"The first time I saw Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, he was stuck in the door of a van and I feared that he might never be able to get out. I was eight years old and had never seen a man so enormous. Nusrat was not yet the global music sensation that he would become in a few years but he was already a rock star in my hometown.

"His annual concert meant deserted streets, the whole village pulled an all nighter; even old women who never ventured out, sat on the rooftops and listened."

Mohammed Hanif is a novelist and journalist now based in Pakistan. Previously head of the BBC's Urdu section and a contributor to From Our Own Correspondent. His two novels A Case of Exploding Mangoes (2008) and Our Lady of Alice Bhatti (2011) were widely praised and his debut was longlisted for the Man Booker prize. Show less