After losing great icons such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Madam Noor Jehan, are we about to lose Mehdi Hassan?? Please say a prayer for him. We have barely healed from our above mentioned loss of Nustra Fateh Ali & Madam Noor Jehan, let’s hope we don’t lose him as well.
http://www.dawn.com/2001/text/nat10.htm
The ghazal king struggles for life
By S.M. Shahid
KARACHI: It takes centuries for a Mehdi Hasan to be born and rule over the hearts of people. Looks like Nature must take its own time to create an artiste of this class. Aren’t we lucky then, that we lived in the period in which Mehdi Hasan spread the fragrance of his song?
We have seen him in the flesh, shook hands with him, heard him sing to us at close quarters. Compare the all round mediocrity in our life with the sheer excellence of his art. Don’t you think we had never enjoyed ghazal as a genre of music, and our taste for ghazal as a song had not achieved the conclusive refinement until this great singer inculcated the same in us? And he has continued to educate and enrich us for fifty long years! No wonder then that the entire subcontinent has tried, consciously or unconsciously, to sing ghazal in his style.
When K.L. Saigal died, I was a child. Saigal stayed with me only in his songs. But Mehdi Hasan was a part of my civilized existence. It is difficult to come to terms with the cruel fact of his illness.
I remember once he was singing at Zakia Sarwar’s house and sitting in the audience, as I involuntarily started to hum with him, he looked at me, smiled and said: “Aap yeh na karain, mujhay apnay sur par shak honay lagta hai!”
At that time, I had thought that the remark was a stinker, but now when I think about it, it helps me to comprehend the precision, accuracy and the truthfulness of his sur. It also makes me realize that no other singer ever came as close, no matter how hard he tried, as Mehdi Hasan did to this truth.
The gift of sachcha sur is bestowed once in a millennium. I and my friend, Latif Kapadia, had gone to pay our respects to film composer Naushad at his Bandra house in Bombay. As we got up to take leave of the great man, he said excitedly: “Aap loge ruk jaaen. Mehdi Hasan Sahib khanay par tashreef la rahain hain.”
“What do you think of him?” we asked.
“Unki tareef sooraj ko chiragh dekhana hai!” said Naushad Sahib.
We have already heard what Lata Mangeshkar has said about Mehdi Hasan. My own Ustad, Wilayat Ali Khan, who never hesitated to ignore a non-classical singer, said of Mehdi Hasan: “Pakistan iss lehaz se khush qismat hai ke yahan Mehdi Hasan aur Tufail Niazi jaisay sureelay fankar maujood hain.”
Sometimes, I can’t help asking myself: why did Mehdi Hasan sing for the Pakistani film industry? We have heard his film songs such as: Ranjish hi sahi, Zindagi main to sabhi pyar kia kartay hain, Rafta rafta woh meri hasti ka saaman ho gaye, Dunya kisi ke pyar main jannat se kum nahin and other numbers.
Now, pick up a CD for his non-filmi recordings (for instance, Time Line Records’ Mehdi Hasan Album 2) and listen to him sing the same songs without the “interference” of his composers and their orchestra. You can note the difference yourself.
Mehdi Hasan was no Ustad in the classical sense of the word, but he was every Ustad’s favourite singer, and they loved and respected him for his control over sur and taal, as well as his knowledge of classical music. Listen to his live concerts of “classical ghazals in rare raags” in which Ustads of the calibre of sarangi nawaz Sultan Khan of India and tabla nawaz Shaukat Husain Khan of Pakistan accompanied him. In the programme, Mehdi Hasan also sang the best Heer ever sung by anyone (interestingly, it is in Urdu and written by Soofi Tabassum).
You must have heard the recordings of many other ghazal singers, including the first of the lot - Kamla Jharia, Indoo Bala, Mohammad Husain of Calcutta, Afzal Husain of Nagina, etc. Who, beside Akhtaribai Faizabadi and, perhaps, K.L. Saigal and Talat Mahmood, pronounced the words of a ghazal the way Mehdi Hasan did?
Also, notice the stress on the words where it is due. For purely academic reason, if for nothing else, let me recall some ghazals of the Asataza (Grand Masters) rendered by these great singers. I think it will enrich our listening experience if we try to take note of the difference in their renderings.
Sung by Akhtaribai Faizabadi: Woh jo hum main tum main qarar tha - Momin Ulti ho gaeen sub tadbeerain, kuch na dawa ne kaam kia - Mir Gul phaikain hain auron ki taraf, balke samar bhi - Sauda Sunn to sahi jahan main hai tera fasana kia - Aatish Uzr aane main bhi hai aur bulatay bhi nahin - Daagh Zikr us parivash ka aur phir bayan apna - Ghalib Sung by Mehdi Hasan: Uzr aane main bhi hai aur bulatay bhi nahin - Daagh Ulti ho gaeen sub tadbeerain, kuch na dawa ne kaam kia - Mir Nawak andaz jidhar deeda-i-janan honge - Momin Roshan jamal-i-yaar se hai anjuman tamam - Hasrat Mohani Baat karni mujhe mushkil kabhi aisi to na thi - Bahadur Shah Zafar
Sung by K.L. Saigal: Woh aakay khawab mein taskeen-i-iztrab to de - Ghalib Lai hayat aaye qaza le chali chalay - Zauq Phir mujhay deeda-i-tar yad aaya - Ghalib Har ek baat pe kahtay ho tum ke too kia hai - Ghalib
Sung by Talat Mahmood: Us bazm mein mujhay nahin banti haya kiay - Ghalib Zikr us parivash ka aur phir bayan apna - Ghalib Bazeecha-i-atfaal hai dunya mere aage - Ghalib Koi din gar zindagani aur hai - Ghalib
The late Anwar Enayetullah wrote somewhere that when he took Mehdi Hasan’s audition at the Radio Pakistan, Karachi, he could not help recommending a payment of Rs35 to the singer, instead of the usual fee in those days of Rs10 or Rs15. Shahid Ahmad Dehlavi endorsed the recommendation, but Rafiq Ghaznavi called it unfair as he thought it was too meagre - Mehdi Hasan deserved to be paid at least Rs100!
Mehdi Hasan was born in a town called Luna in Rajasthan, 107 miles from Jaipur. His father was Azim Khan but his uncle, Ismail Khan, who had attended the Bhatkhande college in Lucknow, took the six-year-old under his wings and started training Mehdi Hasan in the arts of singing and wrestling. Mehdi owes his knowledge of classical music to his uncle.
Later on in life, his elder brother, Ghulam Qadir, fondly called Punditji, had great influence over him. He composed most of Mehdi Hasan’s ghazals, including Gulon mein rang bharay baad-i-naubahar chalay, which was recorded in Lahore in 1959 and became an instant hit.
S.M. Shahid is himself a classical singer and the author of a book on classical music.