Mirs @ NID, Ahemdabad, 25.7.09

Clouds played truant practically the whole summers making the weather hot and the typical humidity of Ahmedabad had been quite strenuous to body and soul alike. In the last week of July, the rain gods decided to be benign, to let the soul recover from the exhausting heat and gratify itself in the last showers of the waning monsoons. The dramatic overcast sky, and the fragrance of wet earth announced the coming of Mirs from Pugal, musicians of ecstasy coming from remote settlement in the interiors of Thar desert.

While we were coming from the Subhas Crossing bus stand to NID the sagacious Nazre Khan was telling how good they feel when people living in such big places want to listen to them. It is very green here compared to our place where everywhere you see it is only sand, he exclaimed with joy seeing the thick tree cover on both sides of the Ashram road. As Pratap bhai’s auto rickshaw glided past a spread of green patch near the Sabarmati river, he was wondering whether Allah lived here amidst bounty or in his harsh and barren desert.

Practicalities of checking in the hotel took over this scholastic brooding about the existence of God. And soon we were sitting in a room, ready to talk. Nazre Khan, Waris Ali, Naju Khan, Abdul Jabbar and Shah Nawaj all were thrilled and eager to perform. The bus ride of fourteen hours didn’t seem to have dampened their spirit to the least. Their rehearsals of aaj kal bhural maand vasa (oh brown cloud, bless us with rain and life to the region), were punctuated by anxious phone calls for inquiring about rains, as the specter of drought loomed large in the backdrop. They were passionate musicians, living embodiments of the qalam by Khwaja Ghulam Farid, the great desert Sufi mystic, which vividly describe different tribulations and sufferings of the harsh and blazing hot desert.

Waris ali and Abdul Jabbar sang “aye mast diyade sawan de, sawn de manbhavan de”…in perfect coordination. Their voices, the high and low pitches, seamlessly merged into each to produce a sonic aura that was really motivating for all. In this qalam Khwaja Ghulam farid describes the innate beauty of the transformation of the otherwise barren desert into an oasis. Shah Nawaz did well to accompany them on the tabla.

The performance was in the cozy setting of the Old Canteen. Nazre Khan with his regal been started off. He was accompanied by Naju Khan on the majestic dhol.

The Mirs enthralled the audience for around one and a half hours with their soul stirring renditions. Apart from the compositions of Khwaja Ghulam Farid, they sang soul stirring renditions from the qalam of Amir Khusro, Waris Shah, Bulleh Shah.

The programme ended amidst the sound of dhol and been and collective dancing where some of the enthusiatic audience participated. The harbingers of ecstasy left for their rustic sandy desert the next evening.


Photographs by Deepak Varma



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