Young ‘Sarod’ player entertains guests

Islamabad : It was a pleasant poetry and music evening at the residence of Kishwar Nahid, the famous women rights activist, poetess and writer, where well known poets and writes got together to celebrate and congratulate legendary poet, Iftikhar Arif the other day.

Such occasions have always been few and far between to listen to the poets reciting their poems or ‘ghazals’ live and with the legends like Iftikhar Arif and Kishwar Nahid, joined by Shakeel Jazeb and Farrakh Yar, the evening turned even more beautiful.

And it was even more fun to listen to the beautiful music on traditional musical instrument, ‘Rubab’ by a young artiste, Bilal Khan, who belongs to former Malakand Agency. It was after a very long time that a musician was present at Kishwar’s place. Last time we saw one was the famous violinist, Ustad Raees Khan and that was quite a few years ago.

Bilal Khan, who also runs a music school ‘Aahang Kada’ in Islamabad ‘ played classical ‘raag’ ‘Aiman’ followed by ‘raag’ ‘Bihad’ on ‘sarod’ before he accepted the requests from the distinguished audience to play tunes of some popular songs of yesteryears.

Bilal, who graduated from the Malakand University, said that he practices for five hours daily besides the time he spends playing ‘sarod’ with the students in the music class he conducts for the students.

One must acknowledge that Bilal Khan has learnt playing ‘rubab’ to the best of levels and the unique technique that he has mastered is to create resonance, which is hardly created in this particular musical instrument because of its limited string space.

Earlier, Shakeel Jazeb recited his popular ‘ghazal’, ‘Ranj-e-Bay Adai kiya, Gham-e-Ashnai kkiya’. Kishwar Nahid recite her latest poem, reflecting her thoughts on the situation arising in India in wake of the longest and still continuing curfew in Indian Occupied Kashmir as well as the public outrage triggered by the controversial citizenship law enacted by Prime Minister Narindera Modi’s BJP government.

And it was on particular insistence from the guests that Farrakh Yar recited his famous poem, ‘Ham to bas paishi bhugtanay aa’ay hain’ before Iftikhar Arif was coaxed to recite his poem ‘Meray Maabood Aakhir Kab Tamasha Khatam Ho Ga’ in his most humble manner that particularly suits to the people of his stature.

While it was an evening of poetry recital and music arranged by Kishwar Nahid on one hand but on the other hand the evening was also meant to raise some funds for enabling the Christian family, which has been her domestic help for a very long time, to celebrate Christmas! The food, well, the food was as delicious as one can expect at Kishwar Nahid’s place.