Ok…now i am now I am convinced that there is a thing called the “mystery of nature” I really don’t know what else to call it..

As some might know that my biggest inspiration in life, guide and mentor is none other than my grandfather Raza. I however talk very little about him publicly, as it would take me quite some time to crystallize in my head, a true depiction what all he is….so lets just leave it at that … But more importantly, since I am very attached to him, I am very concerned about him all the time…even though I am not permitted and rightfully agree in abstaining from an unthinking spontaneous display of my concern for him….

He had gone to India for a prostate surgery and then had 8 of his teeth removed for implants (he is 78)…he came back this Saturday…now let me get to the point…… when he and his 3rd wife, who we call Rashida Khala got home…Raza looked very exhausted and weak…but he and Rashida Khala were all praise of this young guy who came and helped them out at the  Delhi airport…who took care of all their luggage and just did not let Raza do anything…he was like an angel for them..Rashida Khala said that he gave her the same feeling as if me or Hamza were around and that he also had a guitar with him…..the problem was that they completely forgot his name…

So he became a bit of a mysterious angel who had something to do with music…

The mystery got solved a few hours later when two of our colleagues who work at Raza’s institute confirmed that the angel was non other than Mr. Ali Zafar who as we all know was in Bombay during the blasts….and that they saw him leaving the airport wearing the same description of clothes that Rashida Khala mentioned

Well I am not much in touch with him though we have met quite a few times and also that our choice of music is very very different… but after hearing this he suddenly became important for me…which means I thought about him..his music ..his personality and i thought I’d thank him through my blog….

Now coming to the point of the “mystery on nature”….and that is just today when I was about to sit down and write this entry…I get this link on my facebook page…..

So i guess all that I was going to write today, now suddenly required a damn long introduction…only to prove that I had thought of writing about him earlier…thanks for ruining that for me Mr. Ali Zafar!!!!!

but a much bigger ..THANK YOU FOR TAKING CARE OF RAZA it genuinely means a lot to me…

Hmmm…so let me think what is my first memory of Ali Zafar?….I surely don’t remember him from the Coven concert…I do remember meeting him at the PC lounge but that was again a very brief encounter…my first memory of him is meeting at the airing of Jinnah at the Sozo Water Cinema in Fortress Stadium Lahore….very enthusiastically he met me and told me that he is also recording an album… There was a sense of boyish energy all bubbling with optimism and excitement…I was with Mandana and her family and her sister Sasha knew him…she talked all praise of him and Mandana was pretty surprised that I did not know him from before.

Later I found out that Ali’s father Mr. Zafar is a colleague of Mandana’s father at the Punjab University and that they have been family friends for years. Mandana told me of his talents as a painter and as a singer. She suggested that I must check his work out…

The next time I saw him was in Karachi…at the Dunkin Donuts…there was some musical gathering happening there and he played some songs on a Piano and I was really really impressed…i love people who can play an instrument and sing at the same time…it gives you a sense of musicianship, compositional capability and not just mere singing talent..

Very soon after that we met at my Karachi flat after that Gymkhana concert along with Wajahat…

Now Ali is very sweet and in his blog he highlights my niceness only which ends with me offering to help him with Khalid Sadaf…but i’ll tell you my obnoxiousness for that evening…

I asked him to sing some songs for me and as he did…i very spontaneously said you sound like Kishore Kumar  and he said he really likes him…then he showed me his ability to sing like Rafi…so we started having a debate on having your own style…after a while all I remember saying to him in conclusion of the debate was that “if you don’t development your own style than the songs would just sound impotent!!!!” he was very polite and chose to ignore what I said…3 minutes later i realized what a Moophat Asshole I was but it was too late and for years I kind of felt a bit embarrassed about my vehemence…this is the perfect opportunity to apologize and I just love doing it…really takes a lot of loads off my chest (someday soon I’d love to tell the gumby story)

Ali please accept my apologies…

Now at the age of 31 I think I have learnt a few things and one of them is to control my unnecessary spontaneity which only means that now I weigh a bit more before being a moophat…but every off and on I do fuck up..

So coming back to Ali Zafar…there are many times I have met him afterwards but we have never become good friends…we are just very different people…but I have always gotten this sense that there is a lot lot more to him than the good looking model cum bubble gum pop singer….he is a lot more sensible than I am..he as strong sense of survival and knows what right step to take at the right time….

When I heard him sing Allah Hoo at the coke studio..i felt that that’s the real him..thats his real voice (which is nothing close to being impotent btw!!!) and that’s the real artiste inside…its his best work to date…in fact its the only song that I love from Coke studio.

When I read his blog, I get a sense of an education and exposure …oh I remember overhearing (rather eavesdropping on ) him in Islamabad having a real intense conversation with Lala (Hadiqa Kiyani’s brother) about Raags that I don’t even know off and I was pretty impressed…

Lastly, his is indeed a very intelligent mind…and I think once the dust of the quick glimmer of Showbiz settles and the strong survival tactics take a back seat and life becomes all about taking risks and burning your boats …we would indeed have a remarkable gem carved out!!!

P.s Ali Zafar has a very steady and an extremely nice girlfriend and is about to get engaged so a  very good luck to his chicks …..hahhahahahahahaha

December 18th, 2008
Categories: The Diary . Author: Ali Noor

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