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Out of sight, but not out of mind
When tracing the history of pop music in Pakistan, one name that definitely comes to mind as an important icon that gave music direction and impetus in the country, is that of Mohammed Ali Shyhaki. The young man, with his Arab looks and dreamy voice singing Meri ankhon sey is dunya ko dekho, stole the hearts of many a young girl in the seventies, and continued to entice audiences for years. Admittedly, all pop stars rise only to make way for newer and younger ones eventually, but one does feel that Shyhaki faded into oblivion much before his time.
In a tete-a-tete with the onetime pop idol of Pakistan, one tries to gauge the reason behind the singer’s sudden disappearance. Says he quite complacently:
“There’s a time for everything and everybody has his periods of ups and downs. I have no regrets or resentment that I have been forgotten. I got involved with the aviation business and since showbiz has never been looked upon too highly in our culture, I had to let it fizzle out of my life, even though it brought in a lot more in the way of earnings.”
Opting for aviation as his line of work, Shyhaki went off to the US where he received further exposure to the profession, returning to train in the field with the national airline carrier.
However, with further prodding, Mohammad Ali Shyhaki does admit there were more factors responsible for turning him away from the world of glitz and glamour than merely a desire to lead a more reaspectable life. For one thing, the new trend of making music videos was something he did not take to.
“Suddenly home videos became very popular on television and although they were not good technically and lacked sophistication, they became the rage. A far cry from singing live in the studios, the trend caught on and everyone started making their own videos and marketing themselves. The projection became greater than the art and I was terribly confused as to whether I wanted any part of it. I had been used to working and rehearsing with senior artists whereas now anyone could make a video,” he says.
Not only that, Shyhaki also realized that he was at a disadvantage being a soloist.
“All of a sudden, bands were more in demand as I discovered to my chagrin when I wanted to make an album,” he recalls.
Eventually, succumbing to the pressure of producing home videos, he went to Kargil where he stayed for ten days to shoot a song, which was aired on PTV.
“But I wasn’t very comfortable with this new development and coincidentally it came at a time when I was winding up work in Pakistan, thinking that I would be moving to Canada. So I temporarily disappeared from the limelight, but am now back into the music scene with full force, albeit not in the forefront.”
What Mohammad Ali Shyhaki is a little hesitant to admit is that at one point in time his personal relationships also played a role in giving his career a setback. His first marriage of twenty years left a lot to be desired and gave him little peace of mind, as he recalls.
“My wife’s attitude affected my career and made my life miserable.” Not surprisingly, it ended in divorce, and he is now married to someone he met in Rawalpindi, “with whom I tied the knot after four years of getting to know her.”
Although currently Shyhaki is still involved in civil aviation part-time, he has now joined a production house by the name of Asian Multimedia Network, which has its head office in UAE. Responsible for its upcoming audio studio in Karachi, he is garnering his expertise to set up a highly professional digital sound studio here.
Not that he has abandoned singing entirely. Although, as he himself admits, PTV does not call him anymore, he continues to do live shows and has recently made a new album. ARY has covered a concert of his recently and it seems there are more in the offing. His magnum opus though, is something he is working on, without making too much of a noise. It is an experimental song, half of which he has already shot, which he hopes to launch as part of a series and claims:
“I want to make a comeback with something really big - otherwise there is no use.”
Well, as long as he is hanging in there and continuing to be in touch with the music scene in the country, one is sure this is not the last we have heard of Mohammad Ali Shyhaki.
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