A subcontinental icon
Mehdi Hassan, the great ghazal singer from Pakistan, who passed away in Karachi on Wednesday at 84, was almost the last of the great men from a bygone era of music in the subcontinent.
Jagjit Singh, who was influenced by Hassan, is no more. Talat Mahmood is long gone. Mohammad Rafi, Kishore Kumar and Mukesh all passed away years ago. So did Hemant Kumar and Bhupen Hazarika. Only Manna Dey and Ghulam Ali remain.
Hassan was loved throughout India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. His passing away is being mourned in all these countries. Artistes such as Hassan through their art reach the shared humanity that is embedded below our superficial differences.
The fact that people in all these countries love many aspects of our shared culture is undeniable. It is genuine, and heartfelt, and reaches down to the grassroots.
Perhaps that is why those whose politics is based on emphasising the differences are often insecure about the shared culture. Therefore Pakistan banned Indian films for 40 years. The ban was lifted with a screening of Mughal-e-Azam, a film that featured three stars who traced their roots to Peshawar — Prithviraj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, whose real name is Yusuf Khan, and Madhubala, who was Mumtaz Jahan before she became Madhubala for the screen.
All three came to be heartthrobs of generations of Indians, Pakistanis, Nepalis and Bangladeshis. Bans and borders did not matter. They matter even less in today’s interconnected world.
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