Sunday, August 12, 2007

Karachi blogger's tribute to Kishore Kumar

Those of us who take our freedom of expression for granted don’t give a thought to what it is like to be living under socio-cultural environment in which listening to film music; or even of writing about the singer is taboo. Adnan, a blogger in Karachi writes that he thought twice about posting his tribute to late Kishore Kumar on 78 birth anniversary day (Aug.4).

Adnan says he usually blogs on religion and politics and many of his readers who believed music to be not Islamic probably “consider me a hypocrite”. The Karachi-based blogger rationalises his Kishore Kumar post saying that he blogs not for others – “I write for myself”; and that he couldn’t wish away a past in which Kishore da was his favorite singer.

Adnan’s mamoo and dad were Kishore fans; they rarely missed the Akashvani programme playing old film songs. Adnan recalled he got initiated to Kishore songs when he heard Kumar Sanu on cassette singing Kishore songs. Adnan went for the original singer, and liked what he heard even better.

It wasn’t just Sanu who copied, says Adnan, several Pakistani singers copied Kishore. He mentions Alamgir, Sheikhi, and Sajjad. Among his all-time Kishore favorites Adnan lists – Zindagi ke safar in Safar and the Aandhi numbers that are best heard in your darkened room, late in the night.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks for giving me honor to be referred in your blog. Kishore da was amazing. After making the post, I realized that I had missed many other hits. Infact he always sang hits.

The song "Phir wohi raat hey" and "Apne jeewan k uljhan" also rock!

SOHA15 said...

Actually, that's way wrong. Muhammad Ali Sheikhi sang "Haan Pehli Baar" in 1977, a total original sheikhi song, and Kishore Kumar copied it in 1979. Eat ur words. Totally wrong information. Kishore Kumar copied Sheikhi there.