...Of The Shattered Soul And The Lifeless Heart

Five of my favorite versions of one of my favorite Na'ats by one of my favorite Farsi poets, performed by some of my favorite Qawwals.....



Tanam Farsooda Jaanpara
Ze Hijraan Ya Rasul Allah

Dilam Paz Murda Aawara
Ze Isyaan, Ya Rasul Allah

My body is fragmenting, disintegrating in your separation
My soul lies shattered. Ya Rasul Allah!
Due to my sins, My heart has become lifeless and inconsolable. Ya Rasul Allah!

Choon Soo'e Mun Guzar Aari
Manne Miskeen Ze Nadaari.

Fida-E-Naqsh-E-Nalainat
Kunam Jaan. Ya Rasul Allah!



If you pass in my direction, In my wretched poverty,
I shall sacrifice my soul on your blessed sandals. Ya Rasul Allah!

Ze Jaame Hubbe To Mustam
Ba Zanjeere To Dil Bustam

Nu'mi Goyam Ke Mun Hustam
Sukhandaan. Ya Rasul Allah

I am intoxicated by the nectar of your love
And the chain of your love binds my heart.
Yet I cannot put my feelings into words. Ya Rasul Allah

Ze Kardaan Khaish Hairaanam
Siyah Shud Roo Ze Isyaanam

Pashemaanam, Pashemaanam, Pashemaanam. 
Ya Rasul Allah

I've tormented myself, my sinfulness frightens me;
And my sins have darkened my countenance.
I am in distress! I am in distress! I am in distress! Ya Rasul Allah!

Choon Baazoo'e Shafaa'at Raa
Kushaa'i Bar Gunehgaaran

Makun Mahruume Jaami Raa
Daraa Aan. Ya Rasul Allah

When you spread your benevolent arms to intercede for the sinners,
Do not deprive Jaami of your exalted intercession.

(Maulana Abdurrehman Jami )

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Manzoor Ahmed Niazi - Abdullah Manzoor Niazi Qawwal perform 'Tanam Farsooda Jaanpara' at Baba Saheb, Pakpattan. Recorded in the late eighties, this performance is taken from a rather worn-down cassette tape, hence the shaky audio.

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The second recording of this kalam is taken from one of my favorite Qawwali albums, "Jami" by Haji Ghulam Farid Sabri, released by Piranha records. (a must-have album if ever there was one). Of special note is the spirited Sazeena that precedes the kalaam.

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Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan performs the kalaam in Raag Mishra Kafi from the wonderful album titled "Sufi Qawwalis. With a prolonged, beautiful sazeena and preceded by the choicest of Farsi verses, this is one version to be enjoyed for it's mellow, slowly building mood.

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Ustads Fateh Ali Khan-Mubarak Ali Khan sang many versions of this kalaam - I have versions ranging from 6 minutes to 76 minutes - but this one is my favorite. Beginning madhyalay (mid-tempo), with Sarangi and Shehnai in the background, the two Ustads (a title they deserved in every sense of the word) explore and embellish the nuances of the kalaam as the tempo slowly builds to a crescendo.

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The wistful melancholy and intense love expressed in Jami's Kalam is most perfectly conveyed in this version by Haji Mehboob Ali Qawwal, the final one in this series of recordings. In an arrangement different from all other Qawwals, Haji Sahab's Sitar and voice express the longing, the pain of separation and the desire for 'benevolent intercession' so brilliantly that this is probably my favorite version of the kalaam. The slight lilt in the Ya Rasool Allah's  and the second metre of each couplet's first verse completely slay me.

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(Note To Self : Quit using the word 'favorite' so often.)

...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.....

...Of The Qawwalis That Carried Me Through

Each day for the last three months, when the sun was about to set and the heat had abated to non-lethal levels, I would take my laptop to the roof of my tiny hospital in the middle of the jungle, sit cross-legged on the floor of the terrace and listen to music in an attempt to preserve my sanity. This experiment wouldnt've been possible without smearing myself with gallons of Mospel and ignoring the attentions of bats, spiders, moths and on one occasion, a herd of goats who were exceptionally adept at climbing stairs. But failure wasn't an option. A day spent in isolation, electricity-less heat and unbearable humidity had to end in at least an hour of peaceful and contented enjoyment otherwise I'd go mad.

Qawwali constituted the bulk of what I listened to, and if I say that Qawwali recordings got me through these difficult three months, I wouldn't be wrong. I listened to literally hundreds of recordings, each of which was brilliant in it's own way, but I chose the following to share because they all fulfilled one simple criteria; they all struck a deep emotional chord. Dusk has many different moods, from sombre and foreboding to peaceful and reassuring; and a combination of the isolation, the environment and these recordings proved to be a bewitching brew. I must admit that on more than a few occasions while listening to one or the other of these recordings, I found myself with tears in my eyes, moved unlike I've ever been before. I share these recordings in the hope that some day, somewhere, when the sunset's just right and the milieu of the heart is just right, someone will play one of these and feel like I used to do sitting in the dark on that lonely rooftop.

The first recording I'd like to share is by Haji Mehboob Qawwal and the kalam and the adayegi perfectly encapsualted the state of my heart and mind in those days. A kalaam of Pir Mehr Ali Shah's (RA) son Hazrat Babuji (RA), this beautiful ghazal is sung in a meandering and wonderfully slow and mellow arrangement. In an exception to his performance style, Haji Sahab doesn't adorn this Kalam with 'girahs', preferring to let the words and the melody convey their meaning. My feelings of distance and separation from loved ones, along with the few pleasures of this sometimes 'splendid isolation' found perfect expression in this wonderful performance.


Majboor Hoon, Lachaar Hoon Aye Jaane Tamanna

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The one group that I listened to almost incessantly was "Fateh Ali Khan-Mubarak Ali Khan Qawwals and Party'. Nusrat's legendary father and uncle are without a doubt two of the very very greatest Qawwals of the last century and I've never heard anyone, not even Nusrat, who comes close to their exquisite, inventive, forceful and wonderfully fluid andaz. The talaffuz, adayegi, use of behlawas and pure technical brilliance these two brothers possessed willl remain unmatched. Of all the recordings I listened to, the one I returned to the most was the one I am sharing below. Recorded in India in the late fifties, with Fateh Ali Khan contributing most of the vocals, this short piece is filled with wonderful little treasures. From the Aye Lo's and the Aye Ji's to the beautiful phrasing to the vacillating taans, this is one brilliant recording.


Khud Daari-e-Ehsaas Ko Thukra Nahi Sakte 

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 Another favorite of mine is the magnificent "Bakhshi Salamat Qawwal" group, one of Fateh Ali and Mubarak Ali's most talented disciples. They were exceptional proponents of Iqbaliyat, creating some of the most stirring Qawwali interpretations of Iqbal's kalaam. The recording that I am sharing below was an instant favorite the moment I first heard it. The beauty of the kalam is coupled with the Qawwal party's unique style to form a brilliant combination. You can easily hear echoes of the Ustads' style in that of the Shagird. With the shehnai flitting around in the background, Bakhshi Khan's emphatic and almost aggressively forceful style delivering each verse like a hammer-blow to the heart and then exclaiming 'Zara Dekho Ji!' and 'Aaheva' in an almost defiant manner and Salamat Khan and Saddo Khan delivering their trademark vacillating taans, this is undoubtedly one of the best and most moving interpretations of Iqbal ever recorded. I used to put this Qawwali on repeat and literally stomp around on the roof to the beat of the handclaps till I was exhausted. It still remains one of my favorite Qawwali performances.

Mataa-e-Be Bahaa Hai Dard-o-Soz-e-Arzoo Mandi 

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 Abdul Hamid,Ghulam Kibriya Vehranwale Qawwals aren't a name that would be familiar to many, being one of the many Qawwali groups that regularly performed in and around Faisalabad in the '80s and early '90s. Their style was very similar to another Faisalabad group, their relatives, Maulvi Ahmed Hassan Akhtar Hassan Qawwal And Party. They performed in what we can call the 'thaitth' Punjabi style, with forceful taali and liberal girahs from the Punjabi Sufi canon. What they lacked in knowledge of the intricacies of Classical music, they more than made up for with their almost rustic simplicity and earthy delivery. The following recording features one of the best 'Dohas' I've ever heard, a simple yet appealing melody and wonderful and emotive girahs taken from Hashim Shah's version of Sassi Punnu. Occasional use of the Potohari 'tappa' style brings out the pathos of the text and make it an unadorned yet beautiful performance.

Layi Jindri Main Tere Naa Ve Yaar 

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Manzoor Niazi Qawwal And Party has been blessed with two of the most wonderful voices in recent Qawwali history. Manzoor Niazi sahab's unmistakeable soft, mellow and emotive voice is perfectly complemented by his son Abdullah Manzoor Niazi's strong, rich, flexible and extremely melodious one. One of the three pillars of the Qawwal Bacchon ka Gharana, and the only surviving member of the legendary trio of Manzoor Niazi, Bahauddin Khan, Raziuddin Ahmed Qawwals, Niazi sahab's party is one of the top two or three Qawwal parties of Pakistan. The ravages of age have taken their toll on his voice but this recording from 1984 perfectly captures the voices of both father and son at their best. The familiar Khusrau kalam is performed very melodiously, with emphasis on melodic improvisation and both father and son show their melodic abilities, especially on 'Naina Mila Ke'. The spoken word and sung girah-bandi in the latter half of the recording is some of the best and most apt I've heard. I wouldn't be wrong in saying that of all the dozens of versions of this kalaam, this is my favorite.

Chaap Tilak Sab Cheen Li 


 

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 I'd like to end this post with another Haji Mehboob Qawwal recording. The mehfil from which this recording is taken is one of my most favorite mehfils, and this recording is the gem of the session. The sound quality is utterly pristine, Haji sahab's sitar and Haji Mushtaq's harmonium are accompanied by a brilliant violin (something that I've heard only in this mehfil). One of the characteristics of Haji sahab was that he was usually accompanied by only one or two hamnavaas, who didn't contribute to the vocals and only took part in the taali, hence the performance was carried totally by the two brothers themselves. Here too, there's only two voices, yet the fullness and richness of the performance is unmatched. Haji sahab's trademark and extremely apt girahs adorn the kalaam at regular intervals, and this kalaam also contains one of my very favorite ones, which Haji sahab emphasizes with a rare 'Shear mulahiza ho'. As a friend had said to me, 'Musab bhai, yeh kalaam jhoom jhoom ke sunne wala hai.' And I can attest that I've done a lot of jhooming to it on my lonely rooftop.

Dil Burd Ze Man Chashme Siyaahe Ba Nigaahe 

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My instinctive reaction on listening to/reading/watching something that I instantly love is to instantly share it with others who I know would appreciate it as much as I did. This irresistible urge to share was completely and utterly stifled these last three months, and now when I'm finally re-connected with the rest of the world, I felt I shouldn't waste any time in sharing these beautiful pieces of music in the hope that they may provide the same solace, enjoyment and comfort to someone else that they provided to me these past three month. Happy listening !!

The Great Roadtrip - Of Patron Saints And Ghost Towns

It is now almost a year since I undertook what turned out to be the greatest road-trip of my life. The term 'voyage of discovery' might be a cliche but that's certainly how I will describe the week or so of traveling that I did in South and Central Punjab last September. What with one thing or the other, I've never gotten around to properly writing about it and sharing some of the experiences, sights and sounds of those six or seven days. But the leisure afforded me by my current location has trumped my innate laziness and I've decided it's about time I got around to it. My memory might be clouded over by the year gone by, but I still remember enough to get the writing juices flowing, and armed with the hundreds of photos I took with my crummy cellphone camera, I think I can finally shape the account of my great roadtrip into something resembling a coherent narrative.

Like every good story, this one begins with a prelude. I had been in Dera Ghazi Khan working in the flood relief efforts for over three weeks and was itching for a break. The workload, though heavy, wasn't the reason I was raring at the bit. I had planned a great deal of sightseeing in and around Dera Ghazi Khan and wasn't getting any chance of going about it. Although the evenings were usually free but travel restrictions meant that I wasn't able to see anything more than the one odd place of interest that happened to be in one of the villages where I'd set up a medical camp. An abortive attempt was made to visit the Sakhi Sarwar shrine; an attempt that turned into something resembling a farce on wheels starring a car that could only go one kilometer at a time before stopping to pant and wheeze, a tape deck that insisted on playing lewd Naseebo Lal songs and a driver that could only understand Pushto, which neither of the passengers could speak.

It was with great relief and a fair bit of excitement that I greeted the announcement that the entire party of around a dozen people would be taking a day off and going on a roadtrip to the nearby hilltop town of Fort Munro, with a stopover at the Sakhi Sarwar shrine. My sightseeing plans were finally starting to see fruition as the traveling party rode out on the Dera Ghazi Khan-Quetta highway. As an aside i would like to mention that I have seen around two dozen cities and innumerable towns all over Pakistan and I have never seen a place that depressed me more than Dera Ghazi Khan. A district headquarter, DG Khan looked more like, I hate to admit it, a pigsty. All the main roads were muddy ditches, the traffic was horrible, the city was skirted by a huge and foul smelling sewerage nullah and the whole place had a weirdly oppressive air. The immense relief I felt at being out on the open highway, away from the mud and congestion of DG Khan cannot be described in words. The road ran through wide plains that slowly rolled up into rocky hills where the road got a little treacherous.

The first stop was the town of Sakhi Sarwar around twenty miles down the road from DG Khan, housing the shrine of Hazrat Sakhi Sarwar (R.A), the patron saint of all travelers, which was rather fitting now that I look back on it. The shrine was located deep inside the town so we parked the cars at a distance and walked through the narrow alleyways towards the shrine. As we got closer, I was greeted by the sight that I would become familiar with in the course of trips to dozens of other shrines; a shrine bazaar. On either side of the path leading upto the shrine entrance were shops selling flowers, multicolored chadars, semiprecious gemstones and 'makhaanas'; the tiny white sweetmeat that is traditionally distributed as tabarruk. The entrance to the shrine comprised a large two-story facade with a central entryway flanked with two yellow-painted panels. The upper story had three beautifully decorated overhanging balconies. The courtyard had a neem tree in the centre and was flanked on one side with a centuries old mosque and on the other by a row of 'hujras'. Facing the entrance was the main shrine complex, with a long covered enclave and a single door leading to the tombs of the saints. The entire courtyard was bordered by an underhanging ledge adorned by beautiful painted tile that is South Punjab's speciality.


 The enclave was covered by a wooden roof that had beautiful geometric patterns adorning it in a design that I was later to see at shrines in Ucch Shareef, Multan and Lahore.Inside the tombs there was relative darkness and the unmistakeable scent of incense and rosewater. There were a number of small graves of some of the Saint's disciples and followers, and in the eastern corner of the tomb, the graves of the Saint himself and his sons. We paid our respects and then wandered around into a small room that adjoined the main tomb. Here sat an old man wearing tattered robes who would swat us each with what looked like a bouquet of peacock feathers and demand a rather hefty sum for the priviledge. It was an insight into the rather unusual system of commerce that thrives in and around shrines. After a further bit of wandering, including a futile search for the spot where Guru Nanak Saheb was supposed to have stayed when he made a pilgrimage to the Sakhi Sarwar shrine, we left for our second and final destination for the day, the town of Fort Munro.

Fort Munro is an historically important town. The seat of the government agent in the colonial times, it marked the eastern boundary of the Baloch lands and was the site of a small fort that housed a military garrison. After Balochistan's accession with Pakistan , Fort Munro served as the residence of the political agent. It was supposed to be South Punjab's answer to Murree, a temperate hill-station in the middle of the plains that offered a respite from the weather for the wealthy and the well-to-do. what it turned out to be was something quite the opposite. I'd seen ghost-towns in films and on TV, now was my chance to see one for myself. As we wound up the surprisingly tricky climb, we couldn't see a single inhabitant. There were houses, shops, motels, roadside dhaabas and pan-shops. There just wasn't anyone in them. In a town whose population should've been at least five or ten thousand, we couldn't find a single person.

This inexplicable lack of inhabitants wasn't the only eerie thing about Fort Munro. As we reached the crest of the hill, we saw to our right a body of water too large to be a pond and too small to be a lake. It had a small pier on one of the banks and had a dark, murky and somewhat sinister look. Coming to the top of the main hill, there was a fair-sized plateau that housed a park, remnants of an old fort, deserted government offices and to complete the ghost-town decor, an old colonial era graveyard. Naturally, we made a beeline for the graveyard. There were around a dozen graves, great and small, belonging to the military personnel and their families who inhabited the fort nearly a century ago. This graveyard proved to be the most interesting place we visited in Fort Munro for a number of reasons.

The first grave that caught my eye was that of a brother in arms, quite literally. Horace Allenby Smith was a military surgeon and a Fellow of the Royal Society in the days when it really meant something. The thought of that poor army doctor lying buried thousands of miles from his home in a godforsaken piece of rocky ground on top of a desolate mountain put a lot of things in perspective. There were graves of two or three little children who had drowned in the lake we'd seen earlier. And there was another grave which clearly showed signs of having been opened recently. All in all, the perfect setting for an episode of the Twilight Zone or one of those cheap TV movies they make based on Stephen King stories.


Needless to say, the entire traveling party was thoroughly spooked at that point, so much in fact that when we saw the first living thing we'd seen the entire trip; a goat on a mountain ledge, we half expected it to sprout some wings and come swooping down on us Nazgul style. Thankfully it didn't and even more thankfully we managed to catch the thing. And having caught it we did the civilized thing,  namely slaughtered, barbecued and feasted on Herr Goat. After a pwopah meal, the kind that dispels the spookies and puts courage into the hearts of men, we set about exploring again. Not that it did us any good, a deserted colonial era cricket pitch-cum-tennis court being the only thing we saw. It was then that we decided to call it a day on the trip and head back. The highlight of the return trip was a sing along. Trust me, you haven't lived till you've heard a fifty year old Pashtun gentleman belt out 'Bailamos' in a pushto accent.

The trip to sakhi Sarwar and Fort Munro wasn't entirely what I'd envisioned it to be, but it was very important to me in that it proved to be the starting point for all my subsequent explorations and photographing excursions. Three days later I left Dera Ghazi Khan for Multan which was the first stop on my Great Road Trip and when I returned home ten days later, I had traveled nearly 2000 miles and a discovered a new facet to my life.

...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 ......