'Why give us a visa and then shut the door?'

Six months ago, Izzat Majeed and his musi cians at Sachal Jazz Ensemble in Lahore started work on Jaidev's immortal ode to peace, Allah Tero Naam. The group that dared to turn Dave Brubeck's Take Five into a startling sitar-tabla-violin piece,reconstituted the Hum Dono classic with raga-jazz flavours.
The anti-war hymn had become the ensemble's favourite opening number at concerts worldwide.It was also to start Sachal's programme at NCPA last Monday.
But a hostile knot of visa and police rules scuppered the group's December 1 concert at Mumbai's NCPA. Majeed is back in Lahore before flying to his London home. He is saddened by the incident and the artistes, heartbroken.
"There were about 1,000 music lovers waiting for us and we stood backstage, unable to play for them. It made no sense. Why give us a visa and then stop us... we all decided to return.The musicians were eager to play but they feared a repeat episode in Bengaluru," he says.
For flute master Baqir Abbas, playing for Mumbai audiences had been a dream. It was going to be a tribute to great masters of the subcontinent such as Amir Khan, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Salamat-Nazakat Ali Khan, Pannalal Ghosh and Hariprasad Chaurasia. "Hum bahut mohabbat se aye the ki Mumbai ko apna ye anokha sangeet sunayenge (we came with a lot of love to play them our special music). This is after all the home of mausiqui (music). I felt like a kid going to a wondrous amusement park. And then to turn us away at the gates..."
Three thousand hours of practice went down the drain when the concert was cancelled. "The musicians came in head held high and they left shaken," says Jay Visvadeva, the tour manager. Sachal's Delhi concert, its first ever in India went without a hitch despite the huge turnout.
UK-based music producer Visvadeva alleges that Indian authorities, right from the high commission in Pakistan, had posed obstacles to the tour. "They delayed the visa and that delayed everything else. Sachal has performed in the US, UK, Europe, Canada and nowhere have we encountered this," he says.
Sachal has done admirable work in putting musicians in Pakistan back on their feet. The Zia-ul-Haq regime had all but killed local talent but Majeed cobbled together a group of unemployed but talented musicians struggling to survive. "They were classically trained musicians with no work. They are now full-time musicians who play at the best jazz festivals across the world," says Majeed.
Classical, folk and sufi music are as much a part of Sachal's repertoire as jazz classics like Take Five and Garota De Ipanema. It has also fused with jazz film classics like Roshan's Taj Mahal duet Paaon chhoo lene do and Salil Chaudhry's Barkha bahar from Parakh.