LAHORE: Khwaja Ghulam Farid discovered and gave a voice to the beauty of Roh, Rohi, Thal and Daman – the tract of Seraiki areas of south Punjab – through his Kafis. It was, however, Suraya Multanikar, the famous Seraiki and Urdu singer from Multan, to give a voice to Khwaja Farid’s Kafis. Her voice took Kafis to the grassroots level.

Multanikar sat at the stage on Sunday in a session at the Alhamra Literary and Cultural Festival of 2015 to share her life story. The audience was responsive, and time to time cheered as the classical singer sang a few lines of a Kafi or song. Originally, the session was planned with, besides Multanikar, acclaimed singer Farida Khanam and art critic Sarwat Ali. However, only Multanikar was present. She alone filled the vacuum and mesmerised the audience.

“I was fond of singing from the very beginning but my family opposed me,” she recalled of her early days in Multan. Singers were looked down upon.”

The other reason was that her family had modest means of earning while the mentors of those days would cost too much. Then one day, her mother took her to the grandfather of former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. Once he listened to Multanikar’s voice, the pir ordered her mother to get her trained in music. The pir also ordered one of his devotees Ustad Nabi Khan to train her. With this, her formal training began. She was hardly six years old then.

It was 1955, when she along with her mentor travelled to Karachi for a radio audition. She was rejected for those at the helm thought she was too young for a radio performance. She was 11 at that time. The rejection did affect her, but her mentor was devastated as he took the refusal as an insult. Soon after, however, Radio Pakistan Multan opened its door to her. The claim to fame moment, however, was when in 1965 she performed at a function in Rawalpindi where most of the acclaimed classical singers were being booed in front of jolly crowd of young people. There she sang ‘Nigahen Milane ki Koshish Na Karna’. The song got a standing ovation, and later once it was aired on radio, it was an instant hit.

In another session Radio Pakistan ki Kahani, broadcasters of the yesteryear sat to discuss the medium of voice. Irfan Khosat, who was to be a guest, had to host the show for panelists Yasmeen Tahir and moderator Afzal Rehman failed to grace the stage.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2015