Rocking the System - 2004
Rock music and MTV is helping President Musharraf loosen the stifling grip of the clerics and drag his country out of a medieval time warp.
"Musharraf rules!" states one teenaged girl. "He's the only person in power in Pakistan we've ever been able to relate to." Musharraf's 1999 coup may have suspended Pakistan's democracy but it also lifted the lid on a simmering rock and roll revolution. Rock music, previously banned as un-Islamic, is now Pakistan's biggest entertainment industry. Pakistani rock bands tour India, creating a big push for peace. And the arrival of satellite tv has enabled even people in the villages to watch Baywatch. "People have realised we don't have to kiss anyone's ass any more," states one young woman. "We can be ourselves."
Produced by ABC Australia
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures
Transcript
Shots of Karachi
Music
Thompson: The Pakistani city of Karachi. 00:10
The name alone is enough to conjure preconceptions of a violent place where Islamic fundamentalists thrive and terrorists hide.This sprawling port metropolis may be all those things. But as with all big cities, in Karachi, the opposite is also true.
Beach shots
When the sun goes to bed over this city, Pakistan’s new rock and roll generation gets up and comes out to play.
Junoon performing Music 00:47
Thompson: General Pervez Musharraf’s military coup in 1999 may have suspended Pakistan’s democracy, but it also lifted the lid on a simmering rock and roll revolution. Five years ago rock music was effectively banned in Pakistan, condemned as foreign and un-Islamic. Today it is Pakistan’s biggest entertainment industry. 01:27
Music 01:50
Thompson: And this is the band that started it all – Junoon. 02:07
Music
Thompson: Tonight they are performing at a concert in Karachi which was almost cancelled because of security fears.02:24
Music
Ahmad to audience
Ahmad: Good evening Karachi! I want you to applaud yourselves for coming out and facing all sorts of innuendo, threats (in Hindi) I want to say that no-one’s as daring as you guys. Thankyou so much. 02:52
Junoon performing
Music 03:11
Song Lyrics: The monsoon’s gathering with sound & fury. Look, how the rain falls on unknown streets. Let us take advantage of this beautiful moment. 03:18
Thompson: Junoon are Pakistan’s rock and roll superstars.They have sold 20 million records worldwide and boast multiple number one hits in Pakistan and neighbouring India – bridging the two countries’ deep political divide.
Music 03:57
Thompson: Junoon’s powerhouse blend of modern rock, politics and Sufi Muslim poetry offered Pakistan’s youth something they had never seen before. 04:04
Music 04:14
Vox pop with audience member.
Audience member: I like Junoon, I want to like peace. I don’t want terrorism, I don’t want bomb blasting. I don’t want anything I want just singing and I want Allah – just Allah.
Junoon video clips Music 04:40
Thompson: Lead guitarist Salman Ahmad founded Junoon in 1990. 04:53
Music
Thompson: But he’s had to travel a very long road to get from rock revolutionary to rock god. 05:01
He trained as a doctor and lived in New York before giving up medicine for music. 05:09
Music
Salman: It was really trial and error, to plant a seed of rock music in a country which had never seen rock, and it’s probably the only place on earth where you could make all the mistakes all over again. 05:18
Music 05:29
Thompson: For years the long hair and jeans which are now Salman’s trademark were banned from television in a Pakistan dominated by oppressive governments and Islamist fervour.
Music 05:42
Salman Salman: I remember the first time I was on stage, it was a talent show and I was playing something on the guitar and in came these jamatis, who were sort of a religious student group and broke all the furniture, all the guitars and I said “Wait, that’s our job to break the guitars and the drum sets”, but they didn’t have any sense of humour ahh – it was really difficult, it was an uphill battle at that time, but we won out, because when you release stuff through music, it just permeates, it goes out there. 05:44
Junoon performing in TV studio Music 06:18
Thompson: In Karachi, Junoon is recording a live concert at one of the many satellite music channels that sprung up a couple of years ago – challenging Pakistan’s strict censorship.Salman’s brother Sherry, who’s also Junoon’s manager, remembers it well. 06:48
Sherry: Excellent. Good show, eh. Good stuff 06:56
Sherry Sherry: In 1990 we just had one channel, called PTV –it’s crap! – and suddenly we had Star TV come in with MTV, and CNN and BBC and Fox, and everybody’s getting bombarded with images. And even villages in Pakistan are getting these really old fogies watching Baywatch! And like, my god, that just obliterated PTV’s stranglehold on people’s mindsets. And so then suddenly we started getting private channels and people realised that we don’t have to kiss anybody’s ass anymore, we can be ourselves. 07:01
Shallum going out
Thompson: It’s a sense of freedom which young musicians like 26 old Shallum Xavier could only have dreamt about before Junoon. It’s only a Tuesday night in Karachi, but Shallum is heading out on the town. 07:51
Shallum: Karachi’s the most happening place in Pakistan. I love being in Karachi and ah… it gets dangerous sometimes, but you know every big city has some drawbacks and it is one of the biggest cities of South Asia. So I mean violence is there, but there is a balance and for the past three or four years it’s been absolutely really good. 07:58
Makeshift Nightclub in house
Thompson: In conservative and Muslim Pakistan where the selling of alcohol is strictly controlled, most nightclubs are secretive places for members only. So Karachi’s wealthy young elites hold private concerts at friends houses in the suburbs. Tonight the band is Shallum’s outfit Fuzon – which has inherited Junoon’s power blend of pop rock and classical Pakistani music.
Music 08:57
Fuzon performing
Thompson: Lead singer, Shafqat Amanat Ali, comes from a family with eight generations of classically trained singers. 09:07
Music
Thompson: Mixing that tradition with funk sounds and a rocking guitar, sent Fuzon’s first song to number one in Pakistan for seven months. 09:25
Music
Female audience member: I think they are one of the only bands who have properly fused classical and pop perfectly together. 09:42
Vox pop with female audience member They just come up with really beautiful music – I can’t say anything else rather than they’re just great 09:49
Music
Thompson: A scene like this was unheard of in Pakistan just a few years ago. 10:04
Music
Nariman Ansari Nariman: The nineties have brought that in, in the eighties the youth had only options like gun culture and you know, joining gangs and getting into all that. Now
instead of guns, they’re picking up guitars and the music channels are opening up and lots of changes happening.
Musharraf on stage with Junoon
Music 10:45
Thompson: Military dictator President Pervez Musharraf is a surprising supporter of Pakistan’s rock revolution. It may have more to do with politics than music – in 1998 Junoon broke a huge taboo by touring India. That brave move created a scandal, but also helped generate a popular momentum for peace which recently the Pakistani leader has been happy to ride. 11:17
Sherry: It was like the Beatles literally taking over India –and yet the difference was, we’re from Pakistan, the so-called enemy country and I Sherry was like, oh my god, we’re landing in Bombay immigration, what they going to do – and they’re like – oh my god, it’s the Saahnee boys – the number one track in India – they didn’t know the name of the band – but the immigration boys wanted autographs from everybody. It was incredible and that for me, I think for all of us, was a paradigm shifting moment,Junoon performing in India, because we speak the same language, same food, same jokes – same everything – and it’s just mind blowing when you cross over and you see that people just love each other as human beings; they don’t give a shit about your religion, or anything like that. 11:01
Thompson: Musharaff’s support for Pakistan’s new music culture has won him his very own band of groupies. 12:18
Music
Salman: He’s an enigma, because he’s a military dictator, yet we’ve had the most freedom of expression since he came to power in 1999. 12:31
Salman. Super: Salman Ahmad Lead guitarist, Junoon. You know, you can say anything, do anything, get up on stage and play anywhere. 12:39
Nariman Nariman: Musharaff rules! We love him because I mean so far we haven’t actually been able to identify with anyone in power in Pakistan yet; he’s the only person we can actually relate to. We feel like he knows what we’re talking about. 12:44
Meera Meera: He doesn’t like come out to people and say, no, you can’t drink, you can’t do this like, you can go out until 12, you can party, you can dance, girls can do whatever they want. It’s been a positive change. 13:01
Fuzon member Band members: He’s the best – I think he’s the best – he’s the best around, so far. 13:12
Music 13:16
Thompson: Islamabad is Pakistan’s centre of political power.
Unlike the rest of the country this is a modern planned city of leafy streets and comfortable houses.
Zeejah with family:It’s here we meet young men like Zeejah Fazli. Like most young educated middle class Pakistani professionals, Zeejah married early and is balancing a family with a well paid job.
Zeejah going to office But somewhere behind his cheery conservative appearance, lurks a dark side. 13:54
Zeejah: Alright, this is my office, its called Intermed National and it’s a pharmaceutical business,and that is my studio next door. There’s Imran over there. That’s my cousin Imran 14:10
Imran sleeping and he is sleeping. Imran? 14:21
Thompson: Imran is Zeejah’s cousin, but unlike him, Imran has chosen the radical path of becoming one of Pakistan’s very few full-time rock rebels. 14:27
Imran and Zeejah:
Zeejah: So that was when you got your first guitar from Canada – the black one. 14:39
Thompson: Imran may have a guitar but he has no job, or wife and kids.
Imran: I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t maintain those two separate identities – it would just be too much of a chore for me.
Zeejah: Double life is tough. Nine to five is office hours, sober hours, dealing with different people, dealing with business. After five o’clock, there is more change, I get into the other, Dark Side. 15:05
Music 15:24
Band rehearsing Lyrics: Hey teacher! Leave those kids alone! …all in all it’s just another brick in the wall…
Thompson: As a stormy night descends over Islamabad, Zeejah, Imran and their friends unleash the spirits of death metal rock. 15:54
Salman: I think young Pakistanis are searching for their true identity, because we’ve had so much of ideological interference. You know, either it’s state interference or it’s the western media trying to put you in a cookie cutter, right, or it’s the post 9/11 world, where everything Muslim is supposed to equate to terrorism. 16:17
Salman: So there’s a lot of confusion amongst young people, you know, that wait a minute, we don’t sign up to what Osama’s doing, we didn’t sign up to suicide bombing, but yet we’re not about Hollywood – you know we have our own identity.16:51
Street shots/traditional musicians
Music 17:04
Thompson: It’s the successful identity of rock bands like Junoon that also sells products in Pakistan – only Bollywood film stars get that job across the border in India. 17:30
Fuzon at airport It’s a border that Shallum and the other members of Fuzon are preparing to cross for the first time. Following the lead set by Junoon’s appeal for cross-border cultural links, Fuzon are flying to Delhi to join a concert promoting peace between the nuclear rivals.
Shallum: We’re very, very, very excited about it.
Shallum at airport. Super:Shallum XavierLead guitarist, Fuzon
Shallum: On the serious side, I feel I’m an ambassador for the youth, and I’m going to make sure I’m on my best behaviour. 18:09
Band arrives at New Delhi
Thompson: One hour later Fuzon emerges at New Delhi airport. But apart from the sight of a few turban wearing Sikhs, they seem barely aware that they ever left home. 18:25
Shafqat: This place and the people, and the weather – everything’s just the same. I feel like we never left – we’re back. 18:33
Preparations for concert
Thompson: It’s such cultural similarities between the people of India and Pakistan that are being highlighted at this concert in New Delhi. 18:48
But the same early monsoon weather that Pakistanis will experience across the border in Lahore, threatens to spoil this rare night out in India. 19:01
Shafqat. Super: Shafqat Amanat AliLead singer, Fuzon.
Shafqat: It’ll be bad luck. I hope it won’t rain, at least for our performance at least. (laughs) 19:11
Fuzon concert Music 19:20
Thompson: The rain comes down, but it’s not enough to dissuade the audience from witnessing another small break in the dark cloud which has hung over the two nations’ relationship for fifty-seven years. 19:28
Music 19:38
Thompson: Fuzon’s music quickly strikes a chord and they are joined on stage by a top Indian band. 20:19
Shafqat: Thank you India! 20:33
Indian lead singer: So these guys have no idea about what the song is all about. It’ll be great if all of us can perform it together. 20:37
Music 20:46
Audience member Audience member: It’s really fantastic, the Pakistani band. And our country band is also really fantastic. And I really think it’s a nice effort, it’s about the love peace, harmony and that’s a nice gesture. 20:57
Female Audience member: There is always been this thing between India and Pakistan where there is this tension about safety and security and all of that, and I think the fact that they’ve come here and played so confidently speaks a lot. 21:09
Bands perform together
Lyrics: For this show, many hurdles came in our way. And the very last hurdle was this rain. But even that could not stop you and us from meeting each other. Thank you. 21:22
Shafqat Shafqat: It was amazing. It felt really good, really good. The people were really surprised and were having a lot of fun.Thompson: Do you feel emotional about it? 22:02
Band member: Emotional, happy, excited and that describes the feeling more than anything. 22:09
Junoon video clip
Music 22:18
Thompson: A few weeks later, Junoon’s Salman Ahmad arrives in Delhi to promote his new music video filmed in Lahore and at Patiala in India. 22:40
Music 22:49
Salman meets with Indian family
Thompson: Here, he is meeting the current occupants of his family’s ancestral home. Salman’s relatives were forced to abandon the house when they fled to Pakistan in 1947 – now it features in the film clip. 23:01
Junoon video clip
Music 23:14
Thompson: The song’s [en]titled Ghoom Tana – which means “harmonious journey” and features Salman and the famous Indian actress Nadita Das. 23:26
Lyrics: “Winning hearts through love, Not afraid of obstacles… 23:35
Salman: Ghoom tana is musical metaphor. But it is also spiritual metaphor which people living in the subcontinent – Indians and Pakistanis – Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, understand instinctively. It is a metaphor for harmony, it is a metaphor for a journey. 23:55
Lyrics: Harmonious journey… harmonious journey. 24:11
Salman: And we are on a journey, I mean we are reaching the 57th anniversary, independence anniversary, but we were together as a people for 5,700 years. So friendship is scripted in the DNA of the people of the subcontinent and I think, 24:25
Salman: whatever things the governments have to work out, they should work out, but they should allow people to meet each other. And this is what we are trying to do through this film. 24:38
Music
Credits: Reporter: Geoff ThompsonCamera: Michael CoxEditor: Simon Brynjolffssen
Music
Thompson: The Pakistani city of Karachi. 00:10
The name alone is enough to conjure preconceptions of a violent place where Islamic fundamentalists thrive and terrorists hide.This sprawling port metropolis may be all those things. But as with all big cities, in Karachi, the opposite is also true.
Beach shots
When the sun goes to bed over this city, Pakistan’s new rock and roll generation gets up and comes out to play.
Junoon performing Music 00:47
Thompson: General Pervez Musharraf’s military coup in 1999 may have suspended Pakistan’s democracy, but it also lifted the lid on a simmering rock and roll revolution. Five years ago rock music was effectively banned in Pakistan, condemned as foreign and un-Islamic. Today it is Pakistan’s biggest entertainment industry. 01:27
Music 01:50
Thompson: And this is the band that started it all – Junoon. 02:07
Music
Thompson: Tonight they are performing at a concert in Karachi which was almost cancelled because of security fears.02:24
Music
Ahmad to audience
Ahmad: Good evening Karachi! I want you to applaud yourselves for coming out and facing all sorts of innuendo, threats (in Hindi) I want to say that no-one’s as daring as you guys. Thankyou so much. 02:52
Junoon performing
Music 03:11
Song Lyrics: The monsoon’s gathering with sound & fury. Look, how the rain falls on unknown streets. Let us take advantage of this beautiful moment. 03:18
Thompson: Junoon are Pakistan’s rock and roll superstars.They have sold 20 million records worldwide and boast multiple number one hits in Pakistan and neighbouring India – bridging the two countries’ deep political divide.
Music 03:57
Thompson: Junoon’s powerhouse blend of modern rock, politics and Sufi Muslim poetry offered Pakistan’s youth something they had never seen before. 04:04
Music 04:14
Vox pop with audience member.
Audience member: I like Junoon, I want to like peace. I don’t want terrorism, I don’t want bomb blasting. I don’t want anything I want just singing and I want Allah – just Allah.
Junoon video clips Music 04:40
Thompson: Lead guitarist Salman Ahmad founded Junoon in 1990. 04:53
Music
Thompson: But he’s had to travel a very long road to get from rock revolutionary to rock god. 05:01
He trained as a doctor and lived in New York before giving up medicine for music. 05:09
Music
Salman: It was really trial and error, to plant a seed of rock music in a country which had never seen rock, and it’s probably the only place on earth where you could make all the mistakes all over again. 05:18
Music 05:29
Thompson: For years the long hair and jeans which are now Salman’s trademark were banned from television in a Pakistan dominated by oppressive governments and Islamist fervour.
Music 05:42
Salman Salman: I remember the first time I was on stage, it was a talent show and I was playing something on the guitar and in came these jamatis, who were sort of a religious student group and broke all the furniture, all the guitars and I said “Wait, that’s our job to break the guitars and the drum sets”, but they didn’t have any sense of humour ahh – it was really difficult, it was an uphill battle at that time, but we won out, because when you release stuff through music, it just permeates, it goes out there. 05:44
Junoon performing in TV studio Music 06:18
Thompson: In Karachi, Junoon is recording a live concert at one of the many satellite music channels that sprung up a couple of years ago – challenging Pakistan’s strict censorship.Salman’s brother Sherry, who’s also Junoon’s manager, remembers it well. 06:48
Sherry: Excellent. Good show, eh. Good stuff 06:56
Sherry Sherry: In 1990 we just had one channel, called PTV –it’s crap! – and suddenly we had Star TV come in with MTV, and CNN and BBC and Fox, and everybody’s getting bombarded with images. And even villages in Pakistan are getting these really old fogies watching Baywatch! And like, my god, that just obliterated PTV’s stranglehold on people’s mindsets. And so then suddenly we started getting private channels and people realised that we don’t have to kiss anybody’s ass anymore, we can be ourselves. 07:01
Shallum going out
Thompson: It’s a sense of freedom which young musicians like 26 old Shallum Xavier could only have dreamt about before Junoon. It’s only a Tuesday night in Karachi, but Shallum is heading out on the town. 07:51
Shallum: Karachi’s the most happening place in Pakistan. I love being in Karachi and ah… it gets dangerous sometimes, but you know every big city has some drawbacks and it is one of the biggest cities of South Asia. So I mean violence is there, but there is a balance and for the past three or four years it’s been absolutely really good. 07:58
Makeshift Nightclub in house
Thompson: In conservative and Muslim Pakistan where the selling of alcohol is strictly controlled, most nightclubs are secretive places for members only. So Karachi’s wealthy young elites hold private concerts at friends houses in the suburbs. Tonight the band is Shallum’s outfit Fuzon – which has inherited Junoon’s power blend of pop rock and classical Pakistani music.
Music 08:57
Fuzon performing
Thompson: Lead singer, Shafqat Amanat Ali, comes from a family with eight generations of classically trained singers. 09:07
Music
Thompson: Mixing that tradition with funk sounds and a rocking guitar, sent Fuzon’s first song to number one in Pakistan for seven months. 09:25
Music
Female audience member: I think they are one of the only bands who have properly fused classical and pop perfectly together. 09:42
Vox pop with female audience member They just come up with really beautiful music – I can’t say anything else rather than they’re just great 09:49
Music
Thompson: A scene like this was unheard of in Pakistan just a few years ago. 10:04
Music
Nariman Ansari Nariman: The nineties have brought that in, in the eighties the youth had only options like gun culture and you know, joining gangs and getting into all that. Now
instead of guns, they’re picking up guitars and the music channels are opening up and lots of changes happening.
Musharraf on stage with Junoon
Music 10:45
Thompson: Military dictator President Pervez Musharraf is a surprising supporter of Pakistan’s rock revolution. It may have more to do with politics than music – in 1998 Junoon broke a huge taboo by touring India. That brave move created a scandal, but also helped generate a popular momentum for peace which recently the Pakistani leader has been happy to ride. 11:17
Sherry: It was like the Beatles literally taking over India –and yet the difference was, we’re from Pakistan, the so-called enemy country and I Sherry was like, oh my god, we’re landing in Bombay immigration, what they going to do – and they’re like – oh my god, it’s the Saahnee boys – the number one track in India – they didn’t know the name of the band – but the immigration boys wanted autographs from everybody. It was incredible and that for me, I think for all of us, was a paradigm shifting moment,Junoon performing in India, because we speak the same language, same food, same jokes – same everything – and it’s just mind blowing when you cross over and you see that people just love each other as human beings; they don’t give a shit about your religion, or anything like that. 11:01
Thompson: Musharaff’s support for Pakistan’s new music culture has won him his very own band of groupies. 12:18
Music
Salman: He’s an enigma, because he’s a military dictator, yet we’ve had the most freedom of expression since he came to power in 1999. 12:31
Salman. Super: Salman Ahmad Lead guitarist, Junoon. You know, you can say anything, do anything, get up on stage and play anywhere. 12:39
Nariman Nariman: Musharaff rules! We love him because I mean so far we haven’t actually been able to identify with anyone in power in Pakistan yet; he’s the only person we can actually relate to. We feel like he knows what we’re talking about. 12:44
Meera Meera: He doesn’t like come out to people and say, no, you can’t drink, you can’t do this like, you can go out until 12, you can party, you can dance, girls can do whatever they want. It’s been a positive change. 13:01
Fuzon member Band members: He’s the best – I think he’s the best – he’s the best around, so far. 13:12
Music 13:16
Thompson: Islamabad is Pakistan’s centre of political power.
Unlike the rest of the country this is a modern planned city of leafy streets and comfortable houses.
Zeejah with family:It’s here we meet young men like Zeejah Fazli. Like most young educated middle class Pakistani professionals, Zeejah married early and is balancing a family with a well paid job.
Zeejah going to office But somewhere behind his cheery conservative appearance, lurks a dark side. 13:54
Zeejah: Alright, this is my office, its called Intermed National and it’s a pharmaceutical business,and that is my studio next door. There’s Imran over there. That’s my cousin Imran 14:10
Imran sleeping and he is sleeping. Imran? 14:21
Thompson: Imran is Zeejah’s cousin, but unlike him, Imran has chosen the radical path of becoming one of Pakistan’s very few full-time rock rebels. 14:27
Imran and Zeejah:
Zeejah: So that was when you got your first guitar from Canada – the black one. 14:39
Thompson: Imran may have a guitar but he has no job, or wife and kids.
Imran: I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t maintain those two separate identities – it would just be too much of a chore for me.
Zeejah: Double life is tough. Nine to five is office hours, sober hours, dealing with different people, dealing with business. After five o’clock, there is more change, I get into the other, Dark Side. 15:05
Music 15:24
Band rehearsing Lyrics: Hey teacher! Leave those kids alone! …all in all it’s just another brick in the wall…
Thompson: As a stormy night descends over Islamabad, Zeejah, Imran and their friends unleash the spirits of death metal rock. 15:54
Salman: I think young Pakistanis are searching for their true identity, because we’ve had so much of ideological interference. You know, either it’s state interference or it’s the western media trying to put you in a cookie cutter, right, or it’s the post 9/11 world, where everything Muslim is supposed to equate to terrorism. 16:17
Salman: So there’s a lot of confusion amongst young people, you know, that wait a minute, we don’t sign up to what Osama’s doing, we didn’t sign up to suicide bombing, but yet we’re not about Hollywood – you know we have our own identity.16:51
Street shots/traditional musicians
Music 17:04
Thompson: It’s the successful identity of rock bands like Junoon that also sells products in Pakistan – only Bollywood film stars get that job across the border in India. 17:30
Fuzon at airport It’s a border that Shallum and the other members of Fuzon are preparing to cross for the first time. Following the lead set by Junoon’s appeal for cross-border cultural links, Fuzon are flying to Delhi to join a concert promoting peace between the nuclear rivals.
Shallum: We’re very, very, very excited about it.
Shallum at airport. Super:Shallum XavierLead guitarist, Fuzon
Shallum: On the serious side, I feel I’m an ambassador for the youth, and I’m going to make sure I’m on my best behaviour. 18:09
Band arrives at New Delhi
Thompson: One hour later Fuzon emerges at New Delhi airport. But apart from the sight of a few turban wearing Sikhs, they seem barely aware that they ever left home. 18:25
Shafqat: This place and the people, and the weather – everything’s just the same. I feel like we never left – we’re back. 18:33
Preparations for concert
Thompson: It’s such cultural similarities between the people of India and Pakistan that are being highlighted at this concert in New Delhi. 18:48
But the same early monsoon weather that Pakistanis will experience across the border in Lahore, threatens to spoil this rare night out in India. 19:01
Shafqat. Super: Shafqat Amanat AliLead singer, Fuzon.
Shafqat: It’ll be bad luck. I hope it won’t rain, at least for our performance at least. (laughs) 19:11
Fuzon concert Music 19:20
Thompson: The rain comes down, but it’s not enough to dissuade the audience from witnessing another small break in the dark cloud which has hung over the two nations’ relationship for fifty-seven years. 19:28
Music 19:38
Thompson: Fuzon’s music quickly strikes a chord and they are joined on stage by a top Indian band. 20:19
Shafqat: Thank you India! 20:33
Indian lead singer: So these guys have no idea about what the song is all about. It’ll be great if all of us can perform it together. 20:37
Music 20:46
Audience member Audience member: It’s really fantastic, the Pakistani band. And our country band is also really fantastic. And I really think it’s a nice effort, it’s about the love peace, harmony and that’s a nice gesture. 20:57
Female Audience member: There is always been this thing between India and Pakistan where there is this tension about safety and security and all of that, and I think the fact that they’ve come here and played so confidently speaks a lot. 21:09
Bands perform together
Lyrics: For this show, many hurdles came in our way. And the very last hurdle was this rain. But even that could not stop you and us from meeting each other. Thank you. 21:22
Shafqat Shafqat: It was amazing. It felt really good, really good. The people were really surprised and were having a lot of fun.Thompson: Do you feel emotional about it? 22:02
Band member: Emotional, happy, excited and that describes the feeling more than anything. 22:09
Junoon video clip
Music 22:18
Thompson: A few weeks later, Junoon’s Salman Ahmad arrives in Delhi to promote his new music video filmed in Lahore and at Patiala in India. 22:40
Music 22:49
Salman meets with Indian family
Thompson: Here, he is meeting the current occupants of his family’s ancestral home. Salman’s relatives were forced to abandon the house when they fled to Pakistan in 1947 – now it features in the film clip. 23:01
Junoon video clip
Music 23:14
Thompson: The song’s [en]titled Ghoom Tana – which means “harmonious journey” and features Salman and the famous Indian actress Nadita Das. 23:26
Lyrics: “Winning hearts through love, Not afraid of obstacles… 23:35
Salman: Ghoom tana is musical metaphor. But it is also spiritual metaphor which people living in the subcontinent – Indians and Pakistanis – Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, understand instinctively. It is a metaphor for harmony, it is a metaphor for a journey. 23:55
Lyrics: Harmonious journey… harmonious journey. 24:11
Salman: And we are on a journey, I mean we are reaching the 57th anniversary, independence anniversary, but we were together as a people for 5,700 years. So friendship is scripted in the DNA of the people of the subcontinent and I think, 24:25
Salman: whatever things the governments have to work out, they should work out, but they should allow people to meet each other. And this is what we are trying to do through this film. 24:38
Music
Credits: Reporter: Geoff ThompsonCamera: Michael CoxEditor: Simon Brynjolffssen
© 2013 Journeyman Pictures
Journeyman Pictures Ltd. 4-6 High Street, Thames Ditton, Surrey, KT7 0RY, United Kingdom
Email: info@journeyman.tv
Journeyman Pictures Ltd. 4-6 High Street, Thames Ditton, Surrey, KT7 0RY, United Kingdom
Email: info@journeyman.tv
Rocking the System - 2004
Reviewed by Uncle Sam
on
05:35
Rating:
Reviewed by Uncle Sam
on
05:35
Rating:
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