Every once in a while there are nights
that make you fall in love with this city. At Jahan-e-Khusrau, Delhi’s annual
Sufi music festival, such nights seem to come one after the other. In its sixth
year, the festival this year did yet again all that it does so well—Humayun’s
Tomb shone breathtakingly, the voices of an eclectic and energising selection of
artists rang through the clear night air, and Delhizens put on their best
culture-soaking attire for three days and turned out in numbers that would make
a Bryan Adams concert manager turn a very rich shade of green.
Jahan-e-Khusrau seems to be that rare event where the performers enjoy
performing as much as the audience enjoys listening to them. Throughout the
three days, this writer couldn’t help but be distracted from the wonderful
music by the obvious joy that the performers got and gave during their
performances. At a time when there are as many technically near-perfect yet
oddly uninspiring classical music performances as there are people willing to
sit through them, to see everyone from Daler Mehndi and Sukhwinder Singh, from
the Rumi Group of Iran to everybody’s darling Abida Parveen to first time
performers Aman and Ayan Ali Bangash, lose themselves in their performances and
sing purely as people who love their art, was a welcome surprise indeed.
At the risk of sounding clichéd, each of the performers brought something new
to the concert, and this writer was spared from ever once looking at his watch
in frustration. But, let’s face it, platitudes aside, Abida stole the show. It
is perhaps unfair to ask others to compete with a crowd-rousing rendition of Dum
Mast Qalandar as the final song of the festival, but the truth is that she had
them beat far before that. Effortless, engaged, and—in another welcome
contrast to years past—seemingly willing to sing happily for hours, she made
sure she was worthy of the ovation she received before she had even sung a note!
The unlikely challenger to her throne, however, was this year’s surprise—Daler
Mehndi. Shedding his ‘Bolo Tara Rara’ avatar for more of the wonderful vocal
rendering we heard for the first time in the song ‘Ruh Ba Ru’ from the Maqbool
soundtrack, Daler Mehndi seems to have evlolved his kalam in new and wonderful
ways—now if only he would leave that electronic synthesiser behind and let his
voice lead the way, all would be perfect. The Rumi Group from Iran made its
fourth appearance, and the dafs this time kept wonderful sync not only with
Abida but lent ample support to the lead vocalist’s stunning vocals that so
beautifully brought the verses of Rumi to Humayun’s final resting place in our
city.
Kudos to the organisers—they oversold tickets just enough, the screens worked,
the monuments looked lovely despite the lavender lighting (pray tell, why?) and
the slightly strange fake stone podiums that they will hopefully avoid next
time—but they pulled off an event that rightly has a proud place in the city
calendar.
This article originally appeared in Delhi City Limits, March 31, 2006