission of his failings in life. He died in Lahore a few years back, leaving behind many pupils and appreciators of his art. Some of his pupils are now termed as masters in their own right. Chhotay Ghulam Ali Khan Sahib titled himself thus in reverence both to his family as well as professional connections with his namesake, Barhhay Ghulam Ali Khan Sahib.
