For three days beginning today (March 6), Arab Ki Sarai at Humayun’s Tomb will come abuzz with soulful Sufi music. The place will play host to the 15th edition of Jahan-e-Khusrau, the three-day World Sufi Music Festival founded by filmmaker, music aficionado, costume creator and artist Muzaffar Ali.
This time, the festival will explore new poetry and new voices that hold out a mirror of human compassion to everyone, with the same surrender and unending ecstasy with which the world was made and set into motion.
The festival will kick-start with an ode to Rumi by renowned Kathak danseuse Manjari Chaturvedi, and Murad Ali and culminate with soulful renditions by Sufi singer Gurdas Maan on March 8.
Other performers include Smita Bellur, Nooran Sisters, Mamta Joshi, Kanwar Grewal and Prakriti Prashant.
We had a quick chat with Ali on the festival’s goals and activities:
How has been the journey?
Jahan-e-Khusrau has been an intangible journey of being inspired and inspiring artistes. It has made me explore poetry of the mystics through the music of diverse cultures. A new way of looking at cultures without blinds.
What is the idea behind Jahan-e-Khusrau?
Opening of the mind to the heart. Creating a big canvas for music of the soul. Learning without a master, where the seeker goes on her own journey of exploration and expression.
Let Love Reign is 2020’s theme. What were the previous themes?
We’ve always had different themes like Realm of the Heart, Spreading Love... Each year, it is the same message put differently to make people find new words for the same feeling. The essence is ‘unity’ that’s only possible with ‘love’.
The festival has been organised on foreign shores like Boston and London. How has it been received internationally?
People have reacted in the same way at all the other places. We become the mirror of this human quest for beauty and find answers to what they seek.
Newcomers get a chance to perform along with big names at Jahan-e-Khusrau
The excitement of Jahan-e-Khusrau are the newcomers. They have all the untapped talent and abundance of time to discover themselves here. Even seasoned singers undertake the same journey as newcomers and are hugely enriched. Abida Parveen is one such example.