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Flying high these days is the music group ‘Junoon’ who have just returned from a successful tour of Europe. In Pans, France, Junoon was presented an award by UNESCO, for ‘Outstanding Achievements in Music and Peace’.
Junoon was invited by UNESCO to represent Pakistan at the ‘Music for Peace’ concert,where international celebrities such as Lionel Richie and Zubin Mehta were performing along with Junoon, and legendary actors such as Gregory Peck, Sydney Poiter and Sir
Peter Ustinove were the masters of ceremony.
Dignitaries from around the world, including Yasir Arafat, Helmut Kohl and ambassadorsfrom 180 countries attended the function, subtitled "A Concert to Mark the Dawn of the Third Millennium".
On the other hand in the United Kingdom, the BBC presented Junoon with an award for ‘Contribution to Asian Culture’ at the exclusive BBC Asian Awards ceremony.
The BBC had invited Junoon to headline their ‘Mega Mela’, a 3 day festival which is considered the largest Asian gathering outside the subcontinent. The event attracted in excess of 100,000 people over the three days, and the response to Junoon, who closed
the show on all three days, was overwhelming.
So, Junoon is very muck back in the picture! The Pakistani sufi-pop group which has so far turned out to be the best in the country, is back on the airwaves and this time it has two new agencies supporting it. One of the agencies, Synergy Marketing Corporation held a press conference on Junoon’s return on the PTV after a gap of nearly two years Junoon was banned by the last government after they were blamed to have made some controversial remarks in the print and electronic media across the border, where they were asked to perform by none other than the ruling party BJP. Last year they had won the MTV award for the Best International Group. This year they had the honour of getting the UNESCO and BBC awards.
Sonia Khan, being the host of the show, began the proceedings quite late. The return of Junoon on the national network was announced by Asim Qureshi who was followed by an
impressive speech from Salman and some words from Ali and Brian. Brain specially said that on this day (25th nov), they celebrate thanks giving in America and Junoon’s return on the PTV was nothing less than a thanksgiving for him.
The members of the press were then shown two promos - one was Junoon’s documentary by Shoaib Mansoor - the first of its kind in Pakistan while the other had them performing Allah Hoo and Jazba Junoon at the Central Park, Manhattan, New York. The Central park concert was directed by Junoon’s favourite, Asim Raza.
Later Salman Ahmed’s brother Shehryar also came on the stage and took over as the ‘lead speaker’. It was then that some journalists asked insipid questions like one concerning the
relationship between Junoon’s director Asim Raza and Pakistan’s Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf - who is Asim’s father-in-law.
The press conference was held at the main office of Awan and Kapadia - the other agency which in collaboration with Synergy arranged the conference.
The conference came to an end just before the clock struck eight and the invitees were taken to the refreshment. Later, the journalists were given press releases along with
Junoon’s photographs with Gregory Peck, Lionel Ritchie and Sydney Poitier.
Junoon will be symbolically "crossing the border" at 6 a.m. on the
morning of the 18th of March at the Wagah/Atari Border between India And
Pakistan. Junoon, in the studio preparing their follow-up album to Azadi
(the highest selling pop album in India and Pakistan last year), is
breaking their gruelling recording schedule to make time to perform at
the celebrations of the One Year Anniversary of the Central Government
at Delhi. The group has been specially invited by the Prime Minister of
India to include Pakistan at the program called "From Pokhran to
Pakistan", which nods to the Historic bus ride Mr. Vajpayee made from
Delhi to Lahore last month in the search for peace in South Asia.
Junoon will be reversing the trip in the same Gilded bus as used by the
Prime Minister of India. The award winning music group is scheduled to
perform at three events in India's Capital: at a Media event on the 18th
to be broadcast to 600 million, at a private function specially arranged
for the PM, his cabinet, Ministers of State, ambassadors, bureaucrats,
and civil and military leaders, and finally at a public concert at
Delhi's famous India Gate. To mark the auspiciousness of the event,
Junoon will be singing their familiar song "Dosti" (recently re-released
in India on the album with the same name, through Virgin Records) with
an Indian Group known as Silk Route.
The message will be clear: As John Lennon once said: "Give Peace a
Chance". As Mr. Vajpayee said in Lahore: We have seen many days of
enmity (Humne dushmani keh bahuth din dekhliye"), Now why not give
Friendship a chance? ("Kyoun Nah Dosti ko bhi ab aik moka deh?")
Junoon's as yet unnamed next studio album is due for a worldwide release
on the 15th of March.
Most rock groups dream of the day when someone takes enough interest in their career to arrange for a professional recording. But for the Pakistani band Junoon, taping sessions are more sinister. After returning from a concert tour last summer in neighboring India, the band suspected that their home telephones were being tapped. Their record company had been visited by Pakistani intelligence officials, and the performers often felt they were under observation when they ventured onto Karachi's streets. Somebody in the government was clearly not a fan. Junoon, which translates as Frenzy, uses soaring guitar riffs to deliver a Sufi message of mystic harmony. It was Junoon's misfortune to have preached that theme in India soon after that country tested its nuclear bomb. Young Indians loved it and waved posters saying we want cultural fusion, not nuclear fusion at a packed New Delhi concert. Back in Pakistan, news of Junoon's peaceful overtures was heard as treason. Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif's government already disliked the group: after one of its earlier songs took a swipe at corrupt politicians, it banned state television from letting anyone with long hair and jeans perform. This time, concert organizers were effectively bullied into canceling the band's engagements. All they had done was to "denounce the concept of an arms race," says guitarist-songwriter Salman Ahmad. "In Pakistan we don't have clean water, health or employment. How can we afford a nuclear bomb?" This complaint is heard across the border too. In India, as in Pakistan, young people appear to be less enthusiastic than their elders about the benefits of nuclear status. An informal poll conducted by MTV after the May nuclear tests found that almost all its young viewers supported the bomb. Yet that support has evidently begun to wane among young, middle-class Indians, who have realized that international sanctions make it tougher to get student visas and jobs abroad. Ordinary Indian youth also see the bomb as a downer. "When there is no food, people have no time to worry about war," says Om Singh, a 14-year-old Rajasthani who sleeps on Bombay's sidewalks and earns $70 a month as a lunch delivery boy. Says Sandeep Sen, 31, a telecommunications manager in the southern city of Bangalore: "I keep wondering--if all Europe could unify, why can't India and Pakistan?" What unifies the younger generation of Indians and Pakistanis is a growing disillusionment with their leaders. After the nuclear tests, these frustrations have deepened. With blinding clarity, the nuclear blasts illuminated the tragedy of how two nations had diverted their undeniable talent and resources toward fratricidal destruction, neglecting the worth of their own people. The older generation--especially politicians in both countries--still carry the scars and ancient prejudices that re-surfaced when the subcontinent was torn apart in 1947. The old hatreds have dimmed, just slightly, and the young today may not want to pursue their elders' vendettas much longer. Satellite TV has freed them from the venomous distortions dished out by the state-run networks in both countries. A powerful curiosity exists about The Other, like twins wrenched apart at birth. At the Wagah border checkpoint in Punjab, picnicking families gather to gape and wave to Pakistanis waving back from the other side of the barbed wire. A Pakistani teenager who had joined the Muslim insurgency in Kashmir was caught by Indian policemen recently after he had infiltrated across the border. His mission: to see a movie with his favorite Bombay star. In both countries, the rage is still being stoked among youngsters. "Any child in India will associate Pakistan with words like war and enemy," says Teesta Setalvad who runs Khoj (Search), a Bombay program that promotes secular understanding among school children. To combat such notions, Setalvad has found pen pals in Pakistan for her schoolkids. But she has deep-seated sentiment to fight against. "There was never really bad blood between Indian and Pakistani students," says Aditya Kilachand, an Indian who had an opportunity to mix with both while at university in the U.S. "But there was always a subtle thing. They dislike us more than we dislike them." Lately,
a new scare plagues Pakistan's elite: rumors of a gang of youths said to
prowl shopping centers and cinema halls armed with needles carrying the
hiv virus, targeting women wearing Western dress. With such fearmongering
still prevalent on both sides of the sub-continent, it may be generations
before Junoon and other young messengers of tolerance are heeded.
Junoon asked to explain 'subversive' remarks made in India. By Omar R. Quraishi for www.Dawn.com LAHORE, Sept 23: The federal government has told the music band Junoon that its members made "highly objectionable" remarks on Indian television against the "ideology of Pakistan" and have asked the group to give an explanation. It also said that such remarks might have been made in India under some sort of "obligation". In a single-page letter marked ('Confidential/Restricted' and as its subject "Indian Subversive Propaganda") sent to band members Ali Azmat and Salman Ahmed, the Ministry of Culture and Sports through the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA), charged the group with "belittling the concept of the ideology of Pakistan" and with "disagreeing with national opinion" regarding the country's nuclear testing. The ministry's letter dated Sept 9, says that in May of this year the group toured India and during its visit the band members gave various interviews to Zee TV, Star News and BBC TV. It said that Ali Azmat and Salman Ahmed in their interviews spoke of "cultural similarities and hoped for reunification" of India and Pakistan. The ministry said that such remarks had been "exploited" by the Indians to their advantage and were consequently given prominent coverage on Zee TV. The ministry said that the government of India and its media actively pursue a policy to "subvert" people's minds against the Two-Nation Theory and "the possibility that such statements were made under some sort of obligations cannot be ruled out". The ministry also went to suggest that situation "demands that such groups visiting India may be thoroughly briefed about the subversive techniques employed by the Indians". The ministry said that matter be investigated, the version of the other side be recorded and then a report be forwarded to it (the ministry) for "further necessary action". The music group received the ministry's letter on Tuesday and on Wednesday they replied to the charges before a PNCA official. The group denied the charge of "belittling the ideology of Pakistan" saying that it went to India to promote Pakistani culture and art and that its past record had shown everything to the contrary. It said it had sung songs like Jazba-i-Junoon and sang the national anthem (the group also played at Siachen earlier this year in front of Pakistani troops). The group said that as far as the charge regarding Pakistan's nuclear testing was concerned, the country had not yet tested when the band was in India. It said that the Indian tests were denounced and a message of "peace and harmony" between the two nations was advocated. The group said it went to India as representatives of Pakistan and not as "subversive traitors" which the ministry's communique was making the whole situation out to be. The group vehemently denied that it had ever said that Pakistan and India should be reunified. Ali Azmat said that he had been deliberately misquoted in the media to malign the band's image by "vested interests jealous of the groups's popularity". "I never said India and Pakistan should be one; I said all humanity is one," he said. The group
said that Pakistani musicians, sculptors and artistes should be allowed
to go tour India and present Pakistan's artistic talent there just as Pakistan's
cricket and hockey teams go there to show their sporting prowess.
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