Cross-border tales
Mekaal Hasanis all set to release his new track on MTV Indies
By : samyuktha k
Update: 2014-10-13 23:59 GMT
Mumbai: Pakistani musician Mekaal Hasan is one among those few musicians who enjoys a loyal fanbase. In fact, when he decided to change the line-up to create a first of its kind Indo-Pak band, Mekaal’s Facebook page showed the anxiety of a few of his followers. But a handful tracks later, the fan reviews came in lengthy and positive.
The course for Mekaal’s music a journey that was already close to two decades old was to change when he met his now band mate Gino at a gig in India in 2010. And having come from a tradition of Jazz, the high “standard” of Jazz that is made in India naturally fit into Mekaal’s journey.
Now, gearing up to release his new track, Ghungat from his new album Andolan, with his Indo-Pak collaboration on MTV Indies, Mekaal says, “I had worked extensively with the local artistes in Pakistan. But the quality of musicianship in India drew me into making music with diversity of sounds and textures.”
Of late, Indian entertainment industry has increasingly absorbed a lot of talent from Pakistan. And most Indian enthusiasts have always held that Pakistani Coke Studio is much better than the Indian counterpart.
“It’s a sense of mutual admiration,” says Mekaal of this respect for Pakistani art in India. “The fact is that there is a lot of talent on both sides of the border. We love Bollywood here and Pakistani musicians have always looked at India as a significant market for their music too.
It’s just that till now, no band has brought the two countries together,” he notes. Currently, Mekaal shuttles between his studio in Lahore and another set-up in Mumbai.
“We do our initial work independently at both the studios and that’s how it works. I do the writing here and send it across, and then we work further on Skype. And when everything is put together, we lend the final touches in Mumbai,” he says.
It is also heartening to note that the music is being received “extremely positively” by the Pakistani fans as well.
“India and Pakistan share this history and mystery equation. We share so much history because we were after all essentially from the same region a few generations ago. And the mystery comes in because we have come to a stage today where we don’t know exactly what is going on the other side and there is so much curiosity brewing across the geographical divide,” he says.
“I think such (the Indo-Pak collaborations) kind of interactions are very healthy. And it will go a long way in humanising the people of the countries on either sides of the border,” he adds with conviction.