These ghazals were not broadcast from All India Radio or the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation for sure but were probably either heard from Vividh Bharati or Radio Ceylon which would broadcast popular music including film Indian music because it was not possible to do so on All India Radio which discouraged such music and encouraged classical or shastriya sangeet. The Radio Pakistan also published its own magazine Aahang and people’s curiosities were satiated by looking at the photographs of their favourite voices.
This intriguing mystery drove many to the radio stations where they wanted to see what the person, almost a daily presence in their lives, looked like in flesh and blood, while many scouted for photographs of these broadcasters in some of the show business magazines that were published. It was television that rendered prosaic the mystery of what the person looked like whose voice one heard either on the radio or on 78 rpm records.
It is likely that he may have made an appearance on Karachi television before nationwide election programmes in 1970. Before this nationwide exchange of video recordings, the four stations of Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi and Dhaka telecast their own programmes which were viewed by the local audiences, as the range of the transmitters was rather limited. And one got at least to put a face on the voice of Habib Wali Muhammad. It was in the 1970 elections that he appeared on national television to sing Faiz’s ghazal Dono jahan teri mohabat main haar key, wo jaa raha hai koi shabe ghum guzaar key. One wondered who this vocalist was and what he looked like. His first introduction to music lovers was through his recordings of the two ghazals - Ghalib’s Yeh na thi hamari qismat key wisaale yaar hota and Bahadur Shah Zafar’s Lagta nahin hai jee mera ujre diyaar main.
It was much later that one got to see Habib Wali Muhammad.
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