Composer Arshad Mahmud has spent decades bringing Urdu poetry to listeners through music. His career—from children’s television in 1972 to the MoUSICi YouTube channel he launched in 2023—runs through changing political climates and shifting ideas about how music should be made and heard. In Beena Sarwar’s 2025 profile for Scroll.in, Mahmud’s central challenge is how to make classical poetry accessible without sanding away its South Asian musical roots.
Who is Arshad Mahmud?
Mahmud is a Pakistani composer whose work has included television, the music industry and arts education. Sarwar traces his debut to the children’s television programme Akkar Bakkar in 1972. He worked alongside singer Nayyara Noor and puppeteer Farooq Qaiser on the show, produced by Shoaib Hashmi, then an economics professor at Government College Lahore.
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In the 1980s, Mahmud worked with EMI in Karachi. After the National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA) was formed in 2005, he joined as Programme Director. Sarwar reports that he left the academy in October 2021, after 16 years there.
What is MoUSICi?
MoUSICi is Mahmud’s YouTube music project, launched in October 2023. Its first song appeared on October 1 that year. As Sarwar described it in January 2025, the channel aimed to draw younger listeners toward Urdu poets such as Ahmad Faraz, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Ghalib, while giving new performers room to work. The young collaborators asked for English translations of lyrics in video descriptions, a practical bridge for listeners who do not read Urdu.
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Mahmud’s ambition is not simply to put poems to music, but to make recordings that feel rooted in South Asian musical tradition. Sarwar contrasts MoUSICi’s comparatively simple videos and poetry-centered approach with the more expensive studio-style production associated in her profile with Coke Studio, Pepsi Battle of the Bands and Sufi Score. That is a difference in purpose and presentation, not a claim that one format is objectively better.
Mahmud’s resistance to chasing the most commercially familiar sound is captured in an anecdote Sarwar recounts. Asked why he did not imitate popular production styles, he answered, “So do white shirts,” then added, “That doesn’t mean there’s no demand for other colours.” He also described wanting to “de-market” the work—to move away from pursuing “likes” and “clicks.”
The channel’s schedule and future projects should be understood as they were reported at the time, not as a current release guarantee. Sarwar wrote that compositions were being posted on the first and fifteenth of each month, with explanations of the poetry. She also reported plans for a “Trilogy of Romance” using Parveen Shakir’s poetry, alongside compositions for Kishwar Naheed and Fahmida Riaz; those were plans in January 2025, not confirmation of subsequent releases.
How did Mahmud set Faiz’s “Mere Dil Mere Musafir” to music?
The song brings together poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Mahmud’s composition and two distinct performances. Sarwar reports that Faiz wrote “Mere Dil Mere Musafir” in London in 1978, during exile. In January 1985, after Faiz’s death, Mahmud composed music for the poem at Salima Hashmi’s request, for a visual presentation at a commemorative event. Tina Sani’s rendition became her debut performance of Faiz’s poetry.
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A later MoUSICi version features singer Nigel Bobby. Sarwar describes its arrangement as using Raag Des and guitar. In the YouTube description she quotes, “des” is associated with homeland—a resonant choice for a poem whose history includes exile. Mahmud’s setting therefore connects the poem’s political and personal associations to a musical vocabulary that remains recognizably South Asian.
How did censorship affect television and music?
Sarwar recounts that General Ziaul Haq’s rule brought restrictions on classical arts and shut down Shoaib Hashmi’s television programmes. The teams behind Such Gup and Tal Matol did not simply disappear: they continued performing at private events and on road shows. Mahmud recalled the group’s spirit as “a bunch of crazy idiots.” The phrase conveys persistence, but the account also points to the practical change imposed by censorship: work moved from broadcast television into live performance.
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The profile sets that period against a later political climate. Sarwar says Pervez Musharraf supported NAPA’s use of the Hindu Gymkhana, while the academy gave Mahmud a long institutional role in arts education. These details are part of the profile’s account of how political power can restrict or enable cultural spaces; they do not make the broader history of Pakistani broadcasting or arts policy reducible to a single leader.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why does the music continue?
Mahmud’s career links several ways of sustaining music: children’s television, a commercial record company, an arts academy and an online channel. MoUSICi extends that practice into a format where listeners can encounter a poem with its musical setting and, when needed, a translation. Its slower, less spectacle-driven approach reflects Mahmud’s stated preference for making room for other colours rather than reproducing the dominant sound.
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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →In January 2025, Sarwar also reported that Mahmud had spoken at a Ghamidi Centre of Islamic Learning conversation held in December 2024, available with English subtitles. That conversation, like MoUSICi’s explanatory descriptions, offers another route into his work for audiences beyond Urdu speakers.
The title of Sarwar’s profile captures its governing idea: political authority and cultural conditions change, but musicians and audiences keep finding ways to carry songs forward. Hashmi’s programmes survived through live shows; Mahmud’s work now also reaches listeners through a channel built around poetry, performance and explanation.
Source and scope
Biographical chronology, political context and the account of “Mere Dil Mere Musafir” here follow Beena Sarwar’s reported profile, published by Scroll.in on January 27, 2025. The profile is a Sapan News syndicated feature. The dates and project details above describe what Sarwar reported at that time; they should not be read as verification of MoUSICi’s present posting schedule or the later completion of projects described as plans.
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