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The soul of music
It is said that music transcends the boundaries of language. My belief in this saying was further reinforced after attending the three-day Second Cultural Action for Change Festival aimed to celebrate the diversity of the rich culture of Sindh.
The first two days’ activity largely involved interactive theatre and folk storytelling. On the second day, TV and theatre personality Khalid Ahmed introduced a group of folk musicians from Khanpur who put forth an impressive performance on the alghoza and the tabla. Formally introducing the event, Khalid said that the purpose behind it was to bring audiences closer to culture through music, theatre and drama and to revive the art of traditional storytelling by learning the ways and expressions of the old storytellers. For her part, Fouzia Saeed reflected on the effort required to bring together different people from rural Sindh and Balochistan for the event.
The activities commenced with a group from Khairpur performing a play in their traditional folk storytelling method, using different local dialects in the process. The play revolved around a boy whose parents are killed during communal massacre, and who is raised by the only surviving member of the community, a dervish fakir. As the child grows older, he gets curious about his faith.
Scenes depicting the eruption of violence between Hindus and Muslims and religious leaders exhorting their followers to attack rivals struck a familiar chord. Even though the dialogue was in an alien language, the body language of the cast sent across the chilling message loud and clear. The group also performed sufi songs by Sachal Sarmast.
For the performance based on interactive theatre, a group from Makran staged a play on the development of Gwadar, putting forward the question to the audience: will this development help the locals or lead to their regress?
On the third day, the much-awaited Manganhaar Music Festival commenced. The Manganhaar community possesses a great musical tradition that has been passed down through the generations. The festival was divided into two parts — a competition between the youth of the Manganhaar community aimed to encourage them to take pride in their heritage and utilize the musical talent they’ve inherited from their forefathers and performances by the elders of the Manganhaar community. Individuals from two baithaks were selected as participants.
The festival started with a performance by Chanesar, one of the oldest members of the community who played the khaamcha, an old musical instrument used by the community, accompanied by the tabla and harmonium.
The first group of students hailed from the Rohri baithak. The first to sing was Nazia Nasim from Khairpur and even though the language was foreign (the songs were sung in the regional language of Marhwari), she failed to incite the passion essential for a love song. Comparatively, the other contestant, Nadra, fared better. Next was Nazir Mohammad who sang a luke-warm folk song. The true star of the Rohri baithak was Sabra Sultana, who was later awarded second place in the competition. Hailing from a musical family, she has had seven years of musical training and despite being quite young, had the most mature voice.
The next baithak was from Umerkot, renowned for the famous love story of Umar-Marvi. The opener was a duet by two teenagers — Dilbar Khan and Sarmad Jeenu — who rendered a very enthusiastic and animated performance. From Tharparkar came Nizamuddin Khan and Mohammad Rafi, barely 6 or 7 years old. They managed to carry off the tune pretty well.
The instrumentalists emerged as the true stars of the night. They played non-stop for nearly three hours and various instruments such as the banjo, harmonium, tabla, dholak, khartal and khaamcha
Gulzar was the winner of the competition who sang a fast-paced romantic folk song that soon had the crowd on their feet. Laung Khan and Aslam Khan, the youngest performers of the show and winners of the third place in the competition were the most promising as well. Dressed in white with colourful turbans, the two boys sang well with coordinated hand movements.
For the second half consisting of performances by acclaimed artists of the Manganhaar community, the organizers had also invited Indian members of the community, but due to visa problems they could not attend. The duo of Mehr Ali Sagar and Habibullah Khadim stole the show in this category.
As talented as the winners were, the instrumentalists emerged as the true stars of the night. They played non-stop for nearly three hours and various instruments such as the banjo, harmonium, tabla, dholak, khartal and khaamcha brought about a consistent performance which had soul.
To sum it up, the effort and long process in bringing together so many folk musicians of every age and community was a commendable effort for which Action-Aid Pakistan, the Folklore Society of Pakistan, Dastak and Interactive Resource Centre deserve to be congratulated.
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