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The Story Behind Chiryan Da Chamba
Chiryan Da Chamba is a Punjabi wedding song about daughters leaving their father's house, and Coke Studio brought it to Episode 2 of Season 8 on 22 August 2015. The arrangement is built on Tufail Niazi's original, and Suraiya Khanum sings it the old way: unhurried and conversational, letting the melody sit rather than decorating it.
Threaded through her verses is Anwar Maqsood, who wrote a poem specially for the track and recites it himself. Across a season of 28 songs and 31 featured artists, he was the only one to appear as a narrator of his own writing rather than as a singer. Season 8 was the first Coke Studio produced by Strings, after Rohail Hyatt's seven season run, and the pair are given unusual room here: the recording stretches past eight minutes, so neither the folk tune nor the spoken Urdu has to hurry.
Meaning & Translation
Chiryan da chamba means a flock of sparrows in Punjabi, and the phrase carries one of the oldest images in Punjabi wedding poetry: daughters are the small birds who settle in a father's courtyard for a season and then fly off. The refrain has the bride telling him exactly that, babul asaan udd jaana, father, we are going to fly away, offered as a fact both of them have known since she was born rather than as a complaint.
What the Coke Studio reading adds is the answer. Suraiya Khanum carries the old lament, while Anwar Maqsood's Urdu poem replies from the father's side of the room, the half of the conversation the folk song usually leaves unsaid.
Details
- Artist
- Suraiya Khanum, Anwar Maqsood
- Category
- Coke Studio
- Collection
- Coke Studio Season 8
- Released
- 2015
- Genre
- Folk
- Mood
- Wedding, Melancholy
- YouTube Views
- 3.42M
Artists & Credits
- Suraiya Khanum singer
- Anwar Maqsood singer
- Tufail Niazi composer
- Anwar Maqsood lyricist
- Strings producer