Punjabiye zabane ni rakkane mere desh diye
fikki pai gai chehre di nuhaar ni
middiyaan khilaari firen,ni bulle diye kafiye
kihne tera lah leya shingaar ni!!!!
(Oh Punjabi language, most beautiful girl of my country, shine of your face has dimmed. Oh poetry of Bulleh Shah, now you have uncombed hair, who have taken all your beauty ? )
This is my all time favourite song by none other than Gurdas Maan, and it shows the sad phase Punjabi language and culture is going nowadays.Nowadays Punjabi music is dominated by remixes and nudity, and for a non Punjabi, meaning of Punjabi music is dancing beats. However Punjabi music is much more than that. Real beauty of Punjabi music is in Sufi and folk songs. and Apnaorg.com is the best place online to listen to best of Punjabi music and read Punjabi literature.
Introduction: As written on the website,APNA stands for Academy of the Punjab in the North America and is a non political and non-religious organization of all Punjabis for the promotion of Punjabi language,literature and culture.
And from my experience with the website, I will say that they are doing the same in a tremendous way.
Going to APNA: Like many other websites, I thank Google once again for making me visit APNA. I was searching for poetry of ''Bulleh Shah'' and hence I visited APNA. And as I browsed the website, I was as delighted as I can be on listening to Gurdas Maan.
Experience with APNA:
Speed: Is among the best I've seen, as soon as you hit enter, within 5 seconds the page is loaded. And songs are loaded within few seconds to give pleasure to your ears.
customer service: Well when I mailed the web master, within 3 hours I got the reply!
Content:Although APNA is much more than just that, I will just limit myself to literature and music part of the website.And best feature of APNA is that it contains songs from singers from both of Punjabis and through APNA only I came to know how good are Punjabi singers in Pakistan.
Basic requirement: TIME,real player,speakers! As listening to sufi songs one can forget himself and even the world and hours can be spent listening to these gems, it is recommended to visit this website when internet charges are minimum .I mostly access it on sundays when my net is free of cost.
On APNA one can do the following:
FOR EYES:
Read to best of kalaams of Bulleh Shah,Shah Hussain,complete HEER by Waris Shah, poetry of Shiv Kumar Batalvi(My favourite ),Amrita Pritamand other pioneers in Punjabi.
Read Punjabi poetry in English : For non Punjabis here are poems translated in English, so they can understand the beauty of Punjabi, especially can feel the pain of Shiv in his poetry
FOR EARS:
One can just close his eyes and get the heavenly experience by listening to:
Kalam of Baba Farid,for 30 continuous minutes each, divided in 2 parts.
COMPLETE Heer by Waris Shah
Kalam of Bulleh Shah, sung by various singers
Kalam of Shah Hussain, sung by various singers
Songs by the grandfather of Punjabi music, Yamla Jatt, including ''Tu meri main tera'' !!!!
Lok geets, old film music and Sufi songs sung by various singers
Songs of Alam Lohar( Wow, never knew how GREAT this singer is. Loved most of his songs, especially ''Main vyah kar ke pachhtaaya'')
Songs by Hans Raj Hans, including ''Eh Punjab wi mera hai...'' and ''Ulte hor Zamane Aaye(My fav Sufi song by Hans)
More than 20 songs by none other than Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Songs of Gurdas Maan(To understand how great a singer can be, one need to listen to him) including Chhalla, Apna Punjab Howe, Punjabiye Zubane,Masti,Punjabi Zubane, Ki Banu Duniya da(Was my fav song for most part of my life)... among many others.
Songs by Gulam Ali,Noor Jahanincluding HEER by Gulam Ali (Jai you are right, it is great)
Songs by K. L. Sehgal and Rafi, in Punjabi!!!!
Sufi songs by Pooran Chand Pyaare Laal , popularly known as Wadaali brothers
Songs of Asa Singh Mastana(Mohd. Rafi had perhaps the sweetest voice of last century and if there is any voice that can challenge him , its Asa Singh Mastana!)
4 Punjabi Quissas ( Quissas are real life stories (like mirja sehbaan) sung like a song, and my fav singer to sing Quissas has been Mohd. Siddique
And there are many other singers, more than 50 to listen, but there are just 4 sundays in a month :(
Well now on to the BEST Gift of APNA ( Yes, even better than songs of Gurdas Maan):
Shiv Kumar Batalvi,''Birho Da Sultaan'', just reading his poetry can make one eyes wet, and APNA has his songs sung by more than 10 voices, and in my opinion ,Mohinder Kapoor did best justice among them, but nothing better than..............
Shiv in his own voice!!!!
APNA has 3 poems of Shiv in his own voice, where he is singing in a poetry concert, without any music, and one can feel the pain of his voice and all the poets amused by his poem can be listened,
My favourite poem among them is ''Ik Kudhi jihda naam mohabbat Gum hai gum hai gum hai''
Well search continues...............
Other than that, APNA has following features:
Discussion forum: Where Punjabis from all over the world can talk about Punjabi culture and literature
APNA news: News about conferences and other stuff of APNA and as it happens in America, don't attract me that much Quran,Bible,Geeta and Kalam of Baba Nanak, both in Punjabi and English
So in a nutshell, APNA is best place online, if you want to read/listen to GOOD Punjabi literature/music.
And although it has only Punjabi songs, non-Punjabi's who think Punjabi music is just about ''Shawa shawa'',noise or dance, must visit this one to know what really Punjabi music is all about!!!
Don't waste time, visit there and listen to the BEST music in world!
