His tabla player – sound
engineer called Amjad from Lok Virsa – took me aside and explained to me
the reason why he had asked me to sing the song three times over before
singing it with me finally. Tufail Saheb could not read and write.
He was not keeping too
well. But he sang with rare emotion. His saaDa chiRiyaaN da ChaMba
made everyone cry that evening. He would ask Amjad to now and then press
his shoulder muscles.
I'm greatly enamoured
of his BedardaaN sang kaisi yaari', Ve tuN neRe neRe vass,
RaNjha jogiRa ban* aaya, MaeN nayiN jaan*a, Maaye ni
jad raNjhan* aave...also kade aa ve maahi gall lagg ve. His
rendition of Heer along with that of Sharif Ghaznavi to my mind is the
best ever that I have heard.
Much later my meetings
with Javed and Bābar Niazi at first in Washington and later in Delhi
brought a flood of memories back.
Tufail Niazi always
remembered his Ustād Pandit Amarnath with great affection.
There is a lot in his
gāyaki which is close to the lost Hindu contribution to the music
of Punjab of which there was an important lot in the 19th century
Punjab. It is not the same Pt Amarnath who was a shāgird of Ustād
Amir Khan Saheb. His Ustad Pandit Amarnath is of a slightly earlier
period. Harjap Singh Aujla ji could shed some light on this.
Photo courtesy Ayub Aulia
Tufail Saheb’s is a
distinct style – slow, languorous, curving – which one doesn't get to hear
even rarely in other Punjabi singers.
His music has never
left me. He is the single most important influence on the kind of music
I do. He treaded a most difficult path for a Punjabi singer. He tried to
instil a sense of duration – of time spreading out like the early
morning sun gently caressing earth – within the Punjabi melodies. I'm
not trying to pull other musicians down. There are a few I adore greatly
– Pathane Khan being one of them. But Tufail Saheb was unique. Pathane
Khan was a hugely impassioned singer. I'm a bit – but only a slight bit
– like him. Pathane Khan was not formally trained. That’s another
similarity between him and me. He did something amazing with the Kāfi
aNg and gave the likes of Salāmat Ali sleepless nights. He defied
classicity. Almost fearlessly.
Home
coming. Tufail Niazi in Jalandhar. circa 1978. On left is SS Misha –
poet and
radio broadcaster.
