Aaj Rang Hai

My tryst with ‘Sufi Music’ began almost 10 years ago when I unwittingly ended up listening to one of the Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s popular Qawwalis. Those who know me will testify that when I fall for something, I fall hard. Really Hard. And so began the quest of searching, listening, re-searching and re-listening to the compositions that I consider as one of the finest in Indian music. Being a greenhorn with limited access to Internet in those days, I had to make do with only popular versions of the genre. Next came a brief stint as a post graduate student of Psychology in Delhi University and with it an encounter with a brilliant Psychology Professor who taught intricate concepts of Existentialism and Symbolic Interactionism through Sufi music and Cinema. Needless to say, I fell hard for him too. Sigh!!

Since I certainly don't wish to be seen as a vainglorious woman who insist on writing her biography in this post, I shall, therefore, divert the flow of this post towards a great Sufi Poet Amir Khusro.

Legend has it  that the day Ab'ul Hasan Yamin-ud-Din Khusrau (a.k.a Amir Khusro) was born, his father took him to a God absorbed dervish, who said to his father, "You have brought one who would go two steps ahead of khaqani (nightingale)." 

And he did. Amir Khusro Dehlavi, as he is popularly known, turned out to be not only a Sufi Musician, Poet and a Scholar but also an iconic figure in the cultural history of the Indian subcontinent. Born to a Turkish Father and Muslim Rajput Mother more than 750 years ago, he is considered to be the ‘father of Qawwali’, is credited with having invented musical instruments like Sitar and Tabla, originator of the Ghazal style of song and above all, is immensely loved for the Poet he was. Instrumental in upholding secular culture of the Indian Sub-Continent, he wrote primarily in Persian and Hindustani (Braj Bhasha/ Khadi Boli) and also spoke in Arabic and Sanskrit.

Though Khusro’s works are spread across various genres of poetry, his most popular poems revolves around the theme of love. Love – captivating, encompassing and devoted kind. It could be Ishq-e-Haqiqi (the love of God) or Ishq-e-Majazi (love for God's creation i.e. love of a man for a woman or another man or vice -versa). His immortal poems or love songs composed in devotion to his master Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya more than 700 years ago are still sung at dargah’s of Sufi Saints across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. 

Be it ‘Chaap Tilak’ which portrays sentiments of a beautiful woman mesmerized by the sight of her lover and eventually looses her in him or ‘Khusro Rain Suhag Ki’ depicting bittersweet anxiety of a new bride (Ishq-e-Majazi), his poetry still stands tall and relevant after more than seven centuries it was first written.  But just when I thought he could not better himself, I discovered the ecstasy of ‘Aaj Rang Hai’ where poet is rejoicing in the unfathomable divine love for his master (Ishq-e-Haqiqi) and which usually produce a state of trance when sung at the end of Qawwali Mehfils.

Every year on the occasion of Urs of Hazrat Amir Khusro, thousands of his lovers visit the dargah of Hazrat Nizzamudin Auliya in Delhi where Khusro was laid to peace next to his master as per his last wish.  Urs is celebrated to mark the death anniversary of the sufi saint. It is not an occasion to mourn but to celebrate as sufi tradition sees death not as an end but as a transition from one form of being to another.

World will continues to see him as what he was, a distinguished poet in royal court, a scholar, a linguist, a humanist and a dedicated disciple of Hazrat Nizzamuddin Auliya. But to me, he has been and will remain a magician who would play with languages and words. Perhaps that is the reason that even 700 years after Khusro's communion with God, I still resort to his words to express myself when I find mine failing me. Perhaps that is the power of poetry. Perhaps that is the power of Poets.