Audio goes mute after 2:20 but still something…
Music and Images, rare
Update: I had shared the entire album ‘Kashmir: Traditional Songs And Dances. Vol II, 1974’ on Mediafire, but they seem to have recently removed it from their server ( possibly due to copyright thingy). Now my problem is: I had the album on my computer, but then I lost my all data last month thanks to a hard disk crash. I had it on my phone but I lost my phone too a couple of months back. But I really want it back. Last I checked at least 100 people had downloaded it. I would be thankful if someone would be kind enough share it back with me.
video link
video link
A bunch of rare vintage Kashmir photographs, most of them already posted at this blog. The music is an instrumental piece from David Lewiston‘s ‘Kashmir: Traditional Songs And Dances. Vol II’ recorded in Srinagar in 1976. I had been searching for this album for a longtime and finally found in the archives of Tonal Bride. Mohanlal Aima was one of the consultants for this incredible album which among others had performances by legendary artists like Muhammad Abdullah Tibetbaqal and Zoon Begum.
The only Mohanlal Aima track in this album is a wedding song. Download the album here [mediafire link]. His more famous work ‘Bumbro Bumbro’ can be found on Kashmir: Traditional Songs And Dances. Vol I recorded by David Lewiston in 1974. This album one is still not available.
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Hafiz Nagma
video link
Directed by Hamid Bala. A re-enactment of Hafiz Nagma set to love lyrics popular among Pandits as a Bhajan ‘Harmokh Bartal’ and believed to be dedicated to Shiva for reference to Harmukh mountain. A similar attempt at re-enactment was made in early 1980s.
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In 1920s, Hafiz Nagma was banned in Kashmir by the ruling Dogra Maharaja. The Ruler felt that this dance form was losing its sufi touch and was becoming too sensual, debased and hence judged by him as amoral for the society. It’s place was taken up by Bach’a Nagma, or the boy dancer, much like Bacha bazi of Afghanistan, although Kashmiri would claim minus the nasty exploitation bits.
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| A page from a government of India publication on Kashmir, 1955 |
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Gul Gulshan Gulfam
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Mainz Raat Soundtrack
As promised I give you the OST extracted (and a bit cleaned up) from the film Mainz Raat. In addition to original compositions, I have included some interesting dialogues, background scores and folk melodies.
In all there are 13 tracks.
First 4 are background scores (my favorite being the track 3 for its very modern violinish touch).
5th Track is a harvesting folk song.
Track 6 covers some dialogues.
Track 7 and 8 are Kashmiri folk songs
Track 10 is a traditional Kashmiri song for Mainz Raat.
Rest of the tracks are original songs written for the film by famous artist G.R. Santosh and put to music by Mohan Lal Aima.
Singers for the film included Nirmla and famous Raj Begum, besides Mohan Lal Aima himself. (Because of lack of information, I can’t assign which songs were sung by Raj Begum (expect maybe Mustafa) and which one were by Nirmla)
Track 9: Lalwaan
Track 11: Mustafa
Track 12: Vyasiye
Track 13: Nazray Nazray
Download the complete Album (.mp3) here: Mediafire Link, .zip, 31.74 MB.
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Mohanlal Aima, 1964
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| Mohanlal Aima singing to a group of tourists on a houseboat on Nagin Lake in 1964. Found this photograph by James Burke at Life Magazine archive |
James Burke has caught this prolific Kashmiri musician at a delightful moment. It the classic stance of a Kashmiri singer. As the backing artists pick up the refrain, as the tempo picks up, the lead singer spreads out his arms like an eagle, doesn’t close his eyes, looks his audience, his patron for the night, straight in the eye, and trying to keep his neck unmoving, moves his head left-right-left-right even as his shoulders blades shove the arms, right-left-right-left. And then the arms drop.
Shameem Azad Collection, 1978
Shameem Dev in a television program called ‘Anhar’ (compared by Basharat Ahmed) from 1978, when she wasn’t yet married to Ghulam Nabi Azad, sings Abdul Ahad Azad’s ‘Madano Pardah Royas Toel‘ . In the beginning of the video she talks about her adoration for Lata Mangeshkar. She also mentions her teacher as Pt. Shambu Nath Sopori. Shambu Nath Sopori, father of Bajan Sopori, was also the Guru of other famous Kashmiri singer, Kailash Mehra.
In the next video she sings a couple of lines of Faiz’s ‘Hum par tumhari Chahat ka Illzam hi toh hai‘, something she sang on the stage for first time for a college function. Then she sings Mahmood Gami’s Vasiye Naray Dazmay tan.
The program starts with a ‘Naat e Nabi’
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These incredible videos are courtesy of Youtube user shameemazad1
Ladisha Ladisha
by Ravimech Studios
Artist: Gulzar Ahmed
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Ballads (called bath or Kath, meaning ‘stories’ and literally in kashmiri meaning ‘talk’): A particular variety of satarical ballads is popularly known as laddi shah. A man stirs the iron rings strung on an iron rod and makes witty comments on the social issues. A common refrain from the songs started with line: Laddi Shah, Laddi Shah draar’kin pyow, pya’waane pya’waane ha’patan khyow( Laddi Shah, Laddi Shah! fell off the window! And a Grizzly bit him just as he fell!)
Koshur British Rhymes
I saw a glimpse of it in Aldous Huxley’s description of year 1925-26 Kashmir in his book Jesting Pilate (1948). He heard ‘Dum-dum, BONG; diddy-dum, BONG’. He wasn’t the first British person to hear it. Much much earlier, around 1835, another Brit, G.T. Vigne heard in it an old comic song. He thought he was hearing ‘Kitty Clover’. I managed to re-create (unfaithfully) the old song from his notes and some software. But I failed to see a patter until I read about it in introduction to ‘Kashmiri Lyrics’ (first published in 1945) by J.L. Kaul:
There is indeed a “nursery rhyme thrill”, a certain Hickery-Dickery-Dock patter of rhythm, which anyone can hear (as Aldous Huxley heard it) any time, of day, in the streets of Kashmir with which a group of coolies enliven the heavy loads they carry collectively. Several Englishman have told me that they can catch and appreciate the lilt of a Kashmiri song (say), a boatman’s chant more easily than they can do elsewhere in India. here is what Mary Hallowes caught of the tune of a chant sung by boatmen punting up their cargo boats “Khocu” in the Jhelum. [published at the time in The Illustrated Weekly of India]
“Swift the current,dark the night,
(Ya-illa,la-illa)
Stars above our guide and light
(Kraliar,baliar!…)
All together on the rope,
(Ya Pir-Dust Gir)
In our sinews lies our hope
Khaliko,Malik-ko!…”
Changus Sings Again: Recreating an old Kashmiri melody from year 1835.
The year must have been 1835. Godfrey Thomas Vigne, an English traveler in Kashmir,one of the first, was visiting a decaying old village called Changus( Shangus, as it is now called), a miles from Achibul (or Yech-i-bul, as he called it) in Anantnag district. He had heard that in the old glory days of Kashmir, this village was renowned for its colony of dancing girls. The singing, dancing and the beauty of the nautch women from this village was renowned all over the valley. The most famous among these danseuses was a women named Lyli. Englishman’s local host, a nobleman named Samud Shah, spoke of her with signs of regret, and expressions of admiration. But Lyli was long dead and so it seemed was the village. There were still some dancing women in the village but none refined like the days of yore. Like most places in Kashmir, this village too had lost its muse. The dancing muse – Terpsichore, no longer lived in that village. Or so it seemed. While he was walking around in the village, he heard a woman sing a song whose opening notes reminded him of a certain old comic song “Kitty Clover” by one Mister Liston and yet to him the song’s import seemed rather amorous. He was fascinated enough by the melody to have copied it into a sheet and then have it published in his book ‘Travels in Kashmir, Ladak, Iskardo ‘ (1844) under the title ‘Kashmirian Dancing Girl’s Song’.
Don’t know about ‘Kitty Clover’ (couldn’t find anything on it) but the opening notes are certainly wonderful and it indeed sounds Kashmiri.
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Enjoy a variation on the song with images of Shalimar Bagh:
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When I first saw that small sheet of music given in G.T. Vigne’s ‘Travels in Kashmir, Ladak, Iskardo ‘( see my post about nautch girls of Kashmir ), a strange thoughts occurred to me, ‘What song had G.T. Vigne heard that day? Wouldn’y it be nice to some how recreate that tune! Would it sound familiar?’.
With no knowledge of sheet music, I set about doing something about it.
(Sheet for Kashmirian Dancing Girl’s Song given in Travels in Kashmir, Ladak, Iskardo)
After experimenting with a number of software, I settled with a software called SharpEye2 that reads sheets from images and converts them to Midi format. The music sheet generated by the software isn’t perfect. Facility for editing the notes is provided but it isn’t very flexible. After tweaking the sheet, the end result looked something like this:
It isn’t pefect but still good enough.
And here is the sound generated (MP3 converted from Midi format):
Don’t know about ‘Kitty Clover’ (couldn’t find anything on it) but the opening notes are certainly wonderful and it indeed sounds Kashmiri.
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Enjoy a variation on the song with images of Shalimar Bagh:
