Posts Tagged Ram

Rumi Foundation brings out a ‘Sufi journal’ called Hu. This year two of my essays have been published in the journal. I am posting the first one on Bulleh Shah.

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If God was found by bathing and cleansing

He would have been found by frogs and fish

If God was found by wandering in the jungles

Stray animals would have found him

O Bulleh, the Lord can only be found

By loving hearts – true and pure…

(Translation by author)

Fifteenth century India witnessed a spiritual-cultural synthesis that was navigated by hundreds of yogis, Sufis and poets of India. Very much a people’s mobilisation, the Bhakti movement articulated a powerful vision of tolerance, amity and co-existence that is still relevant today. The powerful and soulful voices of Sufi poets of the sixteenth century therefore sing a shared tune: of love, rejection of formal identities based on caste, organized religion and class.

Bulleh Shah (1680-1758) of Kasur in Central Punjab is an extraordinary voice that provided a mystical message beyond caste, institutionalized religion and ideologies of power. Born in 1860 and named Abdullah Shah in a Syed family, he found a Murshid (spiritual master) in Shah Inayat who was an Arain (traditionally a non-landowning group). Bulleh’s family disowned him for trampling his caste and therefore identity in the rural context. However, Bulleh Shah, driven by Sufi ideals of equality of humans, rejected the formalized social identity framework based on hierarchies. The quest for knowledge, and the thirst for spiritual completion – what the masses perceive to be the domain of religion – was a pursuit beyond these divisive and hereditary conceptions of formal religion. When the orthodoxy declared him as an infidel, Bulleh replied: (more…)

Troubled by the ongoing middle east crisis, the destruction of Lebanon and the acrimony generated by the tragic Mumbai blasts, I am reminded of this poem by Kabir:

Allah and Rama

If Khuda inhabits the mosque,
then whose play-field is the rest of the world.

If Rama lives in the idol at the pilgrim station,
then who controls the chaos outside?

The East is Hari’s domicile, they say,
the West is Allah’s dwelling place.

Look into your heart, your very heart:
That’s where Karim-and-Rama reside.
All the men and the women ever born,
Are nothing but Your embodied forms:
Kabir’s a child of Allah-and-Rama
They’re his Guru-and-Pir

(translated by Vinay Dharwadker in Kabir: The Weaver’s Songs)

A miniature painting of Kabir, c.1825

The work of Ram Gopal Varma and his associates is ushering in a new era of Bollywood cinema

If there is one individual and talent who has been instrumental in shaping the current Indian cinema, it is Ram Gopal Varma, aka RGV. The fact that I, in Pakistan, am writing about an Indian filmmaker may be thought a little odd; but whether we like it or not, cable television has institutionalised the demand for Indian films here in Pakistan. While the country’s cinema houses are being turned into hideous plazas that violate practically every building code there ever was, the rise of the multiplex is not only luring but also creating a class of loyal cine-goers in our neighbouring country. And there, RGV seems to be ruling the roost. During my visit to Delhi last year, I was informed that all shows for his latest film Sarkar had been sold out weeks in advance.

Thus was I forced to turn to a pirated version procured from a snazzy DVD shop in Lahore. The owner informed me that new laws were on the cards that would soon put pirated DVDs and CDs out of business. However, on my last visit to that outlet, sales were booming as usual. Piracy is too profitable a business and is far too highly in demand to be phased out through the mere enactment of law. Indian cinema thrives and whatever we choose to make of it, Bollywood is here to stay. In any case, the history of subcontinental cinema – and for that matter, classical music – is deeply complex and subverts political and geographical borders. (more…)