Transitions: Before MP3s and YouTube, there was Star Electronics

KARACHI:

Salim Minhas, the owner of Star Electronics in Karachi, passed away on Wednesday after a lifetime spent serving up exclusive music to generations of music aficionados.

Minhas ran two stores in Karachi – one off Tariq Road and another near Regal Cinema in Saddar. His funeral prayers were offered on Wednesday evening at the Rehmania Mosque on Tariq Road. He had two sons and a daughter.

Longtime customer Mian Shaukat Hussain, who knew Minhas quite well, recalled him as a “fine gentleman”.

Hussain said he first began going to Star Electronics in the 1970s. “This was 1974 or 1975. At the time there were no CDs. He would sell tapes… this was his work, professionally. He would tape all of the programmes of that time.”

“He called me up one day and said ‘I have this album of Jagjit and Chitra [the well known Indian ghazal singers]’. It was their first album… and I had never heard of them before!” Minhas also similarly found the late pop singer Nazia Hassan’s work.

“He also had the best recordings of qawwalis including by Ghulam Ali, the Sabri Brothers and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan,” Hussain said.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 30^th, 2012.