Iqbal Ahmad
Despite the growing popularity of the Bollywood and Hollywood musical albums in Kashmir valley ,the melodious kashmeri music has not been left far behind, there are reports that the local kashmeri music has also gained its ground and is becoming popular among the youngsters. Besides it is learnt that it is also now expanding to other lands too.
Of course once this local music was limited up to the traditional singers only but there has been an encouraging trend. These days the young and professional singers have made their entry into this growing field and given a new direction to this music. They have introduced new musical trends, instruments and variety of tunes which has been helping the local music to compete with growing Bollywood albums. Their new Sufi and light music albums has been attracting more and more people towards kashmeri music. No doubt for a certain period the kashmeri singers had to face hard times as their were less takers for their musical concerts but things have changed nowadays the newly introduced trends in local Folk and Sufi music it has been helping it in restoring its pristine glory. Kashmeri ghazal chaker te rouf, wanwon and sufi lyrics are learnt have resorted their popularity but the classical Sufiana musyaqi unfortunately is not improving and its listeners percentage has considerably decreased. Notwithstanding the poor response to Su`fiana music, the other trades of the music are also attracting the non kashmeries listeners , which the musicians say is an encouraging trend. The foreigners visiting this land have been inviting the local musicians to the hotels and house boats to perform the live musical concerts while on the other hand there has been a growing demand for kashmeri albums near the tourist destinations.
Kashmiri music has got its long interesting history. We have come across its first evidences in the archaeological findings of Harwan which dates back to first century AD. It was perhaps during the period of Kushans that music was introduced here because we got the first evidences of musical instruments and dancing poses in a series of tiles.
In one of the tiles on its face is shown a group of musicians playing various musical instruments. Although the tabla is very clear on it but Vena and some other instrument are a bit crudely stamped. The tile depicts a dancer wearing big ear rings. It holds a piece of cloth most probably a Kashmiri shawl in her hands. Its trowsers are tight at bottom. Dancer holds his right leg up and faces towards left. The entire scene reflects her in a dancing pose. The male dancer in our contemporary musicians whom we call Bachikut looks a very accurate imitation of this figure. The motif has been placed in low relief on the tile in a rectangle frame. One another tile of Harwan shows a dancer beating a drum, which is placed to the front of the figure. The right hand holds some sort of stick. The musician looks using her both hands in playing of the drum. Such motifs on these tiles have added new information’s to the historians of music and takes the music back to the Kushan period to which period Harwan finds are dated.
Kalhana while tracing the antiquity of music writes that musical parties were earlier held at religions places, during the period of Raja Jaluk. About one hundred dancers were attached with Jasti Ishwar temple and used to entertain huge crowds by their sweet voices. At other place in Rajtarangni Kalhana records an incident of Lalitaditya. He says that once Raja Lalitaditya who was on his way to hunt, saw two young girls singing in dancing pose. The Raja stopped his horse and inquired about the purpose of their singing. The young girls told him that they belong to a group of professional singers and had come there to practice their art. It is said that the art of music got promoted in the darbar’s of Rajas and Maharajas. The Raja used to hold meeting of musicians where the different artists were demonstrating their art. Deepa Mela, Rat in Mala ane JNurp Mala have been the famous singers of their times. Budshah too promoted this art and introduced several new instruments whom he had adopted from central Asia. The art took new turn in the period of Chaks, Sultan Hussian Shah and Yousuf Shah used to hold the musical weeks in their respective darbars. As Yousuf Shah Chak himself was a poet of repute, he invited singers in his darbar and encouraged them by granting financial assistance. This period is marked by various types of music, which from cities and towns flourished to the villages. It was the period of Habba Khatoon who besides being a poetess also used to sing her songs in her melodious voice. The art introduced few new types and instruments. The music came into existence in different forms, like classical sofiyana and folk music.
Although it was sofiyana music which dominated the classical ages but with the introduction of few new trends into folk music the folk got wide representation. The Chakri, Ruff, Wanwun, Nind Buth, Lala Pad and Ladi Shah like types got promoted under the roof of folk music. It also provided room to the light sufiana songs and today we have number of albums available in Kashmir folk while the classical has turned extremely rare. Steps are required to be taken to revive the tradition of sufiyana musyqi by introducing the soft tunes and new musical instruments into it.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
