...Of Yusufi Saheb

I am somewhat notorious for prevaricating when put on the spot, especially when asked to give my opinion on a given subject. The prevarication doubles when the given subject is something close to my heart, for I try to keep my likes and dislikes to myself unless I am absolutely sure that I am either preaching to the choir or have found someone who is, in the immortal words of an 18th century missionary in Africa, just one hearty Hallelujah away from seeing the Light. Ask me about my favorite anything, and I'll either hum and haw, or provide a Top-5, Top-7 or Top-10 list certified to throw anyone off the scent. The reason is probably that it's very hard for me to settle on a single favorite in any of my favorite things. Depending on the occasion, the mood or the company, there is a lot that I can watch or listen to and consider it my favorite for that particular time, place or set of persons.

The only thing I have never prevaricated about are my favorite authors. My favorite author in the English language, for as long as I can remember, has been P.G. Wodehouse. My favorite author in Urdu has been, for as long as I can remember, Mushtaq Ahmed Yusufi. The former had passed away 12 years before I was born. The latter has passed away today. 

I discovered both of them in my early teens, digging up their books from the Big Red Trunk that I have written about previously. Now that I think about it, both share a number of remarkable similarities. Both of them were universally acknowledged in their lifetimes as the inimitable masters of humorous writing in their respective languages. Not only that, both were acclaimed as the finest craftsmen of their respective languages, able to produce sentences and passages of surpassing beauty and delicacy. Both outranked everyone else when it came to producing an epigram that could retain its freshness outside the pages it was published in. The wealth of literary allusions in their work belied the depth of learning and scholarship that formed the bedrock of their comic edifices.

Both had a past in the banking profession (a checkered and brief one in case of Plum, a long and distinguished one in case of Yusufi Sb). Both shared an uncanny physical resemblance, both in youth and especially so in old age. From their writing, from their interviews and the recollections of those who had known them, it was clear that the warmth, the joy and the light permeating their writing emanated from a personality that was warm and joyful despite the prevalent cynicism of the age. Finally, with Yusufi Sb's passing today at the age of 95, he also shares with Plum the long innings that saw them outlive friends, competitors and detractors to become the grandest of Grand Old Men.

That is where the similarities end. While I have extolled the virtues of Wodehouse previously on the blog, Yusufi Sb's paeans have remained unsung. Where Plum stayed well clear of anything resembling seriousness, Yusufi Sb portrayed both the joys and sorrows of life, couching the blows in such superlatively beautiful Urdu that the impact was felt subliminally, a crucial moment or so after the reader had marveled at the sprightliness and alacrity of the prose. For me, the emotional impact of some of his 'humorous' essays has been greater than any passage written by the more 'serious' Urdu authors. The fact that he was terribly impecunious in publishing his writing  also gave each passage the quality of rarity and painstaking craftsmanship.

The fact that Plum passed away 12 years before I was born prevented me from ever being able to perform the ultimate act of idolatry, namely to see my favorite author in person and perhaps to express my gratitude for being a constant source of joy. Perhaps one day I might be able to make the pilgrimage to Remsenburg, Long Island and pay my respects to Plum, but for now that's still an unchecked item on my bucket list.

On the other hand, I can rest in the comfort of the memory that I did in fact personally pay homage to Plum's Pakistani counterpart, a day that will count as one of (if not THE) greatest of my life. On the occasion of the centennial celebrations of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, I was able to not only see Yusufi Sb speak, but was able to gather the courage to talk to him, get his autograph (for the younger readers, an autograph was an earlier, less infuriating alternative to the celebrity selfie) and finally, ask my father to take a photograph of me and Yusufi Sb. 

His speech that day is etched in my memory, the autograph is one of my most prized possessions, and the photograph is a visual reminder that I needn't constantly ask myself if I was dreaming or if I actually did meet the finest Urdu writer of the 20th century.

In one regard, Yusufi Sb's limited literary output puts him at an advantage over Wodehouse. While Plum's publications number more than a hundred, making the ability to own his Collected Works something of a daydream, Yusufi Sb's Collected Works are currently right in front of me on my bookshelf. I shall now stop writing and pick up the volume, open it at random and reacquaint myself with the Master.

Rest in peace Yusufi Sb.

...Of Field Commander Cohen

Years ago, I deferred the supervision of all matters of the heart to a five member committee. A group of five wise men; an esteemed and exalted group who held each other and were held by "my" kind of people in very high esteem. Each new adventure, disappointment, opportunity, setback or absurdity was seen through the prism of their collective judgement.

There was the Boss; chronicler of the high drama of my everyday life, bard of microcosmic epics and raconteur of the ageless, timeless and altogether abstract Youth. A constant entreater towards optimism, reminding me of the nobility and beauty of daily life, the Boss taught me to set my sights on a dream and to let it permeate every living moment.

There was ol' Shakey; singing of Old Men, of Needles and the Damage done, of Harvest Moons and murderous conquistadors. With a steely, cranky conscience, distilled through the distorted, fuzzed out guitar and the reedy, insistent voice, Shakey instructed me to Walk On, to pursue harebrained schemes and lofty, un-achievable ideals, all the while maintaining a half bemused, half contemptuous smirk on my face.

Then there was Mr. Waits; organ grinder, carnival barker, a cross between Dr. Caligari and Baron Munchhausen. Twister of reality, reveler in the absurd, gleeful in his inebriation and trickery yet the ideal guide for an exploration of the fun-house mirror world of the heart. He taught me to reconcile with chaos, to find meaning within insanity, to look for the hidden wells of tenderness and kindness within crusty, decrepit and profaned exteriors.

Next came Bob. Zimmy. Elston Gunn. Jack Frost. Lucky Wilbury. Blind Boy Grunt. Him of the many names and the many personalities. Voice-giver to undiscovered, unexplored and unmentionable thoughts, exemplar of aging forwards, backwards, sideways and every-other-way, populating my life with innumerable friends, countless stories and unsolvable paradoxes, opener of a thousand doorways and companion at all ports and in all weathers.

Finally, there was the Field Commander. The Traitor, the Partisan. With his wry smile, his sad eyes and his unbelievable, almost smarmy charm, he taught me calmness, forbearance and the ability to find humor, even hilarity in the ravages of the heart. He framed my defeats in military, almost heroic terms and taught me that even retreat has its secret pleasures. He told me that the carnal and the profane were just as holy and as cathartic as the spiritual and the exalted.

These five men have ruled my heart, occasionally as an authoritative military junta, other times as a benevolent five man monarchy. And even though there has been something of a revolving presidency to this Board of Governors, I have always known who has had the final right of approval, the one to whom the others have always deferred because of his wisdom, his grace and his insight.

And now that wise, sweet, wicked, funny, morose man is no more. May he rest in peace. His place will forever remain in the committee, and his shall always be the final say. 

Rest in Peace Edhi sa'ab ...

Arguably Pakistan's greatest citizen has passed away. May he rest in eternal paradise.

While everybody is taking to social media to mourn the loss of Edhi saab, there are more productive ways to express your grief.

1. Pray for him. Offer fateha, organize ghaibaana namaaz-e-janaaza or pray according to your own religious convictions.

2. Donate. Go to www.edhi.org and donate(You'll have to be patient, the website is crashing because of heavy traffic). It takes five minutes. Alternatively, drop off your contributions at one of the literally hundreds of thousands of Edhi donation boxes nationwide,

3. Think seriously about becoming an organ donor. Go to Transplantation Society of Pakistan's website http://tx-society-pk.org/ and look it up.

4. Try to emulate his example in your daily lives, every little act of kindness helps.

It would be a shame if the death of Pakistan's greatest citizen does not compel us to anything more than social media comisserations only

The King Is Dead, Long Live The King.

BB King passed away today at the age of 89. Rest in peace sir, and thank you !

...Of Sabeen Mahmud - A Personal Reminiscence

Bad news has a habit of locating me in the remotest of locations. I was in a tent in the middle of the Cholistan desert when, despite practically nonexistent mobile coverage, I received a text from a friend telling me that Sabeen Mahmud had been fatally shot. In a mix of panic and increasing despair, I texted back for a confirmation which, with the dogged inevitability that is the hallmark of horror, arrived soon enough. That was two nights ago. I spent the next twenty-four hours in a jittery, shell-shocked state. Last night when I returned to civilization I had managed to calm down a bit. But as if on cue, my phone started filling up with messages of condolence, tribute and sheer numb despair; and my composure crumbled again. After two sleepless nights, I've finally convinced myself that perhaps writing something might calm me down somewhat.

It was on Twitter four odd years ago that I was introduced to Sabeen by a mutual friend who thought we shared a common taste for Qawwali (or as Sabeen liked to spell it, Qavvali). I soon discovered that our common interests also included Bruce Springsteen and Hugh Laurie (whom Sabeen fell for after blissfully binge-ing on House MD). As an emotional adolescent who still lives by the credo espoused by High Fidelity's Rob Gordon, "what really matters is what you like, not what you are like", this formed an instant connection. Over the next years, I kept in touch, sometimes helping her translate some knotty Farsi, or comparing notes on which was The Boss' best bootleg (we both eventually agreed it was "Live At The Agora, '78"), or more frequently, asking her to send over the latest Qavvali CDs that Kidvai Sb regularly put out (the last release has a charming photo of Sabeen on its cover), and then having conversations about the recordings we'd both loved.

All through this time, I had been keeping up with the wonderful happenings at The Second Floor, the wonderful hub that, to me at least, was Karachi's beating cultural heart. It was the sort of place I'd gladly spend my entire life at if I'd had my druthers. There were film screenings, poetry recitals, seminars and talks, Qavvali performances (which I regularly pestered Sabeen to send me recordings of, and she always graciously complied). Sabeen had almost single-handedly established T2F and had weathered problems that would make a lesser mortal lose hope and give up. Especially harrowing was the armed burglary that had interrupted a session at T2F and had forced it to shut down. But Sabeen found a new, safer location, reopened T2F,christened it T2F 2.0 and went back to what she called her 'ridiculously high-minded' ambition of providing a safe, open and engaging hub of intellect and culture for Karachi.

Despite frequent difficulties, financial and otherwise, Sabeen and T2F powered on and became an integral part of Karachi's cultural landscape. She was also the one person who unreservedly deserved to put the word "activist" in her bio. An unabashed bleeding-heart liberal, she was a street-fighter and a rabble-rouser ; marching, rallying and protesting in Karachi, Islamabad, Peshawar or wherever she felt the need to voice her opinions, actively and joyously participating in political rallies irrespective of the political party involved. She voiced opinions that were either unpopular or at the very least  unmentionable because of fear of reprisals. But her self-confessed cavalier attitude towards fear led her to shout from the rooftops for everything she believed in.

At the end of last year, when I was planning my trip to Karachi, one of the things I was most looking forward to was finally meeting Sabeen and visiting T2F. We had planned to hold a number of Qavvali mehfils at T2F and had asked her for permission. Sabeen and the entire T2F staff were busy curating and organizing the "Creative Karachi" festival at that time and were neck deep in the administrative and logistical jumble that the festival entailed. Not only did she allow us to use her premises, she instructed her staff, who had been working nonstop for the last week or so, to make sure that we had everything we needed to make our recording sessions a success, even allowing us to tinker with T2F's decor to suit our needs. We had coordinated all of this on Facebook and I was aching for a face to face meeting, so the day I landed in Karachi, I hurried off with a few friends to the Creative Karachi festival, hoping to catch Sabeen.

I found her patiently answering a list of boring questions posed by a television reporter who clearly had better things to do and better places to go to. When she caught my eye, her wonderful half-smile and a resigned shrug of her shoulders told me how much she was enjoying the interview. After she'd finished, I introduced myself, received a wonderful hug and instructions to look her up later that evening when the chaos had settled a bit. Before returning from the festival, I met her again and we chatted for a while before she was again swept away to her administrative duties. The next day, she visited T2F as we were getting ready to record a performance by Subhan Ahmed Nizami, and this time we chatted for a good half hour. She was utterly exhausted after the successful conclusion of the festival, but she was pleased and awfully proud of her staff for having carried it off so well. After she'd left, we finished our recording sessions, bought the latest batch of Kidvai Sb's CDs, thanked the staff, rearranged whatever we had altered in T2F and left, hoping to return again. After completing our journey and returning home, I thanked Sabeen for allowing us use of T2F and her staff, and hoping to meet again soon, and she responded with similar hopes.

A photo posted by Musab Bin Noor (@musabbinnoor) on Apr 25, 2015 at 11:30pm PDT

The trip to Karachi is a source of many wonderful memories but one of the biggest thrills for me had been finally meeting Sabeen and visiting T2F. She was exactly like I'd imagined her to be, and more. Animated, frank, with a brilliant sense of humor and a complete absence of cynicism, she was a person so absolutely and vitally 'alive' in every sense of the word that it is absolutely impossible for me to think of her in the past tense.The outpouring of grief, messages of condolence and support has been widespread, and I hope Sabeen's family and friends find comfort in the fact that she was respected, admired and genuinely loved by so many. Once the initial, paralyzing shock has passed, it will be time to carry her legacy forward. T2F will (hopefully) carry on, providing a template to encourage the development of similar safe havens for thought and speech. Her tradition of activism will continue to inspire more people to leave the comfort of their armchairs and actively engage in the causes they believe in. Her half-smile will continue to live in the hearts of her friends and admirers, providing encouragement when despair and cynicism start creeping in.

It is sadly fitting that a friendship that began online should have had it's premature end online too. A week ago, idling the hours away at the internet, I'd stumbled across a silly little quote about one of Bruce Springsteen's songs. It had made me laugh and I decided to share it on Facebook. As I was typing it out, I remember thinking to myself, "I bet Sabeen would get a laugh out of this". Sure enough, five minutes later, there was a comment by her, a chuckle. That was the last time I heard from her and that's how I'd like to remember her, chuckling at something silly, with the twinkle in her eye and the characteristic little shake of her head. Like many others, I too shall find closure and her memory will become a source of solace and comfort for me. But for now, while the wound is still fresh and tears are still precariously close, I shall listen to one of her favorite pieces of music by one of her favorite artists; a recording that has, in a cruel twist of fate, become a lament for her. As for how I shall honor her memory, I was discussing it with a friend last night and I think I've decided what I shall do. If and when I ever have a daughter of my own, I know what to name her, and hopefully she shall grow up to be worthy of that name. Goodbye Sabeen, God bless !!

"Ae Daiyya, Kahan Gaye Vae Log?"
"Lord, where have those people gone?"

...On Manzoor Niazi Sb's Passing

It seems the only thing that can awaken - at least momentarily - this long slumbering blog from its stupor is the passing of one of the Great Ones; the Touchstones that support the spiritual/cultural/psychological/whateverelse-ical framework of my life. In the past I've had to write - briefly or at length, depending on my state of mind at that time- about my thoughts on the passing of Iqbal Bano, Mehdi Hassan, Jagjit Singh, Shammi Kapoor etc, and one one rare occasion, of my grandfather. It's like the only time my thoughts crystallize into a coherent whole is when another one of my Touchstones crumbles and I have to frantically try and balance myself , my Self , on the precious few that remain.

Ustad Manzoor Ahmed Khan Niazi has passed away today. He was 98. He was, both age-wise and stature-wise the senior-most Qawwal in the Indo-Pak Subcontinent. He had one of the most instantly recognizable and absolutely, mellifluously endearing voices in all of Qawwali. He was the leader of the most phenomenally gifted, albeit short-lived Qawwali group of the last century, a Supergroup which included his cousins Munshi Raziuddin Khan. Ustad Bahauddin Khan and Iftekhar Ahmed Nizami, and whose surviving recordings seem to date from a time and place that's almost too phenomenally wonderful that merely listening to them sometimes feels like an act of desecration. His last recordings, from when he was 90 years old, still carried the same verve, the same 'taazgi' as his recordings from the '60s
 

His was the voice that first sang Maulana Jami's "Naseema" and Nawab Hilm's "Yaad Hai Kuch Bhi Hamaari Kanhaiyya" to me, and even today I can scarcely appreciate these two canonical Qawwali kalaams in any other Qawwal's voice. With Niazi Sb's passing closes the chapter of the Golden Age of Pakistani Qawwali. He was a predecessor of, and later a contemporary of Nusrat, The Sabri Brothers, Aziz Mian Qawwal, Bakhshi Salamat Qawwal, Aziz Ahmed Warsi, Jafar Hussayn Khan Badayuni and ALL the Qawwals of the latter three quarters of the twentieth century. He survived them all well into the twenty-first century before finally returning to his Maker

I hope that Manzoor Niazi Sb's legacy - in the form of the Qawwal Bacchon Ka Gharana, of which he was the senior-most doyen - flourishes and thrives, and keeps on serving, nurturing and promoting the art of Qawwali that its three stalwarts; Qawwal Bahauddin Khan Sb, Munshi Raziuddin Khan Sb and Manzioor Ahmed Niazi Sb served so nobly. His son Abdullah Manzoor Niazi Qawwal has inherited his father's unbelievably melodious voice and is among the foremost Qawwals of the subcontinent today. I'm sure that Abdullah Niazi Sb, along with Farid Ayaz & Abu Muhammad, Qawwals Najmuddin Saifuddin And Brothers, Subhan Ahmed Nizami Qawwal and the third generation of the Qawwal Bacchay will carry on the wonderful and unbroken 700 year old tradition that their ancestors learnt from Hz Amir Khusrau (RA).

I shall now spend the rest of the day listening to Manzoor Niazi Sb's version of Naseema and praying for his departed soul; and I'd request the readers to do the same.

N.B.  A selection of Niazi Sb's recordings can be found here. 

...On Levon Helm's Passing

Levon Helm passed away last night, a day after his family had posted that he was in the last stages of his long and heroic battle with throat cancer. Even though this was a long time coming, the slow inevitability of it doesn't lessen the sadness one bit.

I'm not in the mood for writing another obituary, Steven Hayden over at the AV club and Charles P. Pierce at Esquire have written quite beautiful and heartfelt ones that perfectly encapsulate how I felt about one of my favorite musicians and one of the coolest cats ever to grace this planet; and I've already inundated my Facebook with dozens of links and videos and so forth in what has  become the 21st Century's go-to grieving ritual.

After Clarence Clemons' passing earlier this year and now Levon's, I think someone must send out a team of doctors to check up on Dylan, Cohen, Neil Young, Tom Waits, the Boss and the rest of my musical heroes and give them all clean bills of health. I'll readily volunteer my services for such an endeavor.

Anyway, Rest in Peace Levon, and thanks for all the years of great music.

...In Memory Of Jagjit Singh

Jagjit Singh passed away earlier today. I had known of his unfortunate stroke from the news and was hoping against hope for a recovery but it was not to be. This time, it did not take the news days to filter through to me in my remote location. It was my father who texted me, 'Sad news, Jagjit Singh has passed away'. Which I thought was rather apt, considering it was my father who had first introduced me to the man whose music would play such an important role in what were the formative years of my life.

A lot of who I am today, what I watch/read/listen to/like goes back to the long drives in the family car and especially the car stereo. Faiz and Iqbal Bano, Nasir Kazmi and Noorjehan, Faraz and Fareeda Khanum, Rafi and Lata, Nusrat and Pathanay khan, all were first introduced to me on one roadtrip or another, always with me straining my ears to catch the music and then piping up from the backseat, 'Abbu, please volume ooncha kar dain.'

For as long as I can remember, we have always, ALWAYS had a Jagjit Singh tape in the car. I think we still have one of his earliest tapes somewhere in the house, the one with the desert backdrop and a smiling photo. That was the first tape I know that remained on constant rotation in the tape deck, and for good reason. The ghazals were good, the arrangements were good and the voices of Jagjit and Chitra singh were perfectly complimentary. I still remember one of my favorite ghazals which went ...

Uss morr se shuru karain phir ab yeh zindagi
Har shae jahan haseen thi, hum tum the ajnabi

...and another of his very famous ghazals,

Tum itna jo muskura rahi ho
Kya ghum hai jis ko chupa rahi ho

I instantly fell in love with those ghazals. There was something in Jagjit's style that waas immensely appealing to me at an early age. Or perhaps it was his style, with the smooth, light baritone voice, the unhurried, unencumbered adayegi, the simple and melodious arrangements and the choice of ghazals - ghazals in small to medium 'beher' with a natural 'naghmagi' - that were so universally appealing that they even caught the ears of a small child like me. We listened to those tapes over and over and as was my habit, I memorized them all and began belting them out to whoever would listen, which reminds me of a rather embarrassing incident from my childhood.


Apart from the usual music tapes that were scattered about our house, there was one rather odd specimen. When I was very little, around 5 or 6, I had a tooth extracted and as a reward, my parents bought me a tape with dramatized readings of two children's stories. 'Cassette Kahani' it was called, with 'Bahadur Raju' on Side A and 'Jinnon ki Basti' on Side B. Me and my kid brother would listen to them non-stop, memorizing the dialogues, mimicking the sound effects and laughing our heads off at the silliness of it all, riffing on them in a childhood version of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. One day we decided to immortalize these adlibbed riffs on a tape of our own. We found one, didn't bother rewinding or forwarding it to see if it was blank or not, and started off. We'd start with a story, stop after 5 minutes when we were both tired from all the laughing, then I'd sing a Jagjit Singh ghazal and we'd start again. After we'd recorded 40 minutes of this, we flipped the cassette over and it was then that we discovered that it was a Jagjit-Chitra tape we'd been recording over, and one of mum and dad's favorites. Scared and embarrassed, we immediately hid it in the tape cabinet and bolted. Some weeks later while on one of our innumerable roadtrips, Jagit was playing on the stereo as usual and us kids were snoozing in the backseat when suddenly, the car was rocked by sounds of the loudest, shriekiest laughter ever heard. Me and my brother woke up, bolt upright as we realized that our magnum opus had somehow found it's way into the car stereo. Our parents were initially too stunned to realize that their favorite tape had been desecrated beyond repair, but they soon got over it, pulled the car over and proceeded to give me and my brother one of the Gawdalmightiest tonguelashings we've ever recieved, the gist of which was "You never mess with a Jagjit Singh tape, NEVER!!"


By the time I'd gotten a few years older, we got Jagjit and Chitra's famous 'Ghalib' album - the one they'd done to soundtrack Gulzar's landmark TV series about the famous poet. To say that that album was a watershed is an understatement. Jagjit and Chitra Singh made Ghalib - arguably the most important Urdu poet of all time - at once accessible, enjoyable and eminently understandable. The kalam was rendered with modern sensibilities, melodiously, with perfect talaffuz and complete 'ehteraam' in a manner that made it universally appealing. We used to listen to it constantly, discuss the meanings of various verses, comparing and contrasting with other poets and in the process being introduced to one of the wellsprings of Urdu literature. It was a service to the Urdu speaking world that will long be remembered and appreciated. Sometime later another favorite of mine, Jagjit Singh's collaboration with Gulzar, 'Marasim' came out. Again, the kalam was perfectly complimented with the arrangements and the singing. Ghazals like 'Shaam se aankh main nami si hai' (which Gulzar poignantly quoted as his Facebook status this morning) and 'Woh khat ke purzay uraa raha tha' were instant classics.

Apart from his impressive artistic credentials, Jagjit Singh was also important as an ambassador of the Urdu language an especially the ghazal. He spread the magic of the ghazal far and wide and kept the tradition of ghazal-gayeki alive in India, appealing to both the mainstream listening public and the more finicky conoisseurs. A worthy successor of the genration that included Mehdi Hassan, Talat Mehmood and Barkat Ali Khan, Jagjit with his contemporary Ghulam Ali was the leading light of Ghazal-gayeki in the late 20th and early 21st century. To me personally he was a gateway to the exploration and enjoyment of Urdu poetry, a melodious guide to the nuances of Ghalib, a fond childhood memory that formed the basis of who I am today and a constant reminder of the immense power of art to mould and enrich lives.


While writing this in his memory (it's sad how I've had to document the passings of two of my favorite personalities in a month) I thought it'd be a good idea to listen to some of Jagjit saheb's ghazals, so I cued up the playlist on iTunes and started listening as I wrote. But it didn't turn out to be such a good idea because one minute into his rendition of 'Baat Nikle Gi To Phir Duur Talak Jayegi' I had to stop writing and unsuccessfully fight back tears. It was then that the comprehension of this loss sank in and I realized the important place Jagjit Singh's music held in my life. The man who introduced me to ghazal,Ghalib and Gulzar is no more. In his memory I will carry on what I now realize is an important tradition, there will always be a Jagjit Singh tape near me, in my car, in my iPod or on my PC.

When I can actually feel strong enough to listen to it without tearing up is a whole different story.....

...On Shammi Kapoor's Passing

Shammi Kapoor passed away yesterday, and as is usual in this remote location that I currently call home, I only found out today. I was saddened, extremely saddened and more than a little shocked. I mean I know he was in his 70s and a longtime sufferer of renal failure, but he had seemed so hale and hearty until very recently that his death comes as a major shock, at least to me. I hadn't planned to write anything this month but I feel I must express my feelings and thoughts in one way or the other otherwise I might spiral into another one of my black dogs. And since my location precludes what would've been a more fitting tribute to the great actor, namely getting together with some friends and watching his movies and songs, remembering and re-enjoying the hours and hours of pleasure he brought to milllions of his fans, I can try to use my words to somehow pay my respects to one of my favorite actors, and one of my favorite people, the late Shammi Kapoor.

I can remember being a Shammi Kapoor fan for most of my life. I wasn't exposed to Bollywood films very much, especially in my childhoood, but I still remember watching a fair number of Shammi Kapoor films, and more than a fair bit of Shammi Kapoor songs. What had appealed to me even as a child, was the spontaneity, the freshness and the overpowering sense of joy in his performances. As I got older and properly started watching classic Bollywood films, my admiration for his work grew. There is a sizeable number of my friends and possibly a fair chunk of the movie watching public who didn't consider him a serious 'actor' in the Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand mould, thinking of him more as a lightweight (not literally) who was suited for just comedy and a bit of song and dance. I had had the same opinion before I started watching him in earnest, but my opinion didn't last long. There was a vivacity, a natural exuberance, and in films like Brahmachari and Vidhaata, a sense of the melodramatic that was at par with the other 'greats' of that time. That's why I consider him not only a fine performer, but one of the great all-round actors of the Golden Age of Bollywood.

And as for the songs, now they're a whole other story. The Shammi Kapoor-Muhammad Rafi partnership was a match made in heaven. The sheer number of evergreen and immortal songs picturised on Shammi Kapoor and sung by Rafi saheb is unequalled in Bollywood history. The two had more chemistry than any on-screen pair could ever achieve, an affinity so brilliant that you could forget that it was actually a playback singer belting out "Aasmaan Se Aaya Farishta" while Shammi dangled from a helicopter in An Evening In Paris, or that it was someone else and not Shammi singing "Main Gaoon, Tum So Jao" to the cute little critters in Brahmachari. Again, the amount of pure, unadulterated joy that Shammi Kapoor managed to express in the songs was a mark of his consummacy as a performer. He was also the first leading man to incorporate dance - his own trademark style of dance - into the three minute song that was the staple of the Bollywood film. With the jaunty, slightly spastic and ever-so-debonair flicks of the head and jerks of the hips, he was able to communicate an irrepressible joie de vivre to everyone who watched.

Bollywood's answer to Elvis, Shammi also shared the King's unfortunate weight issue, yet for at least ten years - the most fruitful period of his career - he didn't let his weight come in the way of having a grand old time onscreen. He sang, he danced with an exquisite lissomeness that defied logic and he churned out hit after immortal hit all through the sixties. It was only when the weight problem got out of hand that he gracefully changed gears from leading man to character actor and spent the rest of his career as a bearded, benevolent presence in film after film. Kidney failure plagued him for the last two decades of his life, a disease that was precipitated if not aggravated by the same weight issues. But Shammi didn't let an ailment control his life and spent his last years squeezing out as much enjoyment and happiness out of his days as possible, a fact that was borne out by the delightful series of webcasts he made in these last few months titled "Shammi Kapoor Unplugged", a series that I watched eagerly and with great enjoyment. I remember him remarking once that he had dialysis thrice a week, yet on the other four days, he managed to have so much fun that those three days were more than compensated. On his final webcasts, I could see the ravages of age and disease - the laboured breathing, the thinned frame and the raspy voice - but I hadn't thought that they were that serious, which is why his death came as a shock to me.

Life and death are part of the inevitable and vicious circle of life and no matter how much you reconcile yourself to it, the passing of someone special always leaves the geart pained and sorrowful. With Shammi Kapoor's passing a great chapter has closed in the history of Indian cinema. Now only two, albeit two of the greatest - Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand - remain of the Golden Age of Bollywood. Dilip saheb is an infrequent sufferer of health problems and Dev Anand is in his nineties now, so I'm afraid we won't be blessed with their presence for long, but again, their passing will leave the heart sorrowful. Only one thing remains to assuage the heart's pain, and that is the treasure trove of memories immortalized in celluloid that Shammi Kapoor has left behind; memories that might start fading a bit faster after his passing but will never be completely obliterated. The joy he brought - that's a word one has to use often when describing him; joy - to millions around the world, the way he lived his life on his own terms till the very end, and the innumerable memories he has left for his fans are his astonishing and magnificent legacy.

Farewell Shammi Kapoor, and thanks for the memories ......