Atif Aslam

You are influenced listening to...

AA: none. I have been never influenced listening to anybody. My music has always sound like me. But, I do love listening to people like Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan,R.D. Burman, Mohammad Rafi but, they are the prodigies; too good to be influenced by. They have history with their music, and nothing can change that.   

We hear that you wanted to be a cricketer...

AA: (Laughs) yes, and I still have that feeling; to be a cricketer someday. But, it was my parents who never let me get into it. So, I found my alternative – music. But I have played a lot of cricket in my erstwhile life. I had played the under 19 tournament when I was 17-years-old, and I have played cricket with a lot of big cricketers from my country. 

Your favourite cricketer...

AA: is Wasim Akram. 

From India?

AA: Sachin Tendulkar. 

Your home is...

AA: Pakistan. I live in Lahore, but will soon be shifting to Dubai. 

Valentines Day preparation...

AA: Not really. I don’t like to believe in it. Gifting something and showing all the extra care on this day doesn't mean that your love is very special. It has to be the same all throughout the day. And Pakistan doesn’t celebrate Valentines Day.   

Pakistani singers do really well in India...

AA : and it’s true. Perhaps, we don’t get the platform back in our country. But there are a lot of talents that exists there. India, I guess, has the right market for musicians, and it gives the right platform is the much needed thing for any industry to grow. 

But do you think India and Pakistan has shared a good relationship?

AA: Music has done its part, for it has no border. If people comes on TV and say that they are doing everything to make things right, it just may not be the case. They will have to genuinely work for it.  

Music in India is very band oriented...

AA: and guess, that’s what makes it different. I think, it doesn’t sound very commercial; songs, there, are very band oriented. When I first sang ‘Woh Lamhe’ for a commercial movie, it still was very raw.  

Some of the new singers that you would love to sing with in India?

AA : I am a huge fan of Suchitra. I love listening to her songs. I have already done a track with Alisha, and one of my next performances will be with Shreya Ghoshal. So, yes, they are lot of singers that I love listening to. 

Sufi Music...

AA: is different. Any everybody cannot be a Sufi musician. Music lives in them, and its different, not something that can be easily done. One, singing some Sufi music for a day or two doesn’t make him Sufi musician.  

One thing that you would like to see in your audience when you are performing.

AA: Expression. There are performances when people come, listen, and go; and there are others when they come and let themselves go out of all thoughts, and that’s when the real expression comes out. I like to see that during my live-in-concerts. 

And form the performance that you are doing this evening?

AA: Well, it all depends on the people who come to see me. I would like to wait and see, how it turns out to be. Chromozome Productions is organizing the concert in support to the HIV affected children through Chaitanya welfare society.