“One of the qualities of great art is that we go to it not just for information, but to be transformed,” Professor Bilal Tanweer, co-director of the Gurmani Center in LUMS said on Thursday. The largest auditorium in LUMS was brimming with students, teachers and staff. At 6.30 sharp, everyone sat or stood, waiting anxiously for Madam Farida Khanum and Ali Sethi. Ali Sethi, a young singer, has carved a name for himself in a short time. He has been working with and learning from Khanum for quite some time. The Gurmani Center of Languages and Literature, in their efforts to bring arts to LUMS and to take LUMS to art, organised this event; the audience sang, swayed, listened and learned.
The evening started with the screening of a black and white video of Khanum’s, taken from 1974, showcasing a TV program by Zia Mohyeddin. Mohyeddin ushers in his guest, a young girl clad in a sari, with immaculate hair and makeup. She appears to be timid and laughs at all of the host’s jokes. They have a conversation about the ghazal as an art form and how it has been depreciating in quality, and this is followed by, of course, a performance by Khanum. She begins to sing in the video and her voice takes the audience like a storm. When the video ended Farida Khanum was brought in on a wheelchair. She still had a flower in her hair. The audience stood and applauded.
Once on stage, she immediately took the mike and began talking about music and how music trends have changed.
Khanum commented that the standard of musical appreciation and dedication to art has diminished in Pakistan. She said that the passion people had for listening to music and ghazal has deteriorated.
Khanum explained that she began learning music with Raag Darbari because she already knew it, and that the sur of this ghazal were soft and easy to remember. Sethi added that much of his learning has been from Khanum herself. “A listener said this to me once, that when Farida Ji sings, it’s about time and space, they become blurred, it’s the closest you come to a spiritual experience,” says Sethi. Farida Khanum was then asked to sing a fewl lines. Ustad Habib ur Rehman was on harmonium along with Khan Sahib on tabla. Both guests spoke about Faiz and the way these ghazals have moved people. The audience had the honor of experiencing Farida Khanum live. Sethi also sang a few words of this song. The evening ended with questions and comments by members of the audience.
Published in Daily Times, September 6th 2018.