it touches your heart and heals your soul.it appeals to all people.it cuts across age and gender barriers.one can keep on hearing sufi songs or even hum them all the time.such is the impact sufi songs have on people.
last sunday i visited the kala ghoda fair at mumbai.this is annual event and extremely popular.it is a visual extravaganza of india's art and culture.the exhibition is an open air event and plays,movies and music programmes are held in the amphitheatre or in the nearby halls or gardens.the sufi music programme was in the horniman circle gardens.what a delightful time i had listening to kavita seth and her karwaan sufi band.the orchestra consisted of drummers accompanied by tabla and mandolin.
kavitha gave her heart out in her scintillating superb performance.she is like a pop diva.young and attractive with a mellifulous voice,she was so lively on the stage.and the packed audience liked every song selection that she made.starting with 'allah oh' and followed by 'lambhi judaai' and some other lovely numbers.
in november we had attended a wedding in rajasthan when i had for the first time attended a sufi programe.i liked it and decided to attend every sufi music concert when i got such an opportunity.you can call me a sufi buff.
sufi madeness is required in our lives.it enters the depth of our beings through the door of our hearts.the heart longs to love,sing and dance and go ecstatic.sufi spirit is based on the premise of love.love for all. love that transcends all barriers.god is the beloved.godliness permeates everwhere and it radiates from every nook and corner. sufism has no time for intellectual debates.it is focussed on intense passionate love.sufis don't renounce.they rejoice.sufis call it 'ishq'. it is the sufi alchemy.create such a passion that it takes you to the ultimate."i searched for god and found only myself.i searched for myself and found only god"
the 13th century poet jalaluddin rumi wrote in persian about soul and union with god.he is the best known sufi poet across the world and usa's number one and best selling poet today.last year his 800th birthday was celebrated by the rumi foundation in a grand manner."rumi" means one from roman anatolia. he accidentally met a wandering dervish called shams tabriz .that chance meeting changed his life completely.they fell in love.islamic orthodox scholars insist that it was 'spiritual love' while european translators thought they were gay.shams was driven out to damascus by rumi's family and later when he returned to konya, his family members had him killed.devastated,rumi wrote some 26,000 couplets besides rubaiyat and ghazals.rumi has a terrific following in india too. he is seen as the soft face of islam and sufism goes well with the bhakthi movement.
rumi was not just a poet.he founded a religion of love.through his couplets and ghazals.which are sung all over the world.which touch your heart and stir your soul.you do not need any other medicine.listen to sufi music and rejoice with sufism.revel in life and get sufi-mad. "if you are not one with the beloved,seek! and if you are in union,rejoice!"-rumi
2 comments:
How is it that a 13th century poet can make my heart twirl into a hypnotic trance??????
that is what sufism is all about. and when it happens you want it to happen again and again.the sufi poems touch a chord in your heart and lift your soul to unfathomable heights.
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