In the shadow of Lahore’s centuries-old Badshahi Mosque, Zohaib Hassan plucks at the strings of a sarangi, filling the streets with a melodious hum and cry.
Remarkable for its resemblance to the human voice, the classical instrument is fading from Pakistan’s music scene, except for a few players dedicated to preserving its place.
Difficult to master, expensive to repair and with little financial reward for professionals, the sarangi’s decline has been difficult to halt, Hassan told reporters.
Photo: AFP
“We are trying to keep the instrument alive, not even taking into account our miserable financial condition,” he said.
For seven generations, his family has mastered the bowed, short-necked instrument and Hassan is well-respected across Pakistan for his abilities, regularly appearing on television, radio and at private parties.
“My family’s craze for the instrument forced me to pursue a career as a sarangi player, leaving my education incomplete,” he said. “I live hand-to-mouth as the majority of directors arrange musical programmes with the latest orchestras and pop bands.”
Photo: AFP
Traditional instruments are competing with a booming rhythm and blues and pop scene in a country where more than 60 percent of the population is aged under 30.
Sara Zaman, a teacher of classical music at the National Council of Arts in Lahore, said that alongside the sarangi, other traditional instruments such as the sitar, santoor and tanpura are also dying out.
“Platforms have been given to other disciplines like pop music, but it has been missing in the case of classical music,” Zaman said. “The sarangi, being a very difficult instrument, has not been given due importance and attention in Pakistan leading to its gradual demise.”
The sarangi gained prominence in Indian classical music in the 17th century, during the reign of the Mughals in the subcontinent.
Its decline began in the 1980s after the death of several master players and classical singers in the country, said Khwaja Najam-ul-Hassan, a television director who has created an archive of Pakistan’s leading musicians.
“The instrument was close to the hearts of the top internationally acclaimed male and female classical singers, but it began to fade away after they died,” Najam-ul-Hassan said.
Ustad Allah Rakha, one of Pakistan’s most globally acclaimed sarangi players, died in 2015 after a career that saw him perform with orchestras around the world.
Now players say they struggle to survive on performance fees alone, often much smaller than those paid to modern guitarists, pianists or violinists.
Carved by hand from a single block of cedar native to parts of Pakistan, the sarangi’s primary strings are made of goat gut, while the 17 sympathetic strings — a common feature on subcontinent folk instruments — are steel.
The instrument costs about 120,000 rupees (US$625) and most of its parts are imported from India, where it remains a principal part of the canon.
“The price has gone up as there is a ban on imports from India,” said Muhammad Tahir, the owner of one of only two repair shops in Lahore.
Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties and stopped bilateral trade with India over New Delhi’s decision in 2019 to strip the disputed Jammu & Kashmir region of its semi-autonomous status.
Tahir, who spends about two months carefully restoring a single worn-out sarangi, said that no one in Pakistan manufactures the special steel strings because of the lack of demand.
“There is no admiration for sarangi players and the few people who are repairing this wonderful instrument,” said Ustad Zia-ud-Din, the owner of the other Lahore repair shop, which has existed in some form for 200 years.
Efforts to adapt to the modern music scene have shown pockets of promise.
“We have invented new ways of playing, including making the sarangi semi-electric to enhance the sound during performances with modern musical instruments,” Hassan said.
He has now performed several times with the adapted instrument and says the reception has been positive.
One of the few students is 14-year-old musician Mohsin Muddasir, who has shunned instruments such as the guitar to take on the sarangi.
“I am learning this instrument because it plays with the strings of my heart,” Muddasir said.
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
RSS