Balochistan’s mystery benjo man, part 2
Lives Less Ordinary
BBC
4.6 • 814 Ratings
🗓️ 21 April 2024
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How Ustad Noor Bakhsh, a Pakistani shepherd in his 70s, became a folk music star
After hunting for four years, Pakistani ethnomusicologist Daniyal Ahmed finally finds Ustad Noor Bakhsh, an elderly shepherd and master of the electric benjo – an obscure stringed instrument with typewriter keys. With Daniyal’s help, Ustad Noor would go from serenading his goats in the jungles of Balochistan to performing for revellers on the European festival circuit.
Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Maryam Maruf Translation: Wajid Baloch
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation. |
| 0:06.9 | It was an extraordinary news story. |
| 0:09.1 | The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny, |
| 0:13.7 | mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared. |
| 0:18.0 | One of the great mysteries in English criminal history. |
| 0:20.7 | We're still looking for Lucan. |
| 0:22.1 | It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime. |
| 0:25.9 | I'm Alex von Tundselman. |
| 0:27.3 | This is The Lucan Obsession. |
| 0:29.2 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:31.8 | You know, sometimes when I see people that play instruments for a long time, |
| 0:36.5 | it's as if it becomes part of their body. |
| 0:39.0 | The way you play it is as if it's an extension of you. |
| 0:42.1 | Do you feel that it is? |
| 0:47.1 | Yes, it is kind of my body and whatever kind of thought come into my mind, I express it with this. |
| 0:55.2 | I'm Mabin Azar and welcome to Lives Less Ordinary, an original podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:04.6 | A question for you, have you ever played the Teshokoto? |
| 1:08.8 | I'm guessing the answer is no. |
| 1:10.7 | It's a children's musical toy created in Japan in the earlyhokoto. I'm guessing the answer is no. It's a children's musical toy |
| 1:12.3 | created in Japan in the early 20th century, a stringed instrument with typewriter keys |
| 1:18.0 | running across the body. It's also known as the Nagoya harp. And when Japanese sailors brought |
| 1:24.2 | it to the ports of the subcontinent in the 1930s, it would evolve into an |
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