MY favourite hits from Atif remain the ones that are not film songs!

No doubt, Atif has sung some beautiful numbers in Bollywood, like Sathi tere bina, and Jeena jeena etc, and still has a long line of songs marked out for coming movies. But, for self, his best numbers are those that celebrate the intuitional variety that made Atif one of the most popular pop singer of this generation. Those include decade-sweeping numbers like Aadat, Hangami halat, Meri kahani, Doorie, Kuch iss tarah, Hum kis gali ja rahey hai etc. But, Ali Zafar took over from him in the ongoing decade.

Now, we hear Atif is singing for Salman Khan the fourth time in his career. So, he must have the voice to suit Salman. Even Shafqat Amanat could not make such inroads into Bollywood, as Atif has. Rahat Fateh is the only singer to exceed him in Indian films.

But, as regards Atif’s variety in non-film songs, he has suffered in quality. He needs to sing with the same freshness and novelty to give his listeners that feeling of pure Pakistani music that has been his forte. That problem can be solved by the selection of top poetry from local poets, of which there has never been a paucity, ever!