Publishing Details
Contact & Outreach
About This Podcast
Explore Statistics
Recent Episodes
S3E5 Early Days of Music in Dhaka - Abbasuddin Ahmed (Eng.)
Abbasuddin Ahmed (1901-1959) was a renowned Bengali musician, scholar and recording artist. He was among the earliest Indian artists to take to the gramophone, and gained widespread acclaim in…
S3E4 Hindu Dhrupad vs. Muslim Khayal - Adeeb Suhail
Adeeb Suhail (1927-2017) was a poet, editor and music scholar. Born in Munger, Bihar as Zuhurul Haq, Suhail migrated to East Pakistan and remained stationed in Dacca and Saidpur. He was editor of the…
S3E3 The Law of Tones in Indian Classical Music - Atiya Fyzee-Rahamin (Eng.)
Atiya Fyzee-Rahamin was an educationist, musicologist and socialite. Born in 1877 in Ottoman Turkey, she was arguably the first woman to have authored a text on North Indian classical music. Atiya…
S3E2 The Dawn of Tehet in Karachi - Syed Aley Raza
Syed Aley Raza (1896-1978) was a renowned ghazal and marsiya poet. He was born in Unnao, and practiced law in Lucknow before moving to Pakistan in 1947. A pupil of Arzu Lakhnavi, Raza was one of the…
S3E1 Pakistani Music in Bangkok - Mumtaz Shireen
Mumtaz Shireen (1924-1973) was a pioneering Urdu critic and short story writer. Born in Hindupur and raised in Mysore, she migrated to Pakistan in 1947 and soon became a prominent voice against the…
S2E10 The Lullabies of East Pakistan - Nasim Ahmed
Nasim Ahmed (d. ?) was a writer based in East Pakistan, who frequently contributed to Urdu and Bengali periodicals. The essay featured in this episode provides an overview of the culture of Bengali…
S2E9 How Can Music Be Food for the Soul? - Mufti Muhammad Shafi
Mufti Muhammad Shafi (1897-1976) was a leading scholar and jurist of the Deoband school in Pakistan. In this episode, we revisit an essay from his Arabic treatise on the permissibility of music,…
S2E8 There's No Such Thing as Pakistani Music - Rafiq Ghaznavi
Rafiq Ghaznavi (1907-1974) was a pioneering musician and actor of Indian and Pakistani cinema. In this essay, written in 1953, Ghaznavi attends to a most fundamental question: can there be such a…
S2E7 Listening on Trial at the Sultan's Court in Delhi - Qasim Firishta
Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah Firishta (d. circa 1623) was a Persian historian who served the Sultanate of Bijapur in the Deccan. His seminal work, the "Gulshan-i Ibrāhīmī" (The Garden of Ibrahim) is a…
S2E6 The Partitioned Airwaves of All India Radio - Zulfiqar Ali Bukhari
Zulfiqar Ali Bukhari (1904-1975) was a pioneering broadcaster, as well as a poet and musicologist. Born in Peshawar, Bukhari was among the earliest administrators of All India Radio, and the founder…
S2E5 The Sacred Sarangi of Ustad Bundu Khan - Muhammad Hasan Askari
Muhammad Hasan Askari (1919-1978) was a critic, essayist and short story writer. Born in Bulandshahr, Askari spent his most productive years in Delhi, Lahore and Karachi. The essay featured in this…
S2E4 Radio Pakistan’s Ban on Rabindra Sangeet – Abul Mansur Ahmad (Eng.)
Abul Mansur Ahmad (1898–1979) was a Bengali politician, journalist and writer. He participated in the Pakistan Movement and later played a leading role in the struggle for East Pakistan’s political…
S2E3 Poetry, Music and the Mushairah - Sajjad Zaheer
Sajjad Zaheer (1905–1973) was a Marxist poet and revolutionary who lived and worked in both India and Pakistan. The essay featured in this episode, written around 1958, explores the tradition of…
S2E2 The Music of Kazi Nazrul Islam - M. N. Mustafa (Eng.)
Muhammad Nurul Mustafa (1936–2000), known by his pen name M. N. Mustafa, was a Bengali journalist, scholar and diplomat. After studying journalism at Punjab University, Mustafa worked as an editor…
S2E1 Why People are Scared of Classical Music - Nargis Khanum (Eng.)
Nargis Khanum (1943-2017) was a pioneering arts and culture journalist in Pakistan. Born in Pune, she joined the daily Dawn as a staff reporter in 1966 and led a trailblazing career in writing and…
S1E10 The Charade of Classical Music - Krishan Chander
Krishan Chander (1914-1977) was an Indian writer of novels and short stories. The essay featured in this episode, titled "Gānā" (Singing), was part of an undated collection of essays. It is an…
S1E9 Singing Pakistan in Calcutta - Abbasuddin Ahmed (Eng.)
Abbasuddin Ahmed (1901-1959) was a renowned Bengali musician, scholar and recording artist. He was among the earliest Indian artists to take to the gramophone, and gained widespread acclaim in…
Inventing Musical Notation through Sound Recording - Madame Azurie
Madame Azurie (1907–1998), born Anna Marie Gueizelor, was a pioneering actor and dancer in Pakistani, Indian, and Bengali cinema. The essay featured in this episode comprises a speech delivered by…
The Music of East Pakistan - Salimullah Fahmi
Salimullah Fahmi (1906-1975) was a Bengali poet and careercivil servant in the erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The essay featured in this episode surveys the various genres of Bengali music…
S1E6 Christian Origins of the Symphony Orchestra - Daud Rahbar
Daud Rahbar (1926-2013) was a Pakistani scholar of comparative religion who taught at various North American universities. In this fascinating essay, Rahbar distills for the Urdu reader a history of…
Frequently Asked Questions
Sounding Board has published 25 episodes since September 2025, covering topics in Music, Music History.
Sounding Board is currently active with new episodes every 2 weeks. Average episode length is 10m.
Sign up on Grep.FM to access contact details for Sounding Board, including email and social media links.
