“ Yeshu, Allah aur Krishna, kaun bhagwan hai apna… mala pe mala japna, maal ko andar karna .” These irreverent lines are from a Swarthama song. For those who are into indie music, one needs no introduction to Swarthama; for the uninitiated, it’s a Mysore-based band that has redefined Indian folk fusion. The song, inspired by the writings of the 15th century saint Kabir, talks of how far we have moved from his idea of devotion or bhakti.
It’s an idea that the community-run Kabir Festival consistently tries to rectify, without any fanfare, with its quality line-up of musicians, poets and storytellers who have been inspired by such mystic, spiritual voices. No coincidence then, that one of the opening acts at the 2017 edition of the four-day festival that kicks off today is by Swarthama frontman, Vasu Dixit.
A different music
Dixit has been attending the festival as a member of the audience for a few years now. His wife, singer Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy, has been performing at the fest regularly with vocalist-composer Vedant Bhardwaj. But it’s only this year, as the festival goes into its seventh edition, that Dixit will be performing for the first time, with his passion project — The Vasu Dixit Collective, collaborating with Karthikmani (percussions), Abhilash Lakra (keys), Ashwin Walawalkar (harmonium and melodica) and Arijit Das (guitars).
“I always wanted to play here. It’s a great sense of satisfaction that I have been called,” says Dixit, who calls his collective a significant part of his journey as a musician, adding, “At the same time I am nervous because the kind of music I play with my band Swarthama is very different from the kind that plays at the Kabir fest. Here it is a lot more spiritual.”
The old and the new
The festival, which is spread across four days and 14 venues — from a bookstore in Fort to an amphitheatre in Borivali — will also see the debut by Delhi-based choir group Manzil Mystics, one of the seven bands to have emerged from the NGO Manzil (Neeraj Arya’s Kabir Café, who is also a part of the line-up, is an alumnus), and Kolkata-based Hindustani classical musician Subhomoy Bhattacharya.
Along with these newcomers, the annual celebration will continue to feature veteran performers. Among them, is Padmashri Prahlad Tipanya, a Malwa folk singer and the guiding spirit of the festival. “I really look up to the musicians who perform here: Prahlad Tipaniya ji, Parvathy Baul. The kind of vibe and people this fest brings in is very fulfilling,” says Dixit.
Anurag Hoon of the ten-piece band, Manzil Mystics echoes the above sentiments, when he says, “The way Manzil and Prahlad Tipanyaji introduced Kabir to us, I realised Kabir had answers to everything I was looking for — from success to the purpose of education.”
Bhattacharya will present his set called ‘The Sufi voice in Hindustani Classical Music’. Speaking about the coming together of the two traditions — Sufi and Hindustani classical — in his music, he says, “Sufi and Hindustani classical are inter-related. Sufism is an applied form of Islam. Whereas the evolved form of our classical singing which we present now has its roots in qaul, qalwana that used to be sung in dargahs. [The] musical literature of both the traditions is same.”
In his set, Bhattacharya will mainly focus on the intricacies of Sufi classical like khayal, qaul, qalwana, gul, gulband, naqsh and threevat, a style of classical singing which was invented by Hazrat Amir Khusro who used to sing in the darbar of Nizamuddin Auliya. “These are a rarity in Sufi tradition now. You don’t get to sing it everywhere, definitely not on commercial stages,” he says.
The last time Bhattacharya sang something like this was with his late mentor and doyen of Gwalior gharana, Padmabhushan Ustad Abdul Rashid Khan Saheb, whom he fondly calls Baba, at Aga Khan Trust’s Jashn-e-Khusrau. It was well-received and he hopes to get similar reactions at Kabir Festival too.
Secular to the core
Clearly, though named after Kabir, the festival doesn’t want to restrict itself. Kabir is present more in the spiritual sense than literal. “Especially for this fest, I have been asked to consider Puranadaradasa and Basavanna (saint poets of the Bhakti movement from Karnataka),” says Dixit. Similarly, Bhattacharya tells us how Sufism and Kabir aren’t entirely different. “Both are essentially about bhakti. The idea is to bring people together irrespective of their caste and creed, and that is the religion of music,” he says.
Manzil Mystics fuses Kabir dohas (couplets) into folk songs. And they follow what they preach. “We make sure we sit together for three hours every week and talk. That’s how we also come up with our songs. We ask introspective questions to each other. And we find answers to those questions in Kabir dohas,” says Hoon who is one of the eight vocalists in the band. Five other members are at the sixth stage of classical singing training; one of their two guitarists is at the eighth grade of the course; and their djembe player is at fifth grade of percussion learning.
The renditions of ‘Kesariya Balam’ and ‘Vaari Jaaun Re’ by Manzil Mystics are much loved by their audience, and the band will have new versions of these songs especially for the festival. Incidentally, this is also their first tour of Mumbai. “We are expecting a good audience who would come to listen to Kabir and not [hoping it to be] just a random gig,” Hoon says.
New frontiers
Dixit, who mostly performs in front of college crowd and music festivals like NH7 Weekender, knows what to expect. “The audience who would come [here] already know what they are in for. They are not here to hangout or have a drink or take a selfie, wear that band and put on [a] Facebook [status update saying], ‘I was here at this fest’,” he says. Which is why, Dixit is trying to mellow down his sound for the festival, by cutting on drums, because, he continues, “People here come to listen to what you have to say and what it means, and not just jump to beats. Of course, at Mukhtiyar Ali and Prahalad ji’s performances, people do dance but they dance in surrender.”
Bhattacharya will also sing songs from his maiden solo album released last year, Rasan Geet, which had compositions by Ustad Abdul Rashid Khan. “Baba’s two major favourites were Khusro and Kabir, and it reflects in his compositions,” he shares.
As for Manzil Mystics, they find Kabir in their social-work done through their NGO. All their songs resonate with social consciousness. In the past, they’ve even put the Preamble of the Constitution to tune, for which they were honoured by the Election Commission of India. “When this Gurgaon NGO ‘We, The People’ told us that every first page of NCERT textbook is the Preamble, I was so shocked that I didn’t know it and I felt very bad that I didn’t even know its significance. And there were many like me. So, [composing the Preamble] was for ourselves first, then for the nation,” recalls Hoon. “Through the Preamble we are enabling people to talk about the Constitution and our legal literacy. Our Constitution, which talks about equality and empathy, has a solution to all the social problems. A modern Kabir would talk about the constitution.” Touche!
The Kabir Festival 2017 starts today from 7 p.m. at several venues; all events are free. See thekabirfest.com for details
