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Junoon's Musical Plea: No
More Terrorism
Sep 27, 2002
Amidst all the tributes to 9/11 victims, comes one from an unlikely country –
Pakistan. Junoon, the Pakistani band that rocked the Indian charts in’98 with
Sayonee, have just released an empathetic 9/11 tribute, No More. Composed by
lead guitarist-songwriter Salman Ahmad, the song is based on a poem by a New
York musician, lyricist and journalist, Polar Levine.
As the twin towers collapsed, dust collected in Levine’s apartment 10 blocks
away. Blocked off from home, he choked on the realization that along with
charred plastic and crushed concrete, he was “inhaling firefighters, police
officers, cafeteria workers, secretaries and executives… Muslims, Jews,
Christians, atheists, heterosexuals and homosexuals.” He wrote a poem about it.
Ahmad was personally affected by the 9/11 attacks. New York city had been his
childhood playground: “It’s where I saw my first rock concert, first bought a
guitar, joined my first garage band, first kissed a girl.” After listening to a
Junoon concert at the Tribeca College, two blocks from Ground Zero, Levine
entrusted his poem to Ahmad. He admired Junoon’s seamless merging of American
rock with South Asian music and their multicultural makeup (lead singer Ali
Azmat is Pakistani and Brain O’Connell, bass guitarist, an American). “After the
Karachi suicide bombings and the threat of a Indo-Pak nuclear war, I came up
with lyrics and melody to go with Polar’s lines,” says Ahmad.
No More may be Junoon’s first English song, but its concern over terrorism,
grief and hope are themes they have sung for over a decade in Urdu and Punjabi.
They were the first band to perform at the UN General Assembly last year. Ahmad
has also written to the Indian and Pakistani governments, requesting permission
for a Peace Concert at the LoC.
Will peace remain a dream? Perhaps. But Junoon are willing to chase it with
roses, not guns.
Vatsala Kaul.
HindustanTimes.com
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