A musician that prevailed
Manna Dey's autobiography is a vivid account of the music scene of the last 50 years
By Sarwat Ali
Manna Dey has been a popular vocalist in the films. Besides Mohammed Rafi, Talat Mehmood and Mukesh he formed the core of male singers who carried the burden of film music for two decades after independence till about the middle of the 1960s when Kishore Kumar joined this formidable foursome.

The dynamics of the lawyers' agitation for the restoration of the judges and the factors contributing to its success have apparently not been appreciated by a large number of people. The result: all kinds of pressure groups (better described as pressure pockets in view of their extremely narrow bases) have started fishing in the troubled waters of the God-given state.

The latest pressure pockets to gain notoriety are the sugar mills owners whose avarice has made every poor Pakistani's life bitter, and the prisoners at a Badin jail who added a new tactic to their strategy of forcing the jail bosses to surrender to them -- holding child detainees as hostages. Both seem to have been inspired by the recent successes of pressure groups.

But the centre stage has been taken by pressure pockets that are playing for higher stakes. One of them has rediscovered one of the most ancient weapons of statecraft -- the Minus-One formula.

Students of history should be familiar with the numerous instances when this formula was used in feudal kingdoms. It simply involved the replacement of the tribal chief/king by his brother, son or a close kinsman -- this meant that the hegemony of the tribe/dynasty was not disturbed, only its front person was changed. The reason almost always was the replacement of a person who was no longer amenable to the vested interest with one who was. For that reason minor children were preferred while choosing successors to the deposed nobles.

The colonial rulers of the subcontinent used this stratagem quite often in their dealings with princely states, deposing rulers who dared to disagree with the empire-builders and installing nitwits in their place. This was the standard rule till the alien rulers became strong enough to finish off ruling dynasties under Lord Dalhousie's theory of Lapse (a state without a prince became Company property).

In Pakistan the most infamous use of the Minus-One formula was Governor-General Ghulam Mohammad's sacking of Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin. The ruling dynasty was not disturbed; the Muslim League was not robbed of the honorific title of the ruling party. Nazimuddin's cabinet colleagues were not discredited, indeed quite a few of them continued as ministers without bothering to order new coats. Nobody cared to explain how Bogra was better qualified to be prime minister than the discarded Khwaja. This was not necessary because the formula required only the replacement of a trouble-some surrogate with a pliable one. That Pakistan paid a heavy price (and may still be paying) for that foul play is, of course, another matter.

Although PML-N was once subjected to the Minus-One formula, when Nawaz Sharif had to relinquish (nominally only though) the party's presidentship, and it was also briefly heard of during the agitation for the restoration of judges, the formula has repeatedly been invoked, especially by the country's military rulers, in attempts to chop the PPP's head off.

The sequence began in 1977 when the coup-makers reportedly told Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that they would let the PPP rule provided that he stepped down. Surprisingly, the offer was taken seriously by the PPP's dimwitted (or ambitious) middle-rank leaders and the moment they started looking for Bhutto's successor, and quarrelling over it, the challengers knew Bhutto could be dispensed with.

General Zia again tried to use this formula when he indicated that he could do business with the PPP minus the Bhuttos. The move failed because the man selected to play Judas declined to take the bait (he would take it later on).

General Musharraf tried to have Minus-One deals with both PPP and PML-N and only succeeded in starting a train under which he himself fell.

Once again the Minus-One formula is being used as a catapult to throw stones at the PPP, a party that will always be made to pay for its original sin (now disowned by the party) of challenging the vested interest.

Fortunately, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and Mian Nawaz Sharif have both shown the benefit of experience in throwing water on the pressure pocket's squib. The former said there was no room for Minus-One formulas in a democracy and the latter categorically asserted that election was the only means of change in a democratic system. This salutary ruling by two of the country's leading politicians confirms the conclusions about the Minus-One formula reached by students of politics over many decades. They have denounced such formulas on three main grounds:

First, this formula does not imply a clean, straightforward political challenge; it always reeks of intrigue. Instead of being based on fact it runs on insinuation, innuendo and cheap rhetoric. It does not advance democratic politics, it only muddies the political stream.

Secondly, this formula is usually not invoked in the wider interest of the people -- that is the last thing traditional power brokers and their mouthpieces are bothered about. In continuation of the tribal-feudal tradition the Minus-One formula is designed to substitute a person disliked by the vested interest with a pliable individual.

Thirdly, such formulas are not invoked by people's representatives, for the simple reason that they can go to parliamentary forums, but by elements that have no roots among the people and quite often they are reluctant to even reveal themselves. Additionally, they come before the public with soiled hands and with hefty records of subservience to agencies of the vested interest.

A more pernicious pressure pocket in Pakistan is out to demonise politicians under the cover of fighting corruption.

That corruption is a cancer that is eating into the vitals of the state and the society is the most widely known fact in Pakistan. Corruption is endemic and can be seen in all walks of life -- politics, professions, services, journalism, even in religion. So widespread is the disease that often there is little to distinguish the accusers from the accused.

But instead of an across the board campaign to eradicate corruption we are being forcibly fed on diatribes against politicians alone.

This is a serious matter in the present situation because two born-again institutions -- the judiciary and the army -- have been presumed to be infallible. If the demonisation of politicians continues, the political parties, the parliament, the democratic system itself will be downgraded and saviours will begin to be sought among generals and judges although everybody should have learnt that saviours do not grow in those fields.

Here we are dealing with a chronic deficiency in Pakistan's political culture -- the tendency to concentrate on trees and miss the woods. More often than not we pick on the corruption of individuals (other than the sacred cows) and have no quarrel with corrupt systems. The curse that the corrupt-to-the-core colonial rule was is ignored because it maintained law and order. A bureaucrat who could not explain the issuance of an airline ticket was declared corrupt but the man who had usurped power and extinguished democracy was not corrupt. Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf who robbed the whole nation of their most precious gift -- the right to self-government -- were not corrupt, some politicians who indulged in petty crime were.

The point one has had to make over and over again is that corruption of the system is much more harmful than corruption by individuals. The foremost task today is preservation of an admittedly imperfect democracy against any possible inroads by authoritarian forces for out of poor democracy will emerge good democracy whereas dictatorship will only breed dictatorship, one of the most corrupt systems the world has known.

It is time the pressure pockets learnt the basic fact that only politicians can lead Pakistan to greatness. Who such politicians can be is something the people alone can decide -- this is a matter that lies outside the jurisdiction of all non-representative institutions of the state.

Tassaduq Sohail is a truly quixotic individual. He lives alone; wakes up at three in the morning, feeds the swarm of kites on his roof and then paints through the night and into the day, rarely leaving the confines of his small apartment. But there is nothing quirky about his paintings, nor is there overriding humour in his life history.

"I ran away from home in Lahore in 1961 at a very young age, determined not to follow the stultifying decrees of my father. He wanted me to marry and settle down and become another cog in the family wheel. I ran from it all."

Tassaduq Sohail went to Karachi and then found his way to London, not sure what he wanted to do with his life -- having done nothing except write splendid stories in Urdu. He recounts how his doctor in England, sympathetic to his plight, tried to counsel him. "You are too frail to do any physical work so choose something part-time that will earn you enough for rent and food," he told Sohail. "Pursue a career in what interests you."

Sohail remembers telling him flippantly, "But nothing interests me except girls!" He claims he joined St Martin's School of Art to meet young girls but found himself in a soup when he was required to prove he had the mandatory drawing skills to continue classes. "The students around me were drawing fabulous sketches of the nude model; realistic and life-like and I had never so much as picked up a drawing pencil in my life. I decided to wrangle my way through the class by drawing a foggy, indecipherable form and then try to escape with my dignity intact vowing never to return to the world of art. The drawing teacher went around the class berating the students for being inhibited by years of undeviatingly rigid and conservative art education and I waited with bated breath to be approached. Sure, I would be insulted and thrown out of the school forever." Miraculously the teacher was elated by Sohail's drawing and felt he had an instinctual way of drawing, rarely found amongst students who had had their creativity wrung out of them after years of art schooling.

Asked if he managed to run the course of the three-year art programme, he exclaims "Three years? I stayed for ten years." Sohail became a fixture at St Martin's, befriending the teachers and making use of the models for whom, had he been out of school, he would have had to pay three times the sum. He also attended classes at Wimbledon College of Art and City Literary Art School in London.

Tassaduq Sohail regales listeners with enchanting stories of his life in London and tells how he captivated audiences at nightclubs by his innovative dance steps. Sohail would paint on the roadside for tourists in Bayswater and survived for many years on the meagre income of an artist living by his work.

Taken up with all these lovely stories, Tariq Ali filmed a documentary on Sohail's life in 1979 for Channel 4 in England, which was appreciated by a huge audience.

Though Sohail has an anthology of anecdotes of his life in London, he lets slip references to the periods when he was destitute and living on the edge of impecuniosity. Every few years he would return to Pakistan in the hope that he would be able to sell his paintings for a considerable amount and then be able to live comfortably for a while. During these years, he painted on small canvases or board not out of particular preference for the miniscule scale but because he couldn't afford the art materials and larger canvases. But the gallery owners in Pakistan had inefficient marketing skills and refused to sell Sohail's paintings for more than a few thousand rupees each, promising him that next time he came the prices would increase, while assuring his regular clients that the price of a Tassaduq Sohail painting would always be 'affordable'. This way three decades passed, and Sohail says, he earned next to nothing in those years.

But surely, things would be different now that his paintings fetch exorbitant amounts, like the Bonhams auctions in 2007 and 2008? He shakes his head as if not construing the question. "I haven't really earned much in two years. I sell a few paintings from home and do some commissions but I haven't had a breakthrough," he says. "When my paintings were sold by Bonhams I enjoyed a brief period of prosperity. After that it has been empty again," he claims, belying market reports that buyers are flocking in droves for a Tassaduq Sohail painting. With a twinkle in his eye and a cheeky grin on his face, he says "I know what they are doing, these gallery owners and buyers. They are waiting for me to die so that they can sell my paintings for triple the price. What they don't know is that there is longevity in my family and I will outlive them yet!"

Facetiousness aside, he is concerned about the vast number of fakes being churned out and sold. "I know they are producing fakes of my paintings. Besides the obvious thematic and stylistic anomalies, I have a way of distinguishing my paintings in ways they won't understand. What disturbs me the most is that they have vulgarised my paintings. I don't paint nude women to be vulgar. I employ the method of artists from the medieval ages who would use symbolism and esoteric images to hide the true meaning of their works from the ruling clergy. I once saw a painting, (supposedly mine) that showed a well-dressed aristocrat going hunting. For the record, I would never paint a hunter because I love animals too much."

Pointing to some paintings in his studio he laughs. "I always title my paintings and sometimes, the titles are too bawdy for people's tastes. Other times, buyers come back to me with my paintings insisting I give the painting a title with which to amuse friends. For example, that picture of the bird nestled in the backside of a nude figure is telling its companion that it will not leave this place -- it is the last bastion of safety in Karachi!" He giggles naughtily. "Do you know what the mermaid symbolises for me? To most people she's just a mythological creature, half human and half fish. But I believe that the mermaid lives in two worlds, like many people in Pakistan who have secret lives and take on one face for the day and another for the night," he says enigmatically.

Tassaduq Sohail tells us he is presently represented by the Noble Sage Art Gallery in London, the management of which has promoted his work with due diligence and has been quite supportive of him. If he is an angry man, he masks it with humour and if he is dejected, he paints his dark, macabre canvases full of people and creatures from an imaginary world. That is how Tassaduq Sohail lives his days.

Once inside Ehsan ul Haq show, a viewer's imagination is likely to become what Walter Benjamin describes "an extensiveness of the folded fan, which only in spreading draws breath and flourishes." In his maiden solo exhibition at Rohtas 2, stacks of sacks, wooden poles tied in the form of a tripod with a TV set, are suspended from the top. The television in the middle is wrapped in polythene, yet switched on, transmitting numerous dots of grey on its screen. On the other side of the gallery, mud is collected on a makeshift structure composed of wooden planks resting slightly higher on four square plinths made of bricks. A wood stick is inserted on one side of this mound: alluding to diverse ideas for people of different tastes, genders and backgrounds.

One interpretation of this work is its connection with death and the associated images and rituals. Arguably it is a male reading, mainly because it is only the males who accompany the funeral procession and participate in lowering the dead inside a freshly dig grave. No woman is permitted in this ritual unless of course if she happens to be silent/lifeless protagonist.

This interpretation apart, a number of visitors in the gallery have been amused on the collection of items that are not 'altered' for the sake of art but are just put in a specific order to create the installation. The openness of the work, with multiple materials arranged in the gallery space, has led to confusion among spectators who are unable to detach the physical aspect from its aesthetic side (since the transformation of objects is not executed literally/manually but is meant to be a conceptual one). For many, the components used in making the art piece are not special, nor is the combination extraordinary; they think this kind of art is achievable by anyone. Here lies the fallacy because it is only an artist who conceives and then constructs an installation, regardless of how simple and effortless it may appear.

Yet a general viewer is intent on describing the genre of installation as non-art, because to him its open structure and recognisable substances seem raw and effortless. However, installation is like any other work of art and creative endeavour. For example in a piece of poem, words are composed in a certain order: these words exist as independent ideas but within the format of verses they evoke another meaning. An idea that does not survive outside these words, but is not confined to these collected words either. This situation is analogous to the question in Greek philosophy of an idea and its relation to a thing, for instance the concept of house is bound to a physical house but is not part of it. Yet one cannot comprehend it without the actual existence of the house. Similarly an installation is an idea that survives beyond materials but is not attainable without those materials.

The installation as an idea comes across as more crucial in the case of Ehsan ul Haq. A recent graduate of Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, he has opted to exhibit only one piece (that cannot be bought and is hence a commendable feat of the artist as well as the gallery).

His decision to exhibit an installation not only illustrates the courage, clarity and creativity of the artist, but also suggests the way the present conditions and political content have been weaved into a genre that is generally considered to be merely formal and physical. Raised bricks, planks, clay and branch (standing as if to mark the head of the body), remind of a newly prepared grave as well as refer to grave situations in our society. With the looming threats of terrorist acts and suicidal attacks, the urban face of our cities has been modified greatly. Not only are guns, barricades and armoured vehicles visible, places which used to be open for general public are now heavily guarded by armed personnel and protected with sand sacks, brick walls and barbed wires. These devices are employed to maintain a safe distance between the potential bomber, the invisible enemy, and a neutral, apolitical institution.

In a clever manner, Haq alludes to that changed landscape -- of spaces and minds -- through his work. While walking around the installation, one feels the familiar presence of materials to ward off the expected but unknown assailant.

In addition, the television set, which is constantly switched on but not tuned to a particular channel, may refer to the perpetual noise of electronic media that in the name of reporting events plays a part in manoeuvring incidents and exploiting situations. Often functioning as an objective body, media turns into an interested party, losing its credibility, honesty and impartiality in the process. Thus, whatever is presented and projected through the silver screen is a state of consistent confusion, something that is portrayed by a hanging TV set with white pixels covering its screen. The inclusion of transparent sheets of plastic on it can be a symbolic representation of how factual news is coated with a strong, yet indecipherable, layer of personal comments, positions and desires.

The exhibition of Ehsan ul Haq also negotiates between the local and the foreign. Installation, as a genre, has been imported from the Western art practice, while the objects, imagery and ideas found in his work have local references. Thus the work turns into an appropriate example of a balance between East and West -- an equilibrium that is managed by the terrorists too, trying to enforce their version of holy faith through the most modern inventions borrowed from the infidels.

Manna Dey's autobiography is a vivid account of the music scene of the last 50 years

By Sarwat Ali

Manna Dey has been a popular vocalist in the films. Besides Mohammed Rafi, Talat Mehmood and Mukesh he formed the core of male singers who carried the burden of film music for two decades after independence till about the middle of the 1960s when Kishore Kumar joined this formidable foursome.

Now his autobiography Memories Come Alive has brought before the world the reasons why he was known to render the compositions based on classical style with such ease and facility. There was music in his house as he was trained in more ways than one by Krishna Chandra, his maternal uncle, popularly known as K.C. Dey.

K.C. Dey was not born blind but became so gradually as he suffered from progressive blindness. He channelled his creative ability, defeating his impairment with total dedication to music by learning from various ustads like Chalifa Badal Khan followed by Ustad Dabir Khan. He was particularly apt at singing the kirtan, naat, dhrupad, bhajans and kheyal.

K.C. Dey became a popular radio voice, stage singer and a film vocalist and in the process he made money, which came in handy for his nephew. When Manna Dey was old enough the decision had to be made about his career -- the family opposed his becoming a musician but K.C. Dey's conviction that the boy had the instinct and the will to become a musician prevailed. In K.C. Dey's endless practice sessions and music soirees, Manna Dey accompanied him despite his passion for kite flying, wrestling and football. He was thus exposed early to the studios run by Madan Company, Arora Cinema Company, Indo British Film Company and Taj Mahal Film Company and New Theatres, where he met artistes like Rai Chand Boral, Pankaj Mallick, Timir Baran and Khemchand Prakash. He realised that the music director was treated like a god in the recording studios irrespective of his age and experience. He was also chosen to perform as a classical vocalist for the radio at about the same time.

Born as Prabodh Chandra Dey and popularly known by his pet name, Manna Dey, he was hugely inspired by his maternal uncle K.C. Dev and was initially tutored by him and the ustads he recommended. Due to the bombings in Calcutta by the Japanese, the work in the film and on stage had come to a standstill. In 1942, Bombay-based Kardar Studio initiated a move to assemble Calcutta's talented artistes and invited them to Bombay. Trivedi, the production controller, also invited K.C. Dev and Manna Dey accompanied him to Bombay. He became K.C. Dey's second assistant, notating the songs, arranging the music, composing the background score and helping the singers pick up the tune. He also sang a duet for film Tamanna for K.C. Dey with Suraiya, and then sang for Shanker Rao in Ramrajya.

In Bombay he learnt more about music from other ustads and gurus like Aman Ali Khan, Abdul Rehman Khan, Ghulam Mustafa Khan and was able enough to assist certain major music directors like Khemchand Prakash, C. Ramchandra, Shayamsunder, Anil Biswas, and Sachin Dev Burman. He developed fondness for Western music.

Obviously he was not happy and wanted to make compositions -- to become a full-fledged music director but, as luck would have it, his star shone the brightest when he did playback singing in the films. His first runaway success was the number "Upar gangan vishal" from Mashal composed by S.D. Burman. Though S.D. Burman played a leading role in his career, he gave the real credit for his developing the original style to Shanker Jaikishan. They composed numbers, which were lip-synched by younger characters which made the songs more popular. Earlier his songs were picturised on character roles, some fakir or a sadhu that were not considered mainstream by the audiences. The other music directors who played a major part in his musical career were Salil Chaudhary, Kalyanji Anandji, Ravi, Roshan and Anil Biswas.

He is primarily known as a vocalist of Hindustani films but one look at his filmography, a valuable part of his autobiography, made it clear that he has sung for many films in Bengali and Marathi besides singing a great number of non-filmy songs. He was thus a complete singer in his heydays who distinguished himself in all the poplar forms of music during the course of the 20th century.

He rated the Muslim musicians higher and had an interesting theory that they were more appealing and made better vocalist and instrumentalist compared to other musicians as they were more proficient in singing; they experimented with their music. Within the given framework of the raag, they improvised with varying effects. He also felt that their sense of commitment to music was greater as they considered it a way of life and imparted rigorous training to their offspring, leaving no option of an alternative profession.

He attributed his longevity in the films to being sensitive to the perennially changing taste in music and his acute interest in these variations. They have been a motivating factor in helping to sustain his interest in music.

The autobiography was a vivid account of the music scene of the last 50 years of Calcutta and Bombay. He had the privilege of singing for all the great and well-known composers and thus had a first account of the figures that had become legends for establishing the parameters of film music in the subcontinent. The book was a minefield of information about the music and the film world in probably the most creative phase of film music in the subcontinent. As it should be, the book is was full of anecdotes and vignettes that made the read very pleasurable. Manna Dey had also been very generous in applauding the greatness of his peers and contemporaries, a value that was inculcated in him by his uncle K.C. Dey.