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the-south-asian.com October 2004 |
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October
2004 Heritage
Books Between
Heaven and Hell
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ANEELA’S SONGS OF PEACE by Avinash Kalla
Writer, playwright, poet and peace enthusiast Aneela Khalid Arshed has now released a stunning album of her poems Beyond Love set to music by Indian Grammy nominated sitar maestro Ustad Shujaat Hussain Khan. When Aneela Khalid Arshed landed at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport it was a homecoming of sorts. Well almost, considering the fact that the lady had never been to India before! "I’ve grown up hearing so much about Delhi from my parents and grandparents that everything looked familiar. When I saw people hugging each other and ladies bedecked in jewellery for a moment I thought I was at the Lahore airport. This was my first visit to India but I kept getting this sense of déjà vu." The Pakistani-born America-settled writer-poet was in India to promote her new album of poems Beyond Love that has been set to music by noted Indian sitar maestro Ustad Shujaat Hussain Khan. " The idea behind this album is to promote peace and harmony not just between India and Pakistan but among humanity as a whole," explains Aneela. Since her student days writing has been a passion for this English literature graduate from Lahore’s prestigious Kinnaird College for Women. Plays, novels and poetry come to her naturally---and now, so does music. But what prompted New York-based Aneela to cut an album in India? "It is a universal appeal to live and let live. The collaboration between an Indian musician and a Pakistani poet is symbolic of this effort." However, the new album has just two poems penned by this ‘peace enthusiast’. There are six ghazals by noted poet Qateel Shifaai that have been rendered by Aneela herself. The album has been launched in India and will later be released in Pakistan and the USA. It was a chance encounter that enamoured Aneela to music. While researching for her play Amir Khusro she came in contact with Ustad Shujaat Husain Khan and the two instantly struck a chord. Message of Peace " We discovered we were both peaceniks who had much in common. I was a poet and Shujaat a musician. That’s when we thought of pooling in our resources and doing something substantive to get across the message of global peace and harmony," says Aneela. In fact it was Shujaat, son of the legendary sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Khan, who convinced Aneela about the feasibility of such an album. He persuaded her to lend her voice to her own poems. The result has been an album that has astounded classical music lovers and avant-garde circles alike. " No one else could have done justice to my poems. He is a very talented musician," says Aneela about Shujaat who created a stir earlier this year when his own album The Rain was nominated for a Grammy. Describing this new album with Aneela as a work of art he says that the background music has been used to the minimum so as to focus mainly on the lyrics and keep the instruments muted. Besides poems, Aneela has authored memorable plays like Mughul E Azam, Heer , and Amir Khusro apart from scripting screenplays for television serials, films and stage dramas. What is interesting is that the underlying theme of all her work is love, forgiveness and universal bonding. " All my body of work is built around these three pillars. I strongly feel that in order to write about peace and harmony one needs to practice it both in thought and action," says Aneela. Her first novel Bounty of Allah was woven around these three pillars. Published by Crossroad in the U.S., it offers selections from the Holy Quran for every day of the year. The book’s introduction offers concise information on the Islamic faith and the role of its sacred scriptures. A glossary explains names and terms without disturbing the meditative flow of the pages. Aneela is now all set to release her second book Sacred Secret about which she is reluctant to disclose much except that it too revolves around Islam and piety. But what she is ready to talk about are her future plans. " I will soon be staging some of my plays in India. The venues have yet to be decided," says Aneela who is also writing a script for an untitled Hollywood movie. Apart from writing she runs a popular spa in New York that provides, "complete healing for the body, mind and soul," as she puts it. But she says whether it is healing people in her spa or writing a religious book or even scripting a play, the prime aim of her life and writings is universal peace. And for India and Pakistan she has a special prayer… Khuda kare hamare dono mulkon main aman ka mahaul sada kayam rahe ( let peace prevail between India and Pakistan).
CAPTION Aneela with Ustad Shujaat Khan…Harmony in music.
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