KARACHI: A book titled 101 Melody Makers — of India and Pakistan and their Representative Work — by Sultan Arshad Khan was launched at the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi on Friday evening.

Speaking on the occasion, former senator and federal information minister Javed Jabbar said the irony of the title of the book is that there are 101 melody makers [mentioned in it] by one single individual. “What a contrast, because this is not just any book, it’s an encyclopaedia. One used to call Sultan Arshad a living, walking, talking encyclopaedia, but he’s made a book into an encyclopaedia. As far as I know, encyclopaedias are seldom written by a single author. But this book is a truly remarkable feat.”

Mr Jabbar lauded the attention to detail in the published work and added: “The other aspect of this singularity is that it’s about a subject that is the ultimate in collaborative creativity. While listening to a film song, generally, we remember the singer who’s sung it. Sometimes the music composer is recalled, and occasionally the lyricist. [But] to create that three-and-a-half or four-minute piece of magic [song] there are dozens of people involved whose names most people don’t remember… What about those instrumentalists! One hundred one in the book refers to the music composers, but the thousands of songs that they created, each of them has been listed by Sultan Arshad. The year of the film production, the name of its director, producer… there’s a whole gallery of geniuses. No other genre of music covers the kind of subjects — romantic interplay, transient parting, family values, etc — that the film music in South Asia, especially India and Pakistan, covers.”

It took Sultan Arshad Khan 20 years to complete the book

He also briefly touched upon the high price of the book and the language it’s written in: English.

Arts Council president Ahmed Shah said he’s known the author for many years. He offered the writer that if he wished to come out with the book’s Urdu version, the council would do it.

Musicologist S M Shahid said it was in the 1980s that he met the author for the first time at a mutual friend’s place. He got to know that like him [Shahid] Mr Khan was fond of music, and had studied the history of film music. Mr Arshad, in the blink of an eye, can tell which movie was made when, who its director or producer was, who penned lyrics for it, who composed music and sang songs to accompany the story, and on which actors the songs were filmed.

Music composer Arshad Mahmud said he’s one of those fortunate people who the author hosted in Bombay (now Mumbai) where he was posted while he was working for PIA. At the time he was collecting information for the book. “When I interacted with him I realised that while discussing a song, he attached most importance to its music director.”

Hum TV Network president Sultana Siddiqui congratulated the author for writing the book because as she read it, it felt to her as if she’s going into the depths of an ocean, collecting pearls and other precious gems of music.

She appreciated the pictures printed in the book. And when she got to know that it took Sultan Arshad Khan 20 years to complete the book, she said to herself that only a lover (aashiq) could do that with a consuming passion.

Actress Bushra Ansari said a little more than a decade back, she was doing a project for Satish Anand in Dubai. It was an Indo-Pak collaborative work. There she saw an Indian girl having the complete history of the songs that would be discussed. “There are very few people in Pakistan who know a lot about this art, and Sultan Arshad is one of them.”

Sultan Arshad Khan, in the end, thanked the guests for coming to the event.

Dr Huma Mir moderated the launch, after which a musical programme was held.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2021