Two Families, Two Religions, One Hall in Birmingham
When Priya and Yusuf married, their families had to agree on a ceremony neither had seen before. They walk Hamza through every negotiation, from the menu to the music to who sits where.
The Dhol Player Who Has Never Missed a Baraat
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Show notes
Thirty-eight years of baraat beats
Ustad Bashir started playing dhol at weddings in 1988 and claims he has never missed a booking, including the night of a citywide power cut. Hamza sits with him in his old city workshop while he tightens the skins on a new drum, and gets the full story of a profession most guests never think about.
- The three essential baraat rhythms and when each is played
- How dhol players are booked, paid and tipped, and who takes a cut
- The rivalry with the DJ and the uneasy peace since
- Reading a family from the way they dance
- His theory about which marriages last
Includes live dhol recorded in the workshop. Turn it up.
Transcript
Assalamu alaikum and hello, I am Hamza Qureshi and this is Rice, Rings and Relatives, the show about weddings and the people who make them happen. I have photographed over four hundred of them, and in all that time the person I most wanted to interview was never the bride or the groom. It was the man with the drum. Ustad Bashir has played dhol at Lahore baraats since 1988, through monsoons, power cuts and one very memorable fight over a parking space. I went to his workshop in the old city while he was fitting a new skin and asked him everything: the three rhythms every wedding needs, how the money actually works, the long cold war with the DJ, and his theory, which he will defend to the death, about telling within ten minutes whether a marriage will last. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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