EVER heard of a nomad dreaming of owning a house? Probably not, because nomads travel from place to place throughout their lives. However, Zarsanga, a celebrated Pashto folksinger, is not like the other members of her community. “I’ve a dream to own a fixed abode, one built of brick. At this old age, I need a house to live in the rest of my life peacefully,” she said while talking to Dawn.
Zarsanga dispelled the impression that nomad people always like to live in tents away from city population. “It is totally a misconnection, who would like to live in tents in open and extreme cold and hot weather.
They are in fact very poor and cannot afford to build their homes. The world has changed now; they no longer can brave such unfavourable condition of living. You provide them homes, they would throw away tents,” she argued.
Not long ago, the 62-year-old, whose real name is Zalubai, bought a plot from her savings in the first step towards realisation of her dream.
However, the 2005 devastating floods dealt a shattering blow to her hope of having a house. “Floodwaters swept away everything present in my tent in Azakhel area near Peshawar, including cash and jewellery worth millions of rupees. I also lost 50 of my awards and shields to the calamity,” whimpered the nomad melody queen as she is popularly known.
After the floods, PTI chairman Imran Khan; then provincial culture minister Aqil Shah and information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain provided the folksinger around Rs0.5 million.
“I could use the money to raise only a boundary wall on my plot. I am still living with my extended family only at Allah’s mercy,” she said at her shabby tent in Pir Pai village near the district of Nowshera.
Currently, she has 60 family members, including six sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren.
Zarsanga, golden bough in Pashto language, was 14 when she began her illustrious singing career at Radio Pakistan, Peshawar, in 1965.
A recipient of numerous national and international awards, including the President’s Pride of Performance, and commendation certificates, she has just returned from a three-day visit to Afghanistan at the invitation of the French embassy in Kabul for a live performance. The number 50 is very significant in the folksinger’s life. She has completed 50 years of singing. Being a nomad, she has lived at 50 places in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She has performed in 50 countries and earned 50 international awards.
Fifty of her memorable Pashto folksongs shot her to fame. And she has been a chain smoker for 50 years though it has no adverse impact on her melodious voice. Also, she lost 50 of her awards and shields kept in a wooden box to the 2010 flash floods.
Being a chain smoker, Zarsanga sometimes has fits of coughing. She is scared of attending live concerts at open places. “I have no threats from anyone but am afraid of firing in jubilation which sometimes leads to ugly incidents. I fear raids at the venue of my concerts. It has happened in the past with other singers. Now, I entertain only foreign tours, mostly from Kabul, where I have a large Pashtun following,” she said.
The folksinger complained that PTV and local FM radio stations and private TV channels offered her a small payment between Rs5,000 and Rs10,000 for a function that neither suited her stature nor did help her meet the expenses of orchestra arrangements. As Zarsanga recalled, of late during a visit to Kabul a man in military uniform approached her with an offer of Afghan nationality but she declined the offer saying she wanted to live and die in Pakistan.
Also, Pashtuns living in Dubai and other countries have offered her on several occasions to stay with them but she always preferred returning home. “I have been to the US, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Belgium, Morocco, Japan and Gulf states many a time where expatriate Pakistanis, including Pashtuns, and foreigners were all praise for my voice,” she said.
During the 2009 tour to Paris, a local singer requested her to either stay with her or lend her melodious voice to her. “I wondered how I could give her my voice but then my son Shahzada told me that the foreigner wanted my saliva, which I gave her with pleasure,” she recalled. Zarsanga was all praise for her co-singer Khan Taheel for being like a real brother. “I respect him. We speak to each other on the telephone twice a week.”
For the first time, the folksinger made a passionate request to President Zardari and civil society organisations to do something for her two teenage special and colour-blind granddaughters whose mother died seven years ago in a road accident.
“They are orphans and totally dependant on me as their farther had divorced their mother before her death,” she said with misty eyes.
