Saad Sarfraz Sheikh
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Austenistan
October 20, 2017 May 28, 2018 adminLeave a comment
Two hundred years after her death, Jane Austen's books are remarkably relevant to women in Pakistan today, as Moni Mohsin found when she met the sub-continental Janeites
PHOTOGRAPHS SAAD SARFRAZ SHEIKH
By MONI MOHSIN
Dressed in muslin gowns, they sip Assam tea and nibble on cucumber sandwiches. A maid refills the silver teapot while her mistress and her guests discuss the merits of Lyme Regis over Bath. Outside in the garden, trees drip from a recent shower and birds hop on a damp lawn. It could be afternoon tea in Mansfield Park, the seat of the Bertram family in Jane Austen's novel – except that the trees are banyans, the birds are Indian hoopoes and the maid wears a shalwar kameez. This is not Northamptonshire but Lahore. Billed as an "Austentatious Tea Party" on Facebook, it is a gathering of the Jane Austen Society of Pakistan, JASP to its members.
Women of consequenceLaaleen Sukhera (left), the founder of JASP, with Afshan Shafi
Founded by Laaleen Sukhera, a journalist, JASP is two years old. It has chapters in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi and a Facebook page with over 1,000 followers. There is just the one dress-up party annually but they meet two or three times a year to discuss all things Austen.
The members of JASP, while perhaps a tad more ardent, are not alone in their passion for Jane Austen. For the truth – universally acknowledged – is that Jane Austen is enduringly popular in Pakistan. Bookshops have whole shelves dedicated to her novels, critiques of her novels and novels inspired by her novels. Visit a DVD rental store and you will find film and tele­vision adaptations of her work. She is taught in schools and read at home. "Pride and Prejudice" has been translated into Urdu, and "Aisha", the Bollywood adaptation of "Emma", was watched by millions of Pakistanis. Plans are afoot to publish adaptations of all six novels with contemporary sub-continental settings. Meanwhile, "Austenistan", a book of short stories written by members of JASP and edited by Laaleen Sukhera, has been acquired for publication.
"Austen resonates with us because Regency England is so much like today's Pakistan," says Sukhera, 40, a mother of three girls. "I know her books are 200 years old and set in small English county towns and villages but, really, her themes, her characters, her situations, her plots, they could have been written for us now."
Just as Regency high society had a social season so, too, does its modern-day Pakistani counterpart. It lasts for about three months, starting in mid- December and ending mid-March, just as the weather warms up. The social activity peaks in the 20 days at the turn of the year when, like homing pigeons, expat Pakistanis flock back for the Christmas and new-year break. Those 20 days and nights are a whirl of back-to-back weddings, parties and charity balls where girls, decked out in brocade and jewels, flit before eligible suitors under the gimlet gaze of both families. It is not unusual to attend three weddings in a day to "show face" at each.
Weddings are particularly fertile hunting grounds for expat men who, having dallied in Dubai or Dallas, are ready to settle down with a "nice girl" from home. "For us, weddings serve the same function as the Bath Assembly Rooms for Catherine Morland in 'Northanger Abbey' and the Elliot sisters in 'Persuasion'," says Sukhera. "It's where people go to promenade, to flirt and search for suitable partners."
A traditional way of showing off wealth and standing in Pakistan, society weddings are huge, 1,000-guest affairs strung out over days, if not weeks. For the determined, they provide fail-safe opportunities to find a match. When a friend's quiet daughter failed to attract the right proposals in Lahore, her aunt whisked the girl off to Islamabad. Drawing up a list of weddings attended by "our sort of people", she escorted her niece to each one. Within two weeks, her niece had bagged a prize: a single man in possession of a good fortune who liked her dusky skin and demure manner enough to nudge his family into sending a marriage proposal.
As in the Bath Assembly Rooms of the 18th century, there is a social protocol that governs interaction. It is rare for a man to have the nerve to introduce himself to a pretty girl he has spotted in the crowd. Instead, he might ask a mutual friend to make the introduction, or else he will point her out to his mother or aunt. If they do not know her they will swiftly consult a friend or relation who does. Within minutes they will have the lowdown on the girl: her marital status, family background, wealth, age, education, job and reputation – whether she has been soiled by previous relationships and if so, how publicly. If her profile meets with familial approval, a meeting might be orchestrated.
"Expat guys can go to weddings in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore, checking out 100 girls in a single two-week trip," grimaces Sukhera. Only 50 years ago, suitors like these – self-made men with successful careers in banking in London or information technology in San Francisco – did not exist. In that, they are the modern equivalents of Sir Thomas Bertram of "Mansfield Park", who owes his considerable fortune and exalted place in society to his business interests in Antigua.
For all their apparent tranquillity, Austen's books were written in a time of social and economic change. The Industrial Revolution, colonial expansion and the Napoleonic wars were transforming English lives. There was unprecedented internal migration from the country to cities, and new fortunes were being made in the colonies and armed forces. Social attitudes had to adapt to keep abreast of economic developments. Brief but telling glimpses of that societal change are found in Austen's works. When, in "Persuasion", Captain Wentworth, a junior naval officer, asks for Anne Elliot's hand in marriage, Sir Walter Elliot, her snooty father, dismisses his suit as being unworthy of a baronet's daughter. But when he returns from the wars a rich and decorated officer, Sir Walter – who has suffered a decline in his own fortunes – finds him eminently eligible.
"At our tea parties we talk a lot about how similar our circumstances are to the characters in Austen's books," says Sukhera. '"How old values are eroding, how new people are coming up."
Pakistan, too, has undergone much change in the last 30 years. While Austen's England had its Napoleonic wars, Pakistan has suffered the blowback from the conflict in neighbouring Afghanistan. As with most wars, it has proved extremely lucrative for some. Generals own multiple flats in central London, sugar and textile mills, as well as prime real estate and agricultural land in Pakistan. As people move to cities in search of economic opportunity, industrial urban centres like Karachi, Sialkot, Lahore and Faisalabad have doubled in size over the past two decades. Although nowhere near the scale of wealth that was pouring into England from its colonial empire in the 18th century, remittances sent home by workers in the Middle East and the West have transformed Pakistan's economy, kick-starting a consumerist boom. Where hand-printed chintz and fine Indian muslins were all the rage in Regency England, Swiss voiles and French chiffons are the fabrics of choice for Pakistani ladies-who-lunch. The nouveaux riches, their money generated from consumer goods and construction as well as politics, have displaced the old landed elites.
As Mehr Husain, an ardent JASP member, comments: "There was a time when land-owning families of the Punjab only married among themselves. They knew each other's family trees intimately and were really particular about caste and bloodlines. Now, as long as you're loaded, no one asks any questions."
Faiza Khan, editorial director of Bloomsbury India, a Pakistani and an Austen devotee, agrees that Austen's appeal lies in her relevance to Pakistani society now. "Social values have moved on in the West. The conventional drivers of an Austen plot – the obstacles to marriage like discrepancies in class and wealth, the disapproval of parents, the compromising behaviour of your ghastly family – disappeared long ago. All those old tropes like the Unmarried Daughter, the Repressive Father, the Poor Relation seem quaint now. Whereas I, an unmarried daughter, have Mrs Bennet sitting in the next room, dropping hints about some acquaintance or other being 'a nice boy'."
Pakistan, like Austen's England, is a place without safety nets. Life for the poor is tough, the welfare state is non-existent and those who slip out of the middle classes have far to fall. Families are therefore of vital importance. And at the heart of every Austen novel, too, is a family – big or small, vulgar or respectable, chaotic or controlling. As Pakistanis often quip: "We have only two institutions left: the family and the military." The family offers not just economic protection but also identity. Your social standing and financial prospects are gauged not so much by your abilities as by your family's position.
The same was true in Austen's time. Harriet Smith, a pleasant girl of unknown parentage in "Emma", cannot expect to make an advantageous marriage. Without a family to locate her in society, she is a nobody.
"The Pakistani way", muses Mina Malik Hussain, another JASP member and full-time mother, "is all about family. You are constantly thinking about the edifice of, the honour of, the benefit of. It's like a company and everyone is supposed to do their bit."
As General Tilney of "Northanger Abbey" would no doubt agree, marriage is a means of cementing alliances with families of equal if not higher standing. It is therefore too important a decision to be left to the whims of inexperienced youngsters. Arranged marriages – agreements reached between families with little or no consultation with the boy and girl involved – place preservation of bloodlines, status and property over compatibility. Hence the huge popularity of marriage between cousins in Pakistan; more than half the population is married to the offspring of uncles or aunts.
"This whole cousin-marriage thing," observes Sukhera, "people in the West find it so weird now. But Austen didn't. Her novels are full of it. Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram are first cousins. Mr Collins and Elizabeth Bennet are also related, as are Mr Darcy and Miss de Bourgh. See what I mean about us and Regency England?"
Parental efforts at matchmaking in Austen's books chime with the experience of Pakistani readers. They may not warm to the wealthy, superior Lady Catherine de Bourgh – but they certainly understand her desire for a marriage between her daughter, Anne, and her nephew, Mr Darcy. After all, what could be more natural than the marriage of two cousins, equally wealthy, equally high born, and the noble heirs of two great estates, Rosings and Pemberley? And knowing all too well the social opprobrium attached to spinsters, they sympathise with Mrs Bennet's efforts to find wealthy suitors for her unmarried daughters. "You know," jokes Sukhera, "I used to identify with Lizzie Bennet but now, with three daughters of my own, I'll probably morph into Mrs Bennet."
"I love Austen", she continues, "because like us, she's all about reputation, she's all about face, she's all about status. We know that everything we do or say reflects on our families." A constant refrain in Pakistan to remind wayward children of their duty to keep the family name pristine is: "Just think! What will people say?" Despite the huge population, social circles are small and incestuous. Like Austen's characters, their members are constantly scrutinising and judging each other. As Mr Bennet remarks in "Pride and Prejudice": "For what do we live but to make sport for our neighbours and laugh at them in our turn?"
As in Austen, there are different rules for different strata of society. "If you are an heiress from a powerful family, you can bend the rules," says Sukhera. "You can rock up to a party on your own and stagger home at five in the morning, without destroying your reputation or bringing shame to your family but if you're not, you can't. People are much more judgmental about those who are not rich." She pauses for a moment, "A bit like Emma, who can make her own rules because she's rich. But Fanny Price, because she's a poor relation, doesn't have that privilege."
As everyone knows in Pakistan, a girl must marry while in the full flower of her youth, or else be consigned to "the left behinds". When I was in my late 20s, my single state was the source of much anxiety for my mother and my aunts. As a family friend told me: "If you don't hurry up and marry you won't be on any old shelf, you'll be on the continental shelf." Like Anne Elliot, Austen's left behind in "Persuasion", I was then 27 – and most of my friends were married with a child or two. I was advised not to be "too choosy" or to leave it too late or I would "get set in my ways" and not be able to mould myself to the wishes of my husband's family. When, at 32, I announced to my family that I was getting married there was relief all round. But the cherry on my marital cake was that my husband-to-be was (entirely by accident) of the right caste. "It's a miracle, I tell you, a miracle," sighed my aunt.
Chai Society JASP members Mina Malik Hussain (left) with Mehr Husain at the annual dress-up tea party in Lahore
"The gender inequality portrayed in Jane Austen's books," says Mehr Husain, "reminds me so much of our own." The daughter of a landowner from the Punjab, Husain was educated in London. Now married with two children she lives in Lahore. Her parents are cousins who had an arranged marriage, but Husain is not related to her husband.
According to sharia inheritance law, Husain's brothers will receive twice her share of their father's property. Still, Husain is fortunate. Fobbed off with a dowry in the form of jewellery and clothes, or a car and some cash that the husband immediately claims, most women do not receive any of their fathers' real assets like land or real estate or shares in a family business. And in traditional Sunni families, if a man has no male children, like Mr Bennet in "Pride and Prejudice", his property will pass on to his nearest male relative – in Mr Bennet's case to Mr Collins. Even today many daughters of wealthy fathers receive nothing at all.
"It's a bit like the Dashwood sisters, in 'Sense and Sensibility'," says Husain wryly, "who got thrown out of their home after their father died and their half brother inherited the estate. That kind of inequality is so common here." A writer and stand-up comedian, she has been a mould-breaker in her family. "I'm Catherine Morland from 'Northanger Abbey'," she says, "a tomboy with a vivid imagination. My mother told me I had to grow my hair long if I ever wanted to get married. I was also told I had to choose a safe, respectable profession like banking or teaching. But I did my own thing."
Journalists, academics, bankers, entrepreneurs, the members of JASP could not be more different from the Dashwood sisters who had no options other than marriage. But they are keenly aware that most women in Pakistan are not as privileged. While increasing numbers of women are joining the workforce in larger cities, salaried jobs for women are rare in provincial towns, let alone in rural communities.
"They have no access to money except through marriage or inheritance," sighs Husain. "Like Austen's heroines. But, even though they don't have many choices, Austen's heroines don't marry losers like Mr Collins, or cads like Wickham. I like that."
It is as much a sign of the times as an indication of Austen's own proclivities that Elizabeth Bennet spurns her mother's wishes and ignores Lady Catherine de Bourgh's threats in order to marry the man she loves. Similar changes are afoot in Pakistan. While in villages and small towns old customs prevail, in the cities, particularly for the middle and upper classes, new ideas are being embraced. Increasing numbers of educated, urban people are rejecting arranged matches for what is commonly known as "love marriages". They meet through work, at parties or even through social media and take it from there. Though living together before marriage is still taboo, most love marriages are preceded by a period of dating, a comparatively recent phenomenon that still shocks conservative circles, as it would no doubt have horrified Lady Catherine.
As in Austen's novels, a satisfactory ending for a girl is still one that results in a wedding but that wedding can wait a little longer than it did when I was of marriageable age. My niece, an actress and writer, is 30 and happily single. Her married female friends didn't tie the knot until their late 20s, and the younger members of JASP assure me that it's perfectly okay to be single in your mid-30s with a "kick-ass career".
And while all of Austen's novels end with the assumption that the hero and heroine will live happily every after, that is not the case with privileged young Pakistanis today. Just 40 years ago, divorce was unthinkable, so great was the shame. A girl's mother would often whisper in her daughter's ear on the eve of her wedding: "Remember, only your corpse can return to this house." If a girl's marriage turned out to be an unmitigated disaster, she had, like poor Mrs Price in "Mansfield Park", to shut up and "cope up" as they say in Lahore.
These days, says Sukhera, "we don't stay in unhappy marriages all our lives. We compromise a lot, but when it's time to walk, we do. Even parents, if they see that their daughter is suffering, will say, 'are you sure you want to continue with this?' No one judges you any more for quitting a marriage." Unless a divorced woman is independently wealthy, she will have little option but to return to the family home, with her children, to be supported by her parents. But she will be warmly welcomed. So common is the practice that it has its own terminology. "She's back home" is shorthand for: she's divorced and now living in her father's house once more.
"Persuasion", Austen's late, quiet novel about second chances, offers particular hope to second timers. Anne Elliot, an ageing spinster who foolishly turned down Captain Wentworth's offer of marriage when she was young and pretty, is given the opportunity to rectify her mistake when he returns from sea. As many young Pakistani women discover soon after divorcing, they need not spend the rest of their lives as lonely singles. The field is littered with divorced men. But some, as one JASP member put it, "have baggage, like children and stuff…"
Sukhera finds Jane Austen's books consoling. "The good get rewarded, the bad get punished. There is great comfort in that." But surely the same can be said for Dickens, Trollope and the Brontes?
"I cried my eyes out when I read the Brontes," she says, "but there is too much turmoil in their world for me. What with bomb blasts and killings every other day, I have enough drama in my daily life without getting another dose in my reading."
Austen is kind to her heroines. They may have flawed judgment or be uppity or self-absorbed or unrestrained in their emotions, but as long as they learn from their mistakes, Austen doesn't abandon them. "Just because you've been naughty and had an affair doesn't mean you have to be crushed by a train," sniffs Sukhera. "Silly Lydia shames her family by eloping with Wickham in 'Pride and Prejudice' but she doesn't pay by being killed for honour."
Outside Pakistan's more enlightened, urban circles, the consequences for her would have been dire. Polygamy is legal in Pakistan, domestic violence is rife and "honour" killings – whereby women are murdered by their fathers, brothers or uncles for bringing shame to their honour through "transgressive" behaviour, which can be anything from laughing loudly in public to falling in love – are depressingly common. Recently the Punjab government tabled a bill for the protection of women against violence. Around 30 religious groups, including mainstream political parties, threatened to bring down the democratically elected government if the bill was not revoked. Giving women protective legal rights, they thundered, was tantamount to the promotion of obscenity. Pakistan's Council of Islamic Ideology, made up largely of bearded clerics, released an official statement permitting men to "lightly beat" their wives.
Austen's heroes would never sink that low. "Darcy, Captain Wentworth, Colonel Brandon, Mr Knightley, they're romantic and sexy yet they're also sensitive and kind," sighs Sukhera. "Just look at Henry Tilney. He even knows how to shop. I mean when did you last meet a straight man who knew what to buy a woman other than perfume? He's so witty and laid back and playful. As for Mr Darcy – there never was and never will be a hero like him."
What, in particular, is Mr Darcy's appeal?
"He's not afraid to admit he's made mistakes," says Sukhera. "And he's super into her. He goes to all that effort to protect Lydia's reputation so that Lizzie doesn't suffer."
"Pemberley helps," adds Husain dryly.
"And his parents are dead," says Sukhera. "So no interfering in-laws."
For the last dress-up party, Husain had planned a regency gown in sprigged cotton. She explained it all in painstaking detail to her Punjabi tailor: tight, high bodice, long flowing skirt, small puffy sleeves. Accustomed to making shalwar kameezes, he nodded, making detailed notes. When she went to collect the dress she discovered it was knee length; he'd assumed she'd wear it over the voluminous, trouser-like shalwar and so made it kameez length. Afshan Shafi wore a purple gown and her light brown hair in an updo braided with pearls. She was late for the party because she had been stopped en route at a police checkpoint and her car subjected to a prolonged examination. When she put her head out of the window and enquired in fluent Urdu as to why there was a delay, a policeman explained in polite English: "Because, Madam, you are foreigner."
Getting away from the trials of life in today's Pakistan is part of the point. "I like coming to these gatherings," said Mina Malik Hussain, a mother of four very young children. "It gives me a chance to enter the world of Jane Austen and, briefly, to escape the demands of my own. I like the clothes, the conversation, the company." While there is the undeniable aspect of escape, these tea parties are not gossip sessions; there is an agenda of discussion that is adhered to strictly.
"We discuss any- and everything to do with Jane Austen," says Laaleen Sukhera. "Our favourite mean girl in her books, our favourite cad, our favourite mother, the role of money, of sex, of families, her choice of locations. Austen celebrates life, there is pursuit of love and laughter and joy in her books and yet she's thoughtful and wise. And her sassy one liners! They're the best. For a brief while, she helps us forget our messy divorces, our broken homes, our demanding jobs, our anxieties about our children, our fears for our security. It is not easy being a woman in a patriarchal society like ours."
Or, as Faiza Khan says, "We love Austen so much because she can deliver a happy ending we can believe in spite of seeing the world just as it is with all its unfairness and pettiness and exploitation and cruelty. She redresses the wrongs of her society on paper because that is all she or any of us can hope to do."
Moni Mohsin is a novelist and freelance journalist
Originally published for The Economist's 1843:
https://www.1843magazine.com/features/austenistan
Categories: History, Literature, Photography, photojournalism, SufismTags: lahore, pakistan, photojournalism, Portrait, Punjab, saad sarfraz, saad sarfraz sheikh
Sachal Studios Orchestra: The Jazz musicians of Lahore
September 19, 2017 May 28, 2018 adminLeave a comment
How the Sachal Studios Orchestra put Pakistan on the jazz map of the world
Article by Sonya Rehman, Pictures by Saad Sarfraz Sheikh
Izzat Majeed is a man of a few words. At first, his monosyllabic answers can rub you the wrong way, particularly if you're a little on the sensitive side. You might think he's either being dismissive, or that he thinks your questions are a little stupid. Seated behind a large desk in the office of his three-storey recording studio and rehearsal space, the vibe is of a man who doesn't have time for casual banter. He'd rather be in the studio, listening to, and making music.
Framed images of the great legends of jazz line the walls as you walk up the stairs at the Sachal Studios, a name inspired by the great 18th Century Sufi poet Sachal Sarmast, from Sindh, Pakistan. There are also pictures of Majeed's jazz ensemble, the Sachal Studios Orchestra, performing at concerts overseas. One in particular stands out. Hanging just outside the recording studio in the basement, it shows the group, along with Majeed, standing on stage with Wynton Marsalis, the world-renowned jazz composer and current artistic director of jazz at the Lincoln Centre in New York, along with members of the Jazz At Lincoln Centre Orchestra.
There is something special about the studio, but this is not apparent while driving to it. Weaving through a slender, meandering, busy commercial street in Lahore, Pakistan, lined with greasy car workshops, offices and shabby residences, the studio looks like any old commercial building, but once you're inside, the energy shifts.
It is here that some of Pakistan's most skilled, veteran classical musicians spend their time, jamming and recording in a space that was set up with assistance by engineers from London's legendary Abbey Road Studios. It's a state-of-the-art, custom-designed space that has produced some of the most unique fusion music by way of the Sachal Studios Orchestra, which has married the genres of traditional eastern classical and jazz into a disarming and exciting amalgamation of melodies.
The group broke into the limelight in 2011 with a tabla and sitar-infused cover of Dave Brubeck's 1959 hit single, "Take Five". Their version, a perfect marriage of South Asian classical and Western jazz, garnered a million hits on YouTube, while their first album, Sachal Jazz: Interpretations of Jazz Standards & Bossa Nova,which followed that same year, was a best-selling, number one album on the iTunes jazz charts on iTunes.
The great Dave Brubeck, who died in 2012, heard that cover in the final months of his life. So moved was the American jazz pianist that he wrote to Majeed, stating: "This is the most interesting and different recording of 'Take Five' that I've ever heard." The quote is framed in Majeed's office along with another snippet from Brubeck's correspondence: "Listening to this exotic version brings back wonderful memories of Pakistan where my Quartet played in 1958. East is East, and West is West, but through music the twain meet. Congratulations!"
That Majeed is proud of this letter is even less surprising given that he attended Brubeck's famed Pakistan concert in 1958, during his Jazz Diplomacy Tour. The performance was held at the then trendy hotel, Nido's, on the quaint Mall Road in Lahore and it made a lifelong impact on Majeed. It was there, at the age of eight, seated in the packed concert hall, that Majeed began a six-decade love affair with jazz.
Today, the Sachal Studios Orchestra stands as the only orchestra in Pakistan that plays live and tours internationally. The ensemble has collaborated thrice with Marsalis and has performed to audiences on a tour that included London (at the Royal Albert Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Barbican Centre), France (the Marciac Jazz Festival), the United States (at the Lincoln Centre, in New York), Japan (the 15th Tokyo Jazz Festival) and India, together with numerous performances on home turf, including TEDxLahore, the Lahore Music Meet fesival and at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts. The ensemble's repertoire straddles the jazz and South Asian classical genres, with numerous curveballs in between, from covers of R.E.M ("Everybody Hurts"), to Dave Grusin ("Mountain Dance"), Antonio Carlos Jobim ("The Girl From Ipanema" and "Desafinado"), Burt Bacharach ("This Guy's In Love With You"), and Henry Mancini's "Pink Panther Theme", to The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" and more. (Pro-tip: search YouTube for Wynton Marsalis and Sachal's collaboration on John Coltrane's "My Favourite Things" at the Marciac Jazz Festival in 2013.)
The Pakistani Oscar-winning filmmaker, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, made a documentary, Song of Lahore, about Sachal's musicians. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and had a host of other international festival screenings, including Dubai. Along with the international press attention, the orchestra from Lahore has quickly made a name for itself on the jazz map of the world.
An economist by profession, Izzad Majeed started out his career in the 1980s, in the Middle East, in Riyadh, as an advisor to the Minister of Petroleum & Mineral Resource. Later on, he worked with a Saudi partner as an investor. But his love of music remained unfailing throughout his successful corporate career. However, it needed to be taken a step further to achieve anything of lasting value, hence, years later, Majeed decided to put his money to good use. Thus, Sachal Studios was born in 2008.
Majeed's affiliation with music wasn't a random, newfound hobby. His earliest introduction to jazz came several years before seeing Brubeck on stage when Majeed was only five-years-old. He recounts his earliest recollection, sitting on his father's lap while Majeed Sr composed the music score for a film. Mian Abdul Majeed was chairman of the Film Producer's Association of Pakistan and his home was frequented by a number of musicians, including the late, great Indian classical musician, Ali Akbar Khan. Consequently, music and lyrics were an unending thread throughout Majeed's early years growing up amid music and film in the company of some of the greats.
His mother, Seeta, on the other hand, hailed from a prominent family in India. She met Majeed's father at Ludhiana College in Delhias students, they fell in love and eloped. During that time period, the marriage between a Muslim and a Sikh was nothing short of scandalous; it would never have been allowed had they asked for permission.
"The story of music in Majeed's life starts with both his parents," says Nur Fatima, the CEO of Sachal Studios and also Majeed's wife. She's sitting beside him in the office discussing her husband's early inspirations. "Did you know he was temporarily thrown out of Oxford University for three months for blaring Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?" from his dorm window," Fatima reveals, speaking about her husband's obsession with music, while chuckling and looking over at him teasingly as he grins. Thankfully, Majeed was allowed to return to Oxford where he completed his Masters in Politics, Philosophy and Economics in 1972.
"Initially when he launched Sachal Studios, it was with the intention of bringing organic music back to Pakistan," Fatima continues. "He found the electronic 'noise' of these times to be too monotonous; he says it's like stuffing yourself on processed food as opposed to home-cooked food that's made from scratch. When you're playing an instrument, part of your heart and soul is in it, so the sounds you produce are human."
Having been silent so far, Majeed interjects: "Do you know what jazz is? You have to understand that jazz is exactly the same as our classical music; the structure and foundation is very similar. In our culture, in classical music, you're stuck to a particular road regarding ragas [scales in classical music], and in jazz, it's the same thing."
But is there still a demand for classical music in Pakistan? "I don't care," Majeed replies briskly, elaborating that he's in it for the love of music and nothing more. Revealing that the orchestra is far from financially viable, Fatima says that the orchestra was, and is, by no means a "business".
"It was never envisioned like that," she clarifies.
While the orchestra has made its presence felt in the jazz circuit overseas, Sachal's music isn't mainstream in Pakistan yet, primarily because it hasn't taken the commercial route. What Majeed would rather do is explore this space between the South Asian music of his region, and the jazz sounds he also grew up with. He is currently working on a project to host Pakistan's first-ever jazz festival in Lahore, this year, which he hopes will feature a number of musicians from around the world.
But more than the music itself, the story of the Sachal orchestra, and the man behind it, is this: some of Pakistan's most established classical musicians were given a second chance at their once flourishing careers thanks to Majeed.
In the 1970s, the Islamisation of Pakistan, driven by the then military dictator and president of the country, Zia-ul-Haq, from 1977 until his death in 1988, resulted in the rapid obliteration of art, culture and tourism. Until then, the country had been popular in the 1960s and 70s with tourists as part of the famed hippie trail from Europe through to Asia. Celebrities such as Ava Gardner, Marlon Brando, Quincy Jones (and Dave Brubeck), among others, visited at various stages and the local 'Lollywood' film industry produced 100 films per year at its peak. This all changed with Zia's concoction of heavy censorship laws and new tax rates, which swiftly changed the face of a young, promising nation on a roll. Suddenly, artists who once thrived in their fields of music, film and performance, found themselves unemployed and redundant. The outlets for creativity were barricaded, and those who kept their kitchens running on their art alone, quietly recoiled into obscurity and poverty.
"When the film industry finished, the music stopped," Fatima says, mentioning that a number of musicians she knew had little choice but to give up on their dreams and resort to menial jobs such as selling knick-knacks, vegetables and working at roadside tea-stalls. "Can you imagine a violinist working as a security guard?" she says with disgust of the ways that once illustrious and highly regarded musicians had to replace their lost incomes. "Sachal was created with the sole intention of bringing the masters back."
Further elaborating about the dismal state of affairs of some of the musicians, Fatima states that once, when Majeed handed a brand new cello to the group's cello player, he broke down into tears and asked Majeed if he could take the instrument home to practice playing again.
Though the trend toward religiosity in Pakistan has continued, Majeed and Fatima say that there has never been any fundamentalist opposition to their music. "There's never been any such threat or incident in Pakistan," says Fatima. "The only threat we did face was from the Shiva Sena [an Indian far-right regional political party] who barred us from performing in Bombay in the winter of 2014. Imagine being in a sold-out auditorium, with over 900-plus people in attendance, and being told we couldn't perform! We were on stage and the curtains never opened, it was terrible. Majeed was so upset that he cancelled the rest of our India tour and we promptly returned to Pakistan."
During Sachal's conceptualisation stage, one of the first musicians that he brought onboard was the late composer and violinist, Riaz Hussain, who Majeed states was his "mentor." It was Hussain who developed the Sachal group, by bringing together a diverse bunch of musicians, all virtuosos with decades of experience of working in the Pakistani film industry. Sadly, Hussain lost his life to cancer in 2014. His death came as a huge blow to Majeed, but it was his passing that encouraged Fatima and her husband to instigate the Alif Foundation to help provide health coverage to the musicians and their families of traditional music in Pakistan.
Current members of the orchestra are fulsome in their praise at having the chance to play music. Najaf Ali is one of Sachal's percussionists who plays the dholak, a two-headed hand drum, and another percussion instrument known as the mridangam. He has been playing music for over three decades and worked in in the Pakistani film industry in its heyday, playing with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and another Pakistani singing legend, Noor Jehan.
"There are very few people in Pakistan who are playing pure classical music," he says during a break from rehearsals, and sitting with his bandmates. "No matter where we travel as our country's ambassadors – the world must know that Pakistan is home to immense talent."
Speaking of Pakistan's bygone golden era of film and music, Ali quotes Noor Jehan, whose singing and acting career spanned more than six decades from the 1930s to the 1990s. "She used to say that her musicians were her wings and that she'd fly because of them," he sighs wistfully. "But that period of Pakistani music, what it once was, has gone."
"There's no industry anymore," elaborates Ijaz Hussain, who is commonly known in the local music circle as Baloo Khan. He plays the tabla, a South Asian percussion instrument, like his father, Tafu Khan, who is often been touted as Pakistan's master tabla player. "Now our industry is Sachal Studios."
Earlier, Majeed had mentioned that having taken members of the orchestra to London's Royal Albert Hall for the very first time, his musicians were moved to tears while watching the symphonies being played live on stage. "I've been playing music for fifty years," Hussain says while lightly tapping a rhythm across his tabla. "I've travelled the world, but the respect that I've received overseas is predominantly due to Izzat [Majeed]. The mix of classical music – a genre we've been so used to playing in the film industry – and jazz has created an epic atomic bomb!"
"We're here and performing on the world stage because of Sachal," agrees Rafiq Ahmed, who plays the naal, a wooden, two-headed drum. Ahmed was only 17-years-old when he began playing solo performances for Lollywood films back in the day. "But for all of this didn't start instantly – it took a good two or three years for us to understand jazz music. During that time Izzat made us become familiar with the genre. When I first heard jazz it felt so different – it was a big change for us. But when that change began within us, it became something very unique and we were able to translate it into our performances."
"We'd only heard of George Michael and Michael Jackson. Jazz was a completely new genre for us," Hussain interjects, while continuing to tap a few beats, his thick fingers working quickly and expertly across the instrument's surface.
However, when the musicians finally got around to understanding and becoming comfortable with the genre, performances were a breeze, usually extending up to 20 to30 minutes after the last number because the audiences didn't want the music to stop. "The most exhilarating routine for us was at Lincoln Centre in New York where we played to a packed audience for two nights, back to back," Ahmed states enthusiastically. "I remember once when we were rehearsing with Wynton Marsalis, he told Izzat, 'These people aren't musicians, they're magicians!'" Ahmed laughs, his words not carrying a trace of conceit, rather, amusement.
"You know, we never thought Pakistani audiences would like Sachal's music," Ali says, "but we were shocked by the appreciation after performing in Pakistan – it was very surprising. It made us realize that the audiences in the east and the west are identical in their appreciation of classical-jazz fusion music."
Thanks to Majeed's funding, and his commitment to the group, the Sachal ensemble is able to survive in the midst of a now almost totally defunct Pakistan classical music industry. Hussain states that the local music scene could only be resuscitated if the youth had teachers to learn the craft of music from. And while Pakistan is home to some of the best classical musicians, the skills are not being passed down due to a lack of music academies in the country. "In this field, you're a student for life; look at us, we've gotten so old in this field – today's youth don't have the patience anymore, they think they've made it just by growing out their hair and playing the guitar."
As the conversation peters out over the next few minutes, the musicians begin dispersing. They've been in the studio all day rehearsing non-stop and now they must return home for some rest. Tomorrow after all, is another hectic day of recordings and rehearsals as they gear up for their next routine – creating a bridge between cultures with their beautiful, timeless, and inventive sounds.
Originally Published in Esquire Middle East:
https://www.esquireme.com/content/23502-sachal-studios-orchestra-the-jazz-musicians-of-lahore
Categories: Music, photojournalism, PublishedTags: lahore, music, pakistan, photography, photojournalism, Punjab, saad sarfraz, saad sarfraz sheikh, sachal
Punjab's fields of change
May 18, 2016 May 25, 2016 adminLeave a comment
By Saad Sarfraz Sheikh
Published in Herald – May 18, 2016 10:42am
A boy in a wheat field | Azhar Jafri, White Star
On a dusty drive down rural Punjab last month, I see farmers rushing out to fields with their harvesting equipment, kicking dirt and cutting wheat, one field at a time. Annual wheat harvesting in Pakistan starts in April, beginning in the southern parts of the country and moving geographically upwards along rising temperatures. It culminates in the mountainous north before the start of the monsoon rains.
The change in temperature – from cold to pleasant to hot – at the right time is essential for the ripening of the wheat crop. Too much rain can be dangerous because wheat is highly sensitive to moisture. When the weather is suitable, wheat stalk grows quickly — sprouting the grain-rich spikes and turning to a rich golden yellow all in a matter of less than a month.
Luckily for wheat growers in most parts of central Punjab this year, the field temperature averaged 35 degrees Celsius (exceptionally hot for April). It was just right, as was the rain this year, for wheat harvest. The crop, in fact, ripened earlier than usual this year, ready for reaping at least a week ahead of its normal season.
A woman smokes hookah while others work in the background | Azhar Jafri, White Star
At a small farm near Changa Manga, a few kilometres south of Lahore, a family welcomes me to their wheat field. In one corner, they have spread a patchwork quilt for collecting wheat that is being threshed by a machine working nearby. An old woman concocts tea on a makeshift stove of bricks. As we stir our tea in small cups and sit back on the edge of a squeaky charpoy, we discuss how crop cultivation and harvesting have evolved over the decades.
The old woman recalls how, a few decades ago, it took two to three days of intense manual labour with sickles to reap just one acre of wheat — and that too after a few men worked together from dawn to dusk. Mechanical separation of grain and chaff was unheard of; intensive stomping by bullocks moving in ceaseless circles was employed to soften the harvested spikes dried carefully in the sun to perfection. The softened spikes were then tossed in the air with wooden implements that resembled large forks, to let the wind separate grain from chaff. If rain came while the spikes were spread out in the field for drying or for stomping, the whole crop would be endangered. If there was no wind, no separation of grain and chaff would be possible. Delays were common as was the likelihood of an entire crop getting destroyed due to inclement weather. Harvesting has become extremely easy and quick with technological advancements, she says.
A combine harvester empties harvested wheat | Saad Sarfraz Sheikh
Automation has ensured safer and efficient harvesting, but it has also put an end to the carnival of collectivity that reaping of wheat has been for centuries in central Punjab. It was a communal endeavour; everyone helped everyone in the harvesting process, from the cutting of the crop to its threshing and transportation to granaries. And it culminated in the celebration of the Baisakhi festival, which was essentially a thanksgiving occasion for a successful harvest.
The woman in Changa Manga misses all that festivity, with its fairs, public dancing, singing, dhol beating and competitions of traditional sports such as kabaddi. Farmers would guard their harvested crop at night, sing songs and roam the farmland with gaiety, she says. Now it has all become a robotic commercial activity.
Wheat harvesting is traditionally done in three stages: cutting, binding and threshing/winnowing. In many parts of central Punjab, cutting is done with tractor-mounted reapers, but binding still remains a manual process. Bundles of wheat are also manually passed through a machine run with the help of a tractor to thresh and winnow. Well-to-do farmers and those owning large tracts of farmland employ combine harvesters that do all three processes simultaneously, and without much help from human beings.
Harvested wheat being weighed and packed | Saad Sarfraz Sheikh
A few miles away from Okara, I meet four people armed with sickles. The woman among them does not want to talk to me and disappears for a water break. I ask one of them how much each of them gets paid for cutting the crop. They say they receive their wages in kind: 120 kilogrammes of wheat for reaping one acre. This takes them two to three days if they work five to six hours a day. Muhammad Ashfaq manages a relatively modern farm near Raiwind, a semi-urban area a few kilometres to the south-east of Lahore. As I discuss changes in the wheat harvesting process with him, a combine harvester ferociously sweeps the crop into its storage drum.
Photo by Saad Sarfraz Sheikh
A combine harvester takes only one hour to process an acre of wheat, but it charges 2,500 rupees for it. To be paid in cash — this is not the kind of money many in the agriculture sector have. A combine harvester also destroys the wheat stalk that – when reaped manually and processed through threshing machines – is used as fodder for livestock during the months when green grass is not sufficiently available.
Though the first combine harvesters were developed in the United States in the early 1900s, they only started appearing in Pakistan in the 1990s. Now they are easily available on rent. Wheat fields are a combine harvester's battlefield. I watch how it races out to the ends of the field as in animosity, ingesting big swathes of the crop with each rotation of its reaper. The machine starts at the edges of the field and moves towards the centre in gradually narrowing circles. As soon as its 4,400 kilogramme storage capacity reaches its limit, the driver empties its contents onto a polythene sheet.
The harvesting process is not completely automated yet. Once the harvester empties itself and returns to cut other fields, men scurry to the dumped wheat to filter sand out of it. It will need to be cleaned before being used. The labourers then put the grain in gunny bags before loading it onto transport trucks.
A large part of the harvested wheat ends up with the provincial government's food department after it is collected at official procurement centres. This year, the Punjab government has planned to procure four million metric tonnes of wheat from farmers across the province via 376 procurement centres. The government has also set a minimum price of 1,300 rupees per 40-kilogrammes as the price for the crop. Hundreds of thousands of private buyers are also prowling the farmlands.
Farmers in a wheat field | Tariq Mahmood, White Star
Ashfaq's fields are right across the road from Bahria Orchard, a posh housing project on the ever-expanding outskirts of Lahore. He says he is going to sell his land to a residential scheme after harvesting the crop — like many other farmers are doing in the area. This has led many agriculturists and planners to worry about the shrinking of the agricultural land in central Punjab, especially in towns and villages next to big cities.
As I watch the frantic construction activity taking place across the road from his wheat crop, I wonder what the fields will look like next year this time round. There will be, of course, no wheat here.
This was originally published in the Herald's May 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.
Link to original article: http://herald.dawn.com/news/1153402/punjabs-fields-of-change
The writer is a Lahore-based independent journalist and photographer
Categories: Lahore, Photography, photojournalism, Published, PunjabTags: agriculture, cultivation, economy, farm, farming, harvest, lahore, machinery, pakistan, photography, photojournalism, Portrait, Punjab, saad sarfraz, saad sarfraz sheikh, street photography, wheat, wheat harvest
Mourning Walk…
April 8, 2016 adminLeave a comment
Categories: Lahore, minorities, photojournalismTags: Bomb blast, Easter, lahore, minorities, pakistan, photography, photojournalism, Punjab, saad sarfraz, saad sarfraz sheikh
An ambulance and a merry-go-round…
An ambulance and a merry-go-round are difficult to digest in a single photograph…
Categories: Lahore, minorities, photojournalismTags: Bomb blast, Easter, lahore, minorities, photography, photojournalism, Punjab, saad sarfraz, saad sarfraz sheikh, street photography
24 year old Shama and her 26 year old husband Shahzad Masih were laborers at one of the many brick kilns in Pakistan's Punjab. Due to their inability to pay money to their employer, they were falsely accused of blasphemy and were burnt alive on 4th November, 2014. Their three children, Suleman, Sonya and Poonam were orphaned, so Grandpa Mukhtar (pictured here) stepped in and became everyone's papa…
Categories: Lahore, minorities, photojournalismTags: Brick Kiln, Kasur, minorities, Punjab, Shama Shahzad
The Goodie-Bag Man…
September 12, 2015 adminLeave a comment
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL=/lahorekeybaasi?fref=ts&_fb_noscript=1″ />
"I've noticed that poor/economically challenged people have relatively bigger hearts. Two men sharing a plate of 'daal' while sitting on the floor will offer you their share of food, but the rich will only offer you their leftovers, once they're done with their food.
Its not about whether you share your food or not. It's about how you treat others.
I stop by this poor neighbourhood every day while selling Chinese electronics. The streets are embroiled in congested and narrow …lanes, but the hearts are open and giving.
The people may not be able to afford what I sell, but they feed me food. Even without asking, I am given a glass of water, as I walk by.
'Why do you think so?'
Maybe because these people like me fight for their daily wages, and realise the ordeal I go through everyday just to feed myself and my family"
Shot near Gujranwala, Pakistan…
NIKON D810 + Sigma 85.0 mm f/1.4
Shutter Speed: 1/500 s – Aperture f/1.4 – ISO/Film 64
Categories: photojournalism, street photographyTags: candid, city, man, Nikon, pakistan, Portrait, Punjab, Sigma, Sigma 85 1.4, street, street photography
'Look Into My Eyes'…
August 5, 2015 adminLeave a comment
Amid a thousand devotees, our eyes meet…
A meeting that lasts for seconds, is etched for a lifetime… Look into my eyes, while I look into yours…
Nikon D700 + Nikon 135 /2.0 AFD DC
Categories: Mysticism, street photographyTags: Data, Data Sb, devotee, lahore, malang, Punjab, sufi, sufism
film making
Coral Themes