QAWWALIS IN FILMS

I am sure that today’s generation is not very fond of the musical form called qawwali. The qawwali is linked to sufi tradition. Sufism believes that it is possible to reach God during ones lifetime. This may be achieved by either silent bhakti or vocally praising the God. This qawwali form is an extension of the vocal form of remembering God. Even today at the Sufi dargahs there are weekly events where qawwals still perform and are getting nazranas/bakshish from devotees at mosque. But since interest in the sufi music is declining so as the craze of qawwalis also declining. Though qawwali tradition is centuries old it is said that mughal ruler Aurangzeb disliked music in any form and in his time liberal tradition of Sufis were not encouraged by this emperor. Apart from qawwalis being rendered at dargahs or mosques the hindi film cinema has given yeoman service to qawwalies and kept the qawwali form of singing alive and films were main channel in making qawwalis very popular among masses. Bollywood films influenced qawwalies in many ways. In earlier hindi films the filmi plot were based on cultures and religion and also languages of the soil. And sometimes some films were based on Muslim culture background and were labeled in the genre called “Muslim social films” interspersed with ghazals and qawwalis. But still that was pure fantasy in 1960s and 1970s. During that modern time it never existed in real life. The nawabs, burqa clad heroines and courtesans, havelis shown in the films like Metre Mehbob, Chaudhvin ka chand or Barsaat ki raat long back vanished from the Indian social life before independence but people liked the fantasy part of the spice and elegance of the urdu zaban and as such the films based on muslim social life went on to become hit.

In todays time there are hardly any films made on the background of muslim social life hence no ghazal no qawwali. The one we had heard recently in Zodha Akbar ‘Maula mere Maula’ is somewhat soothing and the one qawwali in Mian Hoon Naa “Tumse milke dil ka hain’ is a fusion form of qawwali. There was a time when it was pertinent to include a situation to introduce a qawwali in the story line. In 1977 when “Parda hain Parda’ qawwali was topping the charts Nasir Hussain also wanted a qawwali for his film ‘Hum kisise kum nahin’ but others in the production line wanted this thought to do dropped. But Majrooh Sultanpuri advised Nasir Hussain to go by his instincts and include a qawwali in the storyline and rest all know that qawwali also became a hit. I mean to say that if the qawwali is composed beautifully there is no reason why this will not be liked by the people. For example in Barssat ki Raat during the last part of film there are three different qawwalis and all of them were so absorbing that people remain glued to their seats and enjoy the qawwali competition.. In the earlier films starting from way back film Zeenat ‘aahen na bhari shikwe na kiye’ in which shyama and shashikala were introduced qawwalis became an integrat part of all the hindi movies . Each and every music director had a calibre to score according to situation and each and every misic director of that time scored qawwalis in their films. I do not know whether todays music director can boast of any such achievement. In fifties N.Dutta gave us ‘aaj kyun humse parda hain’ in Sadhna , C Ramchandra scored another in Azaad ‘Marna bhi mohabbat me kisi kaam na aya’ and one private qawwali ‘hamen to loot liya milke husnwalon ne’ which was later included in film Alhilal but the decades of 1960s and 1970s were the golden period of qawwalis in Indian film music. Starting from Mughal-e-azam where Naushad scored ‘Teri mehfil men kismet aazman kar hum bhi dekhenge’, and in Palki ‘Ab idhar jaoon ya udhar jaoon’ Ravi in Chaudhvin ka chand ‘sharmake ye kyun sab pardanashin aanchal ko sanwara karte hain, in Waqt ‘o meri zohra zabin’ In film kala Samandar N Dutaa scored ‘Meri tasveer leker kya karoge tum’. Here I purposely kept badshah of qawwali maker music director Roshan to mention last as he scored numerous hit qawwalis in films a gem among them is ‘yeh ishq ishq hain ishq ishq’in film Barsaat ki raat which was rumoured to be creation of a gifted musician SD Batish who assisted him and also gave his vocal chord in this qawwali alongwith Mohd Rafi, Mannade, Asha and Sudha Malhotra. Now don’t ask me who this SD Batish is remember a song “Manmohan man men ho tumhi” yes this lilting bhajan was sung by SD Batish sahib who later migrated to London in 1964 to join BBC. Apart from this Roshan also gave us ‘Nigahen milane ko jee chahta hain’ in Dil hi to hain, in Tajmahal ‘Chandi ka badan sone ki nazar’ in Bahu Begam back to back qawwalis ‘Ab ja talab hu inshq ke darde nihan se main’ and ‘Aise main tuchhko dhoondke laoon kahan se main’ And it is interesting that apart from muslim background movies, social family drama movies also had number of qawwalis. For example in Hanse Zakhm Madan Mohan gave us ‘Yeh maana meri zaan mohabbat saza hain’ Laxmi-Pyare scored ‘Wada tera wada’ in Dushman and ‘Haal kya hain dilon na puchho sanam’ in Anokhi Ada, Kalyanaji-Anandji
‘Jhoom barabar jhoom sharabi’ in Five Rifles. During that peiod people used to throng theatre to watch movies sometimes for the sake of songs and qawwalis of that films. The film putlibai a C grade film made money only on the strength of a qawwali ‘Kitne besharm ashiq hain ye ajake’.The qawwali tradition like many art forms has been passed from one generation to another generation. The recent protagonist in this field was Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan but his rendition was limited to only select class of people and I don’t know how far his successors will be able to carry out this tradition. This art is simply dying as people have lost interest and qawwals are finding it hard to survive solely on this profession. Another reason also that in hindi films now a days you rarely find this form of singing and in the days of ‘Pappu can’t dance saala’ and ‘My love My love’ whether you will find any saviour of this singing form which can captivate listeners for hours.