Kathak danseuse Shovana Narayan and singer Ragini Rainu will be performing at a fusion charity concert at Chinmaya Mission. They spoke to Divya Kaushik about growing interest in the philosophy of sufism and experiments happening in the performing arts to convey its message
It was in the 1970s when sufi wasn’t the most ‘it’ thing that ace danseuse Shovana Narayan did sufi presentations based on inspirations such as Khalil Gibran, Omar Khayyam and Rumi. Narayan says that in Vaishnav philosophy bansuri (flute) is the symbol of lord Krishna and it is described that the instrument can be the medium to help us unite with the almighty. “If you will notice, the message given by saints, be it sufi or Hindu, was the same. It is just that their ways of saying it was different. The ultimate message was to cleanse our souls, to make our spirits pure, free from the vices and alleviate to such a level where we can be one with the God. Through my dance I tried to present this common message. I have been personally touched by the works of greats like Khalil Gibran, Rumi and Omar Khayyam and therefore conveyed their ultimate message to the wider audience through my dance,” explained the Kathak maestro. Narayan will be performing some parts based on Gibran’s works, that she came up with in 1973, and Omar Khayyam’s (1978), at Sufiaana, a fusion charity concert at Chinmaya Mission on April 26. Talking about the concept of sufism and why she is personally drawn to it, she added, “It is said that the word sufi comes from suf, which means wool. The coarse wool is whitish in colour and then we give it different hues to make it suitable for our use. Sufism says that our soul is like that whitish wool which is dyed to different colours. We need to try to get rid of those colours to find purity and it is through that pure soul that we will find the almighty. There were various songs and poems written by the poets to spread this message. It is only that now we have put those songs in various categories and one of them is sufi.”
Thanks to the growing influence of sufi and its reach, that now there are more experiments happening around it. Sufi singer Ragini Rainu says that sufi has come a long way and she was invited to perform at Sankat Mochan Music Festival, touted as one of the biggest classical music festival in Varanasi. “It is not just because sufi is popular today that there are so many experiments happening around it and it is even part of classical evenings. It is because people are now aware of its philosophy and there is an eagerness to understand it deeply through art, music and dance,” said Rainu, who will be performing with Narayan at Chinmaya Mission.
Rainu is the disciple of the santoor maestro and music composer Pandit Bhajan Sopori. She is known for strong base of classical gayaki (vocal system) and her style is embedded with tayari (fluency) and bhava (aesthetics and expressions). Born and brought up in Jammu, she grew up in a musical family and is now taking forward its sufiyana tradition, which is now marked by more original compositions. About her forthcoming performance she informed, “My first song will be by Sindhi sufi poet Sachal Sarmast. In his poem he has used an earthen poet as a metaphor to describe life. The matka or an earthen poet is talking to the almighty about the problems its facing in completing its journey. The next will be by Baba Bulleh Shah, it’s one of his most passionate creations.”