"There is nothing outside. Everything is inside.” The words hang in the cold air as night settles over the Ganga during the Mahindra Kabira Festival in Varanasi. Fog folds into the river, amplifying the glow of lamps along the ghats. On the steps of Shivala Ghat, Mahesha Ram sings Kabir with an inner force that feels older than the city around him. His voice rises without urgency, as though pulled from some interior well, letting poems of Kabir, Mira and Narayan Das surface and dissolve.
His style resists embellishment. There is no flourish, no rush toward climax—only a steady arc that honours the verse. The ensemble follows his cues intuitively, khamaicha and dholak keeping a pulse that is closer to gait than to beat. He leans into the unvarnished timbre of folk singing, where texture carries meaning and pitch bends to accommodate emotion rather than grammar. Silence is used as confidently as sound. Between songs he speaks quietly, grounding philosophy in lived inheritance. “This is my community’s work,” he says, gesturing toward co-musician Teja Ram. “We have done this for generations.” His woollen shawl mirrors the tradition he describes. “The hands work the loom,” he explains. “The mind sings bhajans.”
Mahesha Ram talks of his guru’s instruction: “Gaana aur rona ek jaisa hona chahiye.” Singing, like crying, must rise from separation and remembrance. “Sing from within. Bring bhaav,” he tells the audience. “Let the listener feel the ras, not just the shabad. One who can build that connection is a sadhu.” By the river, the song eventually returns to where it began—inside.