Pop goes the Festival

Just as faithfully as Westerners rely on the weather as a conversational crutch, for most urban Punjabi families a good bashing of the PPP is the go-to conversation filler during family dinners, assuring that everyone will be animated and on the same page for the next hour or so. The eruption of the Mohenjodaro controversy during the Sindh Festival was thus a God-sent – a grave-sounding reason to denounce the festival as a Nero-like exercise in flute-playing while Rome burnt in the background. Those with greater intellectual pretensions went further by decrying the wastage of taxpayers’ money on something essentially frivolous, an idea that is hard to contest in a country with issues as numerous as ours. Terrorism, hospitals, education, even malnutrition were cited, in front of which the shallow celebration of ‘culture’ does indeed seem like a puny and facile aim.
The line between bomb blasts and the receding space for culture may seem tenuous but it is hard to deny that Pakistan’s slide into extremism is being ratified by the silent majority. Song, dance and the arts are allowed to go on in the background as one of the many sins that we have not yet got rid of as ‘imperfect Muslims’ but the guilty feeling that none of that arts stuff is really Islamic, really Pakistani, is what has allowed us as a nation to keep ceding intellectual and cultural space to extremist mindsets. In the ideological zone that the ‘Pakistani identity’ has been framed thus far (despite valiant attempts by academics like Ayesha Jalal et al) the zenith of being a Pakistani is to be a true Muslim, and that trueness can only be realized in defining ourselves as non-Hindu and non-Indian – divorced from the Indian soil we live on, constantly pulled instead toward our ideological epicenter in Mecca.
The most crucial thing the Sindh Festival has achieved by putting the spotlight on Sindh is to shift the focus of the Pakistani identity away from religion and back on to our ancestral land. This distancing from Pakistan’s central narrative of forced unity – one dependent on Urdu and Islam as the defining forces of Pakistaniyat – is essential to moving forward with a new definition of what it means to be Pakistani, something shaped out of its own 65 years of political history and with a clear-headed acceptance of its diversity, a diversity as great as India, contained within a geography half its size. What a nation imagines itself to be is crucial, for that is what decides what it chooses to fight and what it accepts as its own, and the arts and pop culture play a great role in creating and cementing this self-image.
Academic work theorizing that Pakistan was created as an independent economic and political entity, not a religious one, is important, but holds little meaning unless it becomes a popular concept amongst the masses, something only popular culture can help achieve. To that end, thousands of images of the dramatically lit Mohenjodaro as backdrop to a celebratory concert beamed all over Pakistan, is a good start. Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari singing a rap song a cultural subversion the likes of which it is hard to find a parallel; an art exhibition of international standard at the Frere Hall a worthwhile pursuit; holding a Basant festival on the beach a (nearly amusing) snub to the PML-N.
But if the money spent were personal, like Bilawal Bhutto Zardari claimed in the beginning, the spending of it on whatever he chose would be no-one’s business. However, as it turns out, seed money has been borrowed from the Sindh government which the festival claims it will return fully – a claim tad tough to swallow in light of the PPP’s image and track record. While the beaming of a concert at Mohenjodaro sounds like a good idea in the face of the shariah being demanded by the Taliban, 800 VIP guests and cultural satirists like Ali Gul Pir and Ali Aftab Saeed reduced to mere cheerleaders of a man who has essentially bought their goodwill doesn’t do a great deal to inspire confidence in this spectacle of culture. Add to this a fashion show spearheaded by the Taseers who have become uncriticizable since the tragic assassination of Salmaan Taseer, but who need to be roundly taken to task for not paying writers and employees at a newspaper they continue to run yet purporting to be the flag bearers of culture elsewhere. For these reasons and more the Sindh Festival has to do a lot of soul searching if it wants to avoid being seen as yet another party thrown by and for the country’s out of touch elite.

Bahaar Aaee

On the day the Christians of Badami Bagh were brutally punished by their Lahori neighbors for yet another cooked-up blasphemy, a gloomy Sabahat Zakariya went to hear Tahira Syed sing Faiz's poems at the Alhamra Arts Center. She was pleasantly surprised 

I was under the impression that Lahoris don't appreciate serious music, that's why I've always performed in Karachi, but this audience has really surprised me."

The 500-strong crowd at the Alhamra Arts Center could have taken offense at this declaration of Tahira Syed's. Or they could have accepted the backhanded compliment for what it was. They chose the latter, bursting into self-congratulatory applause at their role in this timely revision of the songbird's take on their city.

It was a day when outside endorsement of Lahore's benign spirit was bound to be lapped up hungrily. Just a few hours before the concert, a poisonous mix of self-righteousness and discontent had unleashed itself on a hapless Christian neighborhood of Lahore, leaving in its wake more than a hundred burnt houses and hundreds more permanently charred lives. Under those circumstances, Adeel Hashmi's delicate interweaving of Faiz's letters and poetry with Asad Anees's grand piano made the Alhamra hall seem worlds removed from the pyromania of Badaami Bagh. This being a Faiz event, there was every reason to suppose that troubles other than love would be brought up, and so they were by Adeel Hashmi, who began the show with a moving speech addressing the pall that had descended on the city since morning. Sitting in the audience and looking around, I couldn't escape the depressing feeling that much like English-language writing in Pakistan, liberal rhetoric at a ticketed cultural event is permanently stuck in a vicious cycle of preaching to the converted. Several couples -presumably parents of the Lahore Grammar School students who had presented the opening act of the night - got up and left even before Hashmi had time to finish his speech and launch into his recitation. I couldn't decide if it was their apathy that defined my city's spirit or the enthusiasm of the four hundred-odd people who enjoyed a Saturday night of music until the end.

Like English-language writing in Pakistan, liberal rhetoric at a ticketed cultural event is stuck in a vicious cycle

Adeel Hashmi, with his ability to smoothly transition between comedy and serious matter, and then to combine the two where necessary, is a valuable Faiz Ghar asset, reminiscent of his uncle Shoaib Hashmi in this as well as matters of stage presence and crowd handling. Both are fortunate in having evaded the comic actor's affliction of not being taken seriously once they make the switch, what with Faiz's grandson handling his poetry with an earnestness that adds merit to what might seem a nepotistic selection. The only thing that jars at the now frequent Faiz Ghar events is their insistence on promoting Faiz and Faiz alone. His legacy as a poet is now extremely well-established. Surely Faiz Ghar can afford to branch out into the exploration of other members of Urdu's beleaguered creative fraternity in ways as attractive as the marketing of Faiz, an endeavour that would also be very much in line with the giving spirit of Faiz the man, one who openly ranked Hafeez Jalandhari among the greatest poets of his time, despite the latter's varied and vicious personal attacks on Faiz's character. The recently held Daastaan-Goi, Shyam Benegal Festival and Motley Theatre events suggest that Faiz Ghar will branch out into supporting the creative arts in general and not just stick with Faiz alone, which is a heartening development. This new direction, however, was not visible at this particular concert, which seemed to have straitjacketed Tahira Syed into singing Faiz and Malika Pukhraj alone, marring the spontaneous flow of an otherwise excellent evening. Why it needed to drag in Alys Faiz as an alibi for the concert never became clear to me, especially considering that a tribute to Alys Faiz had been performed a couple of weeks before on the same stage and Faiz's birthday had also been celebrated a week before with the traditional Tina Sani evening. The inclusion of Malika Pukhraj seemed suspiciously like a condition of Tahira Syed's for appearing on the Faiz Ghar platform, and the addition of Alys Faiz an attempt at offsetting the focus on Syed and Pukhraj.

Not only does Tahira Syed look as fresh as ever, her voice is just as perky as it was many years ago

I was expecting to enjoy the Malika Pukhraj section, since so many of her songs are part of the collective consciousness of Pakistan's PTV generations. And I was not disappointed. Not only does Tahira Syed look as fresh as ever, her voice is just as perky and strong as it was many years ago. Lo Phir Basant Aaee proved an excellent choice for the first song, evoking both the joy of spring on a balmy March evening and the pang of Lahore's severance from its centuries-old past with the banning of the Basant Festival. Syed also peppered her chatter between songs with some well-placed humour. moving into Riaz Khairabaadai's ghazal Hum bhee piyayn tumhayn bhee pilaaeeN tamaam raat with this quip: 'Of course, prohibition mayN tau yeh mumkin naheeN hae. Magar yeh pehlay ki gaaee huee hae', shifting immediately afterwards into the pahaari folk tune Allah Bailuva Ho, leaving me marveling at this seamless celebration of God and booze in our poetic traditions.

The Faiz section, which I was a bit apprehensive about, having never heard Tahira Syed sing him before, turned out to be quite a joy, especially since it contained three "new" compositions by Arshad Mehmood who was also in attendance. Go sab ko baham saaghar-o-baada tau naheen tha, yeh shehr udaas itna zyaada tau naheen tha, a ghazal I am familiar with through a home recording of Arshad Mehmood singing it himself was my only disappointment. Mehmood's own voice is much more suited to the tune as well as the pathos of the poetry, so I couldn't stop comparing it unfavourably to the original version. Add to that Syed constantly pronouncing 'zyaada' as 'zaada', and it made for something like a low point in the evening.

At the very end, one audience request which was neither from the Pukhraj nor the Faiz canons was accommodated after special permission was granted by Muneeza Hashmi upon Tahira Syed's coaxing. A rousing 'Jhaanjhar Phabdi Na' ended an overall fantastic evening that I couldn't yet again help but feel grateful to the Faiz Foundation Trust for.

Published in The Friday Times of March 15-21, 2013

Sufi Music Festival at Peeru's

To say that Lahore seems to be slowly recovering from the terrorist attacks that ground all its cultural activity to a halt a few years ago would be to tempt fate, and if there is one thing I have learnt as a Pakistani, it is to keep optimistic hopes for the future to a minimum. Luckily for us, the people at the Rafi-Peer group have always held a less pessimistic view of things, remaining constantly involved in carving a livable present for the people of Lahore.

After the initial shock of cracker bomb blasts at the World Performing Arts Festival at Alhamra Cultural Complex that brutally ended a decade of vibrant International and local performances, the Rafi Peer people took most of their work to their outlying café, Peeru’s, which  is where their latest Mystic Sufi Music Festival was held. Peeru’s is a long trek for most Lahoris, so we got out early on the second day of the festival and reached well before time to a now fortressed Peeru’s. Last time I had been it was a charming, open space on the outskirts of the city. Now it is sealed on all sides with high, concrete walls and huge metal doors. Hazards of making a living through art in the ‘cultural capital’ of the city.

I was glad to find that once inside, the open grounds, wrought iron chairs and macabre puppet décor still retained their allure. Walking past shops selling quirky folk trinkets we arrived at the clearing for the festival itself, the stage swathed with bales of cloth in Alif Laila fashion, topped with a small dome. Opting for the farshi nashist in front and watching people trickle in slowly, we were assured by the organizers that the evening would start on time regardless. Exactly at eight, the first qawwals, whose names were unfortunately left unannounced, began proceedings. Particularly unfortunate since they were better than many of the advertised acts that figured on the festival brochures. Their one qawwali, a mashup of a Ni Mayn Jogi De Naal and the ever popular Akhiyaan Udeekdiyaan, proved an impressive beginning to the show.

The last strains of their harmonium mingled with Usman Peerzaada’s voice welcoming the crowd to The Mystic Sufi Music Festival, the synonymous sufi and mystic probably cobbled together to provide dual protection against the satanic influences of just plain old folk music, and to make the festival palatable to diverse audiences. This cynicism was frequently upended by the four days of music itself that provided a robust blend of spirituality, romance, heretcism and playfulness in a potent subcontinental mix honed over centuries. While the organizers may have felt the need to speak the rhetoric of Islam to appease the ghosts of potential terrorists lurking in the shadows, the crowd responded equally enthusiastically to both ‘Allah Hoo’ and ‘Sharaabi Mayn Sharaabi’.

The charming Bushra Marvi from Sind, dressed in a psychedelic, Shazia Khushkesque traditional ghagra, was the second act that night. Her voice, however, could not quite live up to the expectations raised by her striking appearance, though in choosing the familiar ‘Maahi yaar di gharoli’ she managed to elicit some response from the half -capacity crowd. Zarsaanga, the KPK stalwart also seemed lacklustre, partially because the rock concert speakers often overpowered her melody. They sound system seemed particularly excessive on a day the venue wasn’t full to capacity.

Shaukat Dholya from Chiniot performed next with his drumming partner. What a delicious name that, encompassing his passion, profession and identity, a living embodiment of the sufi concept of oneness: Ranjha Ranjha karday ni mayn aapay ranjha hoee. It is impossible to imagine a similar union of music and being in the western musical tradition, where a rockstar by the name of David Singer or John Drummer sounds like an absurdity.  Usually percussion alone leaves me a bit cold, especially if unaccompanied by a more melodious instrument, but the peaks and troughs of Shaukat’s beats created an elaborate, transporting rhythm that echoed boundlessly without being monotonous. The two dholiyaas came together on the stage, foreheads nearly meeting, beating their drums each to each in a perfectly synergetic visual and stylistic crescendo. As if this wasn’t enough, Shaukat added another layer of spectacle to an already spectacular performance, swiveling his drum around his neck like a hula-hoop, then adding his partner’s in a magnificent conjuring feat that combined spinning himself, his drums and his beat in flawless harmony.

The only international participant of the festival, the Syrian Ahmed Altir from Aleppo joined the two drummers next with a graceful dance reminiscent of Turkish whirling dervishes. Ahmed’s romantic foreignness and more elegant, but no less skillful whirling, made for an engrossing contrast with the earthy dhamaal dancers of sub-continental shrines, but his biggest draw was a light-bulb dress with components that could be taken off to twirl umbrella-like above his head in varying degrees of difficulty. Ahmed got warm response from the crowd and he was the only artist to perform on all four days of the festival.

Saturday and Sunday saw the place buzz with a more festive feel as visibly greater numbers turned up over the weekend. Despite that, it was hard to shake off the feeling that deprived of the grand cultural stage of the Alhamra, the festival had been robbed of a lot of its magic and reach. Nonetheless, a group of first time festival attendees sat on my left and giggled away, hushing each other from time to time in a suitable display of coltishness and reverence. A girl with gorgeous long curls banged her head to Mithu and Goonga Saaein’s drums and in the grand old tradition of Pakistani parenting 4-year-olds frolicked around the lawns at midnight on a Sunday. More than the somewhat insipid performance turned in by Pappu Saeen on the third day, Goonga and Mithu Saaeen captivated the audience on the last day, exciting the audience into clapping and smiling and creating a communion of strangers that is becoming increasingly difficult to experience in this city of confined spaces and suspicious insularity.

Of my favourite acts of the next two days, one was the saarangi player, Israr Nabi Bukhsh.  Saarangi is considered a difficult instrument and is on the verge of extinction due to a lack of patronage. The festival brochure stated this fact but despite that the sarangi player was only given one song to play. He chose the popular tune Dama Dam Mast Qalandar but a bias against instrumentals by a strongly lyrical populace meant the performance was perceived as merely an instrumental filler which people used as an opportunity to catch up with their smart phones. A pity, but an expected response in an age where folk music needs to be served with healthy dozes of fusion and glasses of Coke in order to be noticed.

Saaein Zahoor, a crowd puller, was captivating with his Toomba but a bit overshadowed by some of the other spectacular performances in the festival. Also perhaps because the more commercially successful sufi singers have been commercialized by Coke Studio but the likes of The Shajo Rag Faqirs who have been performing at the shrine of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai in the traditional manner that was created by the Shah himself 400 years ago and which they consider a sacrilege to tamper with, retain a more ‘exotic’ charm.

Surrayya Khanum was another easily recognizable face who delivered a surprisingly soulful rendition of Maae Ni Mayn Kinnu Aakhaan followed by Bulleh Shah’s poetry that never fails to be relevant to our current situations:

Haaji loak Makkay val jaanday, saaday dil vich nau sau Makka

Vichay Haaji, vichay gaaji, vicha chor uchakka

(Haajis go to Mecca but I have Mecca within my heart

Haji, sinner, thief, pickpocket all reside within me)

The heavily decked, sinewy Krishan lal Bheel from the deserts of Sind and the light, feminine sounds of the Bazm-e-Liqa troupe from Hunza, Chitral and Gilgit showcased two opposite spectrums of our land’s diversity. While PTV had for years tried to foster this kind of unity through provincial dance tableaus, the organic performers of this festival did a lot more to bring home to me the vastness of Pakistani cultures. Akhtar Chinaar Zehri’s Balochi, Bazme-e-Liqa’s Burushuski and all manners of strange languages, cultures, dresses and music all a part of Pakistan that from Lahore seems like a homogenized country solely obsessed with politics and revolutions. That is what the Rafi-Peer people have always done remarkably, opened my eyes to a world beyond my own, from a time when they brought artists from all over the world to perform theatre in Lahore tonow that they have been restricted to showcasing only local talent. A lot has been said about their alleged financial fraud due to which they have lost all sponsorship and had to curtail the list of performances from abroad;  all I know is they are one of the few who have kept Lahore’s cultural identity alive over the decades, and for that alone I am indebted to them.

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Published in The Friday Times here 

Back to the '80s

Last night I was to attend a Sufi Music Festival organized by the good people of the Rafi-Peer group. I didn’t. Why? It didn’t take place. That seems to be the story of Lahori cultural life of late. To one who came into her teens in the Post-Zia Pakistan of the early ‘90s, this country was an almost-happening place to be in.  In 1989 PTV tentatively shed its mandatory dupatta as a live concert aired on state television featuring Pakistan’s premier pop/rock bands with young people dancing next to the cat-walk style stage. A whole generation of kids watched fascinated as Pakistan’s television ethos became bolder, though not necessarily better, almost overnight. Young people tried to come to grips with a new-found freedom that altered their lifestyles through mixed live concerts. Now going out on a Saturday night did not just mean dining at a staid ‘family restaurant’ or cruising aimlessly on city roads to catch a glimpse of women out shopping in Liberty Market. It could also mean going to the grand brick structure of the Alhamra amphitheatre and seeing Pakistan’s premier bands perform live. These concerts weren’t without their problems, often fights would break out, women had to go with a group of men for fear of being harassed and these things were still by and large testosterone driven.

The Rafi-Peer Theatre Festival single-handedly changed all that. Its combination of puppetry, dance, theatre and music lured families and younger, hipper crowds alike in an atmosphere of cultured festivity. Perhaps by then, a few years of checkered democracy and relative freedom had calmed down young people enough to be able to take cultural public events in stride. The festival’s stellar line-up of local and international groups and its impeccable but unintrusive security also helped, of course. The International Rafi Peer festivals began in 1996 and ran till 2008 till they were abruptly brought to a halt with what was called a ‘cracker’ bomb.

I distinctly remember the night it happened. An almost-full amphitheatre, dotted with men and women sitting on colourful floor cushions, anticipated a leisurely evening of music under the sky in the pleasant November air. A relatively unknown pre-Coke Studio Arieb Azhar had just begun singing when an explosion was heard above the music. It was loud enough for everyone to sit up and take notice but the band kept playing. The second explosion, however, sent the audience in a panic and immediate evacuation was announced by the organizers. I knew on that eerie night as we rushed fearfully to the parking lot that this was possibly the foreseeable end of any International cultural event in Pakistan. This prediction surpassed expectations. It also proved to be the end of large scale Pakistani concerts. The subsequent year also sounded the death knell to International sporting fixtures as the Sri Lankan cricket team was attacked right in the heart of Lahore (not far from the Alhamra amphitheatre) in broad daylight thanks to the utter negligence of authorities concerned.

This essentially means, that apart from a sporadic play or two imported from Karachi, I can’t recall a large scale public event that can qualify as entertainment since nearly three years. Faiz’s centenary in February this year did provide a bit of respite, but its invitation only format assured entry only to the well connected, or to corporate customers of sponsoring banks (chew on that irony for a Faiz event).   The announcement for the Rafi-Peer Sufi Music Festival, thus, was greeted with much delight and anticipation. But this is the post war-on-terror Pakistan. Murphy’s laws hold truer here than anywhere else. The raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbotabad resulted in the festival being cancelled due to security fears and fundamentalist backlash. 

I think the country that has most changed in fundamental ways (for the negative) ever since the war on terror moved fully to these shores is Pakistan. Fear and bombings in Lahore have taken us back to the days when the only options for entertainment were food and aimless cruising. Only now I mainly aimlessly cruise online. I hear the LHC is planning to take that privilege away from me soon.

A version of this post was published in the Express Tribune blogs. I would like to add I prefer this version :)

Daily Times 09/04/2010

Book review: In tune with history —by Sabahat Zakariya

Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star’s Revolution
By Salman Ahmad Free Press; Pp 226

Salman Ahmad’s Rock & Roll Jihad takes off from the time when he returns to Pakistan as a gawky American teenager who gets beaten up one evening while trying to make his doctor classmates rock to his music. As his hard-bought Les Paul is smashed across the marble floor, Ahmad — in a manner that should resonate with Pakistani students from government universities — watches impotently, rapidly establishing the book’s themes of music, cultural conflict and the desire for reconciliation. It marks the beginning of a personal narrative that is inextricably tied to the collective history of the country of his birth, and lends the book its essential readability.

The grand sweep of Pakistani history — immortalised in the story of Paki-Pop — is captured here by someone who has actually helped shape that history. From the hushed, underground music scene of the Zia era to the heady and hopeful days of democracy, culminating in hormone-marred pop concerts, Ahmad brings Pakistan’s fascinatingly critical cultural evolution to life with a deeply personal recounting. As Ahmad transitions from Vital Signs to Junoon, the country moves from dictatorship to democracy. He captures the romance of Benazir’s return to Pakistan, but is equally brutal in recording the failures of her terms in office. But it is Nawaz Sharif who bears the brunt of Ahmad’s most scathing criticism. Ahmad retells the story of a first class match in which he was the then chief minister’s partner at the crease. Mian sahib’s princely antics on the cricket field are a part of urban Lahori legend, and Ahmad adds to the cannon with relish. Rather irksome, though, is his blind eulogising of the almost-militant Imran Khan. It is as if Ahmad refuses to take off the rose-tinted glasses from his childhood through which he has always chosen to see Imran Khan, his hero. He readily forgives all Imran Khan’s sins purely because he once raised a shiny trophy on a cricket field. His rather cursory yet flattering mention of Musharraf also comes across as intellectually dishonest, particularly in view of his personal views on the man, witnessed in his heated (albeit private) epistolary exchange with the General’s son. His glossing over of Musharraf’s many failures, then, seems more a way of appeasing his friend Bilal Musharraf than an honest assessment of his views on the ‘benevolent dictator’.

Little anecdotes about Salman’s encounters with well-known South Asian and international figures enliven the book and alleviate the preaching that occasionally threatens to defeat the narrative. Waheed Murad giving him passes to his film as a young child, Imran Khan’s scepticism about the young guitarist’s love life, Madam Noor Jehan lunging angrily at a guest on the day of his wedding, and touring Sri Lanka with Wasim Akram and other superstars of the Pakistani cricket team make the book an enjoyably brisk read.

The gem among the anecdotes is about Salman Ahmad taking Mick Jagger on a visit to Lahore’s Red Light area. A series of hilarious events unfold as a 16-year-old courtesan smirks at the very idea of the geriatric-looking Jagger being a famous entertainer in the Western world. This irks Jagger so much he decides to show her what his artistic talents are made of. Dancing together to the beat of live tablas and harmoniums, the two set the night on fire in a little squalid corner of Lahore. The lesson of cultural harmony derived from this incident is the most poignant in the book, far more so than some of the contrived ones about Ahmad’s own work with the UN.

But undoubtedly the grand star of the book is his wife. The stark white page in the beginning relieved by only two words, ‘For Samina’, seems to be a visual representation of the role his spouse has played in his life. Salman and Samina’s story is written as a breathtaking testimony to the power of love. There is love at first glimpse, dramatic twists and turns and difficulties in the path-to-forever punctuated with laugh-out-loud humour — all of which makes one fervently hope there was no ghostwriter involved in the process.

Despite the book’s other merits, the accusation that Ahmad is writing primarily with a Western audience in mind does have validity. This mild irritant could have been disregarded had he not decided to sprinkle the text with tedious translations of each local term, which, apart from breaking up the flow, serves to remind Pakistani readers that they are not the book’s intended audience. A glossary in the end would have been more practical — and less insulting.

His detractors may decry Ahmad’s pomposity, but that is not necessarily a disability here. Ahmad’s sense of his own importance in the world drives the story, making it, for the most part, a lyrical and poignant read. It is certainly difficult to escape Ahmad’s mildly overweening sense of his own importance, which permeates all corners of his narrative as he talks about being the ambassador of peace from the subcontinent who took the UN General Assembly and the Nobel Prize ceremony by storm. But autobiography, by its very nature, is a self-indulgent genre. To expect the author to write with self-effacing humbleness — particularly about pop, which is driven by precisely the opposite forces — is to ask for a dull book. Yet it is in places where Ahmad fades into the background and allows his music to take centre stage — the portions that explain the local change wrought by Paki-Pop — that the book is at its best.

Sabahat Zakariya is a staff member at Daily Times.