The Last of His class

The soul-soothing voice of Ustad Mehdi Hassan was silent since years, but Ghazal was alive in his breath. Like clouds bid farewell after a season, leaving a rejuvenating   impact for the rest of the year; the era of Ghazal Mehdi Hassan reigned kept enlivening the most delicate petal of the sensitive heart even after he left singing long back.

Today, the breath of Ghazal has stopped. The clouds have gone for ever. The ultimate drought has begun. The last mighty pillar of the platinum age of Ghazal has collapsed. The voice that walked with Ghazal through her journey from Daagh to Faraz; and from Mir to Shehzad ascended to the Almighty, from where the voice was sent to redefine the Ghazal.

The Ghazal is all about pain. And while walking with him throughout his lifetime, she dedicatedly kept Mehdi Hassan immersed in the pain. She took him to the highest of acceptance, and to the lowest of neglect.

At once, a boy doing ‘Mausiki’ in his wealthy ancestral house was made to wander homeless on Karachi streets. After taking many pains, Ghazal gave him an opportunity to regain his paradise. With Ghazal, he walked ahead, and with Ghazal, he arose to become the King of the same dominion.

But at once, the King was thrown behind a curtain of negligence; that too, in such a way that he would have died unnoticed someday. Mehdi Hassan kept walking with Ghazal even in these days.  He was destined to do so. After all, Ghazal was his breath. The new age Ghazal tried to save this voice -- the joiner of the ancient and the modern age, but it was too late.

Ghazal gone so engrossed in keeping him immersed in pains, that she forget to give Mehdi Hassan an opportunity to express this pain. Unfortunate was the Ghazal that Mehdi Hassan had to go silent for more than two decades of his lifetime. Otherwise, the man who successfully redefined the Ghazal would have been embellished her with countless of wonderful wonders.

The King inspired a good music, good literature, and good poetry throughout his active career. At one point of time, he strongly opposed the unnecessary simplification of the Urdu language aimed to attract the crowds. He selected classic verses and sung them in such a way that even a non-Urdu listener could get the flavor to its fullest. It was his mastery and power of expression that many complex verses full of Arabic and Farsi words became songs of day-to-day life.

Yes. Ghazal will now pay for being so cruel beloved to a person who remained to be her soulful lover for his lifetime. With Mehdi Hassan, Ghazal loses an age to History. She loses her traditional beauty to the modern make-up. The Ghazal loses the last exponent of the class of which the Ghazal is known for.