Early Works: Vital Signs Rock the World

Part 2 from my book......

I

t is very hard to flashback two decades old memories, but I’ll try my best to portray them. It was an uninteresting and droning evening somewhere around mid of 80’s. My dad was posted in Azad Kashmir and then to Siachen. We were staying at our grandparents place in Baffa. Life was quite slow and boring at the village house, with little creativity and almost no entertainment for young kids. Village folks use to have food around 8 pm and went to sleep around 9 pm. Television transmission programs used to be quite dreary and un-enjoyable for young kids. 

One evening, we were watching local television routine transmission. It aired a song with four teenage boys, holding musical instruments and singing in an entirely new style. We kept watching the song called “DIL DIL Pakistan” and didn’t move until the song finished. “WOW, that was amazing”, ejaculated my little 4-year old brother, “I love it’. I had the same notions as well.

They just mentioned the singers’ names. They later came to be known as “Vital Signs”, a top-notch and first official band of Pakistan. They produced some more hits like “Chehra”, “Tum Mil Gaye”, “Gorey”, “Sanwali Saloni”, but “Dil Dil Pakistan” was a skyrocket hit, which brought them under the limelight. National songs aired those days were usually picturized indoor in PTV studios. “Dil Dil Pakistan” set a totally novel trend in the history of Pakistani patriotic songs. It was something stunning for the new generation. We later came to know about all the four enigmatic boys of the band. The two young teenagers Shahzad Hasan and Rohail Hyatt were the pioneers of Vital Signs. They beautifully composed a ghazal “Chehra” by late Parvin Shakir, which I found amazing too. There is a slight difference between the “Chehra” composed first and the later one. The one composed earlier is a bit speedy and fast, with six young men sitting and enjoying at the side of Lotus Lake Islamabad. One can see glimpses of a much peaceful Islamabad and outskirts of much cleaner Rawal Lake very clearly in the video.   

When my dad came from Siachen, we insisted on buying a cassette of Vital Signs. “But how are you going to listen to the song? You don’t have a music player.” He replied.

 Shahzad Hasan was light-eyed, camera-shy bassist, and an energetic Rohail Hyatt was on the keyboards. They worked really hard on the song and it was rated “The World’s 3^rd most popular song” by BBC World in 2003. It is indeed a highly patriotic song. Later Nusrat Hussain (guitarist) was replaced by Salman Ahmed, a student at medical College. Vital signs kept producing rocking hits like “Aisa Na Ho”, “Rahi”, “Yehi Zameen”, “Hum Tum” and “Aitebar”. Their videos even sketched swinging moods, ranging from ecstasy to extreme angst. “Dil Dil Pakistan” showed patriotism, “Tum Mil Gaye” depicted marital failure and ending relationships. “Wo Kaun Thi” depicted a typical college boy’s flirtatious attitude, with writing love letters, standing outside college gates, and talking to girls on the phone. “Gorey” and “Sanwali Saloni” had cultural roots, shot in Kailash and Thar, respectively. All of these were luminously directed. One thing that I liked about their videos was that females were never exploited. They even used to model in their own videos and almost eighty percent of the videos were shot without any female models. Even then they were big miraculous hits. Videos like “Wo Kaun Thi”, “Yehi Zameen”, “Chehra”, “Do Pal”, “Aise Hum Jiyen”, “Mera Dil”, “Maula”, “Musafir”, “Yaad Karna” and “Dil Dil Pakistan” didn’t have even a single female model.

My younger brother was so inspired that he decided to play the cover for “Dil Dil” on his Parents’ Day in 1989. He asked us to get the same kind of jeans and shirt, that Junaid was wearing in the song and a small guitar as well. For the whole night he kept practicing the song, though he was so young that couldn’t utter words properly. 

Developing a youth culture was not a cup of cake in 80’s; it was a time when no one could talk openly about musical shows or concerts. The credit goes to some highly innovative and fresh musical programs like “Music 89”, which introduced/promoted many upcoming singers and bands, including Vital Signs and Jupiters. Late Nazia Hasan along with sibling Zoheb and Uncle Sargam hosted it and another program “Dhanak” as well. It aired songs like “Aha”, “Paisa”, ”Dosti” (Jupiters) and ”Do Pal”, with music of “Do Pal Ka Jeevan” in the background. Songs like “Gorey”, and “Do Pal” were blockbusters and picturized in 90’s, with more vivid directorial efforts. (Shoman) Shoaib Mansoor was the first one to depict the exceptional caliber of the young men, and directed a mini-series “Dhundlay Raastay”, featuring all the four members of Vital Signs, Tabinda Sheikh and Nayyar Kamal. The play was written by legendary Hasina Moeen and directed by Shoman. I felt that it could have been made in a better manner, because it was comparatively meager than other masterpiece works of the two legends. Though it managed to show well how members of Vital Signs worked together towards achieving their objectives. The mini play threw light on the early stardom journey of the four young enthusiastic men, their interests, passions and priorities. My favorite dialogue in the play is, “Are you mad? Kia hum loag tere liye sirf musicians hein?”

The first album was a super hit with songs like “Do Pal” , “Dil Dil Pakistan”, ”Samjhana” ,”Musafir”, “Chehra” and “Yeh Sham”. All these tracks depicted different moods. It is indeed one of the most memorable VS works. It also included an instrumental track “Samina”, which is an amazing piece of work and was used as a soundtrack for “Dhundlay Raastay” too. The second album best tracks are “Mera Dil”, ”Bazaar”, and “Tere Liye”. It also had “Rahi”, “Aisa Na Ho” and “Ajnabi”, “Rahi” was a very romantic and heartrending track, whereas “Aisa Na Ho” was somewhat related with the political situation. “Ajnabi” was a very slow, romantic and gloomy song, with a charming Seema Rizvi in it. In 1993, the band came with a startling program named “Guitar 93”. I remember it used to be my favorite program and next day in school, we used to discuss their songs and hum during the recess. The third album had magnificent tracks like “Aitebar”, “Challa”, “Wo Kaun Thi”, “Yehi Zameen” and “Yarian”. “Yarian” and “Sanwali Saloni” tunes were even copied for Bollywood films in 1990s. The last album “Hum Tum” had tracks like “Jana Jana”, “Guzray Zamane Wali”, “Der Ho Gai”, “Main Chup Raha”, “Unka Khayal” and “Namumkin”. If one analyzes critically, there is a colossal difference between the first and last VS albums: The change is not only noticed in terms of dressing only, but also in compositions as well. From plain college boy-like dressing to heavy jackets and long hair, VS depicted much mature looks, and a Pink Floyd style in their last album.