#robab

By Hussein Fakhri

Translated from Farsi by Farhad Azad

[caption: “The Little Robabi” by Farhad Azad, September 2002, Kabul. Once the draconian period drew to a close in Kabul, music could be performed in public again.]

Yousef and I attended three robab practices per week. For us, our maestro was a remarkable person. He played the robab with superb skill and charm. He was a man who had quick, skinny fingers, and with passion and vigor, he made us feel that our greatest hopes could come alive. I remember he didn't like anyone touching his robab. Whenever practice ended, he placed his instrument in a cloth pouch. Under his breath, softly, he lectured us, "Don't touch my robab. It is made by Wasel. If anything happens, it cannot be replaced."

I was 18, and Yousef was 20 years old.  I was shorter than him. We had many wonderful dreams. We wanted robabs made by Wasel, its strings, frets, and mother-of-pearl motifs would sparkle. Our figures would dance on the frets of that instrument, and steer the passion of the listeners enchanting and spellbinding them... We would sit for hours in a day planning what we would do if we got a hold of a robab by the maker Wasel. What melodies and styles would we play? What fabric would we use? How would we protect it from dust and moisture? And if we became owners of this robab, we would keep it close by our side and never lose it.

Two years later, Yousef's wish came true. A fond patron presented Yousef a robab made by Wasel. He would use it only on the occasions of performing with a famous orchestra or recording at the radio. He carried the instrument with honor and gained total success with it.

For years, I wanted a robab made by Wasel, but I was unable to get a hold of one. On the rare chance, if I found one, I couldn't afford the 40,000 or 50,000 afghanis price. I can never forget how day and night it bothered me not having one. I swore to God if I could find a robab made by Wasel, I would take great care of it and always have it next to me.

Thirty years passed. I had not seen Yousef for some time. Likely he was 50 years old now. Possibly he had a wife, kids, and even grandkids. They said his robab was his best friend and partner. He wasn't away from it for a moment, and because of that instrument, he didn't socialize with anyone.

One afternoon, my younger son entered the house happy and beaming, like a blooming flower.  He was excited, face full of delight. His body radiated with joy. He held an instrument in a pouch. When he came close, his eyes sparkled. With enthusiasm, he said, "Robab, that robab that you were searching for years and always wanted."

Then with happiness and satisfaction, he presented the robab. I hastily grabbed the instrument. Spastically my hands removed the cloth. I stared at its body, frets, and mother-of-pearl inlay designs. It was amazing, a robab made by Wasel. I felt as if I had found a treasure. With awe, I asked my son, "Where did you find it? How?"

He instantly said, "I purchased it from an acquaintance at an antique store."

I asked, "Where did you get the money?"

He said, "I bought it on credit. I will pay it off by the end of the year."

I was thrilled. I wanted to hug the robab. I calmly asked, "Where did the store owner get it?"

My son answered, "He didn't say. He only said that these days, lots of people are selling their instruments."

A doubt came to my mind. I wasn't convinced. I studied the robab's kasa and dast. Inscribed on the kasa read "robab made by Wasel" and the construction date. It was 50 years old. My son looked disappointed and said, "You don't like the instrument? It has the markings that you wanted."

In my mind, I began to search. Suddenly my heart collapsed. There was another name finely carved on the instrument's kasa, "Yousef".

My son lost his patience, "It is genuine. Don't you see the wood and frets?"

I felt a burning sensation in my stomach.  I asked God for it not to be Yousef's robab. When I strummed the strings and heard its sound, I had doubts and told my son, "You are right. But you don't know..."

My son cut me off, "You don't like it? What is wrong with it?"

I had to confess, "There is nothing wrong with it. But this is your uncle Yousef's robab."

When he heard Yousef's name, his face turned white. His became irritated and unsettled. He sulked. It was the first time I saw pain and grief in his eyes as if everything had ended. I looked around, the walls, the ceiling, the light, the carpet, everything winked at me. They all opened their mouths and spoke, "You will not be the owner. It is not your fate."

All my dreams and aspirations that I had fostered throughout my life, I now found them startlingly in ruins.  Slowly night arrived. I closed my eyes. I couldn't sleep. My head hurt and eyelids were burning. I heard my breath throughout the night. I was exhausted. My shoulders and arms ached.  I sat in my bed, placed my head on the wall, and started to think. The night was long. I tossed from side to side. During the night, I got up five times and played Yousef's robab. My mind was worn out. Several times I got out of bed to drink water. I woke up with the sound of the door opening. The skinny silhouette of my wife appeared. She brought breakfast. She placed the tray in front of me, and I learned from her that Yousef still lived in the same house.

I don't know how I decided. There was no sun. The atmosphere was gray. I grabbed the robab from the hook on the wall, and I left my home. It was cold outside. Not a soul was on the road, and the street lights were off. I hadn't seen Yousef coming around here for three years. The day he refused to lend me his robab, our relationship ended. From friends and acquaintances, I would inquire about him. I knew that he and his family weren't living comfortably.

After ten minutes, I arrived close to Yousef's home. From the down the street, a young man was walking. He looked like Kasem, Yousef's son. His hight, face, and walk resembled Kasem. When he got close, it was him. Happy to see Kasem, I greeted him. After a few steps, I had an urge to ask him, "Is your father's robab in the house?"

With sadness, Kasem answered, "A month ago a rocket hit our home, and we had to leave. After a few days, we returned, and someone had taken the robab."

My heart shattered, hearing him. Following Kasem, I was full of worry. I couldn't speak a word about the robab. I felt like a wolf who had lost his prey. My teeth rattled seeing the yard. I shivered as if I had a fever. My body got cold and hot. When I looked further at the yard and the home, to me, it looked beaten up. The walls were cracked. One of the rooms was in pieces. The remaining windows were draped with cloth and plastic. In the middle of the yard was a big crater, the trees around were split in half. The yard was blackened and dusty. Not one spot was clean. Its red flowers, roses, petunias, four o'clock, colorful, white, orange carnations, vegetable beds of peppers, eggplants, chives, leeks, the leafy apple, plums trees, and grapevines could not be recognized. I walked towards the entrance. No footsteps could not be heard in the hallway, as if the entire house had fallen asleep.

What a cramped and dark home it was. The doors and windows were all damaged. A thick odor lingered. The room was covered with patched up mattresses and pillows. Yousef sat at the end of the room. I was shaken when I saw his face. For the first time, I saw Yousef weary. His temples were all white, and his eyes sunken. His cheekbones stuck out and his forehead was wrinkled. He had lost weight, while his back was hunched. He felt embarrassed about this visit. He quickly composed himself and said, "Where have you been? What makes you come here?"

I sat next to him. He was stiff. I presented him with the robab.  His hands trembled, including his figures. He quickly turned the robab on its back. He looked ashamed and unsettled. When his eyes laid on the kasa, dast, frets and mother-of-pearl motifs, tears slowly fell from the side of his eyes. He thought to himself. He handed the robab to me and slowly said, "Tune the robab."

I started tuning. I don't know why he didn't do it. I thought he was testing me. I tuned the instrument and gave it back to him. Yousef started playing. His figures danced on the strings and frets, striking a somber tune. He didn't play for long, and asked, "How was it? Is the beat, right? It is tuned okay?"

His voice was cloudy and dry. From suffering and grief, he trembled. I praised and encouraged Yousef, and he started playing again. With an unusual sensation, he gripped the robab. His tears fell on the frets and strings. He played as one with the instrument. The song was from his sad heart and soul. At times, with the slightest vibrations, he expressed his sorrow and pain. His gentle and pleasant melody related to his tragic fate and his sad, broken heart.  My body stirred with emotion. I forgot everything, from the bottom of my heart, I listened to this spellbinding music.

Kasem poured tea for his father and me as well. I couldn't pick it up, it was too hot. The mild aroma filled the air. After he finished pouring, he moved his head towards me and whispered into my ear, "After the rocket hit, my father cannot hear anything."

August 1992

About Hussein Fakhri

Born in Bibi Sang Village, Ghazni province in 1949, Hussein Fakhri is a noted author and has published numerous collections of short stories, and he is the recipient of many literary prizes.

More about the author

By Fariba Nawa First published in the 2001 issue of Aftaab Magazine Caption: Naseer Khoshnawaz (r) with his band at a performance in Iran. The Khoshnawaz brothers, seven generation musicians, were kicked out of Afghanistan by the Taliban and forbidden to perform.

Mashad, Iran, Fall 2000 -- Smiling wider than their faces could comfortably stretch, three brothers with 100 years of music in their blood sat cross-legged in front of me, tuning their instruments.

The Khoshnawaz brothers, Herat's folk musicians who used to perform at weddings, have been exiled to Iran. Five generations of folk music in their family, the brothers only know their rubab, tabla, and harmonium. They sing to survive.

By Farhad Azad 

From the April-June 2000 issue of Aftaab Magazine

Larry Porter's CD, The Magical Rebab of Larry Porter, is truly captivating. Porter has mastered the rebab to perfection with his noted style. Without a doubt, he is one of the best rebab players of his generation. I had the privilege to converse with Larry Porter. 

Farhad Azad: What inspired you to study Afghan music?

Larry Porter: I have been a musician all my life. I began piano lessons at the age of 6 and had instruction in European classical music for seven years. As a teenager, I began teaching myself jazz and at the age of 20 decided to drop my studies of math and science and devote my life to music. In 1973 at the age of 22, I went to Germany for the first time and worked as a jazz pianist. At this time, through friends and various recordings, I became intensely interested in Arabic, Central Asian and Indian music and increasingly disillusioned with the unbridled commercialism of the music industry in the West. I wondered what role music played in other cultures.nMy curiousity became so great, that in 1976 I set out overland from Munich with a backpack bound for India. For one year I traveled through Eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. I listened to all the music I could along the way.B ut when I arrived in Herat, after crossing the border from Iran, I was especially fascinated by the world I encountered there. I felt I had arrived in a land where the music still truly reflects the soul of the people. I heard great vocalists on the street and in tea houses. In Kabul, one could hear Logari music playing all day long, and I enjoyed the incredible way the musicians play together very much. I often went to the Istanbul Restaurant in Shar-i-Nao to hear a great rebab player named Mohammed Sarwar. I wonder what happened to him. I began to get familiar with the different folk rhythms and learned to sing a few folk tunes. I decided I had to get deeper into this music.

Farhad Azad: Why did you choose to study the rebab?

Larry Porter: I was particularly captivated by the sound of the rebab. It had something magical for me. I think this comes about from the combination of both soft and hard aspects of the sound. There is a certain mellowness stemming from the gut (nylon) playing strings and the wonderful resonance of the sympathetic strings. On the other hand, there is a percussiveness produced by the rapid-fire picking technique and the sound bouncing off the goatskin. This built-in tension is rather unique to rebab. I wanted to find a teacher. Looking back, I realize I was extremely lucky in this respect. I met a very friendly student named Daud who offered to take me to the master, Ustad Mohammed Omar! One day we went to his house in Kharabat, and Ustad Omar agreed to take me on as a student. He found me an instrument and we had a lesson every other day because I knew that visa restrictions would limit my stay. We worked exclusively on ragas in the Afghan classical style which he did so much to perfect. This was great training and represented a solid foundation on which I could continue to build over the years, despite the relatively short period of time I was with him. I recently discovered that Daud, whom I had lost contact with for the past 24 years, lives in Cologne, Germany and is a very good rebab and sarod player. 

Farhad Azad: What memories do you have of Herat and its artists and musicians?

Larry Porter: One memory of Herat stands out particularly vivid in my mind. I was sitting in a tea house one evening, one of those nice big rooms with rugs and cushions on the floor. Some musicians were playing harmonium and and drums, and a 10-year-old boy came in and began to sing. Not only did he have a beautiful voice, but he sang with incredible soul and maturity. I was completely taken by his performance. How could a child sing with such abandon and intensity? In talking to him afterwards, I found out he was an orphan and survived by just sleeping and eating here and there. I often think about the directness and innocence of that musical experience and how far away it is from the runaway commercialism of the Western music world. 

Farhad Azad: What was Kharabat like in the mid 1970s?

Larry Porter: I loved taking the bus to the old city in Kabul and walking to Ustad Omar's house in Kharabat. The bus would leave me off basically at the entrance to the old city and I immediatley found myself in a different world. There were dirt streets thick with flies lined with open shops where the shopkeepers sat crosslegged on raised platforms. There was always a lot of life and activity. I remember the only two rebab-makers in Kabul had their shops on the first street I walked down. They were across the street from each other and I believe one of them was named Gul Mohammed.

Farhad Azad: Describe your first encounter with Ustad Omar?

Larry Porter: The first time I took this walk with my friend, we were looking for Ustad Omar's house, not knowing for sure where it was. I was astounded by how well-known and revered he was by virtually everyone. Anyone we asked knew exactly where he lived, and as we got closer, people even knew if he was home or not and what time he'd be home!  When we finally found him home, he lead us into his music room, which had nothing more than an Afghan rug and his instruments in the corners. I was always fond of this tradition in Persia and Afghanistan of having a peaceful room with a carpet in the house devoid of clutter. He had many people around him and I think they were curious about this American interested in Afghan music. After he agreed to take me on as a student, it was time to find an instrument. I imagined I would have to look for one myself, but Ustad Omar simply sent off one of his attendants, and after ten minutes he came back with a rebab. After trying it out and disapproving of it, the process was repeated until he found one he approved of. I bought it for the equivalent of $40. I still have this rebab and recently had it fixed up with a new skin and new bridge.

Farhad Azad: As a young man, what was it like living in Kabul and studying in Kharabat under Ustad M. Omar?

Larry Porter: It was a great experience going to his music room every other day. Ustad Omar did not speak English, but my Persian [Dari] was good enough to get through the lessons. I found him to be a gentle and friendly man. His eyes would light up whenever he talked about the concert he played with Zakir Hussain in Seattle. Apparently, he really enjoyed traveling to America and sharing his music with the people there. Unfortunately, as far as I know, the Seattle concert was the only time he did that. Sometimes he would laugh and talk about how one day we would sit on a stage somewhere in America and play the rag Gujri Todi together. The first lessons, of course, dealt mainly with instrumental technique. We usually sat on the floor, each with a rebab in hand (I got to play his large concert rebab). He then began giving me material from his classical repertoire, compositions in various ragas and talas. He would dictate these to me in sargam (vocal syllables). Each composition had 4 parts: astayi, antara, boog and sanchayi. This form is reminiscent of the ancient vocal style of dhrupad. He would also give me variations called peltas, which would be in double time. In general, there is not much improvisation in this style, rather the music derives its excitement from endless rhythmic variations of the melody, which are percisely matched by the drums.

Farhad Azad: You mentioned that you learned folk songs; did you learn to speak the local dialect and can you still sing those songs that you learned?

Larry Porter: During this time I also heard a lot of folk and popular music and felt very drawn to it. I did learn to sing a few Dari songs. I think the first one taught to me was Anor Daane Ne Dara (The Pomegranate Has No Seeds). I began to play these songs on the rebab. There's a certain magic to these deceptively simple melodies. They can possess an amazing depth and power, considering their simplicity especially relative to the complexities of Western music. This actually allows them to enter other dimensions that Western music with its ever-changing tonic has trouble reaching. In any case, the folk music became a great love of mine and still is. I have lost my ability to speak the language after 23 years of not using it, but I do try to research titles and lyrics of songs I play, so I at least know what they're about.

Farhad Azad: Did you also study Logari music?

Larry Porter: The Logari bands were the closest thing in Afghanistan to jazz bands. There was usually vocal, rebab, tanbur, harmonium and dhol and sometimes other instruments. The degree of interplay among the musicians in this music is unbelievable and a joy to hear. While I haven't myself played in a band like that, I have been very influenced by this interplay and other aspects of Logari, for example, the way of speeding up the tempo to reach a sort of ecstatic state, and then punctuating it with an off-beat ending. There's also a certain freedom as to where the music is going next and always the freedom to change rhythms (time signatures).

Farhad Azad: In your marvelous CD, The Magical Rebab of Larry Porter, you have selected two Afghan folk songs: Sakhijan Mayrawi and Naziko Naz Ko; why did you select these two in particular?

Larry Porter: The original purpose of the CD was to document the music Franc Menusan and I had been playing every weekend at the Taste Of India restaurant in Greenwich Village in New York City. We had worked up a sizable repertoire of Afghan songs, Hindi film tunes, Punjabi songs, ghazals, and some classical pieces. It is interesting how Afghan folk music has in part influenced Hindi film music, and conversely how Hindi film songs have been adapted and sometimes given new words by Afghan musicians. Franc is a wonderful sitar player and a master of Hindustani music but plays many other instruments. On the tabla, he has a remarkable affinity for the rhythms of Afghan music. In the studio, we recorded a sampling of our repertoire and picked the best takes. Sakhijan Mayrawi in pashtu tal (the typical 7-beat rhythm I'm very fond of playing) is a melody I had heard from different sources, including an instrumental recording and a recording by Ustad Netu. It has a beautiful swing to it and can be played at a fairly brisk tempo, which we do at the end of the take._ Naziko Naz Ko_ is also in pashtu tal but much slower. It has a very evocative melody in the scale we would call harmonic minor in the West and makes beautiful use of the major third (shuddh ga), something which is quite common in Afghan folk music. I learned this arrangement from a recording by Ustad Omar. I somehow lost this recording a long time ago, but remembered the arrangement.

Farhad Azad: You also have selected Yarak-e Ma by the late Ahmad Zahir; why did you make this selection?

Larry Porter: I hadn't listened so much to Ahmad Zahir until my Afghan friends in New York turned me on to some recordings of his. It took me a while to get used to the sound of the guitar in this kind of music. The bass lines and chords give the music somewhat of a Western flavor and I like his trumpet player [Ustad Nangalai]. But he was a great singer, a true pop singer and crooner like Sinatra was in America, and I grew to like his songs, many of which I learned to play on the rebab. Yarak-e Ma is one of my favorites and one we played a lot at the restaurant.

Farhad Azad: Do you plan to release any more of your rebab recordings?

Larry Porter: I do plan to release more rebab recordings. The project which interests me most is to compose and record music for rebab and piano together, to combine everything I know about jazz and Western music with everything I know about Afghan, Central Asian and Indian music. It is of utmost importance to me that an actual transformation takes place in this fusion and not just a layering. I hear this music as having its own integrity different than the mere sum of its parts. I think the greatest contribution I can make is to use what I've learned about various music traditions in a creative way. I've already written many pieces in this direction and am currently looking for a record company interested in this project. I also have the idea of releasing some music on a web site which I'd like to set up.

Farhad Azad: Anything else you would like to add?

Larry Porter: I would also like to continue playing rebab with tabla and to further develop what we were doing on the CD, which is a style of improvising over songs, a way of playing folk tunes but using elements of classical improvisation to bridge the different sections. I enjoy the fact that this way of playing was able to grow naturally out of working together every week. It is in many ways similar (not surprisingly, I suppose) to the jazz approach to a standard song. One thing not represented on the CD are pieces I composed for the rebab in the Afghan style. I started writing this kind of rebab music in Kabul already and would like to record it with tabla someday. I also want to continue to expand my repertoire of Afghan music, which I do mostly through recordings but also through friends and people I meet. For as much as I want to create something new with my music, I also long to remain immersed in a tradition which has cast a lifelong spell over me.

More from Larry Porter 

National Public Radio Interview 

Musician Brings Traditional Afghan Sounds To Berlin NPR 

Concert Post from June 2002 hosted by Society of Afghan Professionals in San Anselmo, California