Traditional Music Gives Heart to Homeless Kashmiris

He has to work from a makeshift studio in a tent, but the soft voice and soothing music of Mohammed Subhan Rathar provide comfort and hope to people in earthquake-ravaged Pakistani Kashmir.

With traditional Kashmiri songs and the deep resonating sounds of the rabab, Rathar reaches out by radio to the survivors of the Oct. 8 quake that killed 87,000 and left more than 3.5 million homeless with the message that life must go on.

“At every stage, I will give the message of happiness. Why should there be sorrow?” Rathar, 58, said from his modest, three-room home, whose walls were damaged in the quake.

The earthquake flattened entire communities and scarred Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani controlled portion of Kashmir, a region of dramatic mountains, scenic valleys and rivers meandering through narrow gorges.

With the help of international aid agencies and foreign countries, the Pakistani military has been running a large-scale relief operation to provide survivors with help to get them through the Himalayan winter.

Most survivors are living in tents donated by the United Nations and aid groups, and many say their radios along with most of their belongings were buried in the rubble of what was once their homes. But for those who are able to listen, Rathar’s show is a source of encouragement.

“His music, especially his rabab, inspires me,” said Waheed Bazmi, 38, a government employee who has been listening to the popular radio presenter and musician since his childhood. He says the sounds of the instrument “really touch the heart.”

But Rathar believes his role is more than simply to play music. Every evening on his way to work, dressed in a loose, flowing robe, he stops to chat with people to offer them support.

“I tell them that this will pass; have courage,” he said. “Life is still there. It should be lived with happiness.”

Since the quake, Rathar has opened his daily, one-hour show by reading poetry praising the prophet Muhammad as a way of seeking blessing. “This is to ask God to lessen the sorrow,” he said.

The venue has changed too.

Radio Azad Kashmir’s building was destroyed in the earthquake. Its recording and broadcasting studio and other departments are now in tents on the lawn of a damaged building that housed the local radio and television stations.

Rathar chooses to sing popular Kashmiri songs -- some from poets in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir across the heavily militarized frontier.

He plays his rabab as if in a trance, eyes closed and fingers plucking at strings in rhythmic waves. Most of the time he sings of love, of the beauty of his homeland and Sufi Muslim poetry.

In one song, performed at his home, he sang: “My country, I will come to your paradise. I have not forgotten those beautiful flowers.”

Rathar said the quake had added a natural melody to his music that reminded him of the roaring sound of the temblor.

He has performed in Japan, Britain and Germany, and in 1989 he received the Pride of Performance, Pakistan’s highest award for artists, actors and musicians.