[Reader-list] A man, with his notes, in the city...

[Bhagwati]

A man, with his notes, in the city...

He would cut a curious figure anywhere, in his black pants and shirt, 
his signature sleeveless, white jacket cut in the Nehru style, but much 
longer, over it, wearing black glasses even inside a small, moderately 
lit room. But sitting just outside the make-up room, with many people 
(specially young women) flitting in and out of it, and with a new dress 
on each time, each more colourful and skimpier with each change, he 
doesn't strike me as odd at all.

We are sitting inside a two-room studio where he is shooting for his 
next album. He is a singer, who became an instant hit with his song 
'Janaaza mera uthne se pehle mehandi mat lagana tum' in 1998. “Video 
albums just can't be made without the singer, you see. People buy music 
albums because they like the singer – everywhere, from Bihar, UP, 
Rajasthan, and even in Kashmir,” he smiles. “All these are the places 
where my albums do well. And in Delhi, they are popular in different 
places – Uttam Nagar, Shakarpur etc.” Curious in the beginning about how 
well his albums were doing, he once went to a market far away from where 
he lives. He smiles, “While handing me the cassette, the shop owner 
realised I was the same person as the one on the cover. I could see from 
his eyes that his routine transaction turned into a memorable experience 
and he exclaimed, 'Yeh to aap hain!'' Mohammed Niyaz knows well now, how 
someone can seep into and become a pleasurable part of someone's 
routine, “You see, listeners may not have heard a song at first, but 
when they go back to their villages and hear them, they come back and 
buy the album. And once they like the singer, they buy each of his albums.”

It has been a long journey for this singer whose voice is an everyday
companion to bus and truck drivers, among others who make long journeys
through different landscapes, in their lives. Mohammed Niyaz spent his
childhood in a town in Sitapur district, near Lucknow. He spent his 
childhood listening to, relishing and singing behind Rafi and Talat 
Mahmood songs. Today, singing “sad songs” is his specialty. “When I 
first came to this industry, they told me, 'Beta, don't copy, develop 
your own style'. I don't copy them, but take their support. Everyone 
does – whether in bhajan, or in film songs.”

Niyaz came to Delhi at the age of 20 in search of work. “I worked as an
accountant for twelve years. Were it not for this job, I would never 
have been a singer,” he muses, suddenly turning melancholic. The Rs. 300 
per month he earned from his job and which sustained him may not be the 
only bridge that lies between Niyaz the accountant and Niyaz the singer. 
He was restless in Delhi. “I never wanted to come,” he says. “Many of my
friends had run away from home and come here, but I wanted to take my
time”. For him, this time came with his father's illness and, being the
eldest son, the responsibility to take care of the family. An avid 
listener of old film songs, he participated in the late evening and 
Sunday singing competitions organised in and around his locality. 
“Posters would be put up all over the locality. The entry fee would be 
anywhere between Rs. 10 and Rs. 50. Many young people would come and 
sing, and some distinguished personalities known to the organisers would 
judge the competitions. I felt encouraged to participate again and again 
because I always won a position.”

Then, came his big break. “There was a competition on a much larger 
scale than the ones I had been participating in. It was called 
Yaad-e-Rafi. I was the 394th entry. I got shortlisted to the next round. 
We were 40 competitors. I sang Nain lar gaye re... And I won.” One of 
the judges was a producer in a music company. “Congratulating me on 
stage, he said I should consider joining the industry. That's it, there 
was no looking back.” Niyaz's childhood hobby led him to a perchance 
local talent hunt. Today, along all the cassettes he has collected and 
heard through the years, lie his own three albums.

The beginning was rough, however. He started doing the rounds of 
companies, gave auditions. Initially, he was turned away. “They said 
there was no market for a voice like mine.” Then in 1996 Altaf Raja's 
'Tum to thehre pardesi' became a super hit. He recalls, “There was a 
look out for singers who could sing sad songs. This field was in the 
hand of people with small companies. I went back to one of the 
companies, called Jai, and said, 'I sing like Altaf'.” His first album 
was created.

But he had to wait a year before it was released. “Luckily I had not
bound myself to the company”. Niyaz's advice to all newcomers to the
industry is not to enter into a contract with any company. Contracts are 
of two kinds – for a certain period, or for a number of albums. You are 
paid a certain amount for the contract, but if during the period of the 
contract another singer becomes more popular, the company may stop 
making any new albums with you. As you are bound, you are put out of 
circulation and, so, of public memory. This is not a loss for the 
company, as any singer who is even mildly successful helps in creating a 
market for future releases for it. “But” he says, “as I was not bound to 
the company, I made an album with another company while I waited for my 
first album to be released and its video to be made.”

What does Niyaz think about this industry, which he followed as a fan, 
and then made his way into, from an unwanted stranger, to promoting 
himself through a likeness of his voice with a known name, to becoming a 
hit himself? His reply is of a person who understands destiny is not 
what one person makes alone and only for himself, “If Janaza mera... was 
not a hit, no one would have asked about me. People who were with me 
say, Niyaz mere saath gata tha, and they also get a break.” Today, three 
albums old, Niyaz is trying to break away from his image as a singer of 
“sad songs”. “Today, when I sing eight songs, I try and make four 
romantic. That's 50 per cent”, he says.”

I take my leave from Niyaz for now, as he has to resume shooting. On the
way back home, I stop by at a familiar CD burning shop, where CDs are
filled on demand with the customer's selection of songs. It is the 
season of marriages. A young boy comes and presents the shop owner with 
a list of “sad songs”, takes a promise of delivery by evening, and 
leaves. I raise my eye brows quizzically, unable to understand. The 
shopkeeper explains knowingly and in a matter-of-fact manner, “It's a 
gift for the girl who's getting married. Probably his neighbour, and 
heart-throb.” What I still don't know is if he will gift this to her, or 
play it to himself, singing after what he hears,humming it to himself in 
his quiet moments. I wonder if this is not another singer in the making, 
and make my way towards home.

[This text is from an interview with Mohammed Niyaz in 2004, as part of 
the PPHP Research. See http://www.sarai.net]