The Cultural Informant

The Cultural Informant

Zeb Bangash and her Brooklyn based band, Sandaraa, are doing something truly unique and we should all take notice.

-By Zarrar Said

The sun dips into an ardent dusk as the color red floats over Manhattan. Fifteen minutes until the show begins and I’m standing outside the Rockwood Music Hall with Zeb. A skinny, cadaver-like man guards the door with relentless scorn. His is a vital role, or so he thinks. He keeps them out, he keeps them in – who the hell knows.

“With the band?” he inquires, with his cigarette-parched mouth.

“I guess we are,” I reply as I follow Zeb inside.

She scuttles towards backstage while I’m left absorbing empty looks. It doesn’t take me too long to settle in with my solitude. Dressed for the occasion, I have. In most circumstances, it would be criminal for a man in his mid-30s to be wearing white sneakers. Here, no one really minds. I fit right in because, even though this is Manhattan, it tastes very much like Brooklyn. There isn’t a single suit in sight. Oh wait. There’s one in the corner. On his arm, like a brooding falcon, hangs a sultry Latina. Trust fund? Nah, more like hedge fund. He’s definitely out of his comfort zone. I can sense his unease as he registers the forest of rolling eyes that surround him. But he’s here for something special. We all are.

Over the years that I’ve known Zeb Bangash, I’ve witnessed her perform under the most trying of circumstances.  The first show that I can remember was an intimate assembly of fortunates at a ritzy café in Lahore.  I recall my sentiments at the time: a tepid anxiety shone from my brow in the form of sweat, for I knew what she was up against.  The gathering was scattered and the café owner, a delicate lady with a commanding voice, cried out over scotch-and-soda laughter. She asked for silence. It was a futile call because most people were there only for the hooch and they all wore the same expression; the look of people anticipating the death of aging grandparents.

Not all of Zeb’s performances were under such duress.  There was this literature festival a year ago that I recall with great clarity.  Where?  The Upper East Side, of course.  It was a cultural statement, the Ambassador had claimed.  Significant dignitaries made this declaration in solidarity.  They had cheered unremittingly with the intention to celebrate a neglected discourse.  Zeb and her band Sandaraa had performed songs in five languages that evening.  No one there had seen anything like it.

I digress… Michael Winograd, Sandaraa’s co-visionary and clarinet virtuoso arrives on stage now for sound-check.  The crowd, in clusters, trickles in and I’m still to assess whether the band has had enough practice. Zeb only arrived a couple of days ago.  But why am I so concerned?  Michael’s not.  His face is varnished with soothing tranquility. He puts his palm over his eyes like a visor and speaks into the mic, “Volume up on the monitors please.”  Then, an ancient scale blows through his clarinet, pinging the hall and its audience with pleasant intrigue. Practice? They’ll be fine.

So, what of Zeb Bangash, the artist, the cultural informative? What do I know about her? Why has she chosen this medium as her musical platform? Could she not, like others, simply redden her hair, slip into high-heels and serenade long-haired boys over a Pepsi? Or perhaps promote the semblance of a diva on Snapchat while strutting the red carpet? What about using that winning formula of remake and remix; rinse and repeat? Why create when you can borrow, right? Surely, such enterprises could make the checking account swell. She chooses not to do any of that. Over the years of our friendship, I admit, I haven’t inquired enough about her polemic nor have I tried to comprehend her craft which she so diligently evolves through hours of training and research behind closed doors. I wanted to know more about all this. So I asked her to unravel the mysterious ongoings of her mind; what’s next on this musical journey.

“Kashmir,” she said to me at lunch the other day. “In our political discourse, Kashmir is always present… almost as though in the background yet we know nothing about it.” I knew where this was going; we’ve had many of these conversations before. Some end in heated, yet civil, debate but most often than not, I’m left feeling ignorant. Her knowledge of history is superior to mine, and sometimes, it’s best to keep your mouth shut and listen. Because when she talks, she breathes the air of an ancient empire.

“Like, for example, the Kashmiri language,” she continued, “is not one we celebrate in our national identity. The desire to keep the language alive should be a strong enterprise.  I want to do just that.”

At that point I felt incredibly ignorant.  To which I responded, as one does in these circumstances, with another question, “Dessert?”

And that was that really.  There was little to argue about.  Her eyes had already spoken of a zealous, intricate vocation that many are too jaded to approach.  She had decided to learn a forgotten language and no one was going to talk her out of it.  But what eluded me then was what I was about to witness at the music hall.

Back at Rockwood. The stage light dims. The small groups that have gathered exhibit their anticipation in the form of whistles. The Sandaraa quintet takes its positions. The first song is underway with a short introduction. It’s the band’s rendition of an Afghan poem. Immediately, four Afghanis, barely in their 20s, begin bouncing off the barstools singing along in their native Persian. They know every word.

The Balochi song is next and, I kid you not, the suit makes his presence felt by twirling his lady friend while mouthing the lyrics out loud. He hasn’t heard this song in a while because his face dispels an eager nostalgia. That very feeling has begun to spread around us and the beautiful violinist, Eylem, feeds this sensation to me intravenously. She scratches at her fiddle and it rains in my heart. It’s an Urdu poem and I’d heard it many years ago but now, presented in this melancholic way… I struggle to keep my composure. No one wants to see a grown man weep. So I raise my arms and sway. I realize this is equally pathetic. I should have just cried instead.  Well, it’s too late.

Thankfully though, my embarrassment is short lived as the band concludes with an upbeat number.  People let their hips do their thing. I join in but have to be careful as I’ve already elbowed a guy in the chest – for which I was thankfully excused. Dance away, he says to me through an inclination of the head. From what I can describe, we’re being bound together by something imaginatively unique; a resounding force bigger than us all.

At the end of it all, I can’t help but acknowledge the arduous journey Zeb has taken. She has come a long way from that café in Lahore. Her music has evolved and developed a multifaceted character, almost from a Chekov play. And with Sandaraa, this music has begun to bridge an ageless divide. As I stand at the Rockwood I realize something.  That in this wasteland of counter-intellect malice and celebrity worship, there’s someone who proves that there can exist a feverish hunger for knowledge, for thought, and new ideas.

Zeb hasn’t sold her name to a fashionable lawn collection, nor lent her voice to the backdrop of polo soirees. Instead she has chosen to endorse a new perception about culture through her artistry, one that can inspire a generation to question, to engage, ‘who are we?’ As I stand here at the Rockwood, I recall Shashi Tharoor’s argument. “If you don’t know where you’ve come from, how will you appreciate where you’re going?” I think we all have that sentiment in this moment. Right here. In the city that gave birth to an unconcealed bigot who calls for building barricades, Zeb and Sandaraa are doing the opposite: demolishing walls brick by brick, note by note.