Indus Music Awards 2003?
// August 29th, 2004 // Uncategorized
As much as I want to stop publicizing my opinions on events that I don?t even have the patience to suffer through-I could not resist sharing a few words about the recent Indus Music awards, ?Pakistan?s first music awards?.
Bandbaja an E-zine held sacred by all self respecting Pakistani music enthusiasts was, as expected, soggy with opinions on Pakistan?s first music awards. Also predictably enough-?commercialization? was the all-consuming anti-Christ. IM was roundly criticized for baying down to ?crass commercialization?-of selling out.
As understandable as there concern is?especially in an epoch where even our best bands are seemingly proud of making a songs after a synthetic strawberry flavoured hard boiled candy?its certainly not fair. In a chronically malnutrition and anaemic industry as ours it?s a little too much to expect Indus to foot the bill or probably even dictate terms to potential sponsors.
That being said-I certainly don?t intend to be an apologist for the escapades accomplished by Ghazanfar Ali (Indus? one man politburo/seth) and his inconsequential crew. Especially when my cellular company (Mobilink) paid them a flabbergasting 6.2 Million rupees to undertake the ceremonies; I like to think as a small token to millions of mistreated, misled telecom customers-like myself.
Lets not talk about the chronic disorganization- because to be fair I did not see enough of the awards to be in a position to write about that.
Graver, was the fact that Indus seemed to be about as meritocratic as my local customs officer. Which was a shame really, because while you can put down hiccups like a bad script to teething troubles-bigotry is not so easily explained, or forgiven.
To anybody that?s even remotely in-tune with the music scene here, its patent that there has been considerable fiddling with the list of people who finally walked up on stage to get the awards.
Just two of the incongruities:
The controversy over the best video award has almost become common knowledge. It was after all, not too hard to see that IM went ahead and gave an award to 2004 video-which would probably been alright, had the awards not been for 2003. Whilst this rule was scrupulously followed for other videos (like Saquib?s) Hadia?s 2004 Mahi video was given there blessings to be in the running, and eventually won.
Not so well known, but even more disturbing is the wrangling over the ?Best Ballard? category. A friend who was managing the SMS voting system should have been the last one to be taken by surprise over the winners. And yet, it was him who was dumbfounded on the 22nd as the ceremony went on air. He narrates through clenched teeth something about Ahmed Jahanzaib having received over fourteen thousand votes, far more than any other nominee. It certainly wasn?t him who got the honours though. It wouldn?t be surprising if the legendary fallout between Ahmed and Ghazanfar were somehow to blame.
This is by no measure an exhaustive list-for I seek not to document what all went wrong with the awards, but just to establish that they were inherently flawed.
Its especially unfortunate that IM-which so often boasts of bringing a new upheaval in the music industry-seems so inconsiderate of what it leaves behind for posterity. With a not-so-silent revolution in the industry, it?s more than disappointing to see us unable to shake off the fetters of politics even when something as spiritual and meaningful as music is involved.
I wont end with a plea to IM to ?fix up its act? ? this isn?t a letter to dawns editor afterall. And neither is this of such peripheral significance that we need only nod our heads and move on.
Injustice has permeated to the core of our civil society and the very least we can do is bring new accountability to still nascent sectors.
Wake up guys ? the music industry that we should so rightly be proud of (notwithstanding its many irregularities) faces a new challenge from a seemingly enlightened quarter-and if anybody that can make a difference, its us, the three thousand or so alienated, stratified and burgerised viewers of Indus music.
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