On a cool, blustery evening, Delhi’s Sunder Nursery feels less like a park and more like a shared exhale. The amphitheatre is filled with a quiet, anticipatory hum as two voices—meeting for the first time—prepare to test the idea that devotion doesn’t need borders. Mukhtiyar Ali and Prahlad Singh Tipaniya come together for Prem Ras at the second edition of the KNMA Festival, curated by vocalist-writer TM Krishna.
The opening note—Sakal Hans Me Ram Biraaje—slowly seeps in. The pairing couldn’t have been more distinct. Tipaniya carries the Malwi earth of Madhya Pradesh, his Kabir bhajans steady and inward-looking. Ali, a 26th-generation voice of the Mir tradition from Bikaner, Rajasthan, sings with a skyward lilt and the unteachable ease of inheritance. “My style can only be inherited by those who have fakeeri—asceticism—in their soul,” he says. The collaboration itself was almost accidental. “Before the performance, Prahlad ji came to my village. We planned the concert at my home,” Ali laughs. Tipaniya’s calm gravity anchored Ali’s soaring lines; Ali’s grin lit up Tipaniya’s meditative focus. Kabir hovered everywhere. The divine, they agreed, isn’t housed in stone. “The self is all that exists; it is the eternal supreme power,” Tipaniya says. Ali nods: “I am all that exists; my self is the only existence I know.”
By the time Hum Padesi Panchi Re Sadhu arrives, restraint gives way. The audience rise, dance, and laugh, the night loosening its grip. For Ali, the evening proves an old truth anew. “Jugalbandi like this is the essence of Bhakti-Sufi traditions,” he says. Tipaniya puts it simply: “Our traditions are different, but when we sing with love, the differences blur.”