Lutfullah Khan

Lutfullah Khan (Urdu لطف الله خان) (25 November 1916 – 3 March 2012) was a collector, archivist, hobbyist and an author from Pakistan.

He was best known for his rare collection of voice recordings of renowned artists, poets, writers and other eminent individuals from Pakistan and South Asia.

Lutfullah Khan was born in Madras, now called Chennai in (British India) on 25 November 1916.

His father worked for the South Indian Railway Company.

Lutfullah gained his basic education in Madras but moved to Hyderabad in search of work when he was still a teenager.

He signed an agreement in 1933 for classical singing with the Indian Broadcasting Service.

He performed publicly at the age of 19 in 1935, when he performed in a two-hour radio concert in Madras and played Karnatic music.

In 1938, he moved to Bombay to work for the rationing department in British India.

Known as Madras Radio Artist, he sang Ghazals at a function of Muslim Students Association of St. Xaviers College in January 1939 and rendered classical singing in Bombay in December the same year.

He migrated to Pakistan on 17 October 1947, after the independence of Pakistan, and settled in Karachi where he joined the advertising business and remained in this profession for more than 50 years.

Lutfullah Khan was passionate about music and singing from his childhood.

In 1951, when he started his advertising agency, one of his clients imported a Sound Mirror audio tape recorder.

Lutfullhah bought the machine and 22 tapes for Pakistani Rupee 1,146 and 10 annas (the machine and the receipt forms a part of his collection).

He performed his first sound recording, which was the voice of his mother, on 29 July 1951.

Later, he started recording radio programs for drama, music, poetry, prose, fine arts, religion and education.

He went on collecting voices of notable personalities, especially speeches of political leaders and politicians, and narrations of authors' own works.

He maintained a minutely detailed catalogue for all the tapes on different subjects.

In its obituary, Dawn newspaper remarked, "It was a testimony to his zeal for the arts that artists and men of letters loved to visit his studio for recording sessions."

In music, his collection is organised into many subcategories:

The Urdu literature section is divided into poetry and prose.

Poetry contains the work of 800 poets.

Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Akhtar ul Iman recorded their entire work for his library.

Some of the other names are Jagan Nath Azad, Sufi Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum, Parveen Shakir, Josh Malihabadi, Jigar Moradabadi, Khatir Ghaznavi, Ali Sardar Jafri, Kaifi Azmi, Ahmad Faraz, Ismat Chughtai, Noon Meem Rashid, Z.A. Bukhari and others.

Prose contains such items as Ale Ahmad Suroor, Ibrahim Jalees, Patras Bokhari, Imtiaz Ali Taj, Hayatullah Ansari, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Joginder Paal, Chiragh Hasan Hasrat, Anwar Sadid, Khadija Mastoor, Rasheed Ahmad Siddiqi, Zakir Hussain and many more.

The scholars and speeches sections include names like Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Liaqat Ali Khan, Gandhi, A. K. Brohi, Sir Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Dr. Salimuzzaman Siddiqui, Karrah Hussain, Bahadur Yar Jung, Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Rajendra Prasad.

The religion section includes notably Syed Mohammad Razi, Zaheen Shah Taji, Mufti Muhammad Shafi, Allamah Rasheed Turabi.

This also includes an exegesis of Quran in the voice of Ehtisham ul Haq Thanvi.

The smaller but a unique section consists of interviews of artists like Jimmy Engineer, Iqbal Geoffrey, Iqbal Mehdi, Bashir Mirza, Sadequain, Shakir Ali.

The story of this journey is penned in Tamashay-e-Ahal-e-Qalam that provides insights in efforts that were put to record them.

Especially the struggle to record Faiz that is spread over time period of 20 years.

In his last years, he was digitising his audio library by transferring tapes on DVDs and computerising the catalogue.

Luftullah was also an avid photographer.

While in Bombay, he used to borrow a 16mm Kodak movie camera from a friend to make movies at different locations.

While in Karachi, he used to borrow a Rolleiflex camera from a friend who owned the Thackersons photography shop.

He created albums of the city's old buildings and new build-ups that were taking shape to absorb the new country Pakistan and its administration.

He made an album about Business on footpath covering portable shops on Karachi's footpaths, right from small businesses to snake charmers, palmists, lizard show, ear cleaner.

There was another album called Business on wheels which shows fruit, vegetable, cloth, shoe merchants of Karachi on four-wheel carts.

In 1951, he bought a Swiss made Bolex Paillard 16mm camera and started making documentaries.

Between 1963 and 1988, he practised singing with Abdul Shakoor Khan of Kirana gharana, and explored the intricacies of only one raag, the Darbari.

Luftullah was known for his unique collection of voice recordings.