Spiritual connect Fariduddin Ayaaz and Abu Mohammad PHOTO: KVS Giri 

The sky was star-spangled and the air heavy with the scent of camphor. Soulful notes pierced the sepulchral silence adding to the ethereal ambience. The last abode of the Qutb Shahi kings reverberated with devotional music the other day as Fariduddin Ayaaz and Abu Mohammad took the stage.

For a change the Qutb Shahi Tombs, the royal necropolis, turned into an open air auditorium with the Pakistani qawwals and their humnava (group) casting a spell. The audience had a mystical experience as the mehfil-e-sama organised by the Agha Khan Trust for Culture progressed.

It was not the archetypal Bollywood qawwali but the one performed at sufi shrines and dargahs. The Pakistani qawwals started off with preamble verses and switched on to Man Kunto Maula , the legendary Manqabat qawwali composed by the iconic sufi poet, Hazrath Amir Khusrau. They gradually raised the tempo and passion leaving the audience asking for more. There was not one in the assemblage who was not caught in the hypnotic spell. With every number, the qawwals took the audience to a spiritual high. As is the norm, love and longing for the divine was the central theme of the songs. What added to the appeal was the perfect blend of the fundamental features of qawwali such as takrar, gireh and rhythm of tarana .

The Pakistani duo sang from the depths of heart and raised the pitch with this popular song of Amjad Hyderabadi:

Maayus sael ne jab ghar ki rahi li

Aankhon main ansoon they jholi thi khali

Itne main rahmat ye jhunjla ke boli

Aa aa idhar aa tu phir mang phir mang

The qawwals established an instant connect with the audience by belting out poems of Hyderabadi poets. They had the audience swaying to Waqar Hyderabadi's song ‘ Aaya Banna aya Haryala Banna aya .’ Another song by the same poet ‘ Hare jhande ke shazade .’ was simply captivating. Many in the audience couldn't control themselves and offered nazrana to the qawwals as token of their appreciation.

As the night wore on the ecstasy only increased. There was a feeling of one being close and in accord with God.


Can anyone ask for more?

J.S.Ifthekhar,

Hyderabad based journalist.

Article published in The Hindu

Dated December 19,2015

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A recent mushaira regaled audience with its Deccani shayeri

Hyderabad and mushairas are made for each other. But this one was the most captivating of all. Reason, it was conducted in the language of the people. Yes, the musahaira was organised in chaste Deccani, the lingua franca of the erstwhile Nizam domain, and predictably drew bahutich applause.

Though widely spoken, Deccani today remains only an oral language. But time was when great poets, including Hyderabad's founder, Sultan Mohd Quli Qutb Shah, chose it as a medium of poetic expression. For the first time perhaps, the rich literary heritage of Deccani was unveiled when a tamseeli mushaira (mock concert) was held recently at the Salar Jung Museum. It was sponsored by the Centre for Deccan Studies. The credit of course goes to Dr. Jaweed Kamal of Aiwan-e-Fankar, who wrote and directed the mushaira. The melodic commentary by Dr. Humaira Sayeed was a treat.

Period costumes

What added to the appeal were the period costumes donned by the poets, complete with flowing beards and long hair. The audience was transported back to the Quli Qutb Shah's darbar with the traditional masnad ( seat of cushions) and khandeel (lantern) in place. The Deccani shayeri filled with distinctive lexical features like tume (you), sacchi bole (rightly said ), tumna tawajje chahata hoon (seek your attention) regaled the audience. It was Quli Qutb Shah himself who set the ball rolling with these verses:

Meri saunli man ki pyari dise

Ke rang roop main kaunli naari dise

He was followed by well known Deccani poets Mulla Khayali, Nusrati, Mulla Wajhi, Syed Miran, Shaikh Ahmed Gujarati, Wali Mohammad. Though a tad difficult to pronounce, the artistes didn’t falter and the audience too had no trouble understanding the Deccani poetry. The poetry of Asadulla Wajhi (sung by Waheed Pasha Qaudri) was touching. Syed Meeran’s shayeri superbly recited by Dr. Moin Amar Bamboo had the audience in splits. The latter recited Rekhti, a genre of Urdu poetry also called auraton ki zaban . Here the male poets employ women’s idioms, mannerism, double entendres and accents. Sample the verse:

Sajan aawen to parde se nikal kar bhaar baithoongi

Bahana karke motiyon ka proti haar baithoongi

The mushaira ended with Quli Qutb Shah's famous prayer which he made while laying the foundation of Hyderabad:

Mera shahr logan se mamoor kar

Rakhyia joon tun darya mein min Ya Sami

(Oh Lord, fill my city with people as Thou hast filled the river with fish).

J.S.Ifthekhar,

Hyderabad based journalist.

Article published in The Hindu

Dated December 14,2015

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There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it. But not everyone seems to believe in this adage. What delights most is the sight of a male child. And this, unfortunately, is the bitter truth. The preference for male children has taken such strong roots in the society that the birth of a boy and girl recently at a hospital in Nalgonda district of Telangana turned into a bone of contention between two young mothers.

Both the mothers staked claim on the boy. What added to the confusion was the error on the part of a nurse who told the woman who gave birth to the girl that she was blessed with a boy. The sight of newborns moves even the stone-hearted. Who wouldn’t like to hug and kiss them? But these women could feel compassion only for the baby boy. Hours ticked by as the cuddly kids lay on the hospital bed hungry and unattended.

All pleas to breast-feed the babies fell on deaf ears ­— the women would suckle only the boy and not the girl. Whatever happened to human kindness? The matter remains unresolved as it now awaits report of a DNA test.

The whole episode is sickening and a sad commentary on the current state of humanity. When traditional man-woman roles seem to be reversing, many still yearn for the male child. This obsession is playing havoc with the basic fabric of the society. Sex-selective abortions are on the rise, despite being banned. The rich and the influential fly to countries where it is permissible to get abortions after the sex of the foetus is determined. All this has led to an adverse gender balance. Census data indicates that the number of girls per 1,000 boys has dropped from 910 in 2011 to 898 in 2013.

The son fixation has deep social and cultural roots in the Asian countries. Even during the pre-Islamic times it held sway. The Arabs had then attributed sons to themselves and daughters to Allah. When someone gave news of the birth of a girl, their faces turned pale and gloom took over them.

Should they keep her and suffer contempt or bury her in the dust. This was the question that bothered them. The modern man has overcome this barbaric form of burying alive baby girls. He simply snuffs out life in the womb and calls it abortion, an euphemism for murder.

There is no hue and cry about the countless girls who are not allowed to see the light of day. Nobel Prize winner, Amartya Sen, calls them missing women.  Some families are so son-centric that they end up with half a dozen girls in the hope of producing at least one male baby. Though India is religious by nature we don’t have firm faith that it is God who gives daughters to whom He wills and sons to whom He wills and both to whom He wills and makes barren whom He wills. Nor do we have the scientific temperament to believe that it is an X and a Y chromosome that determines the gender of the baby.

Even among the educated and urban couples, the son-only-syndrome persists. Economic factor also drives this mania.Moreover, boys are looked upon as budhape ka sahara (security in old age). They take care of education and marriage of younger siblings, perform the last rites of parents and most importantly, bring in the dowry.

On the other hand daughters are considered a liability — a paraya dhan (someone else’s wealth) so to say. For this reason many are stingy with regard to spending on girl’s education as it would only benefit their husband’s families. If aversion to girl child is only because of dowry and marriage expenses, couldn’t something be done to root out this menace? Gender equality will not come with mere ‘save girl child’ slogans. As an anonymous wit put it:

A son is a son till he gets his wife, but a daughter is a daughter all her life. If you pray for a child, pray for a righteous child — not a boy or girl.

- J.S.Ifthekhar,

Hyderabad based journalist.

Article published in The New Indian Express

Dated December 7,2015.

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The nation has recently been afflicted by a serious disorder to which a number of people have fallen prey. The disorder is oral diarrhoea characterised by a profusion of loose, often inane and hazardous talk.

Words can make or mar, heal or wound. But who cares. Everyone is bent on shooting from the mouth — whether one has a locus standi in the matter or not. Passing comments and making remarks at the drop of a hat have become the norm rather than the exception. And the consequences of this are all too clear. From Babri to Dadri, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge and Incredible India has become Intolerant India.

There is no end to the debate on plunging tolerance levels in the country. First, it was superstar Shah Rukh Khan, and now Aamir Khan, to speak out on the matter, and in between, there have been several politicians who did their bit to keep the issue burning.

Our public representatives, of course, are past masters of the art of doublespeak. They make a loaded statement today and the very next day follow it up with lame excuses. “The media has distorted my statement” or “I am misquoted” are frequently the claim.

God has given humans two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. But the problem with many is that we do not listen to understand but to reply.

Thanks to social media, the common man is generous these days in sharing his nonsense, fear and ignorance widely. Loose talk online has its own consequences as it has the potential to reach far more people than something said in the physical world. Some people have this bad habit of giving their expert views based on mere hearsay. Where is the need to invent a story with your small mind and share that invented story with your big mouth when you have not seen with your own eyes and heard with your own ears?

Panelists on television news shows, of course, are ever ready to stoke the passions further with instant commentary. Often, words are put into the mouth and innocuous statements turned into sensational ones. For the electronic media, controversies are the easiest way to boost TRP ratings.

Making a mountain out of a molehill is the favourite pastime of many of us. Whenever a controversy erupts, the Toms, Dicks and Harrys are ready to air their views — often compounding the matter further. Politicians, for sure, stick to the policy of one controversy a day. And most of them try to one-up on each other. A Union Minister recently created ripples with his ‘dog’ remark while a Delhi minister kicked up a row with an observation about ‘beautiful women’ going out at midnight . Not to be left behind a Karnataka minister raised hackles by saying that yoga was for ‘lazy people’. Defending such outlandish and sectarian remarks leaves the government on a sticky wicket.

Wise men speak as they have something to say, fools because they have to say something. But nowadays everyone wants to wax eloquent and mostly end up saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment, while some put their foot into the mouth every time they open it. Who, nowadays, remembers the golden principle of thinking before you speak, and, of course, Googling to verify something before you post.

As an anonymous wit once put it, great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events and the small minds discuss people. If only one would stop poking one’s nose into everything and desist from backbiting, things would  look up — both at the individual as well as at the national level. The moral of the story, therefore, is: Speak only if you can improve silence.

- J.S.Ifthekhar,

Hyderabad based journalist.

Article published in The New Indian Express

Dated December 2,2015.

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