Reclaiming Pakistan’s soul
Courtesy Bluechip magazine
In a dream Sain Zahoor saw a hand beckoning him to a shrine. He could not shake off the dream and eventually at the age of 13 left home traipsing from one Sufi shrine to the next. At Uchh he recognized the shrine of his dreams and stayed there, spending his days learning Sufi music and singing. Sain is unlettered, but has memorized hundreds of Punjabi Sufi songs by sketching images on paper. When he started singing at the age of five, his first lessons were in the Sufi kalams (verses of devotional spiritual love). Now nearly sixty, he himself looks like a Sufi saint when he comes onstage clad in long kurta and tightly bound turban with beads dangling down his neck and ghungroos – (bells) tied to his ankles. His is such a compelling presence onstage and so close to what a Sufi really looks like, that Sain Zahoor is adorned on our cover. Playing the centuries old three-string lute,he delivers kalams of Sufi poets like Baba Bullay Shah, Shah Hussain and Mian Muhammad Bakhsh with ecstatic joy and intensity which ends up in a dhamal – a frenzied dance. His first onstage performance only came in 1989 when he was invited to the All Pakistan Music Conference. In 2006 he received the award for the best singer in the Asia-Pacific category at the BBC World Music Festival.
Read the rest here
i have you to thank you for introducing saeen zahoor; think i first saw his performance that you had uploaded; saw him live at the sufi festival in karachi organized by the rafi peer theatre group last year; awesome artist who can now compose lyrics that are heavily influenced by bullay shah, shah hussain & kh ghulam farid
I love the pictures in the article especially the picture of the door with the name of Shah Abdul Latif.
The article itself is quite enlightening and inspiring. Good to learn about the origins of Qawwali and how repetitions and jumps to other poems are used to create a meaningful symphony. I love listening to Qawwali but never thought that the techniques of signing had a particular purpose behind them and weren’t just simply melodic. It’s also interesting how the repetitions in Qawwali are associated with dhikr. Always learning something new from this blog
Naveed ji: good that you enjoyed this
Cubano: thanks for visiting and appreciating the article. Hope you listen to Qawwali with a different ear now