In the shadow of the red brick mosques and palaces of Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan, Zohaib Hassan plucks the strings of a sarangi, filling the streets with a melodious and sad sound.
This traditional bowed string instrument, known for its sound close to the human voice, is typical of the Indian subcontinent.
But it tends to disappear from the musical scene.
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Difficult to master, expensive to maintain and offering few financial opportunities to those who play it, the sarangi is experiencing a decline that seems inevitable, explains to
AFP
Mr. Hassan.
“We try to keep the instrument alive, without worrying about our miserable financial situation,”
he says.
For seven generations, his family has played this instrument in the form of a fiddle.
He himself is renowned throughout Pakistan and is regularly invited to television, radio and private parties.
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“My family's enthusiasm for this instrument forced me to become a sarangi player, without even finishing my schooling,”
he says.
"I live in precariousness, because the majority of
(artistic) directors
organize musical programs using fashionable orchestras or pop groups
," he laments.
In Pakistan, a country where 60% of the population is under 30, traditional instruments face competition from R&B or pop.
As an illustration, Zohaib Hassan teaches a few students to play the sarangi, while the majority of music lessons today are devoted to pop music and RnB.
Aamir QURESHI / AFP
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According to Sara Zaman, a classical music teacher at the National Arts Council in Lahore, other traditional instruments such as the sitar, santour and tampura are also on the verge of extinction.
"The programs are devoted to other disciplines, such as pop music, and they forget classical music,"
she regrets.
"The sarangi being a very difficult instrument, it was not given the importance and attention it deserved, which led to its gradual disappearance in Pakistan
," she adds.
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The decline began in the 1980s, after several virtuosos of this instrument and classical singers died, says Khwaja Najam-ul-Hassan, a television producer who created an archive of Pakistan's leading musicians.
The sarangi was
"dear to the hearts of internationally recognized male and female classical singers, but it began to fade after their death"
, he notes.
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Ustad Allah Rakka, one of the world's most renowned Pakistani sarangi players, died in 2015, after a career that saw him perform for orchestras around the world.
Now, sarangi stars say they struggle to live on their mere performance fees, often far below those earned by guitarists, pianists or violinists.
The price has gone up as there is a ban on imports from India
Muhammad Tahir, owner of a Lahore shop specializing in sarangi sales
The instrument costs around 120,000 rupees (590 euros) and most of its components, including its steel strings, are imported from neighboring India, where it remains an integral part of the musical heritage.
"The price has increased because there is a ban on imports from India
," says Muhammad Tahir, owner of one of the two shops in Lahore specializing in the repair of this instrument.
Pakistan suspended bilateral trade with India after New Delhi revoked Indian Kashmir's semi-autonomous status in August 2019.
The sarangi's body is hand-carved from cedar wood native to Pakistan, its main strings are made from goat gut, and its 17 sympathetic strings - a common feature of traditional instruments from the subcontinent - are made from steel.
Nobody produces these steel strings in Pakistan due to lack of demand, points out Mr. Tahir, which can take up to two months to restore a damaged sarangi.
"The sarangi players and the few people who repair this wonderful instrument are not admired
," laments Ustad Zia-ud-Din, the owner of another repair shop that has been around, in one form or another, for nearly 200 years.
Some promises for the future
Efforts to adapt to the modern music scene, however, hold some promise for the future.
“We invented new ways of playing, including making the sarangi half-electric to make it sound louder when performing with modern musical instruments,”
says Hassan of the academy he runs in Lahore. .
He has presented this modified instrument several times on stage and says that the initiative has been well received.
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Some young musicians, like Mohsin Muddasir, 14, have abandoned more modern instruments like the guitar for the sarangi.
“I'm learning this instrument because it plays with the strings of my heart
,” the teenager says, nicely.