Sufiyana Qalam, Rohi Rang

sufiyana qalam gayaki continues to live in the interiors of Thar where ordinary desert denizens keep it alive

in tribute to two great ustads of sufiyana qalam gayaki in Pugal, Bikaner, Rajasthan

Mir-i-Aalam Ustad Allah Basaye Khan, Pugal, Bikaner

Maulvi Nathu Khan Sahib, Pugal, Bikaner

“Know that hearts and consciences are treasuries of secrets and mines of jewels. Wrapped within them lie their jewels just as fire is enveloped in iron and stone, like water is concealed under dust and loam. There is no way of extracting such hidden things save by the flint and steel of audition to poetry and music (Sama), and there is no entrance to the heart except by the ante chamber of the ears. So musical tones,measured and pleasing, bring forth what is in it and make evident its beauties and defects.”

Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali,The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya’ ‘ulum al-din) (d. 1111 CE)

 

Read More About the Mesmerizing Mir Singers  
Festival of Arts, The IIC, Delhi Experience 2006

The Indian Thar: notes on history

The Indian Thar is a region with a fabulously rich prehistory and history. A range of cultures have coexisted and interacted with one another since Lower and Upper Paleolithic times more than 15,000 years ago. Simultaneous developmental and stylistic differences among sites, incorporating Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Harrapan cultures like Kalibangan, Rangmahal from 6000 to 1000 BC make up a mosaic typical of the Thar and extension of the vast Persio- Arabian deserts to the further west.

Beginning from the 6^thA.D onwards began a process of nomadic upsurges of Rajpoot clan aristocracies who imposed their territorial supremacy over new tracts of colonized land. This led to the proliferation of regional centres of power by different Rajput lineages. In fact much of what is western Rajasthan today was first colonized by the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D. In still early medieval times around the twelfth century onwards all the dryer areas of Eurasia began to converge as a result of nomadic expansion, the Arid Zone in South Asia emerged as a vibrant frontier region that widened the horizon of and opened new channels for highly mobile pastoralists, warriors, merchants, pilgrims, and others.

The spread of trading networks in the medieval times favored its growth as a connecting region between the sea coast in the west, the overland routes of the northwest and northern India. Right through the Mughal rule the area was an important transit zone for trade between regions east of Indus and northern Indian plains. By the 19^thcentury well developed trade routes, garrison fort towns, trading hubs, a network of periodic fairs, villages and temporary settlements around which royal lineages and trading networks spread, wide open grasslands were some of the chief features of the human geography of Thar. These historic processes of human settlement of Thar were sustained by popular traditions of ingenious practices for the judicious and community regulated use and regeneration of water and land resources.

The last quarter of the twentieth century has seen unprecedented demographic growth, colonisation and agrarian expansion through gigantic irrigation projects like the Indira Gandhi Canal in Thar, a successful cooperative dairy movement, a transport revolution that has altered the meaning of time and travel, presence of institutions of the modern Indian state with its imposing manifestations of development as more and more physical infrastructure, the onslaught for acquiring land in Thar. The increasing hold of the bewitching glares and lure of the market gives all encompassing sanction to consumerist ways of life that rest on the premise of wasteful use rather than frugal and judicious use, a feature that constituted the core of resource use in Thar for centuries.

All these could be seen as emergent signs of an important historical watershed in Thar. Especially regions in the interiors of Thar, where such claims of the modern Indian state and market were not known less than half a century back. The on going transformation spearheaded by private capital and rapacious plunder of the fragile biosphere of Thar is fast altering the delicate inter relationships of desert communities with nature over centuries.

Raga Megh in Thar desert, Pugal, Rajasthan

The grand old Ustad Ghulam Mohammad from Pugal who learned Hindustani classical music in Bahawulpur for eight years. During this period of stay in Bahawulpur he had the privilege of giving performances in Chachar Sharif in Kot Mithan at Khwaja Ghulam Farid's sacred tomb.

Inspite of his age Ustadjee is an atttentive person with a sharp  rather acrid sense of wit. He is the Mir Manga (Genealogist) of the Mirs of Pugal.  

He still savours the rich aromatic and spicy pugal style ghost (mutton) soaking wet in thick gravy of mustard oil turned red with chillies and sprinkled with copious amounts of fried garlic.

Click to hear Ustad Ghulam Mohammad

Wilayat of Chistis in Indo Pak frontier desert

An important feature of popular Islam has been the supreme faith in the saint or pir or sayyid sustained through hardships. Most of the times Muslims and Hindus shared the veneration of the same spiritual guide. It goes to the credit of the great Persio Musico Mystical tradition of sufiyana qalam that an essentially esoteric mystical tradition filtered down to commoners in comprehensible and appealing form.

Sufiyana qalams of Baba Farid, Shahbaz Qalandar, Bulleh Shah, Shah Bahoo, Shah Latif, Khawaja Ghulam Farid, Shah Hussain, and Ali Haider some of the main great sufi mystics of North west India form the kernel of these traditions. They are undoubtedly among the best traditions of Indian Islam “…of poetry and music as an essential means of devotional expression and the attainment of religious ecstasy”. These traditions were formed in a largely pre literate oral context in which regional languages like Sindhi, Pashto, Multani served as vernacular medium wherein were “…translated the secrets of Divine love, longing and trust in the Prophet into the vocabulary of farmers, pastoralists drawing and incorporating elements of Indian bhakti mysticism. It is this simple, ‘rustic’ mystical piety which colours large parts of Indian Islam” that reflects so vividly in the many compositions performed by these hereditary musicians for generations. 

Chiefly performed in dargahs and khanaqahs of Sufis associated with the Chisti silsila the traditions celebrate the seminal importance of saints in revealing the popular aspect of Islam.The Chisti saints beginning with Baba Farid in the thirteenth century have played a seminal role in the dissemination of Islamic culture through Sind and Hind. In fact it has been observed by the great scholar Professor Mohammad Habib that “the insistence of Chisti was not writing on mysticism but living according to it. And the Chistis known for their simplicity “…combined harsh asceticism with ardent love of music and poetry…”and “…allowed non-Muslim novices to ‘taste’ mystical experience…”. For most of the Chisti saints music was a spiritual staple, not merely a permissible (halal) but a required religious practice (wajib) as opening the inner and spiritual aspect of Islam.

 This Indo Pak frontier desert region has been blessed with a number of Sufi saints, mostly of the Chisti silsila. Their humble and rustic dargahs (shrines) in far away interiors amidst grasslands is a testimony to their wilayat (spiritual kingdom), of those who revered music as the vital colour (rang) of Allah’s devotion.