PTV does it again

I am in music heaven

PTV ran a tribute on Begum Akhtar and B4U, an indian channel shows a music video....a sikh guy covering bullay shah on acoustic guitar…and sounding pretty good ….good clean simple fun song with a brilliant concept of the translation available on the screen

This give me a new project...search for this sikh guy…it is a track covered and made a mess of by Ali Azmat who sounds like a hyena on crack…the kafi is “bulley-a, kee jaana main koon””…(bullay-shah..who knows what you are)

PTV music producer Khwaja Najmul Hasan has to his credit a lot of classic(al) music programs…I think it is a genre that he is comfortable with and has covered professionally with great results

….So it was a pleasant surprise to see PTV covering Begum Akhtar on a tribute series that they are doing on “muslim” singers of the subcontinent, (somehow the hindu ones are not really something that PTV consider worthy…old habits die hard I suppose and covering hindu singers may still be considered taboo…how sad really that an art form should be looked upon with such jaundiced approach)

anyhow a big thumbs up for the program is thanks to Nayyara Noor who sounded incredible…and a begum akhtar number she covered in the early 80’s, “kalee ghatta chayee….” which contains an excellent line beautifully done by this great lady “ay papeehay chup ho ja zara…tairay pee pee karnay say vo bayvafa yaad ayay hay”….shahreyaar zaidi, nayyara’s husband admitting on stage that it was nayyara’s version of begum akhtar’s classics at college that convinced him that she was the one for him

…I thought this was pretty sweet of him to admit on TV….surprisingly Tina Sani also gave an above average performance…what disappointed me was that it was a windy day and the sound producer did not detect the noise on his headphones to make some corrective action.

secondly mehnaaz and tahira syed could not do justice to begum akhtar and were pretty flat in their performances… tahira syed and this guy who were introducing begum akhtar and her lifestory overdid themselves for their over-enthusiasm made the written script sound a bit fake….the program seemed like genuine labor of love as far as production and selection of guests is concerned...most people look genuinely pleased with the performances

this is a series of 9 episodes and we have to suffer some more of the PTV antics of having the heart in the right place but doing doing justice to the content and being politically incorrect with a lot of things like what I mentioned above about PTV looking at music from the religious point of view...

So why did I say that I was in music heavan…well the sheer mention of begum akhtar is enough for me...even if i listen to a really bad cover by a local singer of any of her classics...i could hear the original in my head...