October 27, 2002

A plea for peace

In this profession, for a cause, one comes across boundless oddities. The unwritten law is that the more eccentric the subject matter, the better story it’ll make. But this analysis is not for sheer vanity. Rather, eccentric and odd — with all due respect — is the only way to describe Mohammad Afzal Machiswala’s single, Pakistan hamara, Hindustan tumara .

The title alone raises a few eyebrows. What in blazes is this guy talking about? The effort is, in its most basic sense, a plea for peace in the Indian subcontinent. Smell a lemon? But wait. Don’t write the guy off just yet.

The tune starts off with a qawwal-like backing chorus supporting Mr Machiswala’s rustic voice. Now being a plea for peace, Machiswala goes straight for the jugular, as he passionately implores the listeners not to kill each other, in the first line of the song. Lyrically, it is mostly the same fare, as the common denominators of both nations are slowly listed, hence trying to bridge the great divide.

Musically, the song is not very complex. It is a very basic fusion of eastern and western, with a steady tabla paired with occasional bars of organ. The lyrics are very base as well, and therein lies the slight appeal of this number. It is void of all intellectual ostentation. It’s so simple that the man on the street can understand without having to manoeuvre too many brain cells.

But it’s not fashionable. If some pretty boy popster had unleashed this, complete with multinational sponsors shedding crocodile tears for the Indo-Pak situation or Sept 11, it might have been the next big thing. But Machiswala doesn’t have that. His song is idealistic — to the point where it is unrealistic — but it doesn’t have that fashionable pizzazz that an Arundhati Roy lecture or a Junoon peace song (things espousing similar hippie idealism) would possess.

So hats off to Machiswala for fighting the good fight. Maybe the public image machines can mould him into a marketable entity. We’ll keep our fingers crossed. —Q.A.M

Furore over Belafone

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, has denounced remarks by famous singer Harry Belafonte comparing him to a plantation slave allowed “to come into the house of the master” who would be “turned back out to pasture” if he ceased to demonstrate obedience to the Bush administration.

“There’s an old saying — in the days of slavery, there were those slaves who lived on the plantation (and) those slaves that lived in the house,” Belafonte, an outspoken advocate for civil rights causes said in a radio interview.

“You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him. Colin Powell’s committed to come into the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture,” said Belafonte, who had his biggest hit with the song Day-O.

Speaking on CNN, Powell, who was the first black chairman of the joint chiefs of staff as well as the first black secretary of state, called the remarks “an unfortunate throwback.”

“If Harry had wanted to attack my politics, that was fine. If he wanted to attack a particular position I hold, that was fine,” Powell said. But “to use a slave reference ... is a throwback to another time and another place that I wish Harry had thought twice about using.”

Yesterday, the highest ranking Republican in Congress, the Senate minority leader, Trent Lott, announced he was withdrawing from a dinner to honour Belafonte later this month after Core, a conservative African-American group, called the comments a disgrace.

Referring to Powell’s participation in a musical sketch at a meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean), the state department spokesman Richard Boucher wryly told reporters, “As people said when the secretary sang at Asean, he should keep his day job — you could say the same about singers who get into politics.” —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.