Imagine a wedding where the guest list includes Moinuddin Chishti, Ganjbaksh Hajveri, Shams and Rumi, Kabir, Nanak and Meera! In an inspired flight of fantasy as well as resistance, poet and singer Madan Gopal Singh composed this song as the imagined wedding of Gezu Daraz, a Sufi saint of the Chishti order - popularly known as Bande Nawaz - whose dargah in Gulbarga in Karnataka had been under a dispute. Madan ji explains the context of the song in his own words:
“At some point when Uma Bharti was Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, she had made a call to Hindus to join her on a protest march to Gulbarga, as part of a wider right-wing movement to destroy the dargah of Gesu Daraz, claimed to be the site of an earlier temple. I created this song which describes the wedding of Gesu Daraz, and arriving at this wedding to bless him are all the ancestors of Sufi and Bhakti lineage! I wanted to evoke the resonances and solidarity between a long and wide history of mystics, Bhakti poets and Sufis, some who passed away centuries ago, some yet to be born."
Madan Gopal Singh is a prolific composer, singer, poet, translator, and scholar of cinema, art and cultural history. He has written scripts and composed music for several films. He now performs extensively with the ensemble ‘Chaar Yaar’ (Four Friends), which includes Deepak Castelino, Pritam Ghosal and Gurmeet Singh. Deepak Castelino is an accomplished guitar and banjo player who has been performing for over 30 years. Pritam Ghosal is a masterful classical Sarod player who has trained under Ustad Amjad Ali Khan. Gurmeet Singh is a proficient percussionist who is at ease with all types of rhythm playing. Get in touch with Madan ji at madangopal.singh@gmail.com.
(Click on Settings for subtitles of the song in English & Hindi.)
This is one of a series of uploads for Ajab Shahar, an upcoming webspace dedicated to mystic poem and song, currently under construction by the Kabir Project team (www.ajabshahar.org - www.kabirproject.org)
Song Credits:
Composition, Vocals & Harmonium: Madan Gopal Singh
Guitar: Deepak Castelino
Sarod: Pritam Ghoshal
Tabla: Gurmeet Singh
Translation: Vipul Rikhi
Video Credits:
Cameras: Aarthi Parthasarathy & Smriti Chanchani
Editing: Piyush Kashyap
Sound: Aarthi Parthasarathy
Sub-Titling: Mamta Kandari & Vipul Rikhi
Collection: The Kabir Project
Place: Bangalore, India
Date of Recording: September 2011
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