// August 24th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // All, Music, Pakistan, Poetry
In Urdu, the word “laal” means red. The band Laal takes its name literally. In a newspaper parking lot in Lahore, Pakistan, about 200 fans wave dozens of red flags, symbols of the band’s Communist politics.
The group’s classical flutist wears a T-shirt with a picture of Che Guevara on a red star. The lead guitarist wears a buttoned-down crimson shirt.
In the damp night air, the audience claps along with the song “Umeed-E-Sehr,” or “hope of a new dawn.” It’s the title track to Laal’s debut album.
Taimur Rahman is Laal’s lead guitarist. He says the band’s songs have recently gained a new relevance.
“These are times of both hope and despair simultaneously,” he says, “and if you’re not talking politics, if you’re not talking social change, if you’re not trying to do something that goes beyond crass commercialization, then really people are saying, kind of, that this is not worth our time.”
It’s not uncommon for Pakistanis to sing poetry and use it in political protests. So when Pakistan’s first Communist rock band re-appropriated decades-old verses about hope, its songs became the soundtrack to Pakistan’s lawyers’ movement.
Combat Rock
A couple years ago, Laal was a small-time band, playing mostly at workers’ rallies and student centers. But when Pervez Musharraf, then the president of Pakistan, removed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry from power, Pakistan’s lawyers took to the streets in protests that sometimes resulted in violent clashes with authorities. Laal joined the movement.
That’s when the record label of one of Pakistan’s largest media conglomerates signed Laal and promoted its album. The band played on the roof of one of the company’s television stations. The parking lot where it played to a sea of red-clad fans waving red flags belongs to one of the conglomerate’s newspapers.
Today, Laal’s concerts are televised and broadcast to millions. Rahman says he never imagined that the band would become so big so soon. (more…)
