Sunday morning at around 3 am I received a message from a friend in New York: Haniya Aslam passed away? His inquisition, I hoped, was not news for me but sadly it was. By the time I managed to breach the firewall being cooked by the state, the Internet was already flooding with shock and disbelief. One half of the incredibly talented duo of Zeb & Haniya and a genius musician, Haniya Aslam had indeed passed into a better place.

‘Chal Diye’, their solo hit which was later featured in Coke Studio was already playing behind Instagram stories and reels as the lyrics wept of departure following a warm but momentary embrace. Haniya was 39. Unlike the theories being explored by pop culture sleuths on Whatsapp and DMs, she died of a cardiac arrest, something she shared with other family members from her generation who died young due to sudden heart attack as well.

What is not a theory is that in her brief stay she was able to touch as many hearts as the magical riffs she was able to manifest from any stringed instrument, always leaving you in awe of her quiet genius. So much so that sometimes I wonder if her brilliance as a guitar player – who slid onto the scene with an impeccable combination of jazz and blues inspired playing but stayed by being so innovative that her later stuff sounds contemporary and earthy at the same time – will get the same space in cultural history as her legacy as a woman who not only held her own but also broke new ground.

“I agreed to make Zeb & Haniya because I wanted to be with her all the time,” Zeb tells The Express Tribune over Zoom, two days after her cousin and former band-member was laid to rest in Islamabad.

Partners in crime since childhood, the two would sing along rhymes from Cassette Kahani and stage tableaus at home. That obsession with music and each other eventually took them to their first stage performance at Mrs Mushtaque’s Toddler Academy in Chakalal, Rawalpindi.

“Haniya was very fond of singing and she would make me sing along with her. In fact, when Haniya had moved to a different neighbourhood, it was the music and fairytales we came up with that kept is together. We even used to charge Rs2 each from our family members for reciting those fairytales,” laughs Zeb. “She was always a part of my life and I was always a part of her life and I was quite enthusiastic about it. Since she was a rather private person this would annoy her a lot.”

In many ways, what Zeb described was not different from the perception people had of Haniya when they would see the duo perform. Since Zeb was the vocalist she seemed to be more out there and Haniya would stay in shadows making sure the music is played accordingly.

“Absolutely that was there but...” Zeb interjects, “the interesting thing about her was that she had a large presence, even if it was a quiet one. People use labels like sweet, kind and quiet but to me Haniya was razor sharp on top of that. She always owned her space. She was never a wallflower and that is what made both of us equals despite my flamboyance.”

Optics can indeed be deceiving. Particularly in the performance industry where being a vocalist helps adapt better to the limelight and handling crowds. Ironically this dynamic was flipped in the case Zeb and Haniya.

“I was always the nervous one when it came to performing and Haniya was always very confident about it,” recalls Zeb. “That made us very complimentary, despite sharing the same gene pool and as a result, similar aesthetics and influences.  It’s funny because the covers she was singing during COVID were the covers that I was singing and sometimes I think people couldn’t tell our voices apart, my voice was her’s and her voice was mine.”

If you go back to Zeb & Haniya’s ‘Chup’ today and listen to the entire album without watching any of the videos you would be surprised how on point Zeb’s observation was. In fact, during our conversation I had to confirm from Zeb if Haniya had sung a few solo lines in their The Dewarist collaboration with Swanand Kirkire and Zeb & Haniya. Yes, she had sung solo lines but because I had been listening to the song without the video, it made me believe otherwise.

“So it was really hard to answer when people would ask what our respective roles in the band were. We were just there and so was the music,” says Zeb.

The aesthetic giant

As a duo, they not only managed to give hits in Coke Studio but also bagged collaborations with Indian artists while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of sound and feminine agency. Zeb & Haniya parted ways in 2013 after five years of making music. Haniya went to Canada to formally educate herself in audio engineering and sound mixing while Zeb found a solo career as a vocalist. Upon her return from Canada, Haniya established a studio in Islamabad delving into a solo career that was full of a diverse range of projects, from film music for Mehreen Jabbar’s Dobara Phir Se, providing sound engineering facilities for Zee Zindagi projects to opening door for younger female artists to make a name for themselves.

“In my opinion she is among the finest songwriters this country and I would argue South Asia has produced,” says Zeb about Haniya’s skillset as an artist. “She had this unique ability to combine very complex and varied sensibilities to churn out something so simple and likeable. Whenever she would make me listen to anything she had made there was hardly anything that I didn’t like she was so good.”

One thing that a lot of people might not know about Haniya was that she was a really good tabla player as well. “She trained under Iftikhar Joseph for years and could play the tabla really well. That’s also one of the reasons why her guitar playing was so unique because she understood rhythm so well,” says Zeb.

Later on Haniya was invited to be apart of Coke Studio 11 as a solo artist and musician. There she produced and collaborated on a feminist anthem called ‘Mein Irada’ featuring women and trans people from different backgrounds. While many might label this sudden push towards activism as ‘tokenism’ funded by a beverage company that was trying to grow sales in a post #MeToo and new feminist wave world, Haniya on the other hand, always shared concern for what is happening the world and how to make it a better place.

“She was definitely a very sweet soul but she was also a very powerful person,” says Zeb. Part of her charisma, Zeb felt, could be attributed to the kind of deep thinker she was, and deep down she had always wondered about how to make the world a better place.  From whatever she could, she would really go out of the way to create spaces for people, especially when it comes to creating opportunities and communities for female musicians.

“She wanted women to take charge of their destiny, to pick up instruments and start recording themselves,” recalls Zeb. “To have such an autonomy was one of her biggest dreams, and she was doing a lot to ensure that from behind the curtain”. Her studio in Islamabad was nothing short of a safe space for young artists and filmmakers, Zeb feels it was akin to how Mekaal Hasan’s studio was in Lahore where upcoming musicians would just hang out to run into some great instrument player. “So in her own quiet way she has created a sub-culture that she truly believed in.”

While nurturing a community and helping young artists, particularly women, put their music out there Haniya was also making the most her training as a cinematic sound mixer. She was a certified engineer who could mix the 4:1, 5:1, 7:1 surround sound for films and a major part of her work was actually doing projects of such scale for OTT platforms on both sides of the border, apart from her work as a solo artist and a music producer. 

All this was quite a revelation for someone like me who thought he knew enough about Haniya and Pakistan’s entertainment business. Does that maker her an asset who was grossly underutilised?

“She wasn’t underutilised. She was just being utilised by thorough professionals. And it wasn’t talked about because she didn’t talk about it but everyone knew she was really busy. I think there’s also an assumption that everyone who is a part of the creative business is interacting with these social media platforms in the same way but they are not, and a lot isn’t shown,” Zeb introspected rather loudly.

As our conversation drew to a close, Zeb felt a bit lighter as if manifesting thoughts about Haniya had given her an opportunity to not only grieve but to put into context and words who she had actually lost. 

Now it was only necessary to request Zeb to detach herself from Haniya and tell us what she thought as a person and a musician Haniya’s biggest contribution to Pakistani society and music scene.

“I think her aesthetic of being able to create such powerful songs without them having been loud,” says Zeb. “That beautiful major minor mix, where it all co-existed in perfect harmony… it was all so simple and chromatic at the same time”  

Looking at Haniya, Zeb feels so many girls found solace in the fact that you didn’t have to be glamorous to pick up the guitar and play it well. “That you could just be a woman who could make great music while wearing a simple Shalwar Kameez. The extra-ordinary could be achieved through the ordinary”

While Zeb and Haniya both have had similar journeys, as women trying to make it big in a field dominated by men, Zeb felt eventually it was the new path they had paved for others that played a bigger role. “As much as I and Haniya had varied solo careers, mine as a vocalist and her as a producer, it was neither our popular songs nor Bollywood collabs that led to all the tributes that are pouring in for Haniya right now. It was the path that Haniya was quietly paving for others just by sticking to who she was and what she truly believed in,” says Zeb.

“She truly really did break the mould; a lot of women exist in the music industry but she didn’t just exist in those spaces, traditionally occupied by men, in Pakistan and all over the world. She also excelled in those spaces.  That’s why she doesn’t only enjoy respect in the music industry but real camaraderie as well.”

As Zeb gathers herself after are almost an hour-long telephonic conversation, she feels a sigh of relief mentioning all the tribute posts and entire passages young artists had been writing for her band-mate, her sister, her ‘Hanini’.

“With her passing she is also proving that no matter what the market tells you to do, if you are authentic then your music is going to stay in the people's heart.”