Afghan Cassette Archive آرشیف کاستهای افغان
Arzu and Habib Sharif Majlisi Cassette
Singer(s): Arzu (Zhinos) and Habib Sharif
Cassette Studio: Unknown
Year: late 1980s
Genre: Mahali (Folk)
Year: late 1980s
Commentary:
This Majlisi cassette, like many private-gathering (“Majlisi”) recordings, is both rare and historically significant and is believed to have influenced music later heard in the Bollywood film Khuda Gawah (1992). During the 1991 filming of the movie in Kabul, actors Amitabh Bachchan and Danny Denzongpa stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel while shooting scenes that included the well-known buzkashi sequence. According to accounts from the period, Afghan music was played in the hotel, and this same cassette—particularly Side B—was reportedly among the recordings played for the visiting film crew.
The cassette features an Uzbek folk melody followed by “Bacha Jan Logari,” a well-known Afghan folk song closely associated with performances by Ustad Beltoon and Ustad Mahwash, whose renditions helped popularize the melody across Afghanistan and the diaspora. Contemporary recollections suggest that Amitabh Bachchan showed particular interest in this melody while hearing the cassette at the hotel. Although the exact pathway by which the tune later appeared in Khuda Gawah, including its resemblance to the film’s title song “Tu Na Ja Meri Badshah,” cannot be definitively confirmed, this recording offers valuable historical context indicating a strong possibility that Afghan cassette music circulating in Kabul at the time influenced elements of the film’s soundtrack.
Habib Sharif حبیب شریف
Amitabh Bachan and Danny Denzongpa Kabul 1991
Credit: OMED FILMS
Habib Sharif (حبیب شریف) is a Kabul-born Afghan singer active in the radio, television, and cassette era and remembered as one of the early artists to perform on Afghan television. Throughout his career he recorded numerous songs in both Dari and Pashto—his earliest recording being a Pashto composition—and released several cassette albums, including collaborative recordings with the singer Arzu (Zhinos). He also performed concerts in Afghanistan and internationally.Like many Afghan musicians, Sharif’s career was shaped by migration and political changes. After leaving Afghanistan and later settling abroad, including in Canada, he continued recording music and performing for Afghan diaspora audiences in North America.Beyond his own recordings, Habib Sharif played an important role as a musical mentor within his family, helping guide his nephew, the later pop singer Jawid Sharif, encouraging him from childhood and influencing the early direction of his musical career. Today, Habib Sharif is remembered as one of the recognizable voices of the Afghan cassette and television generation.
Zhinos(Arzu) ژینوس (آرزو)
Zhinos (Arzu) | ژینوس (آرزو) — Available documentation on this singer is limited; however, existing sources indicate that she was originally from Herat and was active as a female performer on Melli Radio Television Afghanistan during the late 1980s. After 1992, she appears to have stepped away from public musical performance. Oral accounts suggest that she later married a successful carpet merchant and is believed to have relocated abroad, possibly settling in Uzbekistan or Germany.