Daily Times

Reshma’s voice had that amazing quality as if it was emerging from the wilderness. Her voice engulfed the listener and surrounded it in melody. She was born in 1947 at Bekaner, Rajasthan, in the same village as Mehdi Hassan. She migrated with her family to Pakistan. In time, the girl from gypsy singers attained such fame that she was invited to India. The late prime minister of India, Mrs Indira Gandhi, offered her citizenship and promised to name the major road to her village as ‘Reshma Road’. She, in her humorous but rustic manner, thanked and refused politely, saying, “I was a piece of taat (coarse rough cloth for cleaning); Pakistan made me Reshma, (made of silk). I belong to my Pakistan.”

I happen to be a witness to Reshma’s early days. Luckily, I was at a place that was the focus of many cultural and artistic developments after independence. It was then known as the Pakistan Arts Council, Alhamra. Now the name has been changed to ‘Lahore Arts Council Alhamra’. It is still at the same place: 68, The Mall, Lahore, and only the word ‘Pakistan’ has been replaced by ‘Lahore’! Pakistan Arts Council was the first organisation for the revival of the arts after independence. The other organisation to follow, similar in name, was in Dakha, without the word Alhamra. Alhamra was inaugurated by the then governor general of Pakistan, Khwaja Nazimuddin, on December 10, 1949. The occasion was an exhibition of the works of A R Chughtai. The distinguished founding members included Justice S A Rahman, Syed Imtiaz Ali Taj, Mumtaz Daultana, Zafarul Ahsan, Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

Alhamra later grew to become a place where all artists from the performing and visual arts visited almost every day. They sat under the tall trees or on the benches in the subsidized canteen. They sipped tea and talked for hours. That was the ambience of collective exchange of thoughts and a creative process that enriched the minds and spurred the movement of cultural revival of a new nation, grooming those who became big names, and were later respected as ‘legends’.

Several years later when I assumed the responsibility for the organisation, after the retirement of Mr Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a dedicated young researcher Mr Qayum decided to carry out research on the traditional puppets and puppeteers of Pakistan, and I was glad to extend organisational support. Mostly, the traditional puppeteers came from around Multan, with some young girls singing in accompaniment. In particular, singing started when the famous puppet ‘Gohar Jan’ began her dance in the court of a Moghul king. It was a usual routine, and the puppeteers had a ‘banjara’ singing girl accompanying them. In the early 1960s of the last century, some music lovers noticed that the playback singer to Gohar Jan had a good, noticeable voice.

Some years later, still in the 1960s, the late Salim Gillani, the station director at Radio Pakistan, Lahore, planned a music concert with me at the Alhamra. I remember it was in the lawn, which has now been turned into the canteen area of the new building. The guests came and started occupying their seats. Gilani was busy rehearsing with a very simple looking girl in a room upstairs in the old building. It was a new singer whom he was trying to coach for public singing. A little later the concert started. Gilani stood in the wings to indicate, with his pointing fingers, the proper point in music and rhythm for the singer to start. Overall, the result was amazing. The audience was spellbound with the quality of the singer’s voice.

That was the first concert of the great ‘Reshma’ of later fame!

A new voice of amazing distinction was to join the list of great singers like Farida Khanum, Nur Jehan, Iqbal Bano and their colleagues. Reshma had a distinct and different quality. In time, she mastered the lessons initiated by Salim Gilani. She turned from a gypsy singer into a real artist.

Reshma rose in popularity. Her vice was melodious, and it had rare qualities of clarity and strength. Her melody engulfed and seemed to resound in the air, in the fields. That came naturally to her because she had grown up singing in the open in the banjara style. No other singer at that time had risen from such a humble beginning to such stardom.

Reshma was a person most pleasant to be with. She joked, told stories and she was simplicity incarnated. She did not put up false pretences; she took pride in her humble beginnings and treated the memory as her strength rather than embarrassment. She made fun of herself when being treated as a VIP in local and foreign tours. Reshma was loved, respected and admired by legendary artists like Nur Jehan and her contemporaries. Reshma did not have an iota of pride or audacity. She had the greatest of God’s gifts: contentment. So she lived, and so she departed. May God rest her soul in peace.

Reshma’s admirers will find it hard to reconcile with the loss. In her style she was unique. In the last years of her work she visited Islamabad. General (Retd) Syed Pervez Musharraf was the president of Pakistan at that time. He was a connoisseur and patron of the arts. He extended all facilities, support and respect to Reshma, and asked me to make sure that she was looked after. She spent some hours with me in the National Council of the Arts, Islamabad. She was at her best; she hummed! She sang in the hall, she joked, and she narrated funny experiences of her foreign tours where women drove cars and according to her, she couldn’t even ride a bicycle! She was loving, charming and simple. She had no pretences. She generated a trail of rustic voices in female singers in India and Pakistan.

Reshma will not go ‘unsung’. Reshma will be remembered for a long time.

The writer is the former CEO Pakistan National Council of the Arts; chairman Fruit processing Industries; chairman UNESCO Theatre Institute Pakistan and COO ICTV, USA. He is the author of Melluhas of the Indus Valley 8000 BC to 500 BC. He can be reached at naeemtahir37@gmail.com