Rahat, Momina create magic!

I fell deeply, madly in love with Momina’s voice when years back, she made her Bollywood debut in my film, Ek...

This is the power of music. It touches us emotionally where words alone can’t. It moves the innermost recess of our hearts and unleashes an avalanche of emotions that are battling for an exit — almost like an outburst of the soul. Occasional episodes of Pakistan’s Coke Studio and Nescafe Basement make for my soul curry: gems of musical talent giving a unique and contemporary spin to vintage melodies, underlining the unfailing power of music to calm, enchant and enthrall in these afflicted times.

This is exactly how I felt after watching an extract of the second season of Season 9 of Coke Studio. My memory of “Afreen Afreen” dates back to college days when I had first heard the immortal number in a music video, picturised on the supremely gorgeous Lisa Ray and Himanshu Malik. Years later, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s rendition of his uncle’s track gave me goose-bumps — effortless, effulgent and truly inimitable. I felt myself going weak. The eyes were welling up. I was hoping that the bar on the YouTube video wouldn’t reach the finishing line. And such a winning stroke to pair the legend with the incredibly charming Momina Mustehsan, even if she was given only a couple of lines. Watch out for Momina. This underdog has ‘star’ written all over her.

I fell deeply and madly in love with Momina’s voice when years back, she made her Bollywood debut with the band Soch in my film, Ek Villain. Her touch of class in the recreated version of “Awari”, taken from Nescafe Basement, has never ceased to haunt me. Momina is to blame. There’s something distinctly magical, exotic and ear-gasmic about her vocals, and it helps that her mystical voice is accompanied by dazzling beauty. To top it all, she’s a qualified engineer and mathematician.

I’m keenly waiting for lots more of this captivating songstress. This season of Coke Studio has already birth given to a new darling, sitting tall and pretty, and at the cusp of stardom. “Afreen” means beautiful. There’s a reason they got Momina to sing it.

Omran follows Aylan

Nearly a year has passed by since heartbreaking images of Aylan washed up on a shoreline, surfaced on social media. But how much has really changed in Syria since then? Recently, another child, Omran, looking mortified, expressionless and shell-shocked, and covered in dust and his own blood, was recovered from the wreckage of a building after an air strike in Aleppo. The image went viral. Mercifully, he was still breathing, but internally he is dead. He has nothing to look forward to. He may never experience the joy of waking up in his once magnificent home city. When he was being rescued and put in the ambulance, there were several photographers and cameramen snapping him. How nice it would have been if some sensitive soul had cuddled the poor lad instead of trying to commercialise his soul-wrenching plight. 

Tailpieces

1) I wish it were around in the years that I was living in London. The all-night tube is finally a reality. This will be music to the ears of punters who want to party on beyond 1am. Good news for theatres, bars and restaurants. Bad news for extortionate taxi drivers who had been making a killing, driving inebriated souls (like me) home.

2) Courteney Cox was my favourite Friends icon till I saw some recent pictures of the 52-year-old. She was among the umpteen ageing stars that fell prey to cosmetic procedures. Growing old gracefully has become a thing of the past.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2016.

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