When Shaukat Ali died, there were echoes of various intensities that reverberated to assess his otherwise very popular career. He had been hailed as a hero in the Indian Punjab, much eulogised for giving a new life to the many dastaans, qissas and kahanis that form the lore of the area, and in Pakistan, particularly singled out for singing songs that were mostly patriotic in nature.

One positive indicator for an artiste is that he is praised for a number of reasons and not a single one. His was only a reflection of the vast array of fans that he had beyond the limits that non-musical factors impose on an artiste, mostly as variants of either patriotism or religion.

It has been reported in the media that given the fractious history of Pakistan’s ideological makes and remakes, objections were raised by certain power brokers about him singing folk classics that did not fit into the sanitised version of their own nation-building mission or moral edifice.

Shaukat Ali had been warming the hearts of music lovers for 60 odd years with his rendition of the folk musical compositions. His specialisation had been the folk songs of the central Punjab, consisting mainly of the bolis, tappas, dohras. These were prefixed or suffixed with geets to be sung on occasions that represented a certain date in the cultural calendar of the province.

The central and upper Punjab as well as Punjab and Haryana on the Indian side have had a rich repertoire of songs and compositions suited for each occasion. These have been added to extensively with the passage of time. The best aspect of folk music is its incremental nature that thrives on its loose structure and flexibility both in form and content. So, it is very open to changes that take place with regards to places, people and situations; and resonates to the immediate needs.

Folk music, usually contemporary in its lyrics, refers to events and personalities that characterize the daily lives of people and the common aspirations and love interests of the people who go about their daily chores without any pretension.

The other forte of the folk vocalists has been the various kahanis, dastaans and kathas that have been sung over the generations. Heer, Saiful Malook and Mirza Sahibaan have been part of the local cultural imagination. These have long been sung at various melas across the landscape. Shaukat Ali was particularly adept at rendering these folk dastaans to an audience that was initially well-versed in the folk and indigenous conditions, but with the passage of time, became alienated in the cities and was then reminded of its roots by these folk melodies. Shaukat Ali was more popular in making the adjustment to the urban audiences and his appearance on television was sought after by a large segment of the urban audience in Pakistan, especially the Punjab.

Some critics and those peddling religious or political ideologies have always raised objections to the diversity and immense variation of the classics. In our area, vigorous attempts have been made to censor even the most revered of texts like the works of Rumi and Waris Shah. Also, the demands of political or religious ideological compulsions have been impossible to adjust to instantly. In the past, we have known that many cultural purges of verses, paintings, bandishes, plays and films have been made with the aesthetics relegated to being the criterion of least significance.

The classics and the folk repertoire are mostly representative of the living culture of a place or a region and are inclusive because it is about humans as they exist and not about how they ought to live. This tussle between the truth embedded in the arts and the imagined truth has been endemic and thus the artistes have been the target of the various regimes and religious orders for their unabashed unfolding of the human condition and have been considered as destabilising threats to the fabricated goody good image underscored by some high purpose.

States are formed and eventually wither away. They are re-formed on an area or region not always within the same geographical boundaries. All, then, want to tailor the past according to the political compulsions of the present. In the process, much is left out perforce and much is included to spruce up the uncouth reality in line with the finely soothed out ideology.

So, in history, we have seen countries made and remade while the spirit of the region outlasts them and resurfaces in the next political configuration. An artiste is more responsive to the larger compulsions that speak of humanity’s conditions and dilemmas than the constructs to gloss things over. Shaukat Ali, too, did not shy away from expressing in his singing the true sensibility of the region. His popularity exceeded today’s boundaries. He was continuously providing a definite musical voice to the people in search of one.

Shaukat Ali’s prime was just before the electronic-generated sound and the computerised reworking in the post-production hit the stalls and became a new normal in no time. So his music was based exclusively on natural sound – whether vocal or instrumental. The pleasure in listening to him live without intervention by gadgetry, made him probably the last of those who relied on the strength of their voice and the “pacca pun of the sur” which only endless riaz could make possible.

The writer is a culture critic based in Lahore