Lyari Notes

15 year old Zoya wants to play the guitar. She has to make her way out of the narrow gullies of the Walled City along with her 8 year old brother without her guitar being spotted, through the bustling Anarkali market and finally to a building in the Defence Housing Authority, here there is a small sign that reads `The Guitar School’. In a cubicle lined with egg boxes Zoya has a jam session with her brother and another member of their band called `The Others’. The jam session is cut short by 15 minutes because there is another event being organised. Today the 55 students at The Guitar School in Lahore are being summoned for a special demonstration by an alumni from the guitar school Hamza, the lead guitarist of a band called Beygairat Brigade (honourless brigade) . He sits against a bright yellow graffiti covered wall an adolescent of barely 16, Zoya and her band giggle from the first row as they look up at their dashing young idol. It is hard to imagine that Hamza and his band of 2 had the audacity to create a pop single that lampooned every extremist organisation in Pakistan, Aalu- andey (potatoes and eggs) released via you tube quickly going viral with 3,50,000 fans, saucy political lyrics dished out with an even more provocative video that taunts ìf you want a bullet through my head, `like’ this video’. Hamza’s band The Beygairat Brigade declares they are the voice of the `silent majority’in Pakistan…can this be true? We discover the quiet revolution being stirred at The Guitar School in Lahore where young Pakistani’s are finding their voice in the face of guns, threats and state censorship.