Auj’s Abdur Rahman wraps up Pepsi Battle of the Bands

BY ALI NAQVI –

Whatever happened before and after Raat, performed by Abdur Rahman Sajid at Pepsi Battle of the Bands, is utterly meaningless. It is as if all the bands and the competitions were worthless recollections of the past that did not really matter.

As soon as Abdur Rahman embarks on a melancholic journey into Raat things start to blur around you and the world eventually ceases to exist. The melody, the vocals and the musical arrangement take your soul as a hostage. The four minutes, the duration of the song, become timeless. Tears well up in the eyes and trickle one after the other like an inevitable clock ticking helplessly.

Auj’s Abdur Rahman has wrapped up Pepsi Battle of the Bands with a hypnotic performance. The voting and the competition is belittled into nothingness. Auj is already the winner. One cannot agree more with Fawad Khan when he complimented them in these words “Abdur Rahman you are flawless. You are a diamond in the rough. Mujhay lug raha ha tum log hum sey muzaq karnay aye thay.”

I had thought that I would write about the 7^th episode as a concluding review of Pepsi Battle of the Bands but I got stuck with Raat. It is impossible to keep the song out of your soul. Though Aarish performed beautifully and there is nothing to take away from them yet my writing powers are paralyzed and my pen shivers at the thought of writing anything else other than praise for Auj, a band which is destined to become one of the best musicians ever to appear at the music horizon of Pakistan. It is also worth mentioning the other band members Nasir Zaka, Syed Hasnain Ali and Muhammad Kashif who allowed Abdur Rahman to cast his spell on us.

Music is one of those rare art forms that is subjective, mystical and at the same time, if you study it clinically, accurately scientific. Music is a study and art of sounds that makes it a subject of classical physics as well as mathematics. It produces melodies out of calculable rhythms and measurable sounds. We have seen a great exhibition of musical performances at Pepsi Battle of the Bands that were scientifically accurate and spiritually moving.

Auj’s performance and the vocals of Abdur Rahman go beyond the domains of physics, mathematic and even music itself to arrive at the fertile, mysterious and the most beautiful universe we call emotions.