Outside the Durbar Hall of the Taj Palace hotel a noisy throng of gatecrashers agitated for entry. "You have to let us in," shouted an MTV-chic group. Inside, the hall was packed, the farsh crowded and the seats all taken. Under the heavy chandeliers, famous surgeons, maverick politicians, busy businessmen and suave polo players gathered to listen to the world's most renowned qawwal.
At Hamsadhvani, admirers held up currency notes for the Ustad to sign. At the Taj, society hostesses armed with cellular phones introduced him to their sons. Suddenly the harmonium cried out like a royal trumpeter announcing the arrival of the king. "The Ustad is in a great mood tonight," exulted Pakistani High Commissioner Riaz Khokhar. As the white-clad Buddha of song began his performance, the glimmerati waved their hands and swayed, as if intoxicated. Yet again, Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan had conquered the mehfil.
Khuda is his muse, Sufism is his doctrine and the beloved is his audience. The bearer of a centuries-old tradition sings of love in the time of politics and detachment and fratricidal strife. The descendant of several generations of qawwals has brought qawwali to the contemporary experience and transformed the enigmatic Sufiinto a modern icon.
He has been profiled by Time and courted by Hollywood. He has collaborated with rock musician Peter Gabriel, given his music to Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ and Shekhar Kapur's Bandit Queen, and is preparing to work on another Hollywood film, Dead Man Walking. His pirated cassettes sell lakhs of copies. Says Atul Churamani, executive vice-president of Magnasound: "What makes him remarkable is the way he has played around with the qawwali format."
Qawwali was never so trendy. And the God Is Dead generation were never so captivated by the lyrics of the ancient dervishes, composed as they whirled and prayed, seeking oneness with divinity.
From the song Mast Mast to Mera Piya Ghar Aya, his styles have been copied, and even bastardised, all over the subcontinent, a practice of which he thoroughly disapproves: "We should not entirely lose out on our traditions. My songs are religious in inspiration, I sing for God. I feel very bad about this piracy and the way in which the words are changed."
But then here is a dilemma. Has Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan popularised but also commercialised a traditional art form, and thereby laid himself open to piracy? In the quest to make qawwali more popular, hashe packaged and "sold" the ascetic ethos of the Sufi? Khan does not think so: "My mission is to make qawwali popular among young people. Earlier youngsters used to be afraid of qawwali. The combination of classical and folk tunes has attracted many. A number of people have criticised me and said that I have spoiled Sufi music, but at least the young now listen to these traditional songs. That was part of my mission."
He speaks a great deal about a "mission" to bring the message of love and purity to a world in which brother kills brother. Across the Siachen Glacier, relations between India and our western neighbour have dwindled to a level where even singers like Asha Bhonsle are banned. But in Khan's nocturnal empire, the problems of bilateral relations are forgotten. "The artist does not recog-nise geographical boundaries. I have received so much affection here. If any Indian singer went to Pakistan, they would get the same response," he asserts.
His philosophy is pacifist. "Sufi music," says Khan, "tries to banish the hatred living within all human beings. It does not belong to any one culture, but to all of us. It stands for bhaichara. The great Sufis have said that there is no value in namaz if your soul is not clean, no value of bathing in the Ganga, if your thoughts are impure. God is to be achieved through love. Mohabbat (love) is the ultimate reality."
Optimism has always run high in his family. Six hundred years ago a family of singers migrated from Afghanistan to Jalandhar, to a small village called Basti Sheikh. Here amidst the turbulence of feuding empires, Saadat Dad, Khaliq Dad and Maula Baksh created their own musical empire. After Partition, Nusrat's father, Fateh Ali Khan, and uncle Mubarak Khan continued to achieve fame in Punjab and beyond. "I started to become famous in the mid-'60s, but before that my father and uncle were very well known," he says.
He was born in 1948, grew up in Faislabad and, according to a biography by Ahmed Aqil Rubi, his father wanted him to be a doctor. But on a chance occasion when young Nusrat was asked to accompany one of his father's guests on the tabla, Fateh Ali Khan was astonished at his son's skill. That night he gave up all hopes of a medical profession for Nusrat. After matriculation, the youngster was initiated into the world of music. The first breaks began to come with concerts on Radio Pakistan. After two EMI recordings, he began to acquire unprecedented fame.
"After my father died, I had to take up the work," he says modestly. But there were hurdles to overcome. Uncharitable remarks were made about his unworthiness as a successor, that his voice was too shrill, that he was too obese. "But after the Radio Pakistan music festival of March 23, 1965, there was no looking back." Now a master of Punjabi folk songs, thumri, khayal, ghazal and classical styles, in addition to qawwali, Khan takes musical risks that his ancestors did not.
Today, he is traditional modernist. He enjoys the music of A.R. Rahman but also continues to admire the work of Naushad and S.D. Burman. He says he performs in the old style, where the audience is a treasured friend with whom a relationship must be established first, before art is given full rein.
"If the audience is serious, I sing what they will like. If they are young, they will like halla golla," he laughs. For his audience, Khan will forgo his rest and sing into the dawn. Although a great gourmet—he once ate 70 kebabs at one go—he never eats before a performance is over and drinks only water.
In the subcontinent, Khan is more than just a popular musician. He is a reminder that in our history of painful memories and national hatreds, there has also existed the dancing Sufi with love in his heart and a twinkle in his eye.
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