HYDERABAD: It was well beyond 10 pm at CCRT, Madhapur, where Rooh, the muscial troupe of Sufi musician Dhruv Sangari, at its classical best kept the spirits of the limited audience at Krishnakriti 2016 high. The earthiness of Dhruv's voice in the popular number Damadam Mast Kalandar, (one they had ended the evening with) left the audience craving for more. The singer, so consumed by the warmth around, even took time to compliment the bount of fresh air and wind that greeted the venue.
“In comparison to Delhi, the air in Hyderabad feels purer. The music-loving crowd here always has really nice things to say and appreciate. It's a place that represents the country's cultural diversity like no other,” Dhruv's full of love for the city where he was firstly fascinated by Qawwali in a performance by Warsi brothers.
There's an indirect Hyderabadi connection through which Dhruv Sangari's music career took a Sufi-istic turn. His mom's friend Vidya Rao (mother of actress Aditi Rao) from the city, realised Dhruv's sing-worthy voice at the age of seven had to channel more depths.
Dhruv then got introduced to Shahana Bannerjee, with whom he'd learnt the basics of Sufi music.
When he was 11, another city connect was ensured through his tabla guru in Delhi, whose home town happened to be Hyderabad. Honing himself under a lot of masters, he decided to do music full time at the age of 17. “I'm also called Bilal Chishty, for I became involved with the Chishty silsila of Ajmer,” he reminds.
Very academically involved and qualified in Sufism, Dhruv is of an opinion that ethnology as a subject needs to get out of its love for demagogues and anything larger than life. “Most of the research on Sufi in the country barely has an engagement with our culture. There's no link between a scholar and a practitioner. Preserving the culture for posterity is as important as giving a standing ovation to a performance,” the musician states.
The fact that the Sufi crowd is always welcome to widen its essence to many untapped quarters is one reason, they are fine with its commercialisation in films. “Any composition with the words, maula, ishq, karam is being thought as Sufi for a crowd that's unabashedly consumeristic. The musicality of Kun Faya Kun, Khwaja Mere Khwaja is questionable, but there's every chance that it'll tap the sub-conscious side of a music lover to understand it better. It is a more user-friendly medium to spread messages of love, peace and humanity of Sufi,” Dhruv articulates, saying even if the context is a problem, that the trend is positive enough.
