6/17/2023 0 Comments E m nagoor hanifa songsSo, to support the family income, my father became a singer. My grandfather was based in Malaysia, working in the railways, but was unable to provide for his family in Nagore. “My paternal grandfather and my father’s elder brother were both good singers, but they didn’t take it up as a profession. As Nagore Hanifa spends his twilight years at home in Kotturpuram, Chennai, the story of the man whose voice used to hit the high and base notes with equal ease, gets retold by his son. Many Tamil commentators have tried to theorise on why Hanifa was not as successful a politician as a singer, despite a fan base of millions in his heyday. But as his eldest son and chief care-giver Naushad Ali points out, “sometimes a word is enough to trigger a memory.” Much is known about Hanifa’s rise to fame as the ‘voice’ of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and his proximity to leaders such as Periyar, C.N. The prolonged exposure to stage noise has affected his hearing permanently, and he rarely speaks to visitors these days. At 95, ‘Isai Murasu’ Esmail Mohamed Hanifa is a shadow of the man that followers of Tamil Muslim devotional music and political anthems know. He looks at his son for approval and smiles when he sees the two thumbs-up sign. His white full-sleeved shirt and veshti are crisp and starched. Hanifa’s distinctive voice took him from a humble background to the centre stage in no time, but it is his son who narrates the 95-year-old’s back story The elderly gentleman takes a minute to arrange his lambswool cap on the silver locks lovingly combed by his son.
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