PODCAST · music
Sounding Board
by Ali Raj
Sounding Board is an audio series about South Asian music, Islamic sound arts and the Urdu literary tradition. It features readings of essays by influential Urdu scholars, musicologists, poets and critics from the 19th and 20th centuries, exploring themes of identity, inheritance and imagination.The project is supported by Columbia University Society of Fellows/Heyman Center for the Humanities and Humanities New York. Produced by Ali Raj
Episodes
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The Recitation of Mir Anis - Naiyer Masud
Naiyer Masud (1936-2017) was a noted Urdu scholar, critic and short story writer. The essay excerpted in this episode was published as part of his trailblazing 1990 book, “Marsiyakhwani ka Fann” (The Art of Marsiya Recitation). It analyzes the recitation style of the master Lucknow poet Mir Anis...
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Husain Kashifi and the Oratory of Karbala - Mujtaba Hasan Kamunpuri
Allama Mujtaba Hasan Kamunpuri (1913-1974) was a Shi’i scholar from India. Born in Ghazipur, he earned his Ph.D. at Al-Azhar, and held various teaching and administrative roles at the Lucknow and Aligarh universities. The essay excerpted in this episode was published in a 1969 issue of the…
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Early Days of Music in Dhaka - Abbasuddin Ahmed (Eng.)
Abbasuddin Ahmed (1901-1959) was a renowned Bengali musician, scholar and recording artist. He was among the earliest Indian artists to take to the gramophone, and gained widespread acclaim in Calcutta before moving to Dacca in 1947. The essay featured in this episode is part of his 1961...
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Hindu Dhrupad vs. Muslim Khayal - Adeeb Suhail
Adeeb Suhail (1927-2017) was a poet, editor and music scholar. Born in Munger, Bihar as Zuhurul Haq, Suhail migrated to East Pakistan and remained stationed in Dacca and Saidpur. He was editor of the East Pakistan Urdu daily "Pasban," and coined popular Urdu slogans against the Ayub Khan regime....
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The Law of Tones in Indian Classical Music - Atiya Fyzee-Rahamin (Eng.)
Atiya Fyzee-Rahamin was an educationist, musicologist and socialite. Born in 1877 in Ottoman Turkey, she was arguably the first woman to have authored a text on North Indian classical music. Atiya was also among the founders of the first All India Music Conference, which was held in Baroda in…
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The Dawn of Tehet in Karachi - Syed Aley Raza
Syed Aley Raza (1896-1978) was a renowned ghazal and marsiya poet. He was born in Unnao, and practiced law in Lucknow before moving to Pakistan in 1947. A pupil of Arzu Lakhnavi, Raza was one of the boldface names of the modern marsiya. He is more widely remembered for penning the salam-e akhir...
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Pakistani Music in Bangkok - Mumtaz Shireen
Mumtaz Shireen (1924-1973) was a pioneering Urdu critic and short story writer. Born in Hindupur and raised in Mysore, she migrated to Pakistan in 1947 and soon became a prominent voice against the autocratic tendencies of the Progressive Writers' Movement. In this reportage, written some time...
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The Lullabies of East Pakistan - Nasim Ahmed
Nasim Ahmed (d. ?) was a writer based in East Pakistan, who frequently contributed to Urdu and Bengali periodicals. The essay featured in this episode provides an overview of the culture of Bengali lullabies in the cities and villages of Pakistan's eastern wing. Published in 1963, the essay…
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How Can Music Be Food for the Soul? - Mufti Muhammad Shafi
Mufti Muhammad Shafi (1897-1976) was a leading scholar and jurist of the Deoband school in Pakistan. In this episode, we revisit an essay from his Arabic treatise on the permissibility of music, translated by Muhammad Abdul Muiz. The essay examines from a Hanafi standpoint the German philosopher...
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There's No Such Thing as Pakistani Music - Rafiq Ghaznavi
Rafiq Ghaznavi (1907-1974) was a pioneering musician and actor of Indian and Pakistani cinema. In this essay, written in 1953, Ghaznavi attends to a most fundamental question: can there be such a thing as Pakistani music? Ghaznavi holds Pakistan's broadcasting czar Zulfiqar Ali Bukhari…
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Listening on Trial at the Sultan's Court in Delhi - Qasim Firishta
Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah Firishta (d. circa 1623) was a Persian historian who served the Sultanate of Bijapur in the Deccan. His seminal work, the "Gulshan-i Ibrāhīmī" (The Garden of Ibrahim) is a long history of the Muslim conquest of India. It was named after his patron, Sultan Ibrahim Adil…
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The Partitioned Airwaves of All India Radio - Zulfiqar Ali Bukhari
Zulfiqar Ali Bukhari (1904-1975) was a pioneering broadcaster, as well as a poet and musicologist. Born in Peshawar, Bukhari was among the earliest administrators of All India Radio, and the founder of Radio Pakistan. In this essay, excerpted from his autobiography that was serialized in an Urdu...
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The Sacred Sarangi of Ustad Bundu Khan - Muhammad Hasan Askari
Muhammad Hasan Askari (1919-1978) was a critic, essayist and short story writer. Born in Bulandshahr, Askari spent his most productive years in Delhi, Lahore and Karachi. The essay featured in this episode was written circa 1956-57 as an ode to the sarangi legend Ustad Bundu Khan. Keeping Bundu...
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Radio Pakistan’s Ban on Rabindra Sangeet – Abul Mansur Ahmad (Eng.)
Abul Mansur Ahmad (1898–1979) was a Bengali politician, journalist and writer. He participated in the Pakistan Movement and later played a leading role in the struggle for East Pakistan’s political autonomy. The essay featured in this episode was written by Ahmad in August 1967, in the aftermath…
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Poetry, Music and the Mushairah - Sajjad Zaheer
Sajjad Zaheer (1905–1973) was a Marxist poet and revolutionary who lived and worked in both India and Pakistan. The essay featured in this episode, written around 1958, explores the tradition of tarannum (melodic recitation) in the Urdu mushairah (poetic symposium). Zaheer examines why poets who...
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The Music of Kazi Nazrul Islam - M. N. Mustafa (Eng.)
Muhammad Nurul Mustafa (1936–2000), known by his pen name M. N. Mustafa, was a Bengali journalist, scholar and diplomat. After studying journalism at Punjab University, Mustafa worked as an editor for the English-language dailies The Morning News and The Pakistan Observer, and later as an…
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Why People are Scared of Classical Music - Nargis Khanum (Eng.)
Nargis Khanum (1943-2017) was a pioneering arts and culture journalist in Pakistan. Born in Pune, she joined the daily Dawn as a staff reporter in 1966 and led a trailblazing career in writing and editing that spanned over 50 years. In this essay, written for the the Morning News in 1977, Khanum...
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The Charade of Classical Music - Krishan Chander
Krishan Chander (1914-1977) was an Indian writer of novels and short stories. The essay featured in this episode, titled "Gānā" (Singing), was part of an undated collection of essays. It is an acerbic and insightful take on the sociological dimensions of music, examining the class structure of...
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Singing Pakistan in Calcutta - Abbasuddin Ahmed (Eng.)
Abbasuddin Ahmed (1901-1959) was a renowned Bengali musician, scholar and recording artist. He was among the earliest Indian artists to take to the gramophone, and gained widespread acclaim in Calcutta before moving to Dacca in 1947. The essay featured in this episode is part of his 1961...
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Inventing Musical Notation through Sound Recording - Madame Azurie
Madame Azurie (1907–1998), born Anna Marie Gueizelor, was a pioneering actor and dancer in Pakistani, Indian, and Bengali cinema. The essay featured in this episode comprises a speech delivered by Azurie during a 1961–62 national music conference held in Karachi, which addressed the challenges of...
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The Music of East Pakistan - Salimullah Fahmi
Salimullah Fahmi (1906-1975) was a Bengali poet and careercivil servant in the erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The essay featured in this episode surveys the various genres of Bengali music prevalent in the region. It provides insight into the representation of Bengali culture within…
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Christian Origins of the Symphony Orchestra - Daud Rahbar
Daud Rahbar (1926-2013) was a Pakistani scholar of comparative religion who taught at various North American universities. In this fascinating essay, Rahbar distills for the Urdu reader a history of orchestral music in the Western tradition, and his reading of its relationship with premodern...
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Radio Madras - Lutfullah Khan
Lutfullah Khan (1916-2012) was an archivist and musician, who over multiple decades put together what is perhaps the biggest audio library of 20th century South Asia. The library, now housed at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, consists of rare recordings of political speeches,...
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The Ruin of Hindustani Music - Shahid Ahmad Dehlvi
Shahid Ahmad Dehlvi (1906-1967) was a renowned editor and musicologist. The essay featured in this episode was published in August 1948 by the journal "Adab-e Lat̤īf" (Literary Subtleties). It focuses on the state of North Indian music on the cusp of Partition, delving into the historical origins...
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The Sozkhwani of Lucknow - Abdul Halim Sharar
Abdul Halim Sharar (1860-1926) was a renowned poet, novelist, journalist, historian and reformer of British India. The essay featured in this episode provides a history of sozkhwani, the elegiac recitation tradition associated with South Asian Shi’i Islam. It was part of a trailblazing cultural...
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The Art of Naatkhwani - Ustad Sibte Jafar Zaidi
Ustad Sibte Jafar Zaidi (1957-2013) was a college professor and proponent of Islamic sound arts in South Asia. The essay featured in this episode comprises of two continuous sections from Zaidi's 1995 monograph, "Ṣautī ‘Ulūm-o Funūn-e Islāmī" (The Sciences and Arts of Sound in Islam). The…
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Issues in Pakistani Music - Aminur Rahman
Aminur Rahman was a Pakistani musicologist who wrote extensively on the historical and comparative aspects of North Indian musical traditions. Rahman's Urdu and English writings were published across leading literary journals and art magazines. The essay featured in this episode was composed in…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Sounding Board is an audio series about South Asian music, Islamic sound arts and the Urdu literary tradition. It features readings of essays by influential Urdu scholars, musicologists, poets and critics from the 19th and 20th centuries, exploring themes of identity, inheritance and imagination.The project is supported by Columbia University Society of Fellows/Heyman Center for the Humanities and Humanities New York. Produced by Ali Raj
HOSTED BY
Ali Raj
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Sounding Board have?
Sounding Board currently has 27 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Sounding Board about?
Sounding Board is an audio series about South Asian music, Islamic sound arts and the Urdu literary tradition. It features readings of essays by influential Urdu scholars, musicologists, poets and critics from the 19th and 20th centuries, exploring themes of identity, inheritance and...
How often does Sounding Board release new episodes?
Sounding Board has 27 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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You can listen to Sounding Board on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Sounding Board?
Sounding Board is created and hosted by Ali Raj.
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