Battling On

MARCH 2001 - It is way past midnight, less than 43 hours to go before show time. In a medium sized rectangular room, deep inside the Alhamra Arts Complex in Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium, the Peerzadas are at work, doing only as they can do, a hundred things at the same time. There is feverish activity and people come and go, but no body is talking of Michelangelo. The Second World Music Festival is about to get underway.

The command center, for that is what it is, is lined with computers and papers are strewn all over. The walls carry a history of the trials and tribulations of the Peerzadas and puppet, theatre, drama and music festival vie for competition. It is a track record, not as much of success or failure, but of endeavour and that about sums it all up. The Peerzadas can’t be put down. You can fight them, disown them, malign them, praise them or simply ignore them, but you cannot stop them. They take on challenges as readily as ducks to water and it seems that the harder and more hopeless the task, the keener they are to plunge in. Perhaps it’s the charge of adrenaline that sways them, perhaps it is the expectation, almost unspoken that the public has come to associate with them, perhaps it is a penchant for getting clobbered ten years running and perhaps it is just for the sheer hell of it and the lure of making big time money – who knows and who cares. Performing arts equals Peerzadas. Full stop. With the help of sponsors or without their help, with government support or without it, with bureaucratic red tape or without it - The Peers happen. Period.

The Music Festival will swing into action this Saturday and how the million problems and details will get sorted out, no one quite knows, but the show will go on. Sure there will be glitches and hiccups and chaos and all that goes with public performances, but the Peers will pull it off, as they do, unless there is a 6.7 scale earthquake that will flatten the complex Nayyar Ali Dada built. Were that to happen, the Peers would probably still organize a show amongst the rubble of the fallen columns.

The Music Festival is 11 days of non-stop music from 15 countries. 36 acts, 250 artists and music, music, music. From the Gypsy Kings to Ustaad Shaggan, from Stereo Nation to Savita Devi, there will be performances every balmy March night as Lahore savours the last rites of spring and braces itself for another scorching summer. Almost 80% of the concerts are priced at Rs 60 and the rest range from Rs 200 to Rs 300. Three mainstream concerts, the opening night with the Gypsy Kings, Stereo Nation and Lucky Ali are higher priced and act as fundraisers to make the rest of the festival possible. Fund raisers? Yes, because there are no sponsors. The multinationals are not interested – not at the moment and in any case their large scale funding literally floated away into the suburbs of urban Lahore. Basant gobbled up huge budgets and in any case obtaining music sponsorship in Pakistan is drawing water from a stone.

The government, bless its black heart, has no time for such activity either. The Peers initially asked the Punjab government for a funding of Rs 5 million and offered to run the entire show for them, branding it as their show, but after expressing enthusiasm for the idea, the government dropped it like a hot potato. The Peers, undaunted asked for a waiver of the 20% tax but since there is no precedent for such acts of lunacy, this too got the chop. The donor agencies had nothing to offer this time and given Pakistan’s shameful image abroad, this was no surprise. However, 13 groups coming from abroad were funded by various organizations there and that offered some relief for the festival. The national airline turned down an appeal for tickets on 50% payment, but paid for the travel of one music group from UK. The PHA has helped, so has The British Council. The Alhamra have given the venue free of cost – after a long and painful saga, charging only for the utilities and The News has provided full support, once again. No other media has offered even a dime.

Why in any case should any one support such a festival? Many people think the Peers are running a scam and making big bucks. The truth is we have a sordid and tarnished image all over the globe. The world’s worst things are associated with us. The list is long, nauseating and deadly. A music or theatre festival sends a message to the world that there is another dimension to our country, that we are not gun-toting, hate-driven, bearded weirdos, but people with sensibilities and a tradition of wonderful performing arts. No amount of delegations flying on junkets around the world or democracy-loving generals speaking at seminars abroad will dispel the belief that we are savages who feed on one another. Music speaks a universal language that transcends caste, creed and colour and through it we can send out a message that will start to change the way people think about us. It can happen. The government can support such an initiative in a hundred ways, not just with money, which in any case it doesn’t have.

Instead, there are obstacles everywhere. From an indifferent government to the newly appointed custodians of the Arts Council – among which list are many friends sadly, the Peers have run smack into blockades. Permission for using the venue was applied for 8 months back but it took a letter from the Punjab Governor to pry the venue open from the clutches of its current masters. Shame. The venue was to be handed over on the 1st of Feb; instead it was grudgingly given on the 20th. The time lost has been critical and impaired the overall effort. Shame. While theatre-vulgarity (‘Kurri Pataka’ is running currently) is encouraged, red tape greets everyone else. And of course, the foot and mouth disease that infects every section of society has assumed epidemic proportions at the festival. Everyone and his uncle want free passes – the army, the bureaucracy, the police, the judiciary, the well-heeled tycoons – no one wants to pay a dime, but everyone wants a good time. Through all this, the Peers battle on! Start the music boys.