But to create the “sama" you need a responsive audience, which is not there anymore.Īnwer’s son is unwilling to join his father. They also try to explain the difficult words, even at the cost of disrupting the rhythm. It has a grammar to be followed, but who cares," says Ghulam Ali.Īnwer Rehmat Khan, Rehmat Ali’s grandson, says based on the audience they often change simple Urdu words. They don’t know the proper order of presenting a qawwali-like khayal rendition in classical music. “People demand the same from us, they hear some popular composition and expect us to sing the same. The internet is chocabloc with their music, and contact numbers for programmes. In India too, cracking of cheap jokes and double-meaning lyrics are delivered in the name of qawwali by folk singers. As a result, Pakistan has produced about 2,000 qawwals-some of whom have created pop qawwali-of which only about 100 follow the true form. His son Ghulam Ali says music based only on Ishq-e-majazi (love for the creator, God) gets religious sanction in Islam, not Ishq- e-haqiqi (love for creation-man, woman). He also rendered a qawwali Ishq ni darda, for a Punjabi feature film Shahid-e-Mohabbat Boota Singh. Our taleem (training) makes us feel out of place, we miss sophisticated listeners," adds Karamat Faqeer.įor survival, they too have had to adapt. Senior artists were swinging to this music. Our jaws dropped listening to a popular singer duo render from a prestigious platform ‘qayamat aapke dar pe saji baithi hai,’ which would mean devastation courts your doorstep, but no one objected to it. “Even when they imitate, they render compositions of masters with wrong pronunciation, which completely alters the meaning. These singers are gifted with good voice but have never done riyaaz (long hours dedicated to practice), nor learnt the art," says Karamat Faqeer of Mubarakpur Chunga gharana, a disciple of Rehmat Ali Khan. “Learning the art of qawwali takes a lifetime. It would also reflect on the quality of qawwali, more so for Malerkotla qawwals, who were trained in Urdu and Persian. They produced rhythmic music for the masses but lyrics became a casualty to popular appeal.
The vacuum created by the exodus of stalwarts was filled by folk artists. In this culturally impoverished landscape in Punjab, Rehmat Ali’s four sons and grandsons stuck to the tradition.īut they sing before an audience that is largely incapable of appreciating the finer nuances of their musical rendition and the flavour of Urdu. Those left behind gradually migrated to Maharashtra or West Bengal, where opportunities for artistic growth and the presence of a higher quality audience would, they hoped, enrich their art. Stalwarts like Malikzada Mian Mehar Ali Khan, Mian Maula Bakhsh of Talwandi, jugalbandi singers Nazakat Ali and Salamat Ali of Shyamchaurasi, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan of Patiala Kasoor gharana, migrated to Lahore.Įven though he chose to return later, Ghulam Ali Khan lived in Kolkata, not Punjab. Rehmat Ali didn’t leave for Pakistan, like his patron the Nawab, but partition had created a vacuum.
The migration of rebabis, who were traditionally Muslims, to Pakistan also diluted the quality of Gurbani kirtan in Harmandir Saheb (the Golden Temple), Amritsar. Gurbani kirtan (in the courts of Sikh rulers who were the patrons of these gharanas) was done in pure ragas, to the accompaniment of stringed instruments like the rebab, dilruba and taus and pakhawaj for percussion. Since artistes of all the four gharanas were mostly Muslims, they migrated to Pakistan. This includes the decline and gradual disappearance of the four major gharanas of Punjab-Shyamchaurasi, Talwandi, Haryana Dhunga and Kapurthala-where the finest Dhrupad gayaki evolved in the tradition of Gurbani kirtan. His disciples came from all parts of Punjab, which explains why irrespective of where a group hails from, they still like to be known as Malerkotla qawwals.ĭuring the Partition of 1947, the mass exodus of musicians to Pakistan damaged the cultural landscape of Punjab beyond repair.
Since his coming to the court of Malerkotla, to the partition of 1947, Rehmat Ali turned qawwali into a genre of Punjabi music. But in Punjab, it was Rehmat Ali who introduced the genre." “The Khwaja enjoyed the ‘sama’ or atmosphere created by qawwalis, thus it became a tradition at Nizamuddin Aulia’s dargah to make an ‘offering’ of qawwali. It was Aulia’s mentor Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiar Kaki who inculcated the love for qawwali in him," observes Prof Mohammad Rafi, founder secretary of the Urdu Akademi in Malerkotla. Amir Khusrau, the chief disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia, contributed to its popularity (in the 14th century). “Urdu and Farsi (Persian) qawwali was popular in Delhi.