I have been a ‘Junooni’ since I was in school. Before you think that I am a radical or a rebel without a cause or something more drastic, let me explain that by that I mean, a fan of the Pakistani band Junoon. My friends and I would sing their songs – no matter how out of tune we were – screaming our lungs out. So inspired was I by their music, that I once mailed them saying that I loved their music and ‘I know it sounds clichéd but I think music is something that can get the two countries together’. I remember the shock and euphoria I felt, when within a few days I got a mail from Salman Ahmed, their lead guitarist agreeing with my belief. Years later, I met them at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, and the twenty minutes that I spent talking with them backstage how I thought their music – and music as a whole – was the most beautiful way to bring people closer, are stored in my chest of my most precious memories.

Pop goes the conflict

The popularity of Hindi film music in Pakistan is a fairly known fact. One would find popular hindi movie songs blaring from small paan shops or restaurants all over the country. Don’t be surprised if you come across a Pakistani patron of Lata Mangeshkar or Kishore Kumar in some remote village in the Pakistani countryside. Similarly in India we have a huge fan following for latest pop icons from across the border like Junaid and Ali Zafar, bands like Strings, Jal and Fuzon. The stringent visa restrictions notwithstanding, music from either countrry spreads across the border like wildfire.

Besides popular music, there has also been a fair amount of exchange across the border in other musical genre as well. Whether it is Bhimsen Joshi, Parveen Sultana, Pt Ravishankar, Ghulam Ali Khan or M S Subbulakshmi, there has always been a unanimous enthusiasm and bonding between one and all of the music fraternity across the Indian subcontinent. Moreover, initiatives by organizations such as ‘Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy’, where the world-renowned ghazal singer Farida Khannum enthralled an audience in Delhi, have been well appreciated. Similarly Pandit Jasraj and Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia have wooed audiences in Pakistan time and again.

Musical dialogues

I have been lucky enough to have stimulating interactions with people from across the border in completely different settings in the last few years. Be it interacting with Pakistani students in a workshop, a Pakistani supermarket owner in Paris or meeting a Pakistani drummer in an electro-punk concert in Marseille, there have been some common pointers. The one common thread in all my interactions, besides the fact that each one has been extremely enriching, is Music. It gave us a common, neutral ground to communicate with each other. And as Hans Christian Andersen puts it, ‘Where words fail, music speaks.’

So what is that it about music that manages to melt barriers and seep into our own hearts and the hearts of the ‘other’? A song by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan – another big Pakistani legend who stole the hearts of millions of Indians – collaborated with own A.R. Rehman and sang a song that went, “What are you waiting for, another day another dawn? Someday we have to find a new way to peace.” Could music be that new way?