Zaheerok the. Musical.base.of.baloch.minstrelsy S.badalkhan

229

Zahırok is both a genre of song expressing loss or absence (especially of distant loved ones) and a general term for several melody types used in narrative song

(šeyr) performance.1 The term derives from the word zahır, meaning “yearning, longing for, homesick, heartsick,” and so on, and has come to mean a lament for one’s homeland or a song of yearning for one’s family (see Elfenbein 1990, 2:164).2 According to some Baloch, the term zahırok is composed of the words zahır and rok (“burning”), which accounts for an additional meaning: a song “coming from the burning heart of a yearning person.”

Some believe that zahırok originated from the cuckooing of the wood pigeon (kapot/kahnı). The story is that a man from Makran traveled to Sind, a fertile country whose greenery contrasted the barrenness of the Baloch land. There a wood pigeon, perched on a tree, was singing yearning songs in a wailing tone. The man asked why it was wailing in such a land of paradise. The bird missed its homeland, Makran. This is the source of the famous Balochi proverb, “one wails for the homeland even if it is as dry as a piece of dry wood” (wae watan u hušken dar). The bird’s melody gave rise to the zahırok genre and from that, all types of Balochi songs and music.

In this chapter I investigate the texts, contexts, and performance characteristics associated with the zahırok genre. Because Baloch understand the zahırok to be at the very foundation of their “local”—that is to say, southern Balochistan—musical tradition, it is an ideal point of departure for considering what it means for the Baloch to “theorize” about music and musical experience. Balochistan straddles the modern republics of Pakistan and Iran; it is our bridge for considering traditions that fl ow across and beyond the borders of South Asia.

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Zahırok

The Musical Base of Baloch Minstrelsy

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230 theorizing social action

Only Baloch of the Makran region (Pakistan and Iran) and in the city of Karachi know zahırok tunes, although songs such as lıko expressing similar senti-ments and states of mind have also been recorded in neighboring regions.3 Lorraine Sakata reports on the falak song genre, which is popular in the northeastern areas of Badakhshan and Kataghan in Afghanistan. People in Badakhshan describe falaks as being sad ( ghamghin), expressing “a longing for a lover, friends, family, and home.” Falaks are also melody types of some fi ve identifi able varieties, including one called zahiri (sad, melancholy) (Sakata 1983, 53–59; cf. Slobin 1970, 98). Both genres express similar states of mind and have relatively similar singing styles, though the Balochi zahırok is apparently more elaborate and developed. The gharıbı song genre of Iran also shares subject matter and singing style with the Balochi zahırok

figure 12.1. Pahlawan Mullah Saleh sings and performs on the damburag. Photographed by Sabir Badalkhan, Shahi Tump, Turbat, Pakistan, September 2003.


zahı rok: the musical base of baloch minstrelsy 231

and the Afghani and Tajik falak. The gharıbı (< gharıb, “a stranger or outsider”) in Iran “gives voice to yearning for a home that has been lost or abandoned” (Blum 2002, 829; see also Cejpek [1968, 608] regarding Tajik gharıbı).4 The gharıbı song genre, with similar connotations, is also found in Sistan, northeastern Iran (Weryho 1962, 292) as well as in Kurdistan.5

Zahırok as a Song Genre

Zahırok songs are strongly melancholic, expressing deep emotions and strong sen-timents about separation: feelings of those who are away from home traveling or in search of labor; deep yearnings of women left behind by their sons, husbands, brothers and/or fathers; the sense of suffering women express over performing heavy chores for client families (in the case of maid-servants) or such repetitive tasks as grinding grain with a hand mill or weaving carpets or quilts on a loom.

Zahırok and lıko songs were the only company of camel-drivers in their long journeys.6 In earlier times, Baloch traveled, traded, and transported goods on cam-elback. People spent weeks, and even months, traveling from one major town to another or from one region to another. As a travel song, zahırok is almost exclu-sively related to camel drivers; travelers riding other beasts, such as horses or don-keys, do not sing them. Perhaps this is because people say the zahırok (like the lıko of the northern and northeastern dialect) in melody and rhythm matches the camel’s gait and movements.

Another theory is offered by the Baloch scholar Gul Khan Nasir, who believes that zahıroks were originally women’s compositions.7 He maintains that women sang zahıroks for their menfolk who were away from home and family fi ghting tribal wars, exchanging commodities, or searching for pastures (1979,12, 61).

Singing Technique

When solitary workers or cameleers sing zahıroks, the poem is usually in couplets with a third line acting as a refrain; it may also have a two-line refrain with a single line added at the end. Refrains usually follow a couplet or line but occasionally precede them. When the refrain comes fi rst, the singer renders it in a melismatic style. Singers sometime take fi ve to eight minutes, repeating lines and letting the suroz (bowed stringed instrument) repeat the whole one or more times before join-ing the suroz and singing the last line. The lyrics of a zahırok describe deep nostal-gic feelings of longing and yearning in such a strong melancholic style that they penetrate one’s inner feelings. Baloch say that the surozı (suroz player) often makes his instrument cry.

One person sings a couplet, the second joins in the singing of the refrain and then sings another couplet, then the third joins in the refrain and sings another



couplet, and so on. It is never sung in chorus. No instruments accompany zahırok when women sing while working, when men sing while riding their camels, or when they plow land or collect dates. But when professional zahırok singers (pahlawan) sit and perform for entertainment, they are ideally accompanied by a suroz. Less famous or amateur singers may also sing to the accompaniment of a beynjo (a keyed zither), nal (fl ute), or surna (shawm). Baluch say that zahıroks were originally sung with the exclusive accompaniment of a suroz, or played on a suroz alone. [audio example 12.1 and 12.2] Since suroz is the preferred accompaniment instrument for zahırok, all suroz players should know some of their melodies. This is the test for any suroz player: in the fi rst encounter with a surozı, people will ask him to establish his level of command of Balochi art music by playing some zahıroks. Occasionally, singing with the suroz is further accompanied by a damburag (a fretless lute), which the player strums delicately. When a suroz player performs without a vocalist, no other instrument accompanies him.

Singers

Singers of zahırok in the working context may come from any social background. The best known nonprofessional female zahırok singers in Makran, however, belong to a low social class called molid (maid-servant), traditionally associated with performing housework for a family. These molids had to grind grain for a large family of their masters as well as for their guests (cf. Hashmi 1986, 111). Each day they would start grinding grain at about three or four in the morning (only a few hours after they would fi nish the work of the day before, such as washing dishes and clothes) with the millstone (jintir), whose heavy weight was often com-pared with that of a hill (kohen jintir, lit., “hill-like millstone”), and continued until daybreak, when they had to prepare breakfast, which was usually not less than a normal lunch, for the family of their masters.

These molids were mainly from low social classes, probably descendants of former slaves of African origin; however, such domestic servants also came from other low social groups. Baloch believe that God endowed them with sweet voices, which, under the burden of heavy tasks, allowed them to sing zahıroks expressing the whole picture of their sufferings and hard life. In this context, zahırok was a song of purgation as well as a strong means of catharsis that accompanied their work on the one hand and provided them with a means to express their suffer-ings on the other. It was also a means to make the people of the neighborhood share their sufferings. They accompanied their work of grinding grain with such melodious and touching melancholic zahıroks that sometimes whole villages would wake up to listen to their singing. Their sweet voices on the one hand, and their life full of suffering and hardship on the other hand, together with the weepy nature of zahırok songs, made the atmosphere so touching that people began to cry (cf. Hashmi 1986, 111). I was told, for example, that the molid of the Sardars



of Sami (a village some fi fty kilometers east of Turbat) had such a sweet voice and such a vast repertoire of zahıroks that each morning she would wake up the whole village with her melodies.8

Besides the molids who worked for the families of their masters, women of other communities too (i.e., not of low class) had to grind grain for their families. As they also had other tasks, either in the house or in the fi elds (or herding baby goats/sheep if they were nomads), the best time for grinding grain was, again, early in the morning. Usually two women would ease their burdens by singing zahıroks and grinding grain together—fi rst of one and then of the other. The melodies of the zahıroks were said to follow the movements of the jintir (hand-millstone). Women from all walks of life could sing zahıroks in Baloch society, which was oth-erwise strict about women singing loudly or otherwise appearing in public. Most women should sing only on such festive occasions as the birth of a child, circumci-sions, and weddings. Even then, they should sing in groups; the only exceptions are lullabies and religious songs, which can be sung in private, provided men are not present. Other kinds of singing and dancing are appropriate only for women of low social classes.

Until the early 1970s, camel drivers routinely sang zahıroks in the morning, especially during the summer, when the date and rice harvests in Makran stimu-lated trade and travel. In the pleasant early-morning weather, the drivers were lively and exuberant, singing as they passed by settlements during the early hours of the day. The cameleers would take turns: the person riding on the lead camel sang the fi rst couplet, then the second one joined him, singing with the last hemistich or the refrain, and then sang another couplet; then the third joined and followed with another, and so on. They followed other patterns as well: the man riding on the lead camel would sing the fi rst couplet; the last cameleer would join in on the refrain and add a couplet, then the second cameleer from the front would sing and then the second one from the back, and so on. Most often there would be tens of camels, and every cameleer would sing in his turn, often improvising the song and adding more couplets, keeping roughly the refrain only. In the pin-drop silence of the early hours of dawn, along with the jingling of bells tied around the necks of camels, the singing of zahıroks created such a wonderful atmosphere that some-times the whole village would wake up to listen to them. I was told that on many occasions some music-loving people followed caravans of camels for miles just to listen to zahıroks. Now traders move goods by truck rather than by camel. Rather than the jingling of bells around the necks of camels and the zahıroks of cameleers, one hears instead Hindi fi lm songs played loudly from powerful loudspeakers fi xed in front of trucks or buses. These songs are heard miles away. The vehicles arrive much later, descending from one hillock and ascending another one, running on dirt roads with huge stones and dry river beds.

A similar atmosphere was also created by farmers working in their fi elds. During the paddy-growing season (April-May) men start plowing as early as about



fi ve in the morning—as soon as there is enough light. Commonly, in the past, one farmer would start singing a zahırok from his fi eld while plowing. and another in a nearby fi eld would respond with another zahırok or would add a couplet. In a short time the whole oasis would echo with farmers joining in to sing from all sides. This type of singing also functioned to soothe the bullocks, who responded more will-ingly to the heavy burden in the company of singing men. The same was repeated during the date harvest, when one farmer from the top of a date tree started singing a zahırok, soon joined by another one, then by another. All such practices have been discontinued, and we can only speculate why. I believe that, beginning in the 1970s with the economic uplift and weakening of class stratifi cation in Baluchistan, such singing has been on the decline because it is considered low class. In the not-so-distant past even Baloch from upper social backgrounds sang work songs without any reservations; in modern times people from low social classes consider it shameful to sing in public unless they are professional or amateur singers.

Zahıroks are generally made of couplets with irregular rhymes and more or less fi xed refrains. In some cases, such as the following, poets have composed zahıroks

figure 12.2. Surozı Ostad Omar accompanies, on suroz, the šeyr-singing of pahlawan Mullah Saleh. They perform zahırok melodies. Ostad Omar is considered one of the greatest living instrumentalists who perform zahıroks. Photographed by Sabir Badalkhan, Shahi Tump, Turbat, Pakistan, September 2003.



to be sung as whole poems, normally in a working context, especially by women grinding on their millstones, doing embroidery, or working on looms. The texts of all Balochi folksongs are subject to improvisation (cf. Badalkhan 2002, 302 n2) and this is also true for zahıroks in couplets. As in the following examples, not all zahıroks talk of travel, homesickness, and yearning. Some develop themes of love. Being basically a melancholic song, singers always sing zahıroks from the very depths of their hearts.

dil khayale pa gonage karıtdil mana bart u dır pirrenıt,dil mana pešı tranagan gejıt,konóuma jant co banden naryana,girr bandıt co gwanzagı tifl a,co óacıa danzıt pa watı hirra,još karıt co roden lohıa (Nasir 1979, 62).

My heart brings a remembrance to me in a strange way,My heart takes and throws me far away,My heart brings to me the memory of past days,It [becomes so stubborn that it] stampedes like a fastened stallion,It demands stubbornly [the lover] like a baby in its cradle,Like she-camels who kick dust [calling] for their baby camels,It boils like a bronze pot.

Another beautiful zahırok runs as follows:

zahır manı baššamı draden hawr ant,ki daima grewan ant manı camman,hic mana naylant pa šapı waba,šap manı sal ant, roc manı šaš mah,šap manı salen na bant bamgah,roc manı tırmahı tap ant trunden (Nasir 1979, 64).

My zahır are like heavy showers of monsoon rains,They always pour down from my weeping eyes,They never allow me to have a night’s sleep,My nights are as long as full years, and my days are as long as half years,My year-long nights never see a dawn,My days are like the burning fevers of early summer months.9

The following are a few examples from a famous zahırok in Makran, as sung by the renowned zahırok singer Amir Jusakki, from a village near Turbat. It describes a famous event when a ship carrying passengers from Gwadar to Muscat caught fi re and was wrecked, resulting in the death of all passengers. This incident probably



occurred in the 1950s, when Gwadar was still under the rule of the Sultanate of Oman. (Several other heart-breaking zahıroks and motks [dirges] also recount this event.) A few couplets of this zahırok show how the refrain is used.

bacc manı sargiptag mazarbımmen,deme datag man Maškata šummen,kadirey nur manı baccı taı bahoñ int.

My son of the wrath of a lion has prepared [for the journey],He has started [the journey] to the damning Muscat,O, the light of the Protector, my son is under your protection.

ya hudawand u kirdagar šahen,malkamut seylanı [bali nın] šikara int,u keyt hama arwahey sara nindıt,gwanzagı tiplan ca madaran sindıt,kadirey nur manı baccı taı bahoñ int.

O God, the King and Creator,The watchful Angel of Death is out hunting [for victims],He comes and sits on the spirit [i.e., on lives],He separates babies in cradles from their mothers (i.e., he is too cruel

and merciless),O, the light of the Protector, my son is under your protection.

Zahırok as a Term for “Melody Types”

When cameleers or women at work sing zahırok songs, they may use a single mel-ody or several different ones. But zahırok is also a term for the melodies of zahırok songs, and more abstractly, for melody types. Two Baloch musicians from Karachi, Abdul Rahman Surizai (who is a master of beynjo) and Karim Bakhsh Nuri (a suroz player) led Jean During to represent zahırok as a kind of incipient classical music: “a signifi cant point is that in the same way that knowledge of the zahirig-s as modes serves to increase the competence of a singer or instrumentalist at the height of one’s mastery, the zahirigi-s are considered as the essence of Baluchi music, i.e., its very principle (asil ), the matrices of all the melodies, tunes or songs” (1997, 41). Likewise, Baloch men with some knowledge of the tradition often argue that zahırok is the basis of all Balochi music and the essence of the melodies used in singing Balochi narrative song (šeyr).10 Janmahmad, a Baloch writer from Dasht in Makran, maintains, moreover, that “the entire Balochi musical structure is based on zaheerag. Some of the folk-music appears to be somewhat different from it,



but in their formal structure all musical derivatives have their base in Zaheerag” (1982, 59–60).

According to Baloch pahlawans (professional šeyr singers), narrative songs (šeyrs) comprise tunes that derive from different zahıroks. Each part of a šeyr has a different message. Some sections are to be sung with different zahıroks. In this view, there are zahırok tunes to express any sentiment or state of mind. As a rule, only certain parts of a šeyr are sung in zahıroks while other parts are sung in dif-ferent styles, such as galrec (rapid singing without melisma), dapgal (singing in a low register without melisma) and others (see Badalkhan 1994, 147–49). Pahlawans often begin a šeyr with an appropriate zahırok, and they usually mark shifts of scene with a cıhal—a free-rhythmic vocal section accompanied by suroz—which is in a specifi c zahırok. [audio example 12.3] The cıhal is an important way of captur-ing the listeners’ attention as well as an indication for the scene shift. Audiences highly appreciate virtuosity, and if a pahlawan has a smooth tenor voice with a good knowledge of zahıroks, and when he lingers for a long time on a melisma, he is showered with “šabaš” and “wah wah” (“bravo”), and some music lovers in the audience express their appreciation with shrieking shouts and yells.11

Being the richest body of Balochi music, zahırok is also the most complex. Not all suroz players and minstrels are capable of playing or singing many zahıroks. Suroz players who perform with pahlawans are expected to be able to play most of the well-known zahıroks, while those who do not play for pahlawans have less need even to know zahıroks by name. Suroz players claim that it takes from ten to thirty years of experience before one is able to play the most common zahıroks in full without confusing one with another. In fact, few living suroz players can play certain zahıroks in full; many, however, can name the most common ones without being able to play them correctly.

Every zahırok has a beginning section called a “picking up” (cist kanag) and a rising section called a “carrying up” (burza barag). Once the zahırok has reached its “peak” (burzı), the pahlawan and/or surozı must “bring it down” (er arag) in a prescribed manner in order to conclude or “kill” (kušag) the zahırok. [audio examples 12.1-12.3]

Every zahırok has certain vocal/instrumental modulations, and the performer/singer is expected to follow them strictly. If a pahlawan or surozı does not respect the accepted standards people may shout at them or the singer and the performer may rebuke each other for combining zahıroks (cf. Badalkhan 1994, 166).12 The communication process between pahlawan and surozı creates a need for zahıroks to be named.13 Usually all pahlawans of some fame have their own surozıs who understand their style and mood, and famous pahlawans do not perform with the accompaniment of other surozıs.

The vocal-instrumental zahırok in performances of šeyr differs from the zahırok as a song genre in the following respects. Foremost is the cıhal, which is highly melismatic and expressive, sung either to a line of poetry or on a single vowel or



several vocables. A zahırok always begins with cıhal, which is followed by a small number of lines, some of which are normally repeated. The shift from cıhal to verses is marked by the introduction of a steady beat, which the pahlawan keeps by strum-ming on the damburag as he sings. Cıhal is always in a high register, and the verses are sung in a lower and narrower register. The suroz player begins the cıhal and is joined by the singer. It is as if the suroz player takes the singer’s hand for climbing a mountain, but the singer takes the lead as soon as he enters, and the surozı echoes his phrases. When they have reached the peak of the singer’s vocal range, the singer rests a while as the surozı continues to ascend. The surozı reverses the melodic direc-tion, the singer reenters and takes the lead as they begin the descent. They come down together, and the singer fi nishes fi rst while the surozı continues to descend into the lower register. A pahlawan with a good knowledge of zahıroks may sing the same lines several times and hang around for up to twenty or more minutes before going on with the šeyr. In all these cases the singer is accompanied by the surozı, and sometimes this latter repeats the whole zahırok more than once on the suroz. It is easier for a surozı to accompany a pahlawan than to play a purely instrumental zahırok, because in the latter he continues to play in high register rather than sub-ordinating himself to the singer at the melodic climax.14

figure 12.3. Rasul Bakhsh Zangishahi (from Iranian Makran) plays zahırok and sings šeyr melodies. He is accompanied by Shahan Bugti (center) from Dera Bugti and Allaidad, son of Rasul Bakhsh Zangishahi. Rasul Baksh Zangishahi is considered one of the greatest living instrumentalists who perform zahıroks. Photographed by Sabir Badalkhan, Paris, June 1996.



As zahırok is the most important variety of music in southwestern Balochistan, we fi nd different types related to different regions, to different types of work and conditions, taking names of famous singers and musicians, as well as referring to certain states of mind. As the number of expert zahırok players and singers has declined, the actual number of zahırok tunes is diffi cult to establish. Some put the number at thirty-six;15 others put it even higher. Someone suggested that there are four main types, related to the four different parts (pas) of the night, with tens of other subtypes.16 Here I list thirty different types that musicians in Balochistan have named over the years. However, this list is far from complete.

All of my pahlawan informants agreed that the night is divided into different parts, and each part has its particular zahırok. Bashsham, one of the most famous pahlawans, inherited the art of minstrelsy from his father, who was a suroz player before becoming a pahlawan himself. Bashsham was his father’s surozı until his father died; then Basham became a pahlawan. Basham told me that in the early hours of the night he sings with the melodies of kurdı, balocı, baškardı, and other zahıroks of low register because these are good to warm the throat as well as the strings of the suroz; the zahıroks of midnight are medı, kukkar, and others from the same group; while the zahıroks sung after three in the morning are ašrap-i durra, ñañ, and others of the high register.

figure 12.4. Ostad Omar Surozı (village Sur, district Gwadar). Photographed by Sabir Badalkhan, Shahi Tump, Turbat, Pakistan, September 2003.



Zahırok names derive largely from:

1. terms for different parts of the night (šapey pas), such as saršapey (“of ear-ly night”), nemhangamey (“of midnight”), gwarbamey (“of early dawn”), or bamey (“of dawn”)

2. regional or tribal names17 with an attributive ı suffi x, such as baškardı (“of Bashkard” in southwestern Iran), rodbarı (“of Rudbar”), jahlawanı (“of Jahlawan” in central Balochistan), sarhaddı (“of Sarhadd” in Iranian Balochistan),18 or balocı (“of Baloch”),19 jadgaley (“of the Jadgal” tribe in Makran), sasolı (named after the Sasoli tribe in Pakistani Balochistan), kurdı (“of Kurds”; possibly named after the Kurd tribe in Balochistan), kiblaı (“western” regions of Balochistan), and zirkanikkı (“coastal”).

3. the names of singers who introduced new zahırok tunes, for example, ašrap-i durra (named after a famous zahırok singer who came from the Gichki family of Kech, Makran)20 and begamı (after Begam, a nineteenth- to twentieth-century woman zahırok singer from Gwadar).

4. terms for the strings of a suroz,21 for example, ñañ (the fi rst string from the upper side, facing the player, also called ñıpp), myanag (the middle string, also called zıll or dastgard), gor u bam (gor is the gut string and the third in sequence, while bam is the fourth and the lowest string); or named after a musical instrument with the possessive -ey (“of”), such as surna-ey (“of shawm,” which is said to had been invented by a shawm player in response to Ashrap-i Durra) and gurr-ey (“of conch/shell instrument”).

5. various other aspects, such as context, typical performer, or style, for exam-ple, uštir-ey (“of camel,” sung by cameleers, also called sarban-ey, “of camel-eer’s”), jintir-ey (“of hand-millstone,” sung by women while grinding grain), balluk-ey ( “grand mother’s,” sung by aged women to show their sufferings under hard working conditions or for their absent sons), janozam-ey (“of the widow”), medı (“of Med fi shermen”), kukkar (“of shouting,” which shows the style of the zahırok), jagarsind (“heart-rending”), and salat-ey (“of the call to prayers”).

Pahlawan and surozı informants whom I have interviewed argue that most of these zahıroks have subtypes: balocı has šahr balocı and iranı balocı as subtypes; kurdı has kurdı and šahr kurdı as its subtypes.22 The legendary pahlawan Faiz Mahmad Bal-och [audio example 12.3] once said in an interview that there are more than two hundred zahırok tunes (Shad 200[1998] 2000, 252).23 Faiz Mahmad was endowed with an hypnotizing tenor voice, ideal for zahırok singing. As a great master of pahlawan minstrelsy tradition, he was well aware of the importance of zahırok tunes in Balochi šeyr singing, so he would often tell his audience which zahırok he was singing in that particular part of a šeyr. As the best time for zahırok singing is in the last hours of the night, Faiz Mahmad would hypnotize his audience with his zahıroks when dawn was approaching. In that part of a night-long performance, a



pahlawan sings a šeyr passing from one zahırok to another. At this stage, the strings of the suroz are fully warmed, the audience is selective, and the singing reaches its highest peak.24 People describe this type of singing as pahlawana cıhal pa cıhal kutag (that is, the pahlawan is now singing cıhal after cıhal, that is, repeated singing in a virtuoso melismatic style in zahıroks).

Zahırok is one of the most important and well-known song genres as well as the most elaborated music of the Baloch, often described as the “Balochi classical music” by the Baloch themselves. It is also the richest music with respect to its vari-eties and regional types. At the same time, like the rest of Balochi music and songs, it has not been recorded systematically or studied properly so far.25


Documents

Zaheerok the. Musical.base.of.baloch.minstrelsy S.badalkhan