I can’t fully recreate the
magic of the evening for you but let me describe it a bit.
The setting was in the beautiful town hall in old Delhi whose lawns were
looking resplendent, decorated with wires containing lights. The surrounding
trees were also similarly decked up. There was a trellis of diyas forming a
backdrop for the stage at one end of the large garden.
During Talat Aziz’s performance, his singing was plagued by
a malfunctioning sound system but he graciously acknowledged that what was
missing on the technical side was more than compensated for by the warmth of
the audience …
After that it was the turn of the famous Wadali brothers..
Their full throated ,crystal clear voices were mesmerizing
and the thoughts they shared through their Sufi songs were beautiful …I am
enumerating a few of them….
On oneness/unity…
“Alas…people adhere largely to their own places of
worship.. the Hindus don’t enter mosques and the Muslims don’t enter temples…better
than all of us mankind are birds… for they flock to one building (mosque), then
soon alight on another (mandir) without any discrimination…”
“People construct houses of worship…then set about
excluding folks from them… Hindus are declared infidels at mosques.. Muslims
are declared infidels at temples.. It is suggested that instead of building
these, build liquor bars (maikhanas)…they are the most inclusive places at
these, even infidels are not considered infidels…”
(you can imagine how appealing this thought is- large scale
construction of bars- to certain people in the audience.:))
Love makes the world go round/ supremacy of love…
“God, inspired by Majnu’s devotion to Laila, sends an
angel to summon him upstairs for a meeting. Majnu does not wish to be disturbed
in his musings of Laila (so what if the summons come from none other than
God)….He tells the angel to give this message to God that if God desires to
meet me , he must come down to earth in the guise of Laila only then will I
entertain him…
Some tell Majnu .. “you like this woman Laila but she is
fairly dark…how do you find her beautiful ?”
He says “ beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder…anyone
who finds her dark basically has a veil of darkness over their eyes which make
them perceive all that they behold as dark !”
“And in any case , light and dark, what of them ? Why,
the pages of the holy books are white and Gods message to us, his own words on
them, are in dark black ink”…
Who is a really good Muslim…
“Not one who does the Hajj or does Namaz and Wuzu umpteen
times a day…it is the man who can rub some salve on another’s wound and
alleviate some measure of their pain…”
One of the most beautiful moments was their rendition of the
famous Dama dam mast kalandar (first popularized by Runa Laila).
Explanation/background for the third para of this
song…(char charag tere balan hamesha..may four lamps always burn…)
One day the fakir (mast kalandar) was meditating under a
ber (fruit) tree. Some hungry schoolboys started pelting the tree with stones.
The first two throws resulted in tasty bers for them to eat, but the third
stone hit the fakir instead. He shouted angrily “who has disturbed my prayers,
tell me the name and I will curse them!”
The boys said “ we will tell you…but first we wish to
make an observation on contrasting styles…when we hit the tree with stones, it
gave us fruit…when you were hit with a stone what do you offer ?”
The fakir was amused and delighted with the children’s
statement . He said that not only would he not curse but , additionally, they
could ask him for any three wishes.
They said they wanted his forgiveness. He pressed them to
ask for anything, anything at all ,yet they said all they wanted was for him to
forgive them.
Once again, he was very touched by their answer and told
them they were forgiven, always, in this world and the one above (dono jahan)..
The kids also gave him their good wishes saying that may
the fakir be always remembered (it is worth noting that only saints/fakirs have
candles lit at their tombs not rich men nor famous men) and lamps always lit at
his tomb…..(char charag tere..)
There was much more but these
thoughts have remained firmly etched in my mind....
