Revive the Origin: an Interview from Faqeer Faheem Alan Faqeer
Alan Faqeer was a legendary artist of all times in the history of Pakistani. Faqeer Faheem is Son of Alan Faqeer. He is on the mission to continue a legacy of his father by promoting diverse Sindhi local music. My own interest in taking this interview was to understand his philosophy about local music and contemporary music. Readers are invited to read the responses that were thought provoking regarding our struggling local music:
Q: How did you get fond of music?
Faheem: “My fond for Faqeeri Nizam and music is the result of my father’s company. Since my childhood I was with my father. I had to adopt this thing because my father wanted, before he died, anyone of us children to continue this, it should not be stopped. I have learnt from my father from very early age, not only music but perks of spending life, with simplicity it should be spent.”
Q: How was your relation with your father?
Faheem: “We stayed in a hotel, I and baba sain, for a show. He shared, “rest are my kids but you are my Sendho,” I couldn’t get it. Then he clarified, ‘Sendho’ is an old Sindhi word which meant ‘friend’. He said, “Rest are my kids but you are my friend”. We had frankness just like friends. Whenever we conversed, those hours were soul craving and pleasing.
Q: What is Sufism according to you?
Faheem: “Sufism is message of love. If you go deep into Sufism, it is description of Allah’s creation and his different colors. Sufism is to make humans the humans and to create harmony and unity among humans. It is our Sindhi culture; our culture has retained it till this date. Sindhi civilization is older than Egyptians. Though our civilizations was first to build the drainage system, we have lost our way, I believe our people has to go far to retrieve lost recognition again.”
Q: Is music in your routine or it depends on your mood?
Faheem: “Zikar (remembering Allah) and music is part of my evening routine. With group of some friends, in daily sitting, I sing and do zikar of mola sain (God). It’s soul refreshing. Man busy in worldly practices and problems gets disturb, here peace is not found. This form of zikar and music is color of Allah sain , malik sain, it offers you peace of mind.”
Q: How do you see contemporary music?
Faheem: “What should be said, whose name should be taken or blamed for destroying our music’s root. Listeners have no more remarkable taste of music. I am not blaming listeners; it all falls back on the shoulders of musicians. They are the makers and providers, Raja teri parja (pitying the public of king), whatever is available in market you will be buying it. I was told to work hard but looking at the quality of the ofsteners’ taste, I feel discouraged. They already have developed different taste in music, if you are not having taste for the music that I am going to work on then who will hear it out? Listeners should be aware of music enough that they could take out mistakes of musicians on their own.”
Q: How do you see future of local music?
Faheem: “Once I performed for the army event. Arif lohar (Legendary artist) was also part of it. One of the Major (rank in army) pointed out on us and said “we should be representing our culture and music. We don’t have war of weapons with our neighboring countries, but cultures. Others are wiping out our culture, changing it from the very core. Although, others have caused this tragedy of dilemmatic cultures to us, however we are our own enemy to let them cause this damage. We have to work on promoting our indigenous culture. Others couldn’t fight face to face wars with us, but later they damaged our culture.” Take an example of Latif’s Raag, it gave our music new identity in the world of music. It has represented and given us prominent status in the world. Looking at the fact we are not anymore paying attention to it, the local music.”
Q: Any new project or video you are onto?
Faheem: “From a long time, I am in mood to publish something nicely done under my supervision, sooner.”
Q: Is there any message that you will like to relay to our new generation?
Faheem: “You cannot put curtains on your eyes or ears. Simply, reward tribute and pride to your origin. Don’t chase the world, look behind and locate your origin. Search answers of who are you? Whom do you belong? What are your roots? Compare the differences. We are supposed to have this much knowledge to know what is worth of our attention and time. You should be competent enough to know what should be done in future. Have a glimpse to your insides everything depends on you.”
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