I was speaking about my perception of Noor Jehan from when I was a child: Ali Azmat

Junoon front man alleged his statements have been misrepresented by 'fame hungry' channels to malign his image.

After Ali Azmat reduced Madam Noor Jehan to a ‘kofta’ singing on screen, the late legend’s daughter and designer Mina Hasan penned an elaborate note, reducing Azmat to a has-been. Ahmed Ali Butt had also shared a disappointed note on Instagram, making sure Azmat gets the message.

Now, in response, Azmat has shared his thoughts on the controversy that erupted after his comments went viral. Posting a video on his Facebook, Azmat said, “I was speaking about my perception of Madam Noor Jehan from when I was a six, seven-year-old child.”

He added, “Mina Hasan, Nazia Ejaz, Ahmed Ali Butt, all the other family members of Madam Noor Jehan are like my family. They are all my friends and I respect them very much. The point of view you guys didn’t listen to was that when we were kids, we only had PTV to watch. The discussion on Waqeel Online, was about how Western culture seeped into our culture. Because the presentation of PTV was so terrible that we didn’t feel like watching it.”

Azmat recalled how the western influences led him and all the kids from his generation to relate more to Nazia Hassan’s music or Alamgir’s. He went on to add, “What I said is true because at that age, having no sense of good music, singing, we didn’t understand Madam’s songs. For us, she was another aunty on television. Our first impression of her was based on what we saw and we weren’t impressed. But when we grew up and heard Madam, we realised how we had rejected our first exposure to good music.”

To make it clear that he is in fact, a ‘fan’ of Noor Jehan, Azmat maintained that “nothing we do can ever compare to what Madam did, we are aware of that. Her sense of melody, her solid key, her beautiful voice, we didn’t understand it as kids but became her biggest fans as we grew up.”

He then recalled how Noor Jehan had told him he probably can’t sing upon their first meeting. “In fact, when Nazia, her daughter and my friend, introduced me to her for the first time, she told her I am a ‘good singer.’ Madam scornfully contested, ‘innay ki gaana aenda hoga, innu bol falaan gaana gaake sunae.’ That was her apnaiyyat, her style. Like me, she also spoke without any filters.”

The Junoon frontman then alleged that whoever shared the specific clip from the interview, did it with the intention to malign his image by limiting the entire discussion to his supposed ‘jibe’ at Noor Jehan. “They refrained from showing you what I was getting at and started this controversy. And all the fame hungry channels jumped in. I just feel disappointed because it ended up hurting all my friends, Hina, Mina, Ahmed, all of them. And I love all of them so much because of my immense love and respect for Madam,” he concluded.

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