Vikalp Screening > Khayal Darpan
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SANJAY PETHE
Feb 8, 2007, 3:43:01 AM2/8/07
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VIKALP SCREENING
AT BHUPESH GUPTA BHAVAN, PRABHADEVI,
Mumbai
Friday, February 9TH
6.30 pm
Venue
Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan
85, Sayani Road
Prabhadevi
(Diagonally opposite Ravindra Natya Mandir)
Filmmaker Yousuf Saeed will be present
KHAYAL DARPAN - (105 minutes)
(A Mirror of Imagination)
A Documentary Film about Classical Music in Pakistan
In a quest to explore the impact of India's Partition on the
classical music traditions of South Asia, a Delhi-based filmmaker
Yousuf Saeed spent more than 6 months in Pakistan in 2005. After
traveling in the 3 main cities -
Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad - interviewing musicians and scholars,
attending music concerts, and observing the teaching of music in
various institutions, Yousuf not only documented some of the
surviving practitioners and patrons of classical music, but also
raised many vital questions, about cultural identity, nationalism,
legitimacy of music in Islam, Pakistan's popular culture and its
affairs with India, and the survival of classical music itself in
South Asia. This quest has resulted in a musical documentary
film, Khayal Darpan, featuring some well-known as well as many
lesser known but talented musicians of Pakistan.
Divided in four parts totaling a 105 minutes, the film starts by
exploring Pakistan's melodic past, especially in Punjab/Lahore where
south Asia's most famous musicians of early 20th century performed
in large concerts as well as small baithaks (homely gatherings). It
talks about the legendary Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Raushanara Begum,
and the Nazakat-Salamat Ali duo, and their discerning local audience
who could not be pleased by any substandard music. The partition of
India changed the scenario drastically as hundreds
of musician families migrated from India to Pakistan, while many
Hindu and Sikh patrons of music migrated the other way around. The
musicians in the newly formed Pakistan carried on the tradition for
a decade or so, on their own strength, since there was hardly any
state sponsorship - except radio, to some extent.
The classical music also went through some amount of identity crisis
in Pakistan, since, in order to fit into the Islamic national
identity, it had to shed its 'non-Islamic' features such as Raga
names or song-compositions that referred to Hindu deities, and so
on. But that was probably a temporary phase since a large number of
traditional musicians continued to practice the music in its truer
forms. Nevertheless, Dhrupad and Khayal, the more traditional forms
of music, had to make a larger space for other popular genres such
as ghazal, qawwali, folk and even pop music.
The later half of the film traces the popular and contemporary
trends in the modern times, especially the experiments done by some
musicians to popularize the classical music among the lay audience,
including Mehdi Hasan, Tufail Niazi, and others. A very interesting
story weaved in the film is about a young blind girl from Lahore,
Aliya Rasheed, who came to India to learn Dhrupad music from the
famous Gundecha brothers in Bhopal (Central India). While on one
hand it is a story of the meeting of two completely different
cultures and values, one also cannot ignore a subtle cultural
cultivating of Aliya by her Indian gurus. The last portion of the
film features some serious experimentation conducted in the theory
and practice of classical music, especially in the field of
instrument-making, by a senior lawyer-philosopher- musicologist of
Lahore, Raza Kazim, who has been developing a string instrument
called the Sagar Veena which hopes to be different from most
traditional Indian instruments.
While Khayal Darpan informs us of some the hidden talents of
Pakistan, it also raises many questions about how the classical
music is going to survive in future, not only in Pakistan but in
India as well, and whose cultural property it really is. More
importantly, the film hopes to provoke the new generation of South
Asians who are bent upon defining their cultural and
national identities according to their religion.
More details, still photos, and a video clip of the film can be
accessed at the following sites:
http://www.ektara. org
http://www.khayalda rpan.info
*About the Filmmaker*:
Graduating from Jamia Millia's Mass Communication Research Centre,
Yousuf Saeed started his career in films and television in 1990 with
the Times TV (Times of India) conceptualizing and co-producing the
science series called Turning Point (45 episodes). Later, Yousuf
produced many documentary films for Doordarshan and other
institutions, including a series on *Ladakh* and
one on the Sufi poet *Amir Khusrau*. Besides producing films, Yousuf
has been involved in a lot of cultural, academic and media-related
activism. He worked with Encyclopedia Britannica (India) as their
arts and design editor for two years. His recent short films
*Basant* and *Jannat ki Rail* have been shown at prestigious
international venues such as the universities of
Harvard, Boston, Columbia, Chicago, Texas (in the US) and of
Heidelberg (Germany), Vienna (Austria), and Sorbonne (Paris).
AT BHUPESH GUPTA BHAVAN, PRABHADEVI,
Mumbai
Friday, February 9TH
6.30 pm
Venue
Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan
85, Sayani Road
Prabhadevi
(Diagonally opposite Ravindra Natya Mandir)
Filmmaker Yousuf Saeed will be present
KHAYAL DARPAN - (105 minutes)
(A Mirror of Imagination)
A Documentary Film about Classical Music in Pakistan
In a quest to explore the impact of India's Partition on the
classical music traditions of South Asia, a Delhi-based filmmaker
Yousuf Saeed spent more than 6 months in Pakistan in 2005. After
traveling in the 3 main cities -
Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad - interviewing musicians and scholars,
attending music concerts, and observing the teaching of music in
various institutions, Yousuf not only documented some of the
surviving practitioners and patrons of classical music, but also
raised many vital questions, about cultural identity, nationalism,
legitimacy of music in Islam, Pakistan's popular culture and its
affairs with India, and the survival of classical music itself in
South Asia. This quest has resulted in a musical documentary
film, Khayal Darpan, featuring some well-known as well as many
lesser known but talented musicians of Pakistan.
Divided in four parts totaling a 105 minutes, the film starts by
exploring Pakistan's melodic past, especially in Punjab/Lahore where
south Asia's most famous musicians of early 20th century performed
in large concerts as well as small baithaks (homely gatherings). It
talks about the legendary Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Raushanara Begum,
and the Nazakat-Salamat Ali duo, and their discerning local audience
who could not be pleased by any substandard music. The partition of
India changed the scenario drastically as hundreds
of musician families migrated from India to Pakistan, while many
Hindu and Sikh patrons of music migrated the other way around. The
musicians in the newly formed Pakistan carried on the tradition for
a decade or so, on their own strength, since there was hardly any
state sponsorship - except radio, to some extent.
The classical music also went through some amount of identity crisis
in Pakistan, since, in order to fit into the Islamic national
identity, it had to shed its 'non-Islamic' features such as Raga
names or song-compositions that referred to Hindu deities, and so
on. But that was probably a temporary phase since a large number of
traditional musicians continued to practice the music in its truer
forms. Nevertheless, Dhrupad and Khayal, the more traditional forms
of music, had to make a larger space for other popular genres such
as ghazal, qawwali, folk and even pop music.
The later half of the film traces the popular and contemporary
trends in the modern times, especially the experiments done by some
musicians to popularize the classical music among the lay audience,
including Mehdi Hasan, Tufail Niazi, and others. A very interesting
story weaved in the film is about a young blind girl from Lahore,
Aliya Rasheed, who came to India to learn Dhrupad music from the
famous Gundecha brothers in Bhopal (Central India). While on one
hand it is a story of the meeting of two completely different
cultures and values, one also cannot ignore a subtle cultural
cultivating of Aliya by her Indian gurus. The last portion of the
film features some serious experimentation conducted in the theory
and practice of classical music, especially in the field of
instrument-making, by a senior lawyer-philosopher- musicologist of
Lahore, Raza Kazim, who has been developing a string instrument
called the Sagar Veena which hopes to be different from most
traditional Indian instruments.
While Khayal Darpan informs us of some the hidden talents of
Pakistan, it also raises many questions about how the classical
music is going to survive in future, not only in Pakistan but in
India as well, and whose cultural property it really is. More
importantly, the film hopes to provoke the new generation of South
Asians who are bent upon defining their cultural and
national identities according to their religion.
More details, still photos, and a video clip of the film can be
accessed at the following sites:
http://www.ektara. org
http://www.khayalda rpan.info
*About the Filmmaker*:
Graduating from Jamia Millia's Mass Communication Research Centre,
Yousuf Saeed started his career in films and television in 1990 with
the Times TV (Times of India) conceptualizing and co-producing the
science series called Turning Point (45 episodes). Later, Yousuf
produced many documentary films for Doordarshan and other
institutions, including a series on *Ladakh* and
one on the Sufi poet *Amir Khusrau*. Besides producing films, Yousuf
has been involved in a lot of cultural, academic and media-related
activism. He worked with Encyclopedia Britannica (India) as their
arts and design editor for two years. His recent short films
*Basant* and *Jannat ki Rail* have been shown at prestigious
international venues such as the universities of
Harvard, Boston, Columbia, Chicago, Texas (in the US) and of
Heidelberg (Germany), Vienna (Austria), and Sorbonne (Paris).
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