MEHDI HASSAN: SHAHENSHAH- E- GHAZAL
Mehdi Hassan
By Ustad Ghulam Haider Khan
He was born in Mandava state in present-day Jaipur in 1932 to a family of dhrupad singers known as Kalawants. His father Azeem Khan was a court musician of the Maharaja of Jaipur. Mehdi studied music with his uncle Ismail Khan and his elder brother Pandit Ghulam Qadir (the man was later employed as a composer by Radio Muzaffarabad). The brothers (young Mehdi and his mentor, Ghulam Qadir) performed dhrupad at Fazilka Bangla in district Ferozepur in a public concert in 1945. After the Partition, Mehdi migrated with his family to Pakistan and came to reside in Chichawatni, where some relatives of his were already living. It was a terribly turbulent time; abruptly people lost their homes and identities, and had to find new ones if they wished to survive. Musicians were no different; in fact some have argued that musicians, the best among whom were attached to princely states all over the subcontinent, suffered the most at Partition because they went from a life of security and comfort to one of poverty, anonymity and irrelevance.
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