"THE POLISHING OF A GEM"
Some are born talented, they say, others are born lucky. It may be that Saphwat Simab was born both. Son of the founder and owner of The Music Room @ Friend’s Hearth, Saphwat, as any father of a young boy can testify, loved to touch and handle his father’s things, among them an Afghan rubab on which Rahmat attempted to play some tunes every now and then. Until then, Saphwat had given no inkling of any special talent except in mischief, so it was with amazed surprise that one day Rahmat caught his 13 year old son (whom he had expressly told not to touch his rubab), playing a wonderful tune, all on his own, without being taught a thing, on the instrument. Since that day, Saphwat hasn’t looked back in his breath-taking trajectory towards mastery of the quintessential Afghan musical instrument. Initially with nothing but his talent and his father’s encouragement to drive him forward, Saphwat showed an extraordinary aptitude and ear for picking up complex tunes. But he was not only talented, he was also immensely lucky in that he had the founder and owner of TMR for a father. Immersed in the music-reverberating atmosphere of The Music Room @ Friend’s Hearth and inspired by the spellbinding performance of music ustads and pandits performing there, he was soon playing intricate ragas. But talent without nurture is an unpolished gem, so, at 17 years of age in 2015, he officially became the pupil, through a ghanda bandhan (gur maany) ceremony at TMR, of perhaps the foremost rubab maestro in the world, Ustad Homayoun Sakhi. And, with The Music Room @ Friend’s Hearth as his nursery and playground, everyone expects Saphwat’s artistic talent and output to reach for the stars. He still has a long way to go, but these clips are snapshots of his career towards the heights he is expected to conquer...
