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Holding The Tension of Opposites

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Junaid Jamshed: The Ocean in a Drop

Junaid Jamshed: The Ocean in a Drop

Last updated on: December 6, 2017 at 8:57 pm by Khwaja Khusro Tariq

Junaid Jamshed: The Ocean in a Drop 2017-12-06T20:57:03-04:00 Khwaja Khusro Tariq

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This would have been a departure from the main theme of the blog were it not for the fact that the individual under discussion was someone who struggled with many an “opposite” of his own.

“Was”

It feels strange to use the past tense regarding Junaid Jamshed; one of the few true celebrities in Pakistan, he was an omnipresent figure in the popular consciousness even after his departure from show business. But today he is indeed gone forever, one of 48 passengers and crew killed in an air crash at the town of Havelian in the Himalayan foothills.

The son of an Air force Officer, Junaid was an Engineer by training and worked briefly for the Air force himself prior to finding overnight stardom as the vocalist for “Vital Signs”. It was in 1987 that the video for their breakthrough single “Dil dil Pakistan” (“Pakistan in every heart”) came out.

If I recall correctly it was in a ten minute music-intermission sort of slot immediately after the nine’o’clock news that the solitary television channel of the time (the state-owned Pakistan Television) broadcast the video. It was not previously advertised and sort of took everyone by surprise including my own 10 year old self. Here were four long-haired young men in jeans and leather jackets singing a patriotic pop anthem, not exactly what people were used to in those days.

The buzz at school the next day was palpable. “Cool” was a brand new term in Pakistan at the time and now everyone knew what the very definition of cool was . Within a matter of literally days, the Vital Signs were superstars, none more so than lead singer Junaid Jamshed. Their first album took the country by storm and is possibly, accounting for the countless pirated editions available then and now, the most heard pop album of all time in Pakistan.

Musically the most obvious influence was the Norwegian band “a-ha”. Junaid Jamshed’s efforts (entirely unsuccessful) to emulate Morten Harket’s baritone and falsetto were obvious but took nothing away from the refreshing experience of a modern fusion of eastern and western music that the Vital Signs offered.

A mini drama-serial that used the band’s songs as a soundtrack and cast Junaid as the romantic lead made him an even bigger national heartthrob. The Vital Signs were the ones who opened the door to an entire generation of pop, rap and hard rock bands in Pakistan.

This music scene which exploded in the early nineties spawned a number of big names which would eventually overshadow the Vital Signs. After several successful albums and national and international tours, contractual disputes resulted in a partial break-up of the band in 1995. In 1998 it was officially announced that the Vital Signs were no more.

By 2002, after two unsuccessful solo albums Junaid Jamshed had become financially strained and disillusioned. The country was changing, the musical landscape had changed. Perhaps more importantly, since his childhood friend Junaid Ghani had introduced him to the popular cleric Maulana Tariq Jameel in 1997, he had also been struggling with questions about his faith and identity.

There are myriad speculations about his motivations and thinking during these years of transformation. Some have opined that realizing that glory was no longer to be had through music, the “Tableeghi Jamaat” (Pakistan’s largest unified proselytizing group running into millions in membership) became his vessel of choice to seek fame and admiration.

Others have suggested that the painful period of financial and spiritual decline between 1997 and 2002 drove him to seek solace in religion. These theories will remain what they always were-speculation. The only person who might have the answers is beyond reach now. In 2002 he announced that he was forever renouncing his musical career and dedicating his life to religion.

In 2004 he also launched a clothing line which has since grown into an international multi-million dollar franchise. This, along with televangelism on several Pakistani television channels revived his legend and made him wealthier than ever.

Where he received the admiration of many, Junaid Jamshed was also criticized and mocked by many for his transition from a denim and leather-clad pop-singer into a bearded cleric in an ankle high “shalwar” and flowing “kameez”.

While he grew increasingly popular among religiously inclined youth and at last count had over six million followers on Facebook, a series of crass misogynistic remarks in 2014 and 2015 lead to several social media backlashes that his reputation never recovered from. He had unfortunately made remarks (that I will not repeat here as this is not the time and place) that were insulting to women and untenable from both a logical as well as religious standpoint.

He was unable to offer any useful defense of his proclamations and faced a prolonged and public humiliation. An irresponsible statement regarding Hazrat Ayesha in 2014 lead to another, rather different sort of media trial, death threats and-the lowest point of his religious career-a physical assault at Islamabad airport on May 27, 2016.

Not even a public apology made with hands clasped and Maulana Tariq Jameel interceding (in tears) on his behalf could assuage the anger of those who continued to accuse him of blasphemy despite the police closing a blasphemy investigation they had opened against him. It was an ironic moment; Junaid had come face to face with the dangers of religious intolerance.

Over the last few months, Junaid Jamshed had kept a low profile, possibly out of security concerns. In one of his last interviews in a popular television show on Geo TV, he took the program host Sohail Warraich to the local graveyard. He told him that he frequented this graveyard when troubled to converse with his “friends” and that these friends gave him comfort and peace of mind.

This odd segment, a departure from the light-hearted fare of the rest of the show, resonates with the events today. Junaid Jamshed was the enigmatic ocean that is Pakistan in a drop. Caught between what he thought were two irreconcilable worlds, he tried to fit into one and often the endeavor seemed forced, unnatural. He evoked strong reactions in both his admirers and his critics partly due to the erratic nature of his rhetoric but mostly because he made us feel an unease, the sort of unease that only comes from the unconscious recognizing one of its own conflicts in another.

The one thing I do not doubt is Junaid’s love and sincerity towards his faith. Let us, at least for today, remember him for that and for the childhood and teenage memories he left us. Let us pray that he has finally found his peace among the “friends” he had sought it with when alive.

And let us recognize in his struggle to find himself and his faith our own struggle to do so.

To Allah we belong and to Allah we return.

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