I don’t believe in mental health: Amaan Ali Bangash on musicians cancelling their tours midway

Of late, several music artistes around the globe — The Weeknd, Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes and Sam Fender — have called off their music tours midway, citing “mental health” among various other reasons. But, sarod player Amaan Ali Bangash isn’t so convinced with this reason.

“That’s not being fare and that’s very unprofessional according to me. I don’t believe in something called mental health. I do feel like everything can be bridged out and can be fixed. I think we create our own situations, the situation doesn’t create us. We create it and we should be able to handle it,” he says, adding, “I am not a big fan of aborting commitment. It’s very unprofessional. I believe that once you have been committed, you shouldn’t stop your work of in terms of medical health or any thing.”

He feels it is unfair to the audience and music lovers. “When you are preparing yourself to be a musician, you are also preparing yourself for a lot of ups and downs. There are going to be situations where you might lose your bag, you might you know you have to perform in the toughest conditions, you have to make your mind aware of that you cannot just say, ‘Oh sorry, I cannot do this and I have to go back’. That’s not fair,” opines the musician, who is planning a tour in the UK in November.

When it comes to his journey as a musician, Amaan, son of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, is trying to carve an “exclusive” place for himself.

“I would like to be exclusive because what I do is very exclusive and classical music is not bread pakoda or samosa that you can get anywhere and everywhere. It is fine dinning as you call it, you have to a niche market,” he cotinues, “It was always done for the intellectual. It was a very fine art form so only people with patience and respect will enjoy this art form. It is not a art form that you can just enter like a night club and start dancing to it, you have to have taste and class to enjoy this.”