Musical meanderings through Bulleh Shah's world

The Stein auditorium of the Indian Habitat Centre on Tuesday evening reverberated with poetry of Punjabi Sufi giants like Bulleh Shah and Khwaja Ghulam Fareed fused with different genres of music including rock and classical Indian tunes.

It was here Adi and Suhail, presented a live performance featuring, for the first
time ever in the Capital, a special acoustic set after it made waves in MTV’s third season of Coke Studio and BBC Asia Beat.

The concert, which saw an overwhelming presence of youngsters, lasted for more than an hour, leaving the audience wondering about the glory days of Punjabi Sufi culture, a period which Adi and Suhail have set out to explore through their music.

Born and brought up in Delhi, the duo have been making their presence felt on the independent music scene in India and also released their record Culture Code Landscape earlier this year.

Here in the Capital, the audience at the Stein auditorium seemed transfixed in the moment, refusing to come out of it. The mood was set when the duo opened with an instrumental piece titled Welcome.

Inspired by a Rajasthani folk song which goes by the name, Padharo Hamare Desh (Welcome to our Country), the duo had fused music from sarangi and an electric guitar played by Adi. The music emanating from the sarangi connected with the audiences at a higher level as the auditorium thundered with words of appreciation and regular clapping.

The rest of the concert went as smooth as the opening song with the duo narrating a brief background story about each of their compositions. Among the most appreciated songs was Naina, the music for which, according to Adi, was composed when Suhail would visit his home during the month of Ramazan.

“One evening Suhail came to my place and we got to talking. We then had this idea of this particular song the lyrics of which are basically a poem by Bulleh Shah,” said Adi.
“Naina is a small rendition of the poetry,” Suhail noted humbly.

Fusing alongside with Adi and Suhail were Jayant Manchanda on Bass, Kartikeya Srivastava on drums and Rohit Gupta on keys. Adi, while speaking to the audience mentioned that while the key compositions were by him and Suhail, Jayant, Kartikeya and Rohit were an inseparable part by offering their talent towards the performances.

Organised by HCL, the concert was an initiative dedicated to promote Indian classical performing arts and given the reception the music got, the formula seemed to work.

According to the organisers, the event is a part of a series of concerts which promises to provide platform to rare genres of performing arts like Dhrupad, Rudra Veena and Gaudiya Nritya.