The Music that Won Hearts and Broke Barriers

By Nazli Siddiqui

SAN ANTONIO (TX) -- When you talk about rendering Urdu ghazals, folk tunes, or dhamal naubat, usually the names that come to your mind are Ghulam Ali, Mehnaz Begum or Abida Perveen — but never Janice Miller! Right? Wrong!

But when you talk about the revolutionary merger of East with the West, and vice versa. It is Janice Miller! Right? Right! Here she is -- presenting an evening of eastern musical entertainment in Dallas, Texas, to astonishment and pleasure of an audience of Indian sub-continental origin.

The occasion was a quarterly meeting of the North Texas Chapter of Pakistani Physicians of North America in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, held at the Omni Mandalay Hotel on March 23, which was followed by an evening of amazing entertainment.

After the business agenda was tackled, which included introduction of the current and past office-bearers, the gathering took a light turn of relaxation, humor and poetic expressions, culminating in an evening of musical entertainment with Janice Miller.

Miller, a born American who has never traveled to any of the South Asian countries, and never learnt any of the eastern languages, has found a niche in her melodious voice. Introduced to Urdu music by some Pakistani friends, she got hooked on to it so much so she decided to try it herself.

She carefully memorized the wordings of some songs and sang for friends, who were amazed at the accuracy of her pronunciation and adaptation of "raaga" or melody notes. She was introduced as a singer to the Pakistani and Indian musical circles, and soon was dubbed as "American Noorjehan."

Janice Miller’s fans admire her not simply for the accuracy of her accent and wordings. They think what is most enjoyable in her music is her perfect expression of emotions interestingly in a language she neither speaks nor understands.