Prophets or God’s messengers always fought against social
malpractices ruining lives of ordinary people.
Their lives were threatened; they were ostracized or sometimes even
killed. In due course of time religions
have come into existence following their school of thought. Religion that has come into existence to
teach people to love one another is becoming cause of conflict and wars.
As every religion teaches us to love, live, and let live is
followed religiously by all and practiced as fundamental principle of life this
earth will become heaven.
On 'Durgaashtami’ 2nd of October, I visited
Bhadrakali temple in Warangal . Being auspicious day, many temple rituals were
going on. Usually there will be temple musicians who play ‘dolu’ (drums) and
‘sannai’ (shahnai). They will be playing
instruments during the rituals. The
striking difference on Durgaashtami was a lady was playing shahnai. First time in my life I have seen a woman
playing shahnai. I was surprised and
happy to see a woman playing Shahnai.
I took a short video of her performance. On interacting with her I came to know that
she learnt it from her father. She gave
me another jolt of pleasant surprise when I asked her name.
“May I know your name?” I asked
“Saira bee”
“What? Saira Bee?” I could not hold my expression of surprise
with eyes wide and eyebrows raised.
“Yes”, she said with a smile looking into my face.
“You are a Muslim?” I wanted to confirm. She having a regular ‘bottu’ and ‘vibhuthi’
(ash) lightly smeared on the forehead looked more like a Hindu woman.
She smiled, “Yes”.
“How come you are here?”
It was unbelievable.
“I stay in Hyderabad . My son brought me here for the occasion”.
“So nice to see you here.
Do you have any objection if I put your video on YouTube?”
“No”
“Thank you so much”.
I wanted to know more details but it was not possible.
It is generally thought that playing wind instruments like
shahnai and bansuri (flute) requires good lung capacity and breath control and
woman cannot do it. It is exclusively
male bastion. Now this woman Mrs. Saira
Bee has proved it wrong and is able to show her prowess in playing the
instrument. May be she may need more
training and more exposure to the world.
Anyway this is one step forward in showing women strength.
On searching the net I found that there is another woman –
the first woman shahnai player, Bageshwari Qamar. She is crowned as “Shahnai Queen” at Chandigarh
in 1983. She also participated in some
international concerts and played jugalbandi with other artists. Bageshwari Qamar is the daughter of Jagdish
Prasad Qamar who was a student of Ustad Bismallah Khan. Jagdish Prasad Qamar had seen his daughter
practicing shahnai at her grandmother’s place, recognised her passion for
music, and got her trained under Ustad Bismallah Khan.
Shahnai is played in India
on auspicious occasions in temples and Hindu marriages. Saira Bee playing shahnai at Bhadrakali
temple is a perfect example of Hindu – Muslim harmony.
