FAISALABAD: Azeem may be partially blind, but he has not let the impairment become a hindrance to leading a normal life, and is earning a livelihood and entertaining people by playing the iktara, a single-string instrument.

Azeem cannot see beyond a certain distance after he lost most of his eyesight due to a surgery performed on him when he was a teenager. “My eyesight was weak so I had got a surgery performed in Multan for free. However, something went wrong during the operation, which left me partially blind. I can see people near me but the vision gets blurry at a distance. While on the road, I ask people for directions or guess an area,” he explained.

He said now he had no money to get his eyes operated upon again and was focusing on providing for his family.

Talking to Dawn, Azeem, 25, said he was earlier playing the iktara at the shrine of Shah Shams Tabraiz in Multan instead of begging. But, he left Multan for Faisalabad about seven months ago in search of a livelihood here. “The caretaker of the shrine asked me to leave and come back after a couple of months. I don’t know why he said so.”

On the iktara, Azeem sang the kalam of Baba Bulleh Shah and enthralled people in People’s Colony. His audience also demanded the Sufi poetry of Baba Farid.

Azeem is not educated, but he has a command over the iktara and Sufi kalam. He does not sing songs, saying even the youth demanded Sufi kalam instead of new or old songs. “I am happy that I am earning a decent amount daily to feed my family -- two children and a wife -- and take home Rs1,500 to Rs2,000 daily,” he added. “I also made Rs6,000 once a couple of months ago while singing Sufi kalam at a wedding in Lahore.”

Azeem knew how to repair his instrument and kept a coil of thin iron wires that hung with the strap of the iktara.

Irfan Ahmed celebrated the engagement of his friend Hassam where Azeem played Sufi music on his iktara. Irfan said Azeem exemplified how much talent there was on the streets of Punjab, however, the talent was diminishing with every passing day with the rise of commercialism.

He said the government supported artists, writers and poets, but not performers who sang Sufi poetry. He added that the government must make arrangements to protect the dying arts, as iktara was significant to Punjabi culture.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2020