Journey to Junoon

My least favorite question is: What kind of music do you listen to? How do you respond: “everything”, without making it sound like you just don’t care about music. Usually, I can respond with everything and get away with a nod, but even though I know that I have an open mind to all types of music, only some really speak to me.

Growing up, two musical genres dominated our households. If we weren’t listening to a bollywood ballad, we were listening to a qawwali. The bollywood music got me dancing at a very young age, and because I was too young to understand the significance of a qawwali, I’d mimic the harmonium, clapping, and voice twists and turns with my body. The older I get, I still cling to these two as my safe havens because they remind me of my old home. Driving back and forth from parties and sitting between my two sisters, me and my middle sister usually making up some kind of dance in the back while the music was blaring in the front.

Being the youngest of two older sisters, you have no choice but to be influenced by anything they are listening to. First was the obsession with Star, Nazia and Zohaib Hasan. Anytime “Telephone Pyar” came on, there was a ripple of giggles at how cute the boy sounded in there. This inevitably led down to our long love affair with Pakistani boy bands. It seemed like every evening someone was blaring “Aitebar” or “Diya Jalta Raha”, only to have our parents yelling “AWAAZ BAND KARO!” Two things were kind of funny about that, one being that one of the bands was actually named awaz, and two, who did they think we learned how to listen to our music loud from? This is also around the time we started getting obsessed with Pakistani dramas, and would literally sit for days straight watching tape after tape after tape. Our excitement couldn’t be held in when we found out Vital Signs had done a drama: “Dhundley Raastay”. Having found it recently online, I can still remember every single move and every single line. Pure quality.

Then came our first Pakistani concert. Junaid Jamshed, pre-mullah, and others. I don’t remember the “others” because really, it was all about JJ. We ran to the front, threw our dupattas up on the stage as he danced with them round and round..gore rang ka zamana. I couldn’t help but think if throwing my dupatta on stage was the equivalent of women throwing their bras to the Beatles. So then came all the rest of the Pakistani music, from Hadiqa, to Abrar, to Adnan Sami. We had expanded out of boyzone to solo artists, and we kept adding on various artists that my oldest sister would probably hear about on her most recent buying binge at Devon’s Al-Mansoor.

When I moved away for college, I clung more to the childhood music that comforted me. Lots of qawwalis and bollywood, because that was what reminded me of home. In my freshman year, I came home during winter break, only to hear my sister screaming “JUNOON IS COMING! WE HAVE TO GO!” I went YEAH JUNOON!, having absolutely no idea who the heck Junoon was. Apparantly, she had moved on to new artists while I was away at college. The weeks coming, all I could hear was Junoon blasting through my walls. I felt proud, I had heard some of these songs. I knew Jazba Junoon and Sayonee. Did I like them? Not really. I thought Ali Azmat’s voice was painstakingly whiney, if not a little offbeat. But I thought hey, if its good enough for my sister, it has to be good.

So then came the day of the concert. We get front row right after the opening act, Stereo Nation. I obviously was all WOO STEREO NATION balle balle (I knew them). Out came Junoon, and the screaming had begun. I did not know any of these songs, but I jumped around with the rest of them. I pointed my finger at Ali and screamed Sayoneeeeeeeeeee, because I did know that much. Then started a slow guitar riff, and my sister is in front of me, she turns around and says “Pay attention to this song. This song is all you need to know. It’s about our death.” On came “Mitti”. I stood there and listened to every single word of that song, and watched Salman as he played the repetitive melody on his guitar. I knew this song was different from the rest, and I rocked out to it. We went home, and my sister was on a high that night. I still heard the Junoon blasting through our walls until te next morning, the cd repeating over and over.

I went back to college my sophomore year, not giving Junoon much of a chance. Then in the winter of 2004, I received a phone call from my oldest sister. Something was wrong at home and I had to come home. I didn’t take my cd player with me on the plane. I didn’t want music in that moment, I wanted my thoughts. I got home to find out that my middle sister had died in a car accident. For a while, I didn’t know what to do. I tried reading Quran, and I didn’t find her there. I tried reading books on death, only to find clichéd lines on acceptance and rememberance, I couldn’t find her there. I tried talking to friends and remembering old times, I couldnt find her there. So, I stopped looking.

My junior yaer of college, business school was getting too mundane for me, so I decided to mix it up and joined a class called Music & Islam. The teacher started the class with the azaan, explaining the improvisation of the Quran by human voice, and the beat that was on every verse. We started to listen to musicians from other walks of the world, and how they incorporated that style into their music. This was the time I was introduced to Pappu Saeen, I dont know how to explaing Pappu Saeen, and words wouldnt do him justice. I just knew the second I saw him, I was addicted. Then came the poems, Bulleh Shah always making an appearance. I started to remember some of Junoons music and how they had incorporated this technique, poems by Allama Iqbal, Bulleh Shah, screaming Wahda hu la shareeka la hu.

Throughout that semester I downloaded a lot of Junoon. It was all I listened to, breaking apart song lyrics, beats, guitar solos. There was a month straight where all I listened to was Mahiwal, rewinding and replaying the moment when Ali screaches “doobh chali, mein doobh chali, iss jeenay se, mauth bhali”. Turned out that the following year, Junoon was coming to Detroit. A bunch of us went to seedy Detroit, in our shalwar kameezes, ready for Junoon. I rushed the stage with the rest of my friends, in the thick of Pakistani melas, elbowing me and pushing me over. It didn’t matter, I was pushing them back. I listened to every song, waiting for the beginning guitar on Mahiwal. But five songs in, a familiar sound resonated out of Salman’s guitar, Mitti. The tears started flowing down my face. I had found my sister.

From that day forward, it was all Junoon all the time. If it wasn’t Junoon, it was old youtube clips of Pappu Saeen. I needed to expand my Pakistani band collection, and then I started to listen to Noori. Ali Noor’s voice was the soothing calm I needed when I again had to go through a close death the next year. Meray Logh consoled me in my time of need.

Then, we went to England, I hit up every shop at Southall with “Wacha got in pakistani bands? Wacha got in Sufi music?”, to be bombarded with Qawwalis and Bulleh Shah poems. After clinging to everything I had, listening to it over and over, I found out we were going to Lahore. My excitement was only in the hopes of going to a record store and buying everything imaginable. and I did. Unfortunately, I did not get to go see Pappu Saeen perform, but at the music store I thought I’d press my luck, and I asked “Anything by pappu saeen?” and he goes “haan, we have the new Overload.” Overload? Pappu Saeen was in a BAND? It was eid and christmas mixed into one. All the way back to America I blasted Mahi with Shafqat Amanat Ali serenading me, My heart beating with Pappu Saeen’s dhol.

There’s so many more bands that came into my life after that, but too many to recall. I still sit for hours googling undergrond bands, qawallis I haven’t heard before. It may not be what gives me my bread and butter, but I am sure that I couldn’t live without this music. Junoon split up since then. Ali Azmat and Salman Ahmed going their different ways, Brian just being lost. I bought both their solo cd’s, only to be slightly disappointed. They were lacking any resemblence to Junoon, and I decided not to listen to them solo as not only their music, but their personalities, would sour my love for Junoon.

Some people ask me, how can you listen to Junoon? Ali Azmat’s voice is so annoying, he doesn’t sing that well, or there’s really no cohesion in some of their songs. I don’t explain anything to them, because how can I? It didn’t matter what the music sounded like. I will always hear it as muffled, beating against the wall in my room, on repeat.