As promised, this is going to be my only post this week.
By Mansoor Raza
This is particularly timely since it is currently Muharram and Ashura is this week.
From the dust of Pakistan’s independence in 1947 emerged a sonic revolution that would permanently rewrite Karachi’s spiritual DNA.
Rooted in classical Urdu, Arabic and Persian literary traditions, the noha — a profound elegiac lament commemorating the tragedy of Karbala and the martyrdom of Imam Husain (AS) — travelled across a fractured Subcontinent in the hearts of millions of families that migrated to Karachi. Over the last three-quarters of a century, this localised ritual of displacement morphed into a defining cultural powerhouse.
Driven by global shifts and technological eras, 12 trailblazing master orators of the noha [elegiac lament] arose, not merely as reciters, but as architectural anchors and boundary-breakers who fundamentally re-engineered the soundscape of devotion.
2) DAWN reviewed Anjum Altaf’s book A Modern Introduction to Indian Music and Other Essays Including a Primer on the Physics of Sound
Part primer, part Socratic conversation and part cultural history, this engaging volume explores the theoretical foundations of Indian classical music
The book is unique and quite different from other Pakistani authors’ books on music, as it is interactive. It is the outcome of shared learning, in which a group learns from each other by pooling knowledge, and is more exciting and effective than passively being exposed to an expert’s views. In fact, the essays started off as blog posts that were then commented upon by readers. Those discussions are included in the book, almost like a Socratic dialogue.
The book has also been published in India by Primus Books
