Imagine walking up to your parents exclaiming that you want a career in music. The response is not likely to be very supportive, in fact, there is a significantly higher chance of getting laughed at.
The standard middle-class dream has been bulldozing over thousands of young aspirants for the longest time. It takes a lot of courage to fight against your family and fate but some exceptional people manage to sail through the odds.
Yawar Abdal is the free-floating Kashmiri soul, who managed to walk through the storm to make sure his music was heard. Music wasn’t unknown to Yawar, even when he was a child. His family who were Sufi patrons inculcated his liking for Persian poetry and Sufi Music in young Yawar.
Eventually, he realised that songwriting and composition were more than just hobbies for him. It was where he could find his true self. But unhealthy financial conditions convinced him to stick to the other plan. He tried staying away from music throughout his college years.
He did not wish to distract himself from the path that he was made to follow. Little did he know, that there was something else destined for him. He spent his college years, pushing music away from him and landed a job at an IT firm, where he worked for the next two years.
But it’s nearly impossible to ignore your true calling. What many might call insanity becomes your true love and it keeps beckoning you till you finally surrender. The exact same thing happened to Yawar. His It jo could barely contain his love for music.
“Meine Music Chodne ki Koshish Ki, Par Music Ne Mujhe Kabhi Nahi Chodha!”
But a career in music was something that was never done in his family before. He knew it was impossible to explain the idea to his parents.
He decided to not let his financial conditions dictate his dreams. He started doing small gigs and performances along with his 9-5 job. His initial gigs were supremely underpaid, some being as low as just five hundred bucks. However, nothing could stop Yawar from sticking to his newfound plan. He quit his job and began saving money and after a long year, used that sum to record his first track.
The initial response from his friends and family was rather lukewarm. It was indeed difficult to fathom people appreciating Persian music, especially when it came from a place where youtube culture was almost absent.
But true art finds its way through the toughest barriers and that is what happened with Yawar’s music. His track Tammana received immense love from people around the consumer space. This boy next door became the valley’s voice when people felt his music was not only soulful but a very honest expression of what many hearts wanted to say.
The love and appreciation received by Yawar motivate is what keeps him going despite unfavourable circumstances. It was his honesty for his passion that made him one of the most popular Kashmiri voices out there.
