The soulful bhajans flowing from her had the audience swaying their heads. But Aliya Rashid, unaware of the effect she had on the city’s crowd, kept crooning in her mellifluous voice. Aliya, a visually-impaired Pakistani Dhrupad singer, first of her kind, was in the city to perform at the Vyloppilly Samskrithi Bhavan last week.

Clutching her hand and adding her own nuances to Aliya’s renditions sat Amita Sinha Mahapatra, a Bengali songster, who in her own right is a well-known Dhrupad musician in the country. This Indo-Pak collaboration started in 2011 by the insistence of their Gurujis - the Gundecha brothers (Ramakant and Umakant Gundecha) - has been working like a charm since then. Whenever Aliya comes down to India to give performances Amita joins with her for a ‘Jugalbandi’. By now these singers have carved a niche in the field of music with their pristine music.

Musically inclined from a very young age, Aliya’s journey to the realms of music is inspiring enough to evoke awe in any random youngster.

“When I was around 2 years of age, I used to keep the tape recorder close to my ear and listen to the songs that used to come in the radio. Mostly, Amitabh Bachchan songs such as ‘mere paas aao mere doston’ and the like. Though I was visually impaired my hearing was impeccable. I used to sing to them word-by-word,” says Aliya.

Hailing from a non-musical family, Aliya’s yen for music was well-received in the family. Her father, who understood Aliya’s passion, bought her a small keyboard-cum-piano for her to practise her tones. Easily making piano keys her own, Aliya excelled in the instrument as well. The family which was settled in Dubai returned to their home town, Lahore while Aliya was still young and there she joined a special school for visually-impaired children where she studied till her matriculation.

“I was the leader of the school choir. While I was in the hostel I used to play the harmonium and sing. Even then I had no formal training in music. But it was during the years I spent in ‘Sanjan Nagar Institute of Philosophy and Arts’ under the aegis of Raza Kazim that I started learning Khayal singing,” says Aliya.
Aliya’s hidden talent came to light at the Pakistan Music Conference, held in Lahore in 2000, where she performed with Pakistani music giants. Her ghazals won her a gold medal and Pakistani Rs 1,000 at the conference. Later, it was Raza Kazim, a known name in the Pakistani art circuits, who suggested that Aliya should learn Dhrupad music from India as her voice is well suited for it.

“I said ‘challenge accepted’,” says Aliya between laughs. Yes, it was indeed a challenge for a Pakistani, to come to India in the early 2000s when the bruises of Kargil war were still afresh in the minds of both countries. “Moreover, I am a visually-impaired girl. But I thank Indian embassy in Pakistan for giving me a four-year-long visa to come to India and learn Dhrupad,” says Aliya.

But the bigger challenge was awaiting her in India. Aliya, who was unfamiliar with the nuances of Hindustani music had to imbibe the techniques of Dhrupad, the hardest and the most sophisticated genre in Hindustani. But like she said, she was ready to take all such challenges on her stride. Aliya was welcomed into the home of her Gurujis, where she stayed for four years without returning to Pakistan even once. And she became the first Pakistani to stay in India for 4 years.

In 2005, when she returned to Pakistan, Aliya was a known name in India having given many performances in this country. But Aliya was apprehensive to showcase her training in traditional Dhrupad which consists mostly of Hindu Bhajans in Pakistan. “I have to depend on Mia Tansen’s Muslim compositions while performing at Lahore. But while I was about to perform at Pakistan Music Conference, the organisers themselves came to me and said “Aliya you should perform traditional Dhrupad, Shankar Girijapathi” and I was taken aback. Since then, I have been singing traditional Dhrupad before Pakistani audience. Recently Pakistani TV has telecaste my rendition as well,” says Aliya.

Aliya, who believes that music has no barriers, says all she wants to prove with her music is that India and Pakistan are not two but one.

Aliya and Amita, who had their first American tour recently, are visiting Kerala for the first time. Asked about her future plans Aliya says she is working on sufi and Punjabi poetry to convert to Dhrupad. And her debut album will be released in Mumbai coming month. Their next stop is Bangalore.

Source: The New Indian Express