Her voice changes pitches even when she speaks. The ‘No’s are loud, the ‘Yes’s come in twos and threes. Aliya Rasheed speaks like she sings, there is music in her words. Her mother had known that many years ago, when Aliya, as a young blind girl in Pakistan, wanted to come to India to learn Dhrupad music. “She lied to my dad for me,” says Aliya, recounting the old story, sitting at a hotel room in Thiruvananthapuram, where she came for a Jugalbandi concert with singer Amita Sinha Mahapatra.
Back then she had attended the Sanjan Nagar Institute of Philosophy and Arts, run by Raza Kazim. One day, noted Surbahar player Shubha Sankaran, a friend of Raza Kazim, heard Aliya sing and suggested she go to India and learn Dhrupad music at the Dhrupad Institute in Bhopal. She would need to stay there for four years to finish the course. Aliya’s father did not want her to go to India for such a long time. “So my mother told him I got visa only for a year, which was not true. After a year, when my dad asked her, she lied again, saying the visa got renewed for another year. It was when he asked the third time that she told him the truth. And then he said her decision was correct.”
Aliya stayed with her gurus Umakant and Ramakant Gundecha at their house and got music lessons and their love. An honest Aliya says, “The first composition I had to learn was a Ganesh vandana. And my mind was not secular then. I said no, no, I want a Muslim prayer.” But she understood that music had no religion, no boundaries. “Today, when I sing with Amita, I want to give a message to people across borders that we are one, that India and Pakistan have good relations, that music is universal.”
Amita learnt at the same institute and under the same gurus, two years after Aliya joined. “It was our guru that suggested we perform together,” says Amita. “It is not easy to perform a Jugalbandi. We leave out certain ragas from our concerts to make it easier, and begin the Jugalbandi together, with an alap.” And then start with a Yaman raga (evening raga) Kesar Gholo Ranga Ban Hain set to dhamar taal. The Indo-Pak sisters who have performed together in various parts of India and had a US tour together, were performing in South India for the first time.
