Preserving musical heritage for a decade, and counting

Karachi
This month the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) completes the first decade of its inception. The News talked to sitar maestro Ustad Nafees Khan, who heads the music department of the academy.
“The death knell for our musical heritage was sounded 35 years before the birth of Napa. We have at least staved off that death. We have restarted the restoration of culture. So I would say it has been a great success,” Khan said while evaluating the 10 years of Napa in a nutshell.
Delving further into the subject, he said they had reoriented the values of the young people in a very subtle way, adding that they had made them feel proud of their cultural-historical heritage.
“We make it very clear to them that music and dance is an evil activity only if used for bad purposes: carnal or sensual.”
Khan said music, fine arts and performing arts are the basis of a nation’s cultural and intellectual progress and identity; Napa has imparted due respectability to these pursuits.
“Things can only be put in their right perspective if we support the spirit of tolerance in our society, whereby we are prepared to listen to differing viewpoints and try to gauge the validity of dissenting opinion.”
As for parents’ attitude towards their children taking up music as a career, he said that while resistance on the part of parents might not have completely vanished, “we certainly have gone a long way in reorienting their attitudes. Their resistance has softened considerably”.
Khan said the success of their programme could be gauged from the fact that, let alone a cosmopolitan city like Karachi, they had young men and women from remote corners of the country, like Chitral, apart from relatively reputedly conservative cities like Lahore and Rahim Yar Khan.
At this juncture he sent for a student, who was from the not-so-advanced segment of society, hailing from Rahim Yar Khan.
The maestro said it was the boy’s first-ever visit to Karachi. He asked him to demonstrate his vocal talent, which was highly impressive: a mellifluous voice with meticulously controlled cadences.
In certain cases, said Khan, parents had escorted their children to the academy; they were absolutely satisfied on seeing the conditions, whereby they would have no undesirable effect on the children’s moral uprightness or integrity.
Talking about the fee structure, he said it was reasonable and Napa had the less financially privileged students in mind when drawing it up.
“Sometimes we even give a student a 50-percent discount if we find that he or she has an aptitude for music and wants to master the pursuit in earnest. We cater to the lower middle classes, the lower income stratum of society.” — AD