Pakistani composer Arshad Mahmud: ‘Dictatorships come and go but the music continues’
His new platform aims to get the younger generation to appreciate classical poetry and music.
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Arshad Mahmud is one of Pakistan’s most prolific and talented composers, the man whose music launched singing sensations like Nayyar Noor and Tina Sani.
He made his debut with the children’s television show Akkar Bakkar in 1972, along with Nayyara Noor and the pioneering puppeteer Farooq Qaiser, produced by Shoaib Hashmi, then an economics professor at Government College (now University) Lahore.
Behind ustad (teacher) Hashmi’s booming voice, gruff manner and handlebar moustache was a brilliant writer and satirist who went on to write and produce the groundbreaking, now legendary satirical television shows Such Gup and Tal Matol.
We would use these as the titles of Shoaib Hashmi’s columns for The Frontier Post later and The News on Sunday that I edited in Lahore, starting in the 1990s. His daughter Mira Hashmi has uploaded many of the videos to her YouTube channel.
Lord Clive
Dodging censorship and restrictions, the team tackled all kinds of themes. Mahmud remembers that for a Tal Matol session on history, Shoaib Hashmi asked actor Samina Ahmed – who played the grandmother in the Disney film Ms Marvel (2022) – what character she’d like to be. “Lord Clive,” she said. So Lord Clive she was, and when she appeared on set in costume, everyone cracked up.
“We were a bunch of crazy idiots,” laughed Arshad Mahmud over a phone call. I’d called to ask about his YouTube...
