INSTEP
REVIEW
Atif ban gaya gentleman
Atif Aslam scraps his scruffy pop dude look for a svelte, more
suave image for the Ensemble Show and has
high society women on their knees!
Saba
Imtiaz
Karachi
Atif
Aslam is arguably one of Pakistan's biggest superstars. You can hate
his extremely offbeat sense of style, his videos or his brand of pop
music (or love them), but he is a superstar no doubt. And for sceptics
like myself - who cringe when Atif's songs begin playing at cafes on
popular demand - there was a complete silencing of doubts at the night
of the Pond's Ensemble Spring/Summer 09 show, held in Karachi as a
fundraiser for the Teachers Resource Centre (TRC).
His
performance kicked off on a high note and as he walked out on to the
fashion runway, dressed entirely in tuxedo white with a Rizwan Beyg
clad Hadiqa Kiyani, he had the crowd screaming with delight. The rest
of the night was a blur of groupie-like hysteria, as socialites and
celebrities alike decided to shed the prevailing sense of doom and
gloom (as well as any inhibitions) in the country to literally dance
the night away to Atif Aslam's music. The kind of hysteria his
performance evoked was nothing short of remarkable: at any concert
that has such a heavy socialite/corporate presence, it is extremely
difficult to stir up the crowd. But not this crowd, as this crowd was
fixated by the man who had moved the masses.
Ali
Azmat has often openly criticized the front row of corporate
executives at sponsored shows for being a mute audience; he has always
appreciated the mad crowds dancing at the back at these gatherings.
But the men and women at the Ensemble show had no such inhibitions -
and the runway/stage was crowded on both sides by people
going absolutely mad as Atif belted out one hit number after another.
And they didn't just stop at swaying along to the music or singing
aloud with Atif. Several socialites got up on the ramp to dance and
the groupie feeling in the air was palpable as one woman shrieked,
"I love you Atif�I LOVE YOU!" And the love for Atif wasn't
just restricted to the few teenyboppers in the audience, who watched
most of his performance sitting on their knees on the floor. It was
executives and socialite aunties, all screaming out Atif's name and
requesting for songs - you'd hear "AAAAAAADATTTTTTTTT" from
one end or "TERE BINNNNNNN" from another. And the crowd just
did not want to let go of Atif. At 2:30 AM, a visibly exhausted Atif
pleaded with the audience to let him stop singing, only to be met with
a roaring "NO". One meek husband walked up to his wife to
ask her if she was ready to go home, only to be rebuffed: "Nahi,
abhi nahi!" (No, not now!)
And it
was just more proof of how popular Atif really is. For an audience
that on face value one would assume would not like his music, they
knew every word and sang along, whether it was Bollywood hits like 'Pehli
Nazar' (Race) or 'Tere Bin' (Bas Ek Pal) or his hit singles ala 'Aadat',
'Doorie' or 'Mahi Ve' or a medley of old Bollywood songs.
And
Atif played to his adoring audience with the skill of someone who can
take the fame and adulation for granted: his cool demeanour didn't
shift for a second, so much so that he didn't pay attention to the
women and men dancing along side him on the ramp. Perhaps it was the
'playing-hard-to-get' act that had the women in such frenzy, and it
had one thinking that had Zeba Husain decided to auction an evening
with Atif or had him hold an auction, the fundraiser would've made
more of a monetary benefit. There's always a next time!
What
was also interesting to note is how Atif more than made up for the
lack of the usual starry presence that has been part of TRC's events
in recent history. With luminaries like Arjun Rampal, Milind Soman,
Urmila Matondkar and Shilpa Shetty having attended the TRC/Lux
Carnival de Couture in the past, one didn't expect Atif to have the
same kind of hold on an audience used to the Bollywood nexus. And in
an evening of fashion that highlighted the best that Pakistan has to
offer, Atif's performance made the night truly Pakistani. As Kamiar
Rokni's shirt read: "No one's leaving home - I love
Pakistan!" |