New Delhi, Aug 19 - Tina Sani, one of Pakistan's most popular classical and semi-classical ghazal exponents, feels that globalisation, the widespread culture of pop and rock music and the end of royal patronage are taking their toll on the popularity of ghazal in south Asia.

'Not just the pop and rock culture, globalisation to some degree has taken the purity out of ghazal. Musicians now want to play to the gallery and are commercialising ghazals to cater to popular taste.

'Ghazal as a musical genre peaked under the patronage of the Muslim rulers, who funded poets and classical Urdu and Persian musicians to further their vocation,' Sani, who is in India to perform in three cities, told IANS in the capital.

Moreover, 'more than 60 percent of the subcontinent's population is young and contemporary sounds appeal to them', Sani explained.

The musician, who sings 'nazms (free-flowing verse)' by poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Ahmed Faraz, will perform with Penaz Masani at the Siri Fort auditorium in the capital Aug 20, followed by concerts in Chandigarh and Hyderabad.

The programme is a collaboration between the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and Routes 2 Roots, a non-profit culture forum, as part of a culture exchange initiative to foster better ties between India and Pakistan.

Karachi-based Sani shot to fame in the mid-eighties in Pakistan when she became the youngest musician to set Faiz's poetry to music and sang it at the 'Faiz Mela' in 1985.

'That was the turning point in my life. I was in my early 20s and I realised that my music was being taken seriously. Till then, my tastes ran to lighter music like rock and contemporary pop. But after my brush with Faiz onstage, I honed my Urdu and returned to pure ghazal. Faiz helped me resolve several of my growing-up dilemmas with his universality of thought and the basic goodness of soul,' Sani said.