Pashto singer selling household items to feed family
PESHAWAR: “I have no option but to resort to selling out my household items. I am compelled to starve. I have already withdrawn my five children from a local school. My elder 19-year-old daughter Sumbal Wagma is disabled. My husband has sold out our two houses to meet our daily expenses. We live at a two-room dingy rented home on Dalazak Road near City railway station,” Wagma, a popular Pashto singer, told this scribe here on Thursday.
Noted Pashto folksinger Gulzari alias Wagma began selling her household items to feed her seven-member family. She had launched her singing career in 1989 from Pakistan Television (PTV), Peshawar centre despite strong resistance from her family.
She was born in Menai village of Swabi district and shifted to Peshawar in 1995 when she married Liaquat Ali Khan Yousafzai, a local stage shows producer and art promoter. Wagma has 2,500 albums to her credit and is recipient of 200 local awards. She has represented Pakistan in China, Syria, Qatar, Dubai, Iran and Afghanistan. She earned the title of second Gulnar Begum, a top folksinger of the yore days.
Wagma shot to fame when she sang a Pashto ghazal ‘Na May Dalbari Na Daldari Okra -- Hasay May Da Jwand Sara Khwari Okra’ (Neither I became a diehard lover nor a darling /My struggle in life proved a futile exercise).
This ghazal, she stated, had best reflected her miserable plight those days as she had no source of earning. She said that she had not been invited for performance by state-run TV and radio or any private TV channels since 2008.
“My house rent and electricity bills amounting to Rs60,000 have been pending unpaid for the last eight months. I have sold out furniture, TV set, electronic devices and mobile phones. Now I want to sell out my own gold ornaments and for a Pakhtun woman, it is next to selling my honour,” Wagma said with her eyes welled up. “I faced strong resistance from immediate family members -- father and brothers -- as I don’t belong to a professional music family. I didn’t want to waste my talent. I have not received any training. I was born with sinning talent,” Wagma said.
She added that once on a wedding occasion in her village, she sang a folk Pashto song which impressed late Rahdat Hussain, a famous music director, who had overheard her song. “He advised me to perform on TV. The next day, Shaukat Ali Khan a former PTV producer called me and I performed well,” she recalled.
Master Ali Haider, a senior music composer, said voice of Wagma Bibi was matchless after Zarsanga Bibi. “She has wonderful mastery over high-pitch sound and all folk tunes of Pashto music. I think we should not lose her voice. She can sing with much ease folk songs, ghazal and even classical ghazal which I believe is an uphill task,” he said.
Shafaat Ali Yousafzai, 14, the elder son of Wagma, said that he wanted to get quality education to do master in folk music but regretted that his future seemed to be bleak because his parents were unable to afford his siblings school fees. An official in the culture directorate, when contacted, said that about three months ago, a cheque of Rs30,000 was given to Wagma’s husband while another cheque of Rs15,000 would be released in a week.
Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2015
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