Bigri Naslein (Spoiled Generations) was released in 1983 with a heavy-hitting cast led by Mohammad Ali and Rani. It achieved silver jubilee status.

Wadah Karo Tum (Promise Me), a song from the soundtrack, is one of those Pakistani film songs that exists like a bauble that has fallen off the Christmas tree and rolled under the sofa. It lays there hidden, completely disconnected from its source and reason for being. But when you pick it up long after Christmas Day, you discover a little shimmer and shine underneath the dust.

It’s a dainty little ditty and the closest thing to genuine bubblegum I’ve heard in Pakistani film music. In this sappy love song full of heartfelt confessions and urgent demands, lovers frolic under blue evening skies and birds chirp in the branches. All the while an intoxicating sonic atmosphere swirls around. You can almost see the unicorns and rainbows in the far meadow.

The song is the creation of Kemal Ahmed, a Bengali who drew upon the rich folk culture of his motherland and preferred a soft, gentle approach to music composition. An approach that emphasised melody and texture over the lively rhythm and percussion championed by Punjabi colleagues such as Nazir Ali, who also contributed to Bigri Naslein.

Ahmed creates a six-minute world in which love is spoken in sweet melodies, gently strummed guitars and the quicksilver sound of the santoor descending the scales like a waterfall splashing down the side of a mountain. Into this perfect little world of puppy love, Ahmed injects a layered female chorus that sounds like a band of half-crazed angels. The voices envelop the entire piece with their non-syllabic singing but also repeatedly veer close to the edge of pleasantness with some raw and jagged wailing. At first, this is slightly disconcerting but in fact, it is the perfect antidote to such a saccharine confection.

None of this is exceptional or unique. South Asian music directors of the Golden Age at their best were creative geniuses, fluent in multiple musical languages and supported by talented musicians who could play any number of Eastern and Western instruments. What makes Wadah Karo Tum a truly outstanding piece of puffery is the singer.

Less than 40 seconds into the song the opening, two syllables of the lyric– wa and dah – emerge from the background, whole, complete and polished. As if they have always existed and are coming from the very vortex of heaven. There is something familiar about this otherworldly voice but we struggle to put our finger on it.

It is not until the first verse, sung in a slightly lower register, that the penny drops: this is none other than the great ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali.

Ali, who was rigorously trained in classical music by some of the tradition’s luminaries, has spent his entire career devoted to interpreting the ghazal. Unlike most of his peers, including arguably the greatest ghazal singer of the past 50 years, Mehdi Hassan, who recorded hundreds of film songs, Ghulam Ali’s film output is relatively minor. Indeed, his best-loved film song, Chupke Chupke Raat Din, appeared in the Indian film Nikaah (1982).

To hear Ali in a Pakistani movie singing an entirely disposable piece of film pop is akin to finding a small diamond at the bottom of the biryani. Though the lyrics are inane, Ali turns in a worthy performance. Indeed, his masterful breath work, subtle use of vibrato and deep feel for melody take Wadah Karo Tum to an entirely new plane. From mere bubblegum to something ethereal.

A version of this story appeared on the blog https://dailylollyblog.wordpress.com/ and has been reproduced here with permission.