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Old Delhi haveli set to reverberate with fusion music
A fusion concert, "The Songbook of Qawwals," featuring Indo-Persian music, will be held on December 27 at Kathika Cultural Centre in Old Delhi.
New Delhi
The busy, noisy, thin and long stretch of Sita Ram Bazaar locality—popular for its old havelis and also where former Prime Minister Jawaharhal Nehru had got married—is all set to play host to a musical concert, which will be a fusion of Indian classical, Persian and central Asian musical compositions, on December 27 afternoon.
The first of its kind hour-long indoor live concert, titled “The Songbook of Qawwals”, will be performed by a six-member Indo-Persian group “Ensemble Khusrawi” at a restored haveli at the Kathika Cultural Centre and Museum in Old Delhi.
“The musical composition is part of my PhD, which is on Sufi manuscripts. It deeply explores the lost work of poets like Kabir, Amir Khusraw and Fakhruddin Iraqi in early Hindi from the 15th and 16th centuries alongside songs from the Ismaili and Bhakti traditions. We began working on this project three years ago, particularly to revive these compositions which used to be earlier performed at Dargahs but over the years have sort of disappeared,” said Rubab William Rees Hofmann, an Afghan national and the director of Ensemble Khusrawi.
These compositions, primarily themed around mystical and divine love, also aim to bring old musical instruments, such as the rubab, tombak and daf, into the mainstream again.
“The performance isn’t just about an attempt to revive poems but also some of the instruments that are out of fashion. The form of these instruments have evolved but the focus is to bring them back in fashion again,” said co-director of the musical group, Sina Fakhroddin Ghaffari.
While Hofmann and Ghaffari will be playing central Asian instruments, Murad Ali Khan and Ishaan Ghosh will play sarangi and tabla, respectively. Renowned vocalists Mukhtiyar Ali Khan and Pouria Akhavass complete the ensemble.
The narrow lanes of one of the oldest markets in old Delhi Sita Ram Bazaar host some of the oldest havelis. The havelis in the Kucha Pati Ram area of the market were once inhabited essentially by Kashmiri Pandits, like the Haksars and the Shouries. They are now used as warehouses by some wholesalers in the market. While others are not in a usable condition, including the one where the former PM Nehru got married, the one where the Kathika cultural centre is situated has been revived for heritage preservation.
“The three generations of my family—my grandparents, parents and I—have been born and brought up in Old Delhi. Its history is fresh in my memory and Kathika was born out of that memory. When I restored the haveli, my focus was not just to preserve the tangible heritage but also the intangible ones,” said founder and curator of Kathika, Atul Khanna. “Musical performances like these aim to revive the intangible cultural wealth of India.”
