Acknowledging Khayal Muhammad’s contribution to music

By Afzal Hussain Bokhari

It is probably for the first time in the history of the province that in acknowledgement of his meritorious services in the field of fine arts Chief Minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti has handed over to Presidential Award-winning singer Khayal Muhammad a cheque for one million rupees. The cash prize was promised during the PTV awards ceremony.

As the CM showed his love for music and displayed the gesture by handing over the cash prize to the artist, the event was watched by provincial chief of ANP Senator Afrasiab Khattak, Minister for Sports and Culture Syed Aqil Shah and Minister for Information Mian Iftikhar Hussain.

Khayal Muhammad is the type of self-respecting artist who has survived without any elaborate exercise in public relations. The mainstay of his long career has been his command over the art of rendering 'ghazal' pieces in his own typically masculine and impressive voice.

Apart from the senior Afghan artist, Nashinas, who has restricted himself mostly to Persian songs, we have amongst us male voices such as those of Sardar Ali Takkar, Gulrez Tabassum and to some extent Fazle Malik Atif.

Similarly, in female voices we have artists like Mashooq Sultan, Mahjabeen Qazalbash and folk artist Zarsanga. All of them have their own particular fan following. As far as the quality of their voices and the style of singing are concerned, there are categories of music lovers.

Sardar Ali Takkar, for instance, is not everybody's cup of tea. Selective as he is in what he sings and how, Takkar is liked by a chosen few admirers who have revolutionary ideas and get inspiration from the poetry of Ajmal Khattak, Ghani Khan and Rehmat Shah Sail.

Once you become a Sardar Ali Takkar addict, you are most likely to stay like that for the rest of your life. The other artists then do not very greatly matter to you.

You listen to Takkar, marvel at the variation in his voice, feel spellbound at the stamina of his lungs, wonder at the depth of meanings in the poetry he sings and more often than not get into a make-belief world of fantasy and trance in which you paint the town red and shake hands with revolutionary icons like Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong.

On the other hand, Khayal Muhammad has an altogether different breed of admirers. From thoughtful and philosophic schoolboys to disciplinarian vice-chancellors to highbrow, stiff upper lip, no-nonsense bureaucrats, I have seen the typically serious, sobre and silent Pukhtuns as Khayal Mohammad's admirers.

From Rehman Baba and Khushal Khan to Amir Hamza Khan Shinwari, Khayal Muhammad opts for poetry that carries a mix of mysticism, romance and philosophy. He renders the 'ghazal' pieces in the age-old traditional manner. You start listening to Khayal Muhammad and somehow feel that some of the wounds deep down your heart get healed in the process while at the same time many new ones have opened up.

You recognise his voice by the measured pauses in it, the high pitch to which he sometimes takes it and the essentially melancholy undercurrents that punctuate the musical composition.

Radio and television engineers who monitor the ups and downs of his voice on the studio console have become so familiar with the vibration that when Khayal Muhammad is on the microphone they can accurately and precisely predict the movement of the trembling needle.

With experience and maturity, he has learnt how sensitive the overhead television boom and the radio microphone in front of him can possibly be. Television producer Shaukat Ali and radio producer Nisar Muhammad, both of whom got promoted and retired in due course, did many musical shows and concerts with Khayal Muhammad.

These and other producers did not have to shout and yell. They never remained on tiptoes. They felt perfectly relaxed as Khayal Muhammad already knew everything. He knew the musicians like Rafiq Shinwari, Mubarak Ali, Ali Haider Malik and the rest of them.

As he sang, his vigilant eyes watched the boy at the drums, the artist playing the flute and the man handling 'rabab'. It was with subtle nods that he appreciated the performance of the accompanying team of instrumentalists. His son Anwar Khayal has already been in the music line for quite a few years but he may probably take sometime in achieving his father's perfection and confidence.

From ordinary music shows to the high profile concerts, Khayal has grabbed one success after the other and enthralled the responsive crowds on several occasions. When the soft-spoken Edwardian Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi was the chief secretary, many cultural events started with a recitation from the Holy Quran by late Qari Fida Muhammad and 'na'at sharif' by Khayyal Muhammad.

Like Qari Fida Muhammad, Khayal too was never so particular about the stiffness of his collars or the shine on his footwear. Many a time he attended government functions in the jam-packed Nishtar Hall with cheap rubber boots on his feet. Simplicity added grace to his performance.

Radio and television took turns in playing his recordings and spreading his fame into every nook and corner of the province. While transporting passengers from one to the other place, Pukhtun taxi-cab drivers in Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Germany quietly switch their CD players on and feel so passionately nostalgic about home by listening to Khyal Muhammad numbers.

Same is the case with sleepy drivers who take large-bodied buses from Peshawar to Karachi and then back. Tearing their vehicles up and down the Indus Highway, they silently reach for Khayal Muhammad's cassettes or CDs and get emotionally recharged for a while to take care of the long journey through the sandy Sindh stretches.

One million rupees will not perhaps push Khayal Muhammad into the ranks of rich men like Ayub Afridi and the likes of him but the cash award may certainly go a long way towards proving that if on the one hand the elected ANP-PPP coalition government in NWFP took care of the Malakand sensibilities, it was on the other hand not altogether oblivious of the niceties of fine arts.