KARACHI: With her individualistic body of work, Malika Pukhraj was a hard task master and a perfectionist. If there was something or someone she thought she could learn from, she would go ahead and do exactly that without feeling an iota of embarrassment or shame. Particular about having her choice of food, she once spent five days without eating a morsel as it was “not of her choice”. With a session full of nostalgia and anecdotes, singer Tahira Syed and music composer and actor Arshad Mehmood paid tribute to the life and career of legendary singer Malika Pukhraj on the first day of the Karachi Literature Festival.

With the main garden of the Beach Luxury Hotel packed with audience of all ages, director of All Pakistan Music Conference Ayla Raza, who moderated the session, divided it into three stages.

The beginning focused on the individualistic body of work of Malika Pukhraj and her distinctive voice. In the middle, Tahira Syed, who is a household name and in a league of her own, was to speak about the personal loss her mother went through in the late 1960s. The concluding part focused on the eccentric nature of the late singer besides the future of ghazal.

Talking about the style of singing in the 1950s and the early 1960s, Tahira Syed said: “At the time, singers were asked to modulate their voice according to the microphone. And the songs were sung in a high pitch that was considered a contributing factor to a singer’s repertoire. My mother recorded songs in the 78RPM mode and it was a one-time shot recorded within two and a half minutes.” In the 1970s, when she started recording with the EMI and on TV, Pukhraj developed bass in her voice that had been missing in her earlier recordings and was lapped up by the listeners, she said, adding that singing was much easier at present.

Answering a question by Ayla, Tahira said her father, Shabbir Hussain, was supportive of her mother as she was determined to move beyond all obstacles. “Which is why, when he passed away in 1968, she became extremely withdrawn and didn’t prefer performing at all. Her only solace was in learning music that made her forget her sorrow,” she added.

Arshad Mehmood added that he spent a lot of time with her in the studios when she began recording again in the 1970s and the 1980s. The songs which came out during that period were still famous, he added.

“She never liked what I sang, though she always said I could do better,” said Tahira, adding that after her mother, if there was anyone who could criticise her work in a big way, it had to be Arshad Mehmood. While recalling an incident when she couldn’t get a word right, she sang the ghazal of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, go sab ko baham sagar-o-bada toh nahi tha.

When it came to singing with her mother in the late 1970s and the early 1980s for PTV, she said she usually received comments such as, ‘your mother sang really well while you look really good.’ Tahira began learning music from her mother at the age of 12 and recalls that the training was rigorous. “I received lessons from maestros and artists from different fields such as Allah Bukhsh and learning sitar from Shareef Khan. I finally asked my mother what she really wanted me to do. When she said, singing, I decided to solely focus on that,” she said. Speaking of screen appearance, she said there was a small stint for a movie in the 1930s for which Malika Pukhraj left for Bombay with her two children but soon returned after recording only a song. A footage of the song, penned by Dagh, called ‘Dillagi Meri Koi Kya Jaane’, was recorded by J.B.H Wadia at the time for the movie Kahan Hai Manzil Teri. “She came back realising that making a movie requires a lot of patience,” Tahira added.

When it came to the future of music and specifically ghazal, Tahira said: “I think it’s bleak”. However, Arshad Mehmood while politely disagreeing with her said: “It will evolve.”

The reason, he said, is that “we can’t teach the younger generation how to sing rather to appreciate music, whether they develop a passion for it or not depends solely on them. There are many venues available to hone their craft which makes one spoilt for choice.”

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2016