In the Karrada district of Iraq’s capital, residents awake to a gas bottle deliverer’s dulcet tones — once a nationwide tradition, but now a solo act.
“My heart rediscovers love, as if it learned nothing from past suffering,” croons Mountazar Abbas, in homage to famous Iraqi singer Yass Khodr.
The 22-year-old is the last gas deliverer in Baghdad to announce the arrival of his cylinder-laden rickshaw by singing.
Photo: AFP
In doing so, he brings smiles to customers’ faces.
“When people recognize my voice, they open the door of their home and shout out to me,” Abbas said. “Others call me on the phone — but they still ask me to sing.”
Carrying on the trade of his father, Abbas has traversed the streets and alleys of this shopping district in the heart of Baghdad since 2007.
Ahmad Ali, a 30-year-old grocer, appreciates the tradition of the singing gas deliverers.
“There were many in the past, but it’s over,” he said, adding that deliverers today play “pre-recorded music to announce their arrival.”
Many broadcast songs by famous artists through loudspeakers.
“Frankly, it’s annoying,” Ali said.
So “I buy my supplies from [Abbas] ... who has a nice voice,” he added, smiling.
The often melancholy choices of deliverers who opt for pre-recorded songs sometimes triggers online ridicule.
“Why do they then want to subject us to sad tunes when they deliver our gas?” Mukhtar Taleb asked, mockingly.
In the past, there were many singing deliverers, recalls 55-year-old Kamal, who lives in the al-Jadida district of the capital.
“I used to tell them that they had a beautiful voice and I even encouraged several of them to take part in competitions on the radio,” Kamal said.
Under former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who was deposed in 2003, a panel on television and radio would judge singers. Comprised of musicians, art critics and poets, the panel’s choice would go on to record a song. It was a launching pad for many musical careers.
After the invasion, which was followed by bouts of sectarian violence, the panel disappeared.
From 2005 to 2007, militants controlling parts of Baghdad banned singing and orchestrated crackdowns — some musicians were killed, while others saw their instruments destroyed.
The tradition of the singing deliverer has disappeared across much of the wider region, too.
In Jordan’s capital Amman, local authorities have since 2012 required gas vendors to broadcast Beethoven’s Fur Elise, to avoid a cacophony of competing sounds.
In Lebanon and Syria, vendors would in the past deliver gas on a donkey cart, announcing their arrival by honking a horn, but people today just go directly to a supplier.
“Everyone does as they see fit,” Abbas said.
“I opted for the traditional way and most of my clients prefer to hear me sing,” he added.
However, it is unlikely that his children would take up the trade.
“It is a tough and badly paid trade,” he said.
Abbas not only sings on the job, but also at home and with friends.
He even dreams of becoming a second Hatem al-Iraqi, an Iraqi singer-songwriter living in Dubai.
“Hatem is, like me, from Sadr City,” Abbas said, referring to a poor district of Baghdad. “Before he became successful, he was in the same trade as me. He had a very beautiful voice... I would like to follow his path.”
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