Re: Her: Abida Parveen in Houston and LA (today and tomorrow)

[Nadeem Jamali <jamali@CS.UIUC.EDU>]

> From: Saghir Shaikh <saghir@unlimited.net>
>
> One more comment on "Punjabized Seriaki", actually according to
> Professor Shackle, the Seriaki
> scholar in SOAS, London,( one of the renown, who wrote Seriaki grammar)
> officially classifies
> Seraiki into five dialects. What you call "punjabized seriaki" is named
> "Multani". However, the
> Seraiki Kafis sung by Abida tend be mostly from Baba Farid, and Sachal,
> they are usually more closer to Sindhi, at least I understand it all (I
> am known to have very poor language skills :).

By "Punjabized Siraiki", I was referring to the fact that recently she
has adapted her style of singing for Punjabi audiences.  Speficically,
even some of her Siraiki songs that I was very fond of, appear in a
very Punjabi flavor on her commercially available CDs, with the
familiar "jumps" (sorry... don't know a better word) one hears in
spoken Punjabi.  There I was... sitting and feeling mellow... hoping
to hear some pleasant Sindhi music... and she ruined my day :-) I went
and returned the CD the very next day.

As for understanding, I too don't have much trouble understanding
Siraiki, or even much of Punjabi for that matter, but when listening
to music, I look for more than whether I can understand the words.
When she sings in front of non-Sindhi audiences (which the ones in
Houston and LA are likely to be), her music style changes rather
drastically... just not my cup of tea.  It may still be good music,
but it's definitely not good Sindhi music, IMHO.

I'm attaching a note on this subject I received from saiin Madan Lal
Khatri from Sindh:

> From madanlal@paknet3.ptc.pk  Fri Jun 18 13:01:59 1999
> Status: OR
>
> Hello there ,
>
> In recent past she has been mostly singing in Urdu, Seraiki or
> Punjabi...... She doesn't prefer to sing in Sindhi if the audience is not
> Sindhi.  Even at Sindhi functions she prefers Seraikii more.
>
> Madan.

--
Nadeem Jamali                                           jamali@cs.uiuc.edu
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois-UC                   http://osl.cs.uiuc.edu/~jamali