Baloch music through history and time
For the longest time, I remember being in awe of my mother as she would recite Balochi poetry in a tone that was wrapped in a warm blanket of nostalgia. I couldn’t understand most of it because of the richness of the language, yet the melancholy was able to pierce my heart and keep me engaged, as I would interrupt her to explain the meanings.
Over the years, I became more interested in Balochi music and reclaiming my lost identity. I realised that what my mother sang in her sing-song voice was the original Balochi music form called zahirok (which literally translates into “a melancholic song or a song of separation”). Zaheerag forms the musical structure of traditional Balochi music.
In his detailed essay on Balochi music, titled “The Musical Base of Baloch Minstrelsy”, Dr Sabir Badal Khan, a professor and researcher, writes that “Zahirok is both a genre of song expressing loss or absence (especially of distant loved ones) and a general term for several melody types used in narrative song performance” and that “Janmahmad, a Baloch writer from Dasht in Makran, maintains that “the entire Balochi musical structure is based on zaheerag.”
Balochi music is an ancient and evolving art. In the last decade or so, the art form has seen an evolution as contemporary Baloch singers and musicians have been working on fusions and experimenting with the art.
Naeem Dilpul, a civil servant by profession and singer by passion, found music to be cathartic, since childhood. “Singing was my natural way of expression and of releasing any tensions,” he says. “Whatever I felt, I expressed it through singing and composing without even knowing what I was doing.”
Dilpul grew up listening to Noor Khan Bezanjo, Shaukat Safar and Arif Baloch — some of the giants of Balochi music during his childhood and to date. As a child, Dilpul wanted to be a singer, but as he grew older he realised that this wasn’t possible.
“During childhood you have desires and dreams but as you grow up, you are faced with a social reality and limitations,” he says. “The only reason why I didn’t pursue music as a full-time career was because it doesn’t give you an income in our society, because singers are limited to performing in functions.
Dilpul went on to do different things in his life but the passion remained. As a Balochi language enthusiast, he did his MPhil in linguistics and it would bother him to see that people around him weren’t as interested in Balochi music as he thought they should be. He wanted to engage them in Balochi music.
“I did not like the trends and compositions that were going into music at the time,” he recalls. “I always questioned them. Perhaps it was an urge to deviate so I studied music of different cultures and how they evolve.”
Dilpul released his first song called Arz-e-Kaana [The Plea] in 2018. The song came as a fresh breath of air in the Balochi music industry. An individual product and with no platform backing it, Arz-e-Kaana had the touch of Balochi folk music as well as contemporary music. Both its melody and beat were new. Written, sung and composed by Dilpul, with visuals of the breathtakingly majestic mountains of Balochistan in the back drop as Ahmed Baloch, a Baloch Khatak dancer performs daringly. Arz-e-Kaana leaves the listener touched and in reverie of a longing.
“For me it was a passionate decision to make Arz-e-Kaana and when it became a hit, it inspired other artists to try something new on their own. It also push me to continue making music on the side as I had initially thought of only doing one song,” says Dilpul who believes that if he wasn’t a civil servant he wouldn’t have been able to pursue his passion. “Now mostly artists are making music through self-investment,” he explains. “Having a platform is a big thing and it is not often Baloch musicians get a platform.”
To understand the evolution of Balochi music, one has to know a little about its history. According to Ishaq Raheem, president of the Balochi Music Promoter Society, which was formed in 2018, Balochi music characterised by zaheerag and sung by pahlawan (Balochi term for singer of classical poetry; minstrel) dates back to the 15th century. This mostly included the narrations of historical events.
Another mode of music was folk music. As per Dilpul, the first Baloch singer to fuse pahlawan style music and folk music was Faiz Mohammad Baloch, who received the Pride of Performance by the President of Pakistan in 1979.
“He changed night long performances into 5-8 minute songs. After him Sabzal Sami sang Balochi zahirok, otherwise hard to sing,” says Dilpul. In one way or the other, the melody was evolving but the sound system and sound engineering remained stagnant and almost non-existent. Dilpul explains that a significant change came with Nooral Muhammad Nooral, who started singing verses of literary poets like Syed Zahoor Hashmi and Atta Shad, connecting such as music with literature. “Nooral’s sound system was improved as he had exposure in Dubai.
After Nooral, the era of Noor Khan Bezanjo and Arif Baloch began. Both of their music seemed similar because they had the same music director,” says Dilpul.
Suroz, tamburag, banjo and kuzag (a large earthenware water jar that is filled with water to generate sounds as it is hit) are some traditional Balochi musical instruments. Music has remained an indispensable part of Baloch culture. Sipat is a music form that Baloch women sing for seven nights in a row when a child is born. Nazenk is another form of folk music that is sung in Balochi weddings as songs of praise for the bride or bridegroom.
Many Baloch artists have been emerging in the wider public sphere, many of them come from the misunderstood and violence-ridden town of Lyari in Karachi. The Baloch Twins, a musical duo who started performing music professionally in 2016, is one example.
“We have been doing music for a long time and I don’t even remember when we started,” says Adil Baloch. “Music was always there. We used to live music as children. The environment we were surrounded with was not pleasant so we sought solace in music in a chaotic environment. When on one side we heard explosions and gunshots, listening to musical notes brought us peace.”
Baloch recalls being introduced to music genres such as classical folk when he was only six years old, but says that the duo was instead inclined towards listening to Western music. As they grew up and fell in love with poetry, they moved towards Balochi folk music and ghazals.
“We would listen to Faiz Muhammad Baloch and Jadok Baloch, who lived in Lyari during their lifetime,” recalls Baloch. “There were some Omani Baloch bands too that we listened to but their music was different to what we were consuming here. Our field of vision expanded and we too became passionate to explore different genres and experiment with music.”
The musical duo focusses on the storytelling perspective of music as they are trained filmmakers.
“We worked on visuals in our videos as Balochi music lacked that — the songs would be about something else and the visuals would depict something else altogether,” says Adil.
“Our mantra is only evolution because music cannot be stagnant,” Naseeb Mazar, a classical Baloch singer, and the son of renowned Balochi singer Pahlawan Mazar Ibrahim.
Mazar believes that a huge difference in the music of his late father’s time and that of his own is the commitment towards art. “They lived their lives as artists and embraced that life wholly, learning music properly and devoting themselves to their art,” he says.
Speaking on the evolution of Balochi music and its blending with modern music, Mazar says that while what contemporary Baloch musicians have done is remarkable, it isn’t Balochi music in its essence.
“If we want to make Balochi music progress while contemporising it, it has to be done so that even if a shepherd hears it with modern instruments like guitars,” says Mazar. “He should feel a yearning and remembrance for his mountains and land. On the other hand, even if someone with a liking for modern music hears it, they appreciate the zahirok too. The listener has to be engaged—it has to have the components of zahirok as well as glimpses of contemporary music. For this one has to know both Balochi music, as well as modern music.”
The Balochi Music Promoter Society has been working on resurrecting the dying art of traditional Balochi music while promoting Balochi music and helping it progress. “We conduct programmes and support artists,” says Raheem. “We have published books on Balochi music and are working on publishing a magazine on Balochi music called “Zemar” (Balochi word for music) which contains articles on Balochi music. Whatever we know of our ancient history has mostly been written through our poetry which was passed on through singing. Pahlawans have played the biggest role in Balochi music, literature and history. This is why we must work to keep the art of Balochi zemar alive.”
Somaiyah Hafeez is a freelance journalist and she tweets @sommulbaloch. All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the writer