Without having delivered a single performance here, the Zeb & Haniya band from Pakistan have been all over the headlines in India in the past few days. That’s because they’re Pakistan’s only all-girl band, and they’re from the troubled North West Frontier Province. “We came to India a week ago to visit our friends and go to Mumbai and, of course, Delhi. We’re from Lahore and there are these comparisons between Delhi and Lahore, plus we keep hearing about India as well, so we decided to pay a visit. We were among the lucky few to have visas,” smiles Zeb.
And the attention here came as a surprise to them. “This is kinda surprising – everything in India grows exponentially. The feeling, all the attention, it’s yet to sink in. We’re so overwhelmed,” Zeb adds.
They’re not like your average neighbourhood band – they perform in suits and kurtas. “That’s because we didn’t plan to be a band. We happened to write songs, people liked them and here we are,” says Zeb. She narrates how the first cousins had come back to Pakistan from the US, where they were studying, and a friend who owned a recording studio liked the music they made. He recorded their song and Haniya put it up on her site when she went back to the States. When they returned to Pakistan again, they had their song playing on the radio!
Since they’re in Mumbai, any plans to compose for Bollywood? “Nothing in our lives is planned,” Zeb laughs. “It’ll be a great thing to be a part of Bollywood, there’s a great challenge there.” The duo says that their casual visit has helped them develop a network here. “The trip wasn’t so much about networking, but when we told people that we’d be coming, they introduced us to other people and this is how we developed a network,” says Zeb. They haven’t met anyone from B’town yet, but they know that “if you hang out in the right neighbourhood, you’ll get to meet them eventually!” |
