It has been a couple of days since the Wadali Brothers — famed Sufi singers Puranchand and Pyarelal Wadali — sang for Delhiites on the occasion of Eid. But every morning as one wakes up, the air still seems to ring with their ecstatic songs that had the Siri Fort auditorium in raptures. “Tera naam naam, tera naam naam naam…” The sense of their musical message is hard to miss. You who have so many names…we have built a temple here, a mosque there, a church there…and we barricade ourselves…what have we done? Wiser than us humans is the bird, thatflies frommosque to temple without prejudice…”
It is not just what they sing. It is their way, the way of the wayfarer one might say. They live some, they learn some, they share some and they laugh some.
The brothers, considered disciples of the eminent classical vocalist late Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, bring the power of a classical vocal approach to the lyrics of the greatest saint poets of India — Bulle Shah, Kabir, Amir Khusro, Surdas…the list is long and holistic. But if the songs soar on the wings of their robust aakaar , the words have a clarity born of their own experience, lit up with the wisdom of village folk who live by the earth.
For many, a performance means a show, in which you demonstrate your strong points and camouflage the weak ones. For the Wadalis, though, a performance is just an extension of something they do every day: sing of the greatness of the one supreme being, called the Beloved by the Sufis, Ram by some and Allah by others. The Beloved has as many names as there are people to worship, and the brothers from the village of Guru ki Wadali in Punjab are more than happy to sing them all.
In the greenroom prior to the programme, organised by FM channel Radio One as part of its One Delhi One Music series, the air is heavy with expectation. But the singers and their entourage of young singers and instrumentalists are nowhere in sight. Arriving a good hour-and-a-half after they were expected, they are neither harried nor apologetic, rather wreathed in smiles. Do they plan their concerts beforehand, one wonders. “We never prepare beforehand,” affirms the younger brother, Pyarelal. “When we go on stage, we gauge the mood of the audience and start singing. If the audience is the kind that wants to dance and jive, what would be the point of singing a slow song?”
That makes sense. But it would seem today's audiences mostly do want to jive, since those who have the stillness of mind and patience to listen to long alaps and words of renunciates are in the minority. How then can an artiste of today reconcile the world of the spirit to which classical music takes one, with the demands of the material world? At the mention of “today”, Pyarelal states, “Today's artistes are not interested in learning. They bring out a cassette first and start learning music later. One has to learn for at least 10-15 years and then come out to perform.”
That brings him to the point that music today has become a visual rather than an aural medium. “There is no kaan ras (that which pleases the ears) these days. There is only aankh ras (that which caters to the visual senses). There are pretty girls dancing and everyone is looking at the girls, and no one thinks about the song.” That is why the brothers prefer the medium of the radio, which gives pre-eminence to the voice.
There is bhakti (devotion) in this kaan ras , he adds, and that is why they are very pleased to perform for “One Radio.”
He adds that he and Puranchandji consider the medium as “Khuda ka ghar.” It is part of musical history that All India Radio first brought them to prominence. “Only then we came to television,” says Pyarelal, remarking that the duo therefore never refuses an invitation to sing that emanates from a radio channel. “Radio is what has made us,” he says happily.
Today's FM channels with husky voiced radio jockeys (Radio One calls them music jocks) are quite different from the staid and sober announcers of All India Radio. Expectedly, their audiences will differ. Does the level of musical or literary understanding affect the brothers' performance? “ Koi farq ni padta (It makes no difference to us),” says Pyarelal. “We sing for our Gharib Nawaz (as Khwaja Moinuddin Hasan Chishty, their spiritual mentor is popularly known). We have but to sing with honesty.”
In an era of packaging, their crystal clear honesty seems to be their hallmark. Like when Puranchandji mentions, “I am 73 now, but I have never seen a film. I never wanted to sing in films either, although now they have made us do that too ( ab to bahutfilmon mein bhi gawaaya diya ).” And when the assembled media asks him whether he found that tough, he says, “The only tough part was memorising the lyrics, as we are not educated.”
Later, on stage they sing, “Na namaaz aati hai, na wuzu aati hai, sajda kar leta hoon jab saamne too aata hai (I don't know how to read the scriptures, I don't know the rituals; but when You appear before me, I prostrate myself.) “ Pyarelal says into the mike, “This applies to the two of us. We didn't go to school.”
In a world where great artistes are showered with honorary academic degrees and flaunt the “Dr” before their name, here are doctors of the soul.
