The love of music is blind
Okara Government special persons high school graduates Mukhtar Jafri and Khadam say that they came to Qaisarabad five years ago.
“After we graduated, we brought our mother with us and moved near a local shrine,” said Khadam, who plays the tabla.
“We both used to work making cane furniture but we always knew we wanted to play instruments and spend our days making music,” Jafri said. He said that he learned the flute by himself.
“I was a young boy when my mother got me a flute and the rest was just practice. Both of us love to sing and every time we heard a song we liked, we would practice all night trying to adapt it on the tabla and flute,” Khadam said.
Five years ago the brothers moved their act to a local shrine.
They said that the managers of the shrine let them sit and sing as their performance usually brought lots of people to the shrine.
“We earn our keep and feed ourselves and our mother,” said Khadam, adding that he and his brother could not ask for much more.
“We make a living doing something we love,” said Jafri. He said that on good days they easily earned up to Rs1,000 and on others they made an average of Rs350 a day.
Both brothers have been blind by birth.
“I was determined that my sons would not be left behind because of their disability. My husband died when they were young and I moved to Okara so they could get an education,” their mother Muneeza Bibi said.
“Every morning we have breakfast with our mother, she gives us our white sticks and all three of us make our way to the shrine to perform,” Jafri said.
They said that whenever they played they visualised that people around them were dancing to their music. “Sometimes , someone in the audience will begin singing and there is no greater gift than the fact that we can make them happy,” the brothers said.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 27th, 2010.
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