It was inevitable: Google began honouring Pakistani artists and prominent social figures, who are no more, through its ‘doodles’ in 2015, starting with the legendary qawwal Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
It was followed by tributes to Madame Noor Jehan and Nazia Hasan.
Many had wondered why Mehdi Hasan, the king of ghazals and one of the top-notch playback singers of Pakistan, had been ignored.
Well, in the early hours of Thursday, July 18, admirers of the great vocalist got a pleasant surprise when they accessed the search engine to see an impressive image of Mehdi Hasan.
July 18 would have been the late artist’s 91st birthday.
Hasan (or Khan Sahib, as he was known in showbiz circles) passed away on June 13, 2012 in Karachi. Interestingly, it was a Thursday.
And Google’s birthday tribute came on the same day of the week.
It is nothing more than coincidence, though.
Hasan was born into a family of musicians in a village called Luna in Rajasthan in 1927.
His father Ustad Azeem Khan was a notable classical musician.
Naturally, Hasan was initially trained in classical singing.
He could also play an instrument or two.
After partition, when his family migrated to Pakistan, Hasan did not think that he could make it as a professional singer, so he did quite a few jobs.
But soon he got the opportunity to be a thumri singer on Radio Pakistan.
It did not take him long to win admirers.
And once he sang for the film Shikar in the late 1950s, there was no looking back.
Hasan went on to lend his voice to many heroes in a number of films, most of which were box office hits.
However, it was his ghazal singing that earned him a position among quality vocalists of that era.
The Faiz Ahmed Faiz ghazal, Gulon mein rang bharey baad-e-nau bahaar chaley that he sang for the film Farangi in 1962 became, and still is, synonymous with his name.
There has never been, nor there will ever be, another Mehdi Hasan in ghazal singing.
The image that Google has come up with shows a younger Hasan, comfortably sitting cross-legged, playing the harmonium, eyes closed as if in a reverie, with a shawl over his shoulder.
Two things other than the artist are readily noticeable in the picture: musical notes floating out of the harmonium, wafting through the air, and the candles placed around him.
Now the candle (shama in Urdu) holds a significant place in Urdu literature, especially when a mushaira is held where poets present their kalaam.
In a mushaira when a poet comes to the podium to recite his ghazal or nazm, the moderator often uses the phrase shama-e-mehfil (the light of the congregation) implying now that the attention is turned towards a particular poet who will read his material.
Also, the metaphor of the shama in Urdu poetry is the oldest.
It signifies the beloved who has the power to consume the lover often portrayed as the parwana (moth).
And Hasan was definitely one of those rare artists who are consumed by their art.





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