KARACHI: Friends and colleagues of the late Musadiq Sanwal came together at The Second Floor (T2F) on Saturday evening to listen to his songs and share their experiences of working or spending time with the vocalist, composer and musician and understand his rare genius.

Here was a man who did just about everything. Hence he sang, wrote music and played it as well. He wrote poetry, too. He understood theatre and was gifted with enormous talent in just about everything that he did.

“There were so many facets to his kind of art,” producer, director and writer Mazhar Zaidi told Wusatullah Khan, the moderator of the programme.

One of these facets happened to be theatre. His friend and producer, director, actor and theatre expert Khalid Ahmed said that all musicians could not do theatre but Musadiq did both very well. He recalled how when staging Jiney Lahore Naeen Vekhya, a play about the partition of the subcontinent, at the Goethe-Institut Musadiq, took it on himself to design the sets. “He was composing and singing, too, which meant that after finishing designing the sets he had to run along to bathe and wash the paint off himself to come back and play as well as sing,” said Khalid Ahmed.

Another of Musadiq’s long-standing friends, producer and director Rashid Sami said that while working on plays they also had many artists from Shah Faisal Colony and he himself hailed from Defence, hence there could have been some misunderstandings or friction due to the class difference. “But Musadiq was like a bridge between me and them,” he said.

Sharing a bit about Musadiq’s catchy sense of humour, producer, director and cinematographer Farjad Nabi remembered that once when he (Farjad) was not particularly happy with a certain music composition for a Kafi, Musadiq, in trying to convince him that it was really good, said Maulana Rumi had himself played the clarinet for it.

Bilal Brohi, who Musadiq had met when he (Bilal) had just returned from Malaysia after completing his studies, and with whom he managed to create a kind of fusion music of East and West, said that Musadiq spoke to him about Sufism. “When I asked which Sufi order he belonged to, Musadiq told me that he belonged to ‘the order of disorder’,” Bilal laughed. “And in the beginning when we tried playing our ‘fusion’ he called it ‘confusion’,” he said, adding that they experimented with all kinds of music.

The evening moved along as a variety of Musadiq’s songs were played for the packed audience. Musadiq was a big fan of Nasir Kazmi’s poetry to which he gave music and his voice. He also sang Kafi, with regional songs, which were also played. Joshinder Chaggar and Sheema Kermani also danced to some of the fusion music composed by Bilal Brohi.

Finally, Khalid Ahmed read out Musadiq’s poem Nahi Koi Ghum / Koi Darr Nahi.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2016