BBC HARDtalk - Salman Ahmad (1/3)

BBC HARDtalk - Salman Ahmad (2/3)

BBC HARDtalk - Salman Ahmad (3/3)

Its My Country Too Part 1

Its My Country Too Part 2

Its My Country Too Part 3

Its My Country Too Part 4

Its My Country Too Part 5

Its My Country Too Part 6

Its My Country Too Part 7

My undergraduate life was full of South Asian music- old and new Bollywood songs, Indian classical music, Indian pops, Pakistani qawwali, Strings and Junoon. Since I started learning Urdu as the major subject and got curious about the art and culture behind the language, I left almost everything behind that I had followed earlier.Until I turned to eighteen, the path of my life had been focused on piano and Western classic music. My generous parents, who are music lovers and who wished me to be a musician or at least a piano teacher, offered me the prestigious education at the most famous music school in Japan from the age of five. I am very grateful to them. With my feeling of guilty to have chosen the completely different path from what my parents desired and my strong curiosity to learn the new world, I intentionally put myself immersed into South Asian culture for the six years of my undergraduate life including a year to study Urdu at University of Delhi and three years for a once-in-lifetime project of ‘Hiroshima Ki Kahani’, Urdu stage drama tours to India and Pakistan, for which I played the main role and had a privilege to meet and to culturally exchange with intellectuals, artists, officials and students of the same generation and to be on major newspapers and TV news. I dedicated myself for the project as I wanted to compensate what I might have lose by switching my path 180 degree.As the time of graduation approached, I was still not quite sure what I exactly wanted to do next, but I had to decide my future while I was still studying in India(because there was a fixed period of time for recruitment for new grads), so I randomly sent job applications to Japanese companies that have branches in India, and luckily, I got an offer from a famous company and started to work with its international sales department.I enjoyed travelling and working with people from different places of the world but maybe naturally and unfortunately it did not work for a long time someone like me and I moved to London to study Indian classical music and kathak, one of the main South Asian classical dance forms, where I got much more into the art forms and I was astonished by the diversity of the city. And that was where one of my lovely friend, who is an American musician and researcher of Pakistani music introduced me the book, ‘Rock&Roll Jihad’. I bought the book online but it has been in my book shelf for the past eight years! I finally had a chance to read it now.

Rock & Roll Jihad

このブログを読んでくださっている皆さんは、毎日どのようにお過ごしですか？私は、今日は「コロナ後の世界」という本を読みました。日本を含めた世界の現状や今後について、様々な分野の専門家の意見が分かり易く述べられていてお勧めです。先が見えない生活で不安やストレスが溜まってしまう毎日ですが、これまでも世界は全体的に良い方向に向かって来たことや、今後も私たち一人ひとりの意思と行動でそうするしかないという(非常にベーシックな事実ではありますが)ことを論理的に再認識でき、ちょっとポジティブな気持ちになりました。編者の大野和基さんという方が同じ大学出身で、私も自分にできることを頑張ろうという勇気頂きました。#コロナ後の世界#文藝春秋

コロナ後の世界

Salman Ahmad x Hard Talk x BBC