...Of A Long Forgotten 'Muqabla'

 In August 2020 (Yes, I am going to start just like that, with no explanation or excuse for the blog’s three-year stasis), I found myself with a day to spare before heading off to another of my far-flung work locations. I also found myself in Lahore, which is as good a place as any, if not the best, for those seeking magical, serendipitous and life-altering experiences.  By a wonderful combination of events, I had found myself in communication with the son of one of my favorite Qawwals, Agha Rasheed Ahmad Fareedi. He very graciously invited me to spend a day with him and I readily agreed. The chance to visit Fareedi Sb’s house and listen to his son narrate stories about him was too good to miss, so I immediately drove to Lahore, navigated the narrow alleys of Qila Gujar Singh and found myself in a lovely pre-partition kothi adorned by a marvelous jharoka, sipping sweet, hot tea and being regaled with stories of the late, great Qawwal. Luckily, I had enough wits about me to record the conversation, otherwise I would have forgotten half of the wonderful, and at times unbelievable stories I heard that day. Stories which proved that not only was Fareedi Sb a larger-than-life Qawwal, he was a larger-than-life person in all other respects as well. A rabble-rouser, trail-blazer, trade-unionist, street-fighter of a qawwal, who passed away at the very peak of his creative powers.

The wonderful conversation was worth the four-hundred-kilometer round-trip, but the icing on the cake was when Fareedi Sb’s son brought out a large album full of photographs and press cuttings. Several times during the next few hours, I had to lift my jaw off the floor as I saw one historical photograph after another, and one astonishing press clipping / interview / performance review after another. With the host’s kind permission, I photographed all the photos and clippings, which, along with the audio of that day’s conversations, and a remarkable handwritten family history of the Fareedi clan, will one day prove invaluable when I vanquish the demons of laziness and begin writing about Qawwali in earnest. What I can do for now is write about a particular subset of photos and news clippings that chronicled a rare, momentous event that is forgotten today.

At the start of 1960s, Agha Rasheed Ahmad Fareedi was one of the most exciting young Qawwals in the subcontinent. As the star student of Fateh Ali-Mubarak Ali Khan, Fareedi Sb was the crown prince of the Do-aba style of Qawwali perfected by his ustads. And as behooves a prince, he was brash, proud almost to the point of arrogance, and ready to take on any and all comers. His combative approach to qawwali (and indeed, to life) had made him challenge many established musicians, both from among his seniors, as well as his contemporaries. During my visit with Fareedi Sb’s son, I heard many tales of Qawwali competitions or “muqablas” that his late father participated in and won, including a few where the results had to be decided by fisticuffs.

Nari Contractor (L) and Fazal Mehmood (R)
Pakistan's Test tour of India - 1961

At the end of 1960, Fareedi Sb embarked on a tour of India, which he began by paying his respects at all the major shrines, and visiting his hometown near Nakodar in Jalandhar. At the start of 1961, one of Fareedi Sb’s performances at the shrine of Hz Moinuddin Chishti (RA) at Ajmer was attended by Dilip Kumar. Impressed by the Pakistani qawwal's performance, he invited Fareedi Sb and Co to Bombay, where they booked a large number of engagements over the next three months. Fareedi Sb’s tour of India coincided with the Pakistan cricket team’s 1960-61 tour of India, where the visitors played five interesting (albeit drawn) games of cricket. Capitalizing on the interest generated by Fareedi Sb’s triumphant performances as well as the recently concluded cricket competition between the hosts and the visiting Pakistani cricketers, an intrepid promoter named Deep Jaggi had a brilliant idea; why not have a friendly competition between the visiting Qawwal and one of his Indian contemporaries.

Shankar Shambhu Qawwal

Fareedi Sb’s opponents were to be the two wonderfully talented brothers from Aligarh, Shankar Shambhu Qawwal. The two brothers had been classically trained by Ustad Chand Khan of the Delhi Gharana among others. Blessed with sibling harmonies that could put the Everly brothers to shame, the singer-instrumentalist brothers had a refined, saccharine sweet style of performing Qawwali. Since they didn’t belong to any Qawwal gharana, they came to national prominence by the dint of perseverance and hard work, and by 1955, were performing Qawwalis and ghazals all over India, as well as in various Hindi films. By 1961, they were established and popular qawwals, and were expected to give tough competition to the Pakistani visitors.

Newspaper ad for 
Wednesday, 21st February

The venue chosen for the ‘muqabla’ was the now defunct “Rang Bhavan” amphitheater, with the date set for a Wednesday, the 21st of  February 1961. Advertisements to the effect were published in local newspapers, particularly the Urdu press. However, the hype was so great, and the clamor for tickets so intense that the organizers had to think fast and shift the event to a larger arena and a later date, one that fell on a weekend, since the event was expected to last well into the night. The arena chosen was one of Bombay’s largest, the floodlit Bombay Provincial Hockey Association ground. To add luster to the ‘muqabla’, the leading lights of the Bombay film industry were added to the event. Om Prakash, the erstwhile Lahori, now Bombay’s foremost character actor would be the Master of Ceremonies. The matinee idols Rajendra Kumar and

Newspaper ad for
Wednesday 21st February

Pradeep Kumar would be the judges, along with the superb music directors Ravi and Madan Mohan, and the wonderful lyricist Chitragupt. And to award the prize to the winning Qawwals, the guest of honor would be K. Asif, fresh off his monumental triumph as the director of Mughal-e-Azam. The prizes included a gold medal, a handsome silver trophy and a monumental garland that, according to Fareedi Sb’s son “was especially crafted in Bangalore and took two people to carry”.

The advertisements for the event are wonderful historical time-capsules. One references the recently drawn India – Pakistan cricket match and assures readers that the Qawwali muqabla will prove to be just as exciting. Another features a testimonial for Fareedi Sb from Dilip Kumar, who is said to have “swayed in ecstasy” upon hearing Fareedi Sb’s qawwali. The fact that Fareedi Sb was Fateh Ali – Mubarak Ali’s shagird is mentioned repeatedly in the advertisements, as are the lovely monikers for both the qawwal parties. Fareedi Sb is the ‘Aftab-e-Qawwali’ – the blazing sun of the firmament of Qawwali, while Shankar Shambhu Qawwal are the ‘Mahtab-e-Qawwali’ – the glowing moon of the Qawwali sky. I find these metaphors rather apt, as they quite accurately describe the two parties’ contrasting performance styles; Fareedi Sb’s fiery, incandescent style contrasted with the calmer, more serenely pleasant, iridescent style of Shankar Shambhu Qawwal. There is also a response to those who seemed to think the event would be cancelled for one reason or the other, with the the ad declaiming: "Who says there won't be a competition? A competition will take place, it MUST take place !."

Newspaper advertisement for the muqabla on the revised date
Saturday, 25th February 1961

Newspaper advertisement for the revised date
Saturday, 25th February 1961

A view of the stage
The competing parties on either side

Agha Rasheed Ahmad Fareedi and Party

A view of the audience
On Prakash and K. Asif in front row

On the night of the 25th February 1961, the BPHA ground was packed to capacity, with 10,000 people in the audience. The front row was reserved for the A-listers, the host, the judges and the guest of honor, K. Asif. A large stage was set, covered with white chandni, with two raised platforms installed for the Qawwal parties and the MC’s mic in the middle. The ‘muqabla’ lasted late into the night, with each Qawwal party performing four pieces. Including a ghazal, a manqabat, a naat and a traditional semi-classical piece. The muqabla lasted well into the night and the results were finally announced sometime after midnight. And this is where the account begins to vary. A newspaper clipping published in the Cine Advance weekly on 3rd March 1961 mentions that the event ended in a draw, with both parties being awarded a gold medal by K. Asif. Fareedi Sb’s son, however, maintained that it was his late father who was adjudged the winner of the competition. He also shared a photo that seemed to substantiate his claim, featuring Fareedi Sb, the fabled ‘two-person’ garland around his neck, receiving a silver trophy with the floodlights shining behind him. I’m inclined to believe the latter version over the newspaper version of the story for two reasons; the first being the photograph. The second reason will be made clear at the end of this post. It is quite a long-shot, but if anyone reading this was at the competition, or knows someone who was at the competition, a corroboration of the result would be much appreciated. In fact, any scrap of information about the event would be more than welcome, including the holy grail - an audio recording of part, or as long as I'm indulging in wishful thinking, whole of the muqabla. Whatever the result, Fareedi Sb continued his triumphant tour of India for a few more months, which featured a memorable performance at Dilip Kumar’s Pali Hill bungalow, an event which again was attended by quite a few members of the Bombay film fraternity.

Receiving the Gold Medal from K. Asif

Receiving the winner's Silver Cup 

Fareedi Sb returned to Pakistan in March 1961, and spent the next 24 years performing incessantly until his death in 1985 at the age of 63. Shankar Qawwal, the elder one of his erstwhile competitors, had passed away a few months earlier in a road accident. The younger brother, Shambhu Qawwal, passed away in 1989. Their respective accompanists have also passed away by now, as have the glittering stars involved in the event. The muqabla, a major event in the lives of both Qawwals, and a unique event in the history of 20^th century Qawwali, is now a long-forgotten memory. The few meticulously preserved photographs and newspaper clippings are all the mementos that remain of the event that attracted a crowd of ten thousand and featured some of the most important film personalities of the 1960s. The real shame is that there’s little chance of any recording from the muqabla still existing. If any were to be found, I’m sure it would be absolutely electric. There are recordings of Fateh Ali-Mubarak Ali’s performances at the Birla Hall, Bombay in 1958 where the magic of their performance is magnified by the roars and applause of the crowd. I’m sure any recordings of the muqabla would have been similarly rousing, but for the life of me I haven’t been able to find any. As I've said above, if any qawwali aficionado is lucky enough to possess any recordings, I hope they come to light someday. But until then, what follows will have to suffice.

A brief handwritten account of the muqabla
From Fareedi Sb's family archive

In the absence of any live recordings from the night of the muqabla, we’ll have to make do with the next best thing. Qawwals in Pakistan and India share a wide repertoire, featuring a large number of canonical texts. As a result, one can listen to and compare the renditions of the same kalam by different artists (something that used to be the stock-in-trade of this blog, I’ll be the first to admit). There are a handful of pieces of Qawwali that have been performed by both Fareedi Sb and Shankar Shambhu Qawwal, and they also happen to be the typical pieces that a traditional qawwali performance comprises of. With a little bit of imagination, and in the absence of any setlists to guide us, we can attempt to virtually reconstruct the muqabla by listening to the two competing groups’ renditions of the same kalam. And this is where I can explain the second reason for why I think it was Fareedi Sb and his party who emerged the eventual winners of the competition. Let the muqabla begin!

1.       Qaul – Mun Kunto Maula – Hz Amir Khusrau (RA)

The Qaul is the piece that traditionally serves as the beginning of the Qawwali performance, so it’s fitting to begin this virtual muqabla with renditions of Hz Amir Khusrau’s seminal creation. I have devoted a previous blog-post to how various artists have put their distinctive stamp on the traditional piece (eagle-eared readers will find one of these two performances in that piece as well). The contrast between the two parties’ renditions of the Qaul couldn’t be more striking. Shankar Shambhu Qawwal sing a beautiful, plaintive and stately Qaul, with Shankar Qawwal’s superbly sweet voice shining in a plaintive alaap, and in the brief murki’s he takes during the tarana. It’s a lovely, self-contained performance that swells and eddies beautifully, before clocking-out at the four-minute mark.

In his typical brash style, Fareedi Sb dispenses with all niceties at the very beginning, announcing that other qawwals know jack-squat and he alone knows the correct way to perform the Qaul. He will announces that he shall perform the Qaul in Raag Bhopali, in Teen-taal, a rhythmic cycle of 16 beats. What follows is an absolute tour-de-force spanning a quarter of an hour. Fareedi Sb and Co weave magic with their takraars, the sudden changes in tempo, and the imperceptibly steady increase in intensity as the piece picks up steam. In terms of length, Fareedi Sb’s performance is 11 times longer than Shankar Shambhu’s rendition. In terms of sheer power, it’s at least a hundred times more potent. The first round of the muqabla goes to the Qawwals from Pakistan.

2.       Naat - Sallalaho Alaihi Wasallam – Sharib Lakhnavi / Bedam Shah Warsi

A hamd or na’at is generally the second item in a Qawwali performance, and both the Qawwal parties were adept at performing them. Shankar Shambhu’s na’ats are superb examples of the genre, cheerful in their arrangements, steeped in ‘aqeedat’ and dripping with musicality. Fareedi Sb’s na’ats are more plaintive affairs, gradually building to a haal-inducing crescendo and evoking feelings of love and longing for the Prophet (SAW). The na’at selection for this ‘muqabla’ recreation is a bit of a cop-out, since I couldn’t find a na’at in my collection that had been performed by both the parties. I settled for the next best thing, na’ats that share the same ‘radeef’, the salutation to the Prophet “Sallalaho Alaihi Wasallam”. Shankar Shambhu Qawwal begin their rendition with a unique quatrain that praises the Ahl-e-Bait (RA) while incorporating the verses of Sura-e-Ikhlas, The Quran’s 112^th chapter. It’s a studio-recorded piece, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Throughout the recording, the bansuri, the clarinet and the sarangi faithfully follow Shankar Qawwal’s lovely, lilting voice. As with most studio-recorded 3.5-minute qawwalis, it’s likely a blueprint for an expanded, more elaborate live version. One can guess where the takraars would be placed in the mehfil performance, but unfortunately, that is a version that only exists so far in the imagination.

Fareedi Sb’s rendition, once again, is the exact opposite. It’s a mehfil performance that takes its time in unfolding its wonders. The zor-daar sazeena alone is twice the length of the entire Shankar Shambhu rendition. The sound quality is very iffy, and gets scratchier as the recording progresses. The recording also ends abruptly, before the Qawwals have sung the whole na’at through, so we’re left imagining the crescendo that never arrives. The kalam is Bedam Shah Warsi (RA)’s immortal, magical na’at, sharing the same radeef as Sharib Lakhnavi’s na’at as performed by Shankar Shambhu Qawwal. As is his wont, Fareedi Sb turns explores the pathos and longing in Bedam’s verses, embellishing it with Punjabi girahs that lead the listeners to sigh “These are matters are too painful Fareedi Sb, they’re better left unsaid!” The takraars on the second misra’ of the first verse are the stuff of dreams. It’s probably my favorite rendition ever of this superlative na’at, and hands the second round convincingly to Fareedi Sb and Co.

3.       Ghazal – Itna Shadeed Gham Hai – Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar

After the manqabat and the na’at, the next item on the Qawwali setlist is usually a ghazal with spiritual undertones. The ghazal sung by both the qawwals is a beautiful one by the distinguished politician and accomplished poet Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar. The mat’la is striking in its simplicity, and the maq’ta presents a uniquely refreshing take on the concept of redemption and salvation. For a change, Shankar Shambhu’s performance of this ghazal is not a studio recording, which allows the brothers some breathing space to showcase the finer aspects of their performance styles. Shambhu Qawwal gets to ably support his brother’s vocal flights and taankari with his understated yet melodious voice. Shankar Qawwal milks the verses for all the emotive elements he can extract, and lets his voice trill and dive to wonderful effect. He even manages to insert a lovely girah, which would’ve been impossible in a 3 minute 38 second recording that would have filled one side of a 78 RPM record. Listening to this rendition, it appears that the brothers might finally catch up with Fareedi Sb and notch up a point for their side in the muqabla.

Long before this virtual muqabla made it to the blog, it has been played out repeatedly on my car stereo, with the missus being the impartial judge who usually adjudicates. There was an advantage to getting her opinion on these qawwalis, because she’s not blinkered by admiration for Fareedi Sb as I am (though she is getting there), and so can give her verdict as a lay listener. When I played the Shankar Shambhu version of the ghazal to her for the first time, she agreed with me that it was sung beautifully, and with a lot of feeling. When I played her the version of this ghazal performed by Fareedi Sb and Co, she gave her verdict before the first two minutes of the recording were up. Her words, “There’s more pathos and feeling in Fareedi Sb’s rendition of the word “Itna” than there is in the entire Shankar Shambhu performance.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. The audience’s haye-haye’s and wah-wahs provide additional proof that Fareedi Sb’s delivery, coupled with the intoxicating tarz, are too heady a combination for Shankar Shambhu to match.

4.       Rung – Aaj Rung Hai – Hz Amir Khusrau (RA)

The rendition of the Rang traditionally signals the end of a Qawwali performance, where the Qawwals and the audience rise from their seated positions and the performance ends in the recollection of the festival of Basant at the shrine of Hz Nizamuddin Auliya (RA). The “shajra” or lineage of the Chishti saints is recited as the audience joins the qawwals in paying their respects to the saints. It’s usually an up-tempo piece, serving to bookend the qawwali mehfil on a high note. Shankar Shambhu Qawwal, again saddled with a rather anemic studio recording (please, if any reader has any mehfil recordings of the brothers, do share), perform a rather straightforward run-through of the traditional ‘Rung’ as attributed to Hz Amir (RA), respectfully singing the shajra, with Shankar Qawwal contributing a couple of lovely, albeit brief taans.

Fareedi Sb’s version begins with a lovely Purbi dohra, before he launches into the Rung in a mehfil recording. Unrestricted by the 3-and-a-half-minute limit of a studio recording, he dwells on each verse for the extra minute or so that lends it extra heft. In what is a relatively straightforward performance by his standards, the only embellishments he adds are the names of Hz Pir Mehr Ali Shah (RA) and Baba Abdul Ghafoor (RA) to the shajra and the takraar at the end of the kalam. It’s a simple performance, no frills, and a fitting conclusion to this virtual muqabla. As for the winner of this round, I’m rather undecided and will leave it for the readers to decide.

I’ll be the first to admit that the brothers from Aligarh were terribly shortchanged by my only possessing studio recordings of their performances, thus being unable to present them in the Qawwal’s natural habitat, a mehfil. Still, a comparison of the above four recordings bears out the testimony of Fareedi Sb’s son, claiming that it was his father that actually won the muqabla. Regardless of the eventual winners, it must have been a once-in-a-lifetime event, and what I wouldn’t give to hear a recording of it, even a snippet (hint-hint once again, any collectors reading). In the absence of any recordings from the muqabla, let us be thankful for the precious few mementoes that remain, the fading newspaper clippings, the carefully preserved photographs, and the oral histories that are slowly disappearing. And lest we forget, it’s through the efforts of listeners who taped the mehfils, recorded off the radio, or made copies of the vinyl 78s and EPs, that we are privileged to hear masters of their craft like Fareedi Sb and Shankar Shambhu Qawwal today. May God bless those that performed, and those that preserved the performances so that we may experience some of the magic, even after all these decades.