Written by: Haroon Shuaib
Posted on: April 19, 2021 | 
| 中文
Tina Sani Performing at Faiz Mela
From a young age, Tina Sani was drawn to music, but her serious musical journey started as a game of chance. Her father, Nisar Sani, worked in the oil industry and the family moved from Dhaka to Kabul to Karachi. Frequent displacements meant that Tina had to find a preoccupation to keep her mind off the ordeal of repeated dislocations. Both her parents had a refined taste in music and her father also played sitar as a hobby. Once settled in Karachi, he arranged for a music teacher for her, Ustad Nizamuddin Khan of the Delhi gharana. Tina was gifted with a voice not easy to ignore, but her own early musical references were western. The Carpenters, John Denver, and Barbara Streisand were her Western musical inspirations.
“My first serious signing performance was in a youth show for TV called Tarang (Melody). I sang ‘Akhan Cham Cham Wasiyan’ (Eyes kept shedding tears). My Ustad’s cousin, Ustad Zahoor, who was visiting from Delhi, helped me prepare for this song. It was 1980 and the producer of the show, Ishrat Ansari, was a family friend. As luck would have it, the song was an instant hit,” Tina reminisces. So impressive was her talent that Mansur Bokhari, Managing Director EMI Pakistan, a leading music label of the time, immediately signed Tina to record an album with Habib Wali Mohammed, a very skilled and seasoned ghazal singer. She kept learning classical Eastern music and also took lessons from Ustad Chand Amrohvi and Khan Sahib Mehdi Hassan Khan.
As a Young Performer
“I was soon bored by the type of work that was coming my way and decided to take a break. Arshad Mehmood, a composer that eventually I worked a lot with, persuaded me in 1984 to record a poem of Faiz Ahmed Faiz that was to be played at Faiz’s first death anniversary in Lahore. This was ‘Meray Dil, Meray Musafir’ (My Heart, My Traveller) and it was the first time that I was introduced to Faiz’s poetry, and my life-long passion for this great revolutionary poet began,” Tina recollects.
Arshad chose Tina to sing this composition by chance, because Nayyara Noor was out of town and the studio could not wait for her return. When the recording of ‘Meray Dil’ in Tina’s voice played at a hall in Lahore, Faiz’s family and the cream of Pakistan’s intelligentsia was in attendance. Though she could not attend in person, the magic of Tina’s vocals moved everyone to tears. The following year, the organizers of ‘Faiz Mela’ (Faiz Festival), one of the most sought after literary events of Pakistan, were glad to invite Tina Sani in person, and she has been attending the Mela since.
Photographed by Tapu Javeri
Arshad Mehmood helped her train for the performance of ‘Mera Dil’ and understand Faiz’s angst while writing it. The poet was in exile at the time that he wrote it and Tina could empathize with his pain due to her childhood travels. Her raw but poignant vocals captured his yearning for home beautifully. ‘Har ik ajnabi se puchhen jo pata tha apnay ghar ka’ (To enquire from every stranger, what was once the address of our home), is a line that still moves her to tears at every concert. Faiz is her muse ever since, and this poem is an integral part of her repertoire.
Compact music cassettes were big back then. Tina’s music albums released by EMI, mostly containing Faiz’s poetry, became a source for a whole new generation to be introduced to Faiz’s poetry and ideals. “Once I started understanding the essence of Faiz’s poetry, which was largely focused on the social, political and economic malaise, I fell in love with his words,” Tina remembers.
During a Performance
Tina broke from the conventional rendition of Faiz’s poetry in Ghazal form. She shifts from an almost whispering rendition to straight narration, and returns to melody effortlessly. She selects compositions that have an emphasis on words rather than the music, and she also picked up the skill of using the control of her breath for effect. Traditionally, singers in Subcontinental classical music tradition are encouraged to never let their breath be heard, but Tina used it to depict the frustration and struggles that underline poetry. Her expressive take of poems such as ‘Bahaar aayi’ (The spring has arrived), ‘Bol ke lab azad hain terey’ (Speak, for you are free), ‘Jo guzri hum pay’ (Whatever we went through) and the timeless classic Dasht-e-Tanhai (The desert of loneliness), earlier sung by the towering Iqbal Bano, became the voice of Faiz’s poetry in the 80s.
A Portrait of Tina Sani
Tina takes singing seriously with her choice of lyrics, commitment to Riyaz (training) and passion to constantly explore more meaningful limits in music. This ranges from singing a Sindhi folk song, Kharri Neem Kay Neechay (Standing under a tree) in 1985 for a PTV drama Sukkhan (Sukkhan), to 'Khush Piya Wassen' (May you live happily), a Seraiki ballad for the soundtrack of the 2016 grosser Ho Mann Jahan (Wherever the Heart Takes).
“I knew from the beginning that I was in music for the long haul. I was like a child in the wonderland of music and I enjoyed breaking the norms by constantly experimenting. I could afford to take long sabbaticals but my music kept me relevant for those who followed my journey. I could not sing something until I had done enough riyaz. I have a constant urge to always up my bar,” Tina reflects.
At her Home
Not someone to opt for the easy, Tina went on to sing the famous Shikwa-Jawab-e-Shikwa (Compliant and Counter-Complaint), a long form poem of Iqbal. She also sang Faiz’s Mori Araj Suno (Listen to my requests) for Coke Studio Season 3, an innovative duet where haunting vocals were juxtaposed with a reading by Arieb Azhar. In the same season, she also sang Nawa-e-Nay (Sound of Flute), an Urdu adaption of Rumi’s timeless poetry. The 13th century mystic poet’s verses were fused with Turkish, Persian and Subcontinental hues, strung together in Bheravi raag. “I started experimenting with Iqbal and Rumi after a chance meeting with Annemarie Schimmel,” Tina remarked. Schimmel, an influential German Orientalist and scholar considered an authority on Iqbal and Rumi, motivated Tina to explore these thinkers.
At Coke Studio Season 3
“I feel bad for the young singers as they have immense pressure to stay relevant which takes away from their work. There is a lot of chaos out there with internet, digital releases, and copy-right infringements. They also have to worry about monetization of their work, which we never bothered about. Despite all the talent, I don’t see much original work of value coming out these days on Pakistani music scene and that is sad. There is this immense pressure to keep churning music, whether they feel inspired or not. We did not have these pressures. so we could fully focus on music. I feel that it is important to fully immerse into, study, and understand the context before a singer takes on his or her next endeavor,” Tina opines. With a singing career of almost 40 years, Tina Sani is constantly striving to explore new dimensions of poetry through her music, which is both inspiring and delightful for her fans.
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