 Good afternoon everybody and a very warm welcome to this multi-lingual session where we have Vipul Rikki doing the first part. And then the second part we will have other singers joining from a different part of the world. And we also have panel speakers who will be joining from different part of the world. So when I say good afternoon I also want to welcome everybody from different parts of the world with saying good evening and good morning as well. So this multi-lingual session in two parts brings into focus the value of oral tradition, folk tunes and mystic poetry in the subcontinent. Contributing to the broad canvas of world music. We will discuss about Sufism in the first part which originated in Baghdad, Iraq, and has produced a large body of multilingual poetry in Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, Persian, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Sindhi, Punjabi, and other regional languages and we will see some of those influences as well. And that has been the esoteric philosophical base for engaging with Islam in the world. The songs of Kabir about 1440 to 1518, and other bhakti and Sufi saints, Sufi poets from India, sharpened the definition of the self through both experience and imagination. These equality and diversity, as opposed to certain constructed identities based on, for example, the legalities of Islam, which is just as important but we are trying to show the different strands of expressing the other religious sides as well. So why decolonization and why bring this kind of session to a festival of decolonization of knowledge. Before we kind of get into any discussion, I want to also state that you know so as has an established reputation of engaging with non Western music through ethnomusicological inquiries, hosting different practitioners field research, we also have world music festivals, among various other cultural and artistic events. The festival specifically has opened the door to question modes of inquiry within disciplines and resulting perspectives, allowing the freedom to question our own sense of the research problems, and why some ideas continue to occupy our minds, both within, as well as outside the academia. So outreach is definitely a very important aspect of this festival as well. And by focusing on the lasting influence of Sufi music, this session, therefore, decolonizes certain constructed identities that are based on religion, gender and nation. We all know that these kind of questions stem from the colonial legacy of rule and divide. The globalization of Sufi music is also a very recent trend, but it requires an understanding of the local language meanings in lyrics, and the cultural product of what we are going to see today. As an expression of adaptation through regional language and local artistic practices and experience. So the focus is on the musician, the environs of the music production, its expression and demonstration. So there is liberty to engage in multilingual dialogues, which is also the headline of this session today. And we will also see how different languages, different dialects even help to shape some understandings that are not quite studied in mainstream courses or modules related to religion and religious practices. So the other thing that multilingualism does, or it allows us for practical purposes is the freedom of expression and thought with some degree of translation that I have to do for the larger audience and explain some of the songs we haven't really attempted to do. Subtitling songs for the sessions. The first one, of course, people is going to engage with a lot of explanations, I believe, because he's also a very established translator. So we have that advantage for the second session I'm relying more on the discussion side, and what artists themselves have to say about their songs and their experience of doing those songs as well. So we will begin with some established verses of Kabir and his journey from Bippu Ricky and go on to exploring the impact of the koal revisiting the critical question of the colonial legacy of of communism in South Asian borderlands, which is also a question of the present moment. It's a great pleasure to introduce and welcome Bippu Ricky, who is a singer, poet, storyteller and translator immersed in the oral traditions of Kabir and other bhakti and Sufi poets for over a decade. And he brings equal emphasis to the insightful poetry and folk tunes revered by Hindus and Muslims. He's also known for his Kabir project that involves writing, translation, research, curation, and the creation of a vast digital archive called Ajab Sheher. And Bippu has also written extensively novels, translations dealing with oral traditions. So that too, I want to ask Bippu to take over. Over to you, Bippu. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Sanjupta, for that very warm introduction. And I'm delighted to be part of the Suez Festival of Ideas and to contribute the verses and philosophy and the tradition of Kabir, really, because Kabir, as you said, was a 15th century poet. But since his time, Kabir has become much larger than that person who lived in Varanasi in North India in the 15th century, because Kabir himself did not read or write. He was a working class man. He was a lower caste man. He was a weaver. And so he was someone who was very much of the people. He was very much subaltern. He lived a very normal life with his family, with work to do, with kids to feed and so on. And at the same time, he sang these songs. He did not write them because he did not know how to read or write, because literacy was colonized by the upper castes. And then what has happened since that time is that these verses have just radiated out from Varanasi and spread all over the subcontinent, going as far as Bengal and going as far as Pakistan on the other side. And they are sung now by many people. And what is more, people now contribute to this tradition. So, actively, people write songs and they can say at the end of the song, and if the tradition accepts this song, it can become a Kabir song. And so Kabir has become an icon that the people of this land have adopted for themselves. Kabir becomes a statement of truth. He is a symbol of a statement of truth. And everyone has a right to participate in this tradition. So this tradition very much belongs to the people. And it's an ever-growing tradition of songs. And so, for this session around multilingualism, I want to bring some songs from different parts of the land. I want to sing in Malvi. I will start with a song in Malvi, a dialect of Hindi from Central India, Madhya Pradesh. And I will sing from Gujarat, from Rajasthan. I will sing in Urdu. And if we still have time, I will sing a Baal song in Bengali. So, all these languages and all these ideas in the Bhakti and Sufi tradition in this land, in our vast land, sort of communicate with each other. They talk to each other. And as you will see through the songs, these ideas are constantly speaking to each other. And they relate the social, the reality of religious fundamentalism or communalism or caste hierarchy or gender oppression to a much larger question of the self, what is my place in the world and what is really my life about. And how these two interact at the same time. One is not ignored. Neither one is ignored in favor of the other. So let me begin with a song from a poet in the Kabir tradition called Gulabidas. And this song is from Malva. So it's in Malvi from Madhya Pradesh. And it invites you into a new country, a strange country. It says, tamto aau hamara des, come to my country, come to my land. It's an invitation. I will show you the city of feeling. I will show you the city of love. So if you want to see the city of feeling and the city of love, come into my country, come into my land. And then in a series of verses he beautifully describes the great beauty of the world and yet the fragility and the impermanence of everything. How everything is constantly passing away. So he says, kachi kali kachnar kari gar kaya ajab bani. The kachnar flower is very delicate, very fragile and the body is like that. It blooms for a certain period and then it fades away and it's gone. The golden color of the wasp so beautiful. It shines in the sunlight but at the moment of death it fades. It goes away. So there is this great beauty at the same time there is the fact of death, of passing, of impermanence, ephemerality. Matkarje kaya ro hankar kaya thari caam se bani. Don't be so proud of this body, this flesh because in the end it's just leather. And in the end he says, gave gulabidas bhajan se maari kaya sudri. Gulabidas the poet says, bhajan has a dual meaning in the language. Bhajan means song which I will sing for you but it also means meditation to remember the divine in your own self, in your own breath, in your own body. So he says this practice of singing the divine has improved me, has made me better. Janame so dahi pade, janame so maari jaan. Whatever blooms has to fade, whatever is built falls apart and whatever is born has to die. Tamto aau haa maa raho desh bhaat aidam thane baav nagri. Matkarje kaya ro hankar kaya thari caam se bani. Tamto aau haa maa raho desh bhaat aidam thane baav nagri. So that song was from Malwa like I said and it speaks about impermanence. And the next song that I will share with you is from Kachh Gujarat, which is the extreme western part of India bordering Pakistan, close to Sindh. And this song also begins with the same idea that we must reckon with impermanence. So it says chun chun mati mehel banaya murakh kaya ghar mera. Laying brick upon brick you built a great house. And then the fool says it's my house. Na ghar mera na ghar tera hai jagat mein phera. It's not my house. It's not your house. It's no one's house. This world is a merry-go-round. Things are constantly changing hands. You don't own anything. You can't keep anything. Khak mein khap jaana re bandha, mati se mil jaana, thoda karo abhimaan ek din pavan saoor jaan. One day you will return to dust. Don't be so proud. Don't be so arrogant. You will be blown away like the dust. So in a sense these poets, why do they stress on the idea of impermanence so much? And why do they stress not taking ourselves so seriously, not being proud, arrogant? Why is this important? It's also important so that we don't become entrenched in our identities. I'm a Hindu. I'm a Muslim. I'm this. I'm a man. I'm a woman. I'm upper caste. I'm lower caste. When you become entrenched in these identities then all the fundamentalism begins. So they are constantly trying to point out to us to go beyond these identities. To arrive at something which is more distilled, which is more you, which is more yours, even more than this. He says, it's a song by Kabir. He says, jada pero, jeena pero, pero malmal sacha, rupya paaval, masru pero, toi marankeri asa. Whether you wear coarse cloth or you wear very fine cloth or you wear the finest silks. It doesn't make any difference. In the end you have to die. Sona pero, rupa pero, pero hirla sacha, var var motida pero, toi marankeri asa. You can wear all the gold in the world, all the silver, all the pearls in the jewelry. It doesn't matter. It makes no difference because in the end you still have to go. In the end he says, ik din jio, do din jio, jio baras pachasah, kahe kabir suno bahisado, toi marankeri asa. You may live for one day or two days or a long time. It makes no difference. In the end you have to come to the same thing. And the idea is also to prepare us, to prepare us for death, to prepare ourselves for death. And death is an important theme in Sufi poetry and in Kabir's poetry. So this song I learned from a folk singer in Kachh, Gujarat. And the first song was from Malwa. Arh khoda karo abhi mani kde pawansa urjana. Arh nahi karo abhi mani kde pawansa urjana. Jada pero jeena pero pero mal mal sacha. Arh jada re pero jeena re pero mal mal sacha. Arh rupya pawal masru pero toi marankeri asa. Arh rupya pawal masru pero toi marankeri asa. Khak me khap jana re bandha mati se mil jana. Arh khoda karo abhi mani kde pawansa urjana. Arh nahi karo abhi mani kde pawansa urjana. Na pero rupya la sacha. Arh sona re pero rupya irya sacha. Arh var var mo tida peti se mil jana. Arh nusa urjana nusa urjana. Arh bars pachasa. Arh ik din ji o do din bars pachasa. Arh kahit kabira suno bhai sa do toi marankeri asa. Arh bhanat kabira suno mera sa do toi marankeri asa. Khak me khap jana re bandha mati se mil jana. Pawansa urjana. Arh nusa urjana. So after we have confronted the fact of death, we can come into this other country that the first song was talking about. It was inviting us to the poet's country, come into my land, come into my country. What is this country? So the next song which is from Rajasthan, from Gujarat we go to Rajasthan and this song is in Marwadi which is the local dialect in Rajasthan. And this song talks about this country, Kabir's country. And what is Kabir's country like? It says, Amare re desme nahi dhara nahi gagana nahi koi pavan na paani. In my land, there is no earth nor sky, there is no wind nor water. Amare re desme nahi chanda nahi suraj nahi koi navlakthara. In my land, there is no sun, no moon, nor the 9 billion stars. Amare re desme nahi brahma nahi vishnu nahi koi shankar deva. In my land, there is no Brahma, no Vishnu, no Shiva, all these different gods, different religions, different sects. So this land is beyond all these divisions, separations which cause all the human conflict that we experience in our lives. And when he calls us into this land, he is inviting us into a dimension which is beyond these divisions, separations and conflicts. And the message of Kabir and the Sufis is constantly that this dimension is within us. We don't have to look for it somewhere else, in a temple or in a mosque or in any holy book or in any kind of dogma or orthodoxy. Because this other dimension can be accessed right here, in our own bodies. In the end he says, Manjale re Manjale ik Sant jaai ponchiya. Kabir Sant chadyo re nirvaan. Step by step, a true seeker arrives at her destination. Kabir, who is a true seeker, arrived at the station of Nirvana, at the station of liberation. So these poets say when you arrive into this dimension, that is when you can really taste the true taste of love. So they begin to talk about love only when you come here, not earlier. Love is a very high state according to these poets. So the next song, I think I will sing one more song and then I will take some questions if there are any questions after this song. So after Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan, three different dialects, I want to go to Punjab and sing in Punjabi. And this song is by a Sufi poet called Bulisha, Baba Bulisha, who is in the same tradition as Kabir and all the other bhakti and Sufi poets. And this song talks about love. And there is a short story about this song. So I will first share the story and then I will sing the song for you. So in the Bulisha was a Sayyad, which means he was a descendant, his family was a descendant from the Prophet himself. And so they are considered high. So you still have this high and low, even though in Islam you're not supposed to have all these things. So he was a high caste person. But as he grew up, he became very interested in the Sufi path and he met his murshid, his guru, Shah Inayat. And Shah Inayat was from a lower caste. So when Bulisha started to hang out with Shah Inayat, his family objected, why do you have to go to? This person is from a low family. You should find someone else and so on. But Bulisha said, no, I don't care about these things. He is my guru. He is my murshid and I am devoted to him. So Bulisha was very always, obviously, reverential to his guru. But caste is a strange thing. So Shah Inayat saw Bulisha behaving badly with a fellow disciple from a lower caste. And when Shah Inayat saw this, he said, you are not fit to be my disciple. He said to Bulisha, because you still have this arrogance of caste in you. You still have this pride in you of your caste. And so you are no longer my disciple. Go away. I disown you. So Bulisha is banished from Shah Inayat's silsila. And so Bulisha is disconsolate. He realizes his mistake and then he thinks, what must I do to win back the trust of my guru? So he knows that Shah Inayat really used to sing, song and dance. He used to go and watch singing and dancing. So he goes to the lady who performs for Shah Inayat and he says, will you be my guru? Will you take me as your disciple? I want to learn how to sing and how to dance from you. So she accepts him as her disciple. And so Bulisha for many months he trains under her learning how to sing and dance so as to please his master. And when his teacher, the dancer, she says that now you are ready to perform. Shah Inayat arrives. He doesn't know Bulisha is going to perform for him and Bulisha sings and dances for Shah Inayat. And Shah Inayat is pleased because he says, okay, now you have let go of your pride. You have let go of your arrogance. You have let go of yourself. So this song relates to the story and in this song Bulisha says, Your love has made me dance like mad. He says, come quickly o healer, o doctor, he calls him a healer, otherwise I will die. Then he says, Your love has filled my heart. Your love has made a home in my heart. And this cup of poison, I drank of my own accord. What is the cup of poison? Love is the cup of poison because it destroys you. It destroys your sense of self, your sense of identity. You go beyond it. Then he says, In the forest of this love, a peacock calls out. And more beautiful than Kaaba or Kibla or any holy site for me is the site of my worship, my beloved, my Guru. And he says, he wounded me and now he doesn't even ask about me. So that is the love. Love is cruel. The beloved wounds you and then he goes away. Chhup gaya ve suraj bahar re gayi lali, ve mein sadh ke hoa, de ve murje ve khali. Peera mein pul gayi ya tere naal nahi. It's as if the sun has set, my Guru has gone. And only the last remaining redness remains. I will give up my life to get just one glimpse of him. It was my mistake. I forgot you. I forgot what you taught me. Bulleh Shah says. Sanjukta, are you there? If there are any questions, I am happy to take them. Yeah, I think we have some interesting questions already. People are very curious about how you remember languages, but I'm just going to. I think there was one question earlier, which I kind of answered thinking it was quite urgent. There's one question related to, you know, the person cannot understand the meanings of the words. But I explained that many of this you're actually explaining, but not probably every word, but the meaning of the song is definitely coming out from your explanations. And you also explain the philosophical base of those songs. So one question from Kevin Webb, which is what age he started to perform and who were your teachers or gurus and you, I would add that you wanted to say something about your influences that would help. There's an anonymous attendee who's got an interesting question here. Is this form of spirituality and outlook of equalization reflected in playing and hearing this music? Something that was perceived as an act of dissidence at the time. I believe he's talking about the historical time, but obviously there's something you can comment on, you know, whether it's an act of dissidence in the past and present. So are you family also musician? I mean, it's up to you if you want to take these questions now or maybe a bit later. No, sure, I'm happy to take them now. Just to three that there's more. It seems so it's great as gotten so many questions. Yeah. Let me answer these three briefly and I'm even happy to take more. Personally, no, my family are not musicians. I myself am not trained as a musician. I always like to sing, but when I came into contact with the folk tradition of Kabir. So many of us in India in the cities grow up without knowing anything about the folk Kabir, which is sunk. And that's the original form of Kabir's communication because as I said, he did not read or write. He sang and his songs have traveled and they have survived for over 500 years because people sing them. Not necessarily because they are written down, but because they are given from body to body. So it's an embodied tradition. And this tradition is quite old in many parts of India. It's still alive in the villages in the rural parts. And when I first heard it, I was quite blown away. And that was the beginning of the journey in 2008 for me to engage with this tradition. And I started to sing and perform only in 2012. So not very long ago or not since a young age. And my teachers have been, Rehlaat Tepanya is a very well known folk singer from Madhya Pradesh. He has traveled around the world. He has performed around the world. And now this folk tradition has become more mainstream. And people are recognizing it in the cities and even in the West and so on. And so he was one of my primary teachers, Shabnam Virmani who is a filmmaker and the founder of the Kabir project. She is the director of the Kabir project. So I had the good fortune to work with her for a long time. And we worked on books together. We worked on a huge web archive together of these songs with translations. And she also, like me, started to sing when she came in contact with the folk tradition. And then she was my teacher. I was learning from her. And the other influences were, like I said, different musicians from different parts of the country. Mahesha Ramji from Rajasthan. He embodies a different folk tradition which is from Rajasthan. Muralalaji from Gujarat. So these are all folk singers. And they have all been very influential on me personally. But the folk tradition is much wider there, many more singers. As to the second question which you asked, Sanjuta, yes, it is an act of dissent. It is an act of dissidence in some sense because especially at that time and even now in many places, it's a tradition that has belonged to the lower caste in some sense because, I mean, Kabir himself was a low caste person, Ravidas. So many of these same poets have been low caste people. And because they were not allowed to go into temples, they said something quite revolutionary at that time and even now. He said, you don't need to go into the temple because your body is your own temple. And you don't need to go and worship in front of some god or an idol or you don't need to go to the mosque and bow because whatever you are looking for, that divinity, that spark of light is right here in you. And so your entire practice is here with your own self and the self becomes the site of this radical transformation and radical empowerment. It's a greatly empowering tradition. It empowers you because, I mean, for example, just to quote one song of Kabir. It's a remarkable song, but he says, Yaghat Bhihtar Baag Bagiche Yahime Sirjan Hara. In this body, endless gardens. And the creator of these gardens also in this body. All the seven oceans are contained in this body. All the nine billion stars are contained in this body. So the entire universe, this body is the site of the entire universe and you can experience this in your own body. And so this is a greatly empowering tradition and the music itself also. So like someone said, the music also is a great equalizing influence because everyone sings in the satsang. When you get together in the village and sit under a tree at night after the day's work is done, you've done your farming, you've done your weaving or whatever it is. At night, it is cool in the days are usually hot in India and it's cool at night and you sit under the tree or in the village square and everyone participates. So everyone is singing, everyone is playing, someone is playing the Manjeera, someone is playing Khartal, someone is playing Tambura. All the people know the song, so everyone is singing together. It's not about being able to sing in a great classical manner, not at all. The spirit of the song catches you and then you become one body of people who are transformed by the song. So it is all these things that were mentioned. Yes. Yeah, I mean, this is one thing that I'm glad you mentioned because this is one thing I was thinking when I thought of bringing you in is the way people sit around the musician now. So the interaction has got absolutely no hierarchy in these kind of spaces where even now that you go to large festivals, you have a backdrop of the palace, the lit up palace. You know now Sufi music is going to the palace ambience even, but even then I think you're using the courtyard space quite a lot where people are sitting around. And it's whether it's clapping or other gestures because these are the things we want to bring in looking at the more ethnographic details of how the music is being practiced now. And I notice that even some of them are getting bringing their own instruments to join in as if even if it's a staged performance, you are allowing that flexibility to happen that you kind of part of that stage. So even if there is a hierarchy where not quite hierarchy but people are sitting in different steps. They are quite close to the musician, not like a stage stage. So I just feel that the way it's all done now is to send this message out as well. I'm going to look at some other questions, which is how do you remember all the different languages and so many songs of different genre. I think this is one question that is going to come up because you know you're singing in different languages without a script in front of you. So whether that's oral tradition or the way you memorize things, or you believe in the memory of oral tradition. That's another thing that is something we'd like to know, but I'll take one more point here. I want to explain many male Sufis, assuming feminine form, while talking to their masters. Amir Kusru talks about his marriage to Nizamuddin, Nanak talks about his transformation from Duhagan to Suhagan. That's Hussein Jasani, who is asked the second question, and our Pat, who's asked about different language question. Quickly we don't have much time, I think. So how do I remember different languages? It's by singing. So sometimes I do keep the words in front of me because a song that I've not been singing for a long time, I will forget it. But a song that I've been singing very often it enters my body. And it's true for all the singers, all the singers say this. And a quick anecdote to one of the folk singers told me that the generation which did not read or write, they remembered over a hundred songs without needing any script. They didn't have any script anyway. And the generation then which started to read and write and wrote down all the songs, they couldn't remember half the songs because then they were relying on the script in front of them. So this is part of the orality and the embodiment that you embody the song. The song inhabits your body. And then even while you're singing it, you remember it. Okay, this follows this and so on. So that's a quick answer to the first one. And a quick answer to the second one is it's actually a very big point. It will take a longer time to explain but very quickly in a minute. The main point is that the male ego is held to be higher than the female ego because of traditional gender hierarchies that have been imposed since centuries. So because the gender hierarchy already exists socially and culturally, the male tends to take himself very seriously. These are broad generalizations, obviously. And so for a male seeker to climb down from his perch, to climb down from his high so-called station of identity, pride, arrogance, so on, it takes the female form in order to embody humility. And also the second point, the ability to feel and love, because from men, the ability to feel and love was sort of cast aside, cut away from men. So men have not been traditionally allowed to feel. They are allowed to intellectualize, they are allowed to go out and do things and so on. I'm talking traditionally what has happened. And so the ability to feel, the ability to surrender, the ability to love, the ability to give yourself. These were traditionally held to be feminine virtues. And so the spiritual path is very much a feminine path in that sense. And so they say in the tradition that it's easier for a female seeker than for a male seeker in this path. Yeah, we are, we are coming close to finishing this session, which is very unfortunate. I think there is one more question that is really related to how can we learn from you. And there's another question of CD perhaps for compilation, I mean, you're not short of CDs anyone can find you and buy stuff and contact you for learning. Is there a final question? I think we are nearly towards the end of the question. Oh, okay. Oh, sorry, there's there are two more questions, it seems nine questions. I mean, we are really running short of time now, but we can take a few more because I think Ricky can spend two or three minutes. There's a comment from Naomi. I know her she's a scholar herself on Tagore. And could you please comment on Robin Donath Tagore. Of course, I know that Tagore was influenced by bowel music in a big way and he tried to mainstream that, but I won't be answering for you and truly transformative lyrics. Thank you. The last question that we can take. I'm sure the lyrics are still transforming, but your final comments. Yes. Well, on Tagore, Tagore was the first to translate Kabir into English. So 100 songs of Kabir were translated by Tagore. That's the first English translation. So he was very familiar with Kabir and also the bowel masters, the bowel songs from Bengal and his own Robin Rosham Geet and his own poetry, especially Gitanjali. I mean, I've only read it in English, but the spirit is exactly the same. The spirit of seeking this other dimension, which paradoxically lies within us. And yet it's other to us. We remain alienated from it. I find that very alive in Tagore and he speaks with that same voice of, you know, a larger pursuit, a larger quest, which all these poets are looking for. And I mean, of course, my CD CDs are online songs are online. There's a website ishkfakiri.com where the songs are available for free. So you can download them and you can find the words and translations. And I do monthly sessions to teach songs. Yeah, I just wondered if you wanted to say anything about Ajab Sheher. Is that an evolving project as a sort of developing as you travel or your own journeys, something like that because I think she's got that mobile message now as well. Yes, Ajab Sheher is a has been a huge project over over a decade long project because enrolled lot of travel in different parts of India and some in Pakistan. Documenting a lot of Bhakti Sufi music, some ball music from Parvati Baal also, and then editing it, you know, making videos that transcribing transliterating translating and writing about this philosophy. So if you go to Ajab Sheher.com, you will find a lot of these songs in the original singers voices, the folk singers voices, along with translations and write ups by me. On the different philosophical underpinnings of these songs, the different ideas and concepts and Ajab Sheher now is more or less only the final drops are left of we have so much documentation that we stop documenting at some point, because the tradition is endless. And more songs, but we are just putting out the remaining already edited songs that we have. Well thank you Ricky I mean you have opened up so many different ways of continuing this conversation. Firstly, the whole point about bringing the discussion back to the body, the body as the site for transmitting the knowledge of the Sufi practitioners. And that is something we will visit now in the next session where we have kawali as a product where the discussion is really about you know ritual and body and dance, coming together in music. So thank you for that and of course this program was part, you know partly to do with decolonizing knowledge, but the focus was also about language so you did bring out the whole issue of translation, which itself becomes complex when the translator is able to move so much between oral tradition and print and, you know, create a large translation project as you have created, but that's for another time. And I want to thank you again for joining us and I hope to see you for another session so thank you. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. We will try and connect now with other participants who are going to come for the second session. We are going to go to really revisit the panel and see if our panelists have arrived because they're trying to join from Bangladesh and I need to be able to connect to the panel. I can see other panelists if we can bring the other panelists as Professor Jaffer who is with us. Do we have other singers waiting to join from among the participants. I can see Hanan Hussaini who is going to join the panel for another round. So I'm going to have to promote him to being a panelist it's the way he's joined. Is it Arman? He's got to be also promoted to panellist. I've asked Sajjad to join as well. So if you can join as panellists please. I try to contact them from here. Yes, it's just maybe they just decided to join as panellists waiting to be promoted. Sorry they joined as participants rather than panellists. Are there only two at the moment? I'm unable to find Arman Khan. I think Arman is there. Yeah, Arman is there but Arman from India. Yeah, is he there? Has he actually joined the panel is what I'm trying to see. Arman is there. Arman from Bangladesh is there. Yes. I think Hanan Hussaini is also coming. Yeah, I've invited him to join the panel. Can the tech team see please if anybody is waiting or has anyone else joined the panel already? Hanan Hussaini is to join. He is coming. Okay, but what about Arman Fakir? He's not here still. Arman Fakir, I see he's there in the panel. Arman is here. No, no, that's Arman from Bangladesh. I'm talking about Arman Fakir from India. Is he here? I see Sajja Hussain. Sajja Hussain Arman of Bangladesh is in the panel. He's there. Yes, I know I can see him. I'm wondering if someone has joined with a different name, which can be an issue here. Hanan Hussaini from Bangladesh. I think he is also trying to join. Okay, I think without sort of we can we can I mean I was hoping that Arman Fakir is going to join but I've just received a message and I don't see any harm in stating although I would have liked him to speak rather. Rather than me speaking. He's got a very bad flu. And I've got just a message now. So his son is trying to help him to join and maybe he will join a bit later. But that's not stopping us from continuing our discussion. So the next part of the session will be about decolonizing Bengal. And we already had a session on Sufi music, but this particular part of the discussion is how it is integrated with local culture. We know that Sufi poetry has been the source for the genre of Sufi music, lyrics in folk and Kawali as cultural products of the philosophic verses. I was, the way I structured it is that you know the voice of the artist should also be the voice of how he experiences the Kawali himself, and he's able to explain that. So the attempt here wasn't to explain all the words myself but to have Arman Fakir come here and explain his own emotions with his own music. But fortunately we have Professor MD Jaffer here with us. And he is very well versed in both Bengali and other regional languages from Chittagong, which is reflective of another tradition of the Kawal that we are going to present here from the Mej Vandari tradition. And we also have Sajat Hussain Arman, who is one of the singers, who can also tell us about how he connects with the songs. So the point here is that we wanted to look at the relatively lesser known, oh there is. Thank you. Yeah, we can see how, you know, if we can, if we can sort of get him to speak a bit later maybe we can run the music now. So, I just wanted to say that the focus is also here on vernacular language and the anti-communal lineages of folk music that we have already spoken about. Pre-partition composite music, which is also true for the post-partition memory of the homeland. And we will hear from Arman how Kawali is practiced in Nodhya, from where he's based. Nodhya is a small, is a district of West Bengal. So the session is partly West Bengal and partly Bangladesh, but we are also on the border area where much of this transaction between the two countries often happen and they are continually happening. So it's a very evolving tradition in that sense as well. So Arman has also imbibed the fakir tradition of introspection and thinking about the self and even in his delivery of the songs, you know, you will see how he continually points towards his self and he talks of the self in the song quite a lot. So the fakir tradition of introspection and there is a deep thought on poverty, where poverty is not something that you engage with just but you also label it as if poverty is some kind of a pride, it's something to show. So the way he acts with the song is also an attempt to show his own village, how the people in the village are surrounding his site, where he practices his Kawali and he's able to show that as well. So Arman fakir is an extremely distinguished singer and we are very, very fortunate to have him live just now. And he's going to speak briefly in his own language, the oral tradition of the regional Kawal, which is also adapting to the popular language and the everyday. So this is another thing about the Kawali that it is not something that is static, something to discuss about perhaps, how technology is also evolving, how Kawali is also relating to technology, and it is connecting with every day and the popular language. So the performance of the Kawali, I just want to very briefly mention many of you know what Kawali but just in case it knocks your senses at this moment, that it's not really a solo artist, it's a group performance. And it has the traditional to look so the music can be a bit loud if you want to adjust the volume when you're listening. And there's also portable harmonium. And there is a, there's a loud sound. I mean, many of you know Kawali, but for those who don't know that we're trying to blend certain instruments and certain traditions, even in bowel music, which is a string instrument you will find in particularly Arman's delivery, different from the Raj Bandari Lord. But the Kawali performance here showcases some kind of a ritualistic element and ritual character. And later we will see more of the kind of spaces within which this Kawali tradition is also evolving. So I'll leave it right now at that. And let me try and show Arman's performance that he especially did for this session. I mean, I just wanted to, before we lose Arman, I'm sorry, we have to speak in Arman's own language, because I think that gives him the freedom to explain. To explain what his song is about. And then we can connect with the discussion as to how, yeah. Arman, can you tell us a little bit more about what your song is about and how you feel about the Kawali in Bengali. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you saw and heard in the song? My teacher is from Bangladesh. He is from Bangladesh. He wrote this song in Bengali. We used to sing this song in the river in Kolkata. And we used to sing this song in London, France, etc. This song is called Al-Anubhir. It's a bit like Bhakti Ashikant, but it's a story of the teacher. This is the Kawali song. Is the Kawali song in the river in Bengali related to the river? Yes, it's the Kawali song in Bengali. The Kawali song in the river in Urdu is the Kawali song in Bengali. And the song you sang in the river in Kolkata, is there a story behind this song? This song is called Ashik Deserghan. It's a bit like Bara Bara Ulyalla Bhakti. It's a song about the God. And Al-Anubhir, who was in love with that God, could also have a little bit of love with the teacher. So, it's called Ashik Deserghan. Jaffer Sahib, did you want to say anything to the song that Arman is talking about, anything specific? Would you like to comment anything at this stage? Thank you very much, Ms. Sangyutta. Yes, well, thanks. The authority of the university is was UK. I'm very much proud that I've invited here to speak something on it, though I'm not fit for the session at all. You are fit for the session. You can speak. If you want to say anything about the songs in Bengali, that is also fine. My country, my nation is fought for our language and sacrificed lives. My great leader, Bangladesh great leader, Sheikh Mujib Arman, and spoke in UN, he also spoke in Bengali. So, in honor of them, I would like, if you kindly allow me to speak in Bengali. Please do. It's my emotion. Yes. I may feel free to talk and I may excite my emotions. Please allow me to talk in Bengali. Yeah, I mean, if we can just, for this moment, we'll move to Maj Bandari, but we want to just hear, you know, if you want to say anything about Arman's song that he just sang. Yes. Actually, what we feel about Kavali, the song just we have heard before, three minutes. In my idea, it is, we cannot tell it is Bangladesh Kavali. As because it is some sort of Sufi music, all Sufi music are not Bangladesh Kavali. And in his comments, we saw that relation with God, with Murshid as well. But in his speech, in his saying, nothing we got about God, about Allah, about Bhagawan. But in the Bangladesh Kavali, those are clearly written, which is originated from Rumi, Sheikh Sadi, and lastly, it was regenerated to Amir Khashruh of Bangladesh, for Bangladesh Kavali, which was written in Persian, Arabic, and Urdu as well in Hindi. But Kaji Nasrullah Islam converted in Bengali, as well, our Maj Bandari songs were written at that time, from 1906, from 1930, it was written. So, I think there is something different in the light of songs, in the style of singing, that is Gayo Ki. It will be clear when Maj Bandari singers will sing their songs. Thank you. I just wanted to, Arman, we will sing our own songs, Taj Nure, which you have done. So, we want to move to another piece that Arman has prepared, and I want to share that now. Taj Nureya, Taj Nureya, Ambiya Soyodhe Sholta, Allah Mehir Baal, Khuda Mehir Baal. Yes, thank you. What are you going to sing today? You can watch the video on the screen. What are you going to sing? We can learn something about this song, if we can. This song, I would say, Allah Nubil Gunugam Ge La Manga. Allah Nubil Hathrot Ali, Edir Jai Tai, Tihashache. That is the first time we have started. Do you want to sing your own songs, when you are in a different place? Allah Mehir Baal, I mean, what does Allah do? He blesses us, He blesses us. That is the story of the teacher. Taj Nureya, Ambiya, Soyodhe Sholta. I mean, there was Taj Nure in Nubil. There was Taj Nure in Nubil. That is the story of Nubil. So, Allah Mehir Baal is going to sing his own songs. So, what is the connection between this song and this song? Yes, this is the connection between this song and this song. That is what I am saying. There are many songs like this. There is a song called Lalon Fokerele. So, we have to learn. We have to learn how to sing. We have to learn how to sing. We have to learn how to sing. That is the connection between the songs and the songs. So, when we learn the song, we have to learn how to sing. I mean, if you don't know how to sing, then we can learn to sing. That is the connection between us. In that place, we can learn to sing. We are running a bit sort of a close. We wanted to show another, perhaps we can show a small part of the song, although it kind of is not something I want to do, but maybe for another session. Jaffer Sahib, maybe if you want to say anything to what Arman has just said about the song, I think there is a lot of, there is a different kind of language here. And, you know, we picked up lots of words like surma, for instance. So, there is a lot of influence of different languages even in this song. And that is something very, very typical of Bengal Kowal, because one of the things that we wanted to show in this program is that, you know, there is this understanding of the Urdu influence in Kowal. And as regionally Urdu Kowal kind of dominates, but that is not the case with Bengal Kowal. We see how the evolution of the Bengali language is also about the mixture of, you know, words from a Farsi version and other influences. And that is something stays on with this kind of a regional Kowal. So that, you know, we, those of us who are able to listen to the lyrics more carefully and understand that we could see these influences working quite seamlessly as if it's kind of blending in the, in the song very easily, as well as the way he is delivering. There is a traditionality of Kowal bringing in all the artists and the musicians, but at the same time he's drawing that just want to divert a bit. You know, the language that we are talking about, that doesn't have to be used in the traditional Kowal. That is, it has to be used in the traditional Kowal. That is, that is how the Bawul, the Fakiri, that is how the John Trotter, that is the Kowal that we are talking about. Because in the traditional Kowal we have the Dholok, the Harmonium, that is what we are talking about. That is what we are talking about in the Tarata. It's not just in the river, it's in another place. In the Bengali region it's used. That's what we are talking about. We can't listen to the lyrics. We can't listen to the lyrics. So, I would say that the John Trotter, that is the one and only, it's in another place. Another Kowal that we are talking about. The Musidabad that is used. What is the use of that? We are not talking about the Kowal, we are talking about the Fakiri, the John Trotter that we are talking about. That is, the Harmonium, the Bawul, the Dholok that we are talking about. But at that time, we are not talking about the John Trotter. The John Trotter that we are talking about. So, that is, that kind of sums up the message that he gives out, that he is able to adapt the various instruments that he finds in the ashram, where Nadia has got that tradition of Bawul and Vaishnavite tradition, which is there. Jaffer Bhai, you will know that Nadia was the seat of Chaitanya's Vaishnavism. And so I wanted, this is the reason why I wanted to have Arman for this performance, is to actually show how Vaishnavism tradition right from the, you know, 500 years old, kind of influences the Urdu-based Qawal and the Qawal tradition and how that transforms in the everyday life of the ashram. Okay, so we got to see his own ashram, which is the learning institution. And we also saw the attached roof and the way it's all kind of, it felt as if it was his house, but no, it's not his house. It's where all his disciples are around. And that is his ashram. Ashram means only Qawal, Bengali Qawal, ashram means only Qawal, no, no, no. I am a very poor person, I am poor. My teacher wrote Bengali Qawal, so I went to Bengali Qawal. So the learning of various kinds of music and also various instrument is also quite central to the ashram. So we wanted to show the different space that goes into the song. Arman, onig Dhonabad, onno arak shomay, aka mabe. Namaskar. Namaskar. Namaskar. Thank you. Arbala hoe jao. Okay. Yeah, I want to quickly try and move the discussion to Mezbhandari and Mezbhandari music, which is a segment of the Marfati Ghan. It's a very distinct genre of Bengali, Sufi folk music that is centered on the Mejbhandari saints. And this is something also I wanted to raise with Jaffa Sahib, that this is really about the Mejbhandari saints, which again helps us to decolonize the perception of the Qawali practice in the main as a derivative of the North Indian Pakistani Urdu based environments. Whereas Mejbhandari represents the song that is socially conscious and, for instance, is very much obvious in the writings of legendary poet Ramesh Shil, whose song will be there in the program and we have an artist with us as well. So the songs also have proximity again, just as this Bengal Qawal we saw to the Arabic and the Persian languages and the words. The presentation style again is evident in Qawals by mixing the multilingual words that are in line with the evolution of the Bengali language in undivided Bengal. And the songs also have regional profiles that are known to exist in the hilly tracts of Chittagong and we managed to spread the news of this event in Chittagong as well, where the hilly, the local language that is very distinct from how we understand the national boundary language. It's very different from that. And it constitutes many of the lesser known other folk genres as well. So the regional vernacular song of Maj Bandari is, as we will see, if we have time, we should make the time to run through all the rich humanist content that is very much rooted in current practice as well. And the way Maj Bandari songs are connected to not only socio-cultural practices, but it responds to current contents, like even how during the pandemic, we can see how these are connected to philanthropic work and everything, and the social work around it. So the other important thing is that these Maj Bandari songs are sung in the local assemblies, the dargas, which have a huge following, even among Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, and the hilly population. So it is definitely a source of freedom in social memory. And this is another point that perhaps Jaffer Sahib would mention, how people relate to the current restoration of the shrine of Ramesh Shil. You know how people look up, there was a lot of, because Ramesh Shil is a writer who stayed in Bangladesh during the partition, and didn't want to leave Bangladesh as a refuge to West Bengal. So he held on to that anti-communist stance and he stayed and lived in Bangladesh to a point that his shrine now is a rally point for social memory as well as for the Hindus and Muslims, it means a lot to come back to that shrine. So some of these are represented in the Bengal Qawal, and there is a lot of speculation currently on how we contextualize the Qawal within the syncretic Islamic tradition of the regional eastern states. So we wanted to also have that in the discussion. So let's sort of look at one of these Qawal presentations first. Aamadhape Dhuvar Khreda Aamadhape Dhuvar Khreda Aamidhi Tumadhan Aamadhape Dhuvar Khreda Aamidhi Tumadhan Aamidhi Tumadhan Arman, welcome to the show. I just want to quickly show a little bit of what you presented because I think it brings out Ramesh Shil and we will conclude by that discussion because I think Hussain who sang the song was also there as a participant, and I can't see him at the moment. But that was a very typical sort of Majma Nardi Qawal where we saw the delivery is all around. And it's also that can we just visit your song and then we managed to see a little bit about the trust's activities that are also going around that time. And that is connecting to a lot of social message because people need to know that this production is also part of the Majma Nardi Trust and all the musicians belong to that trust and the Qawal is being used to mobilize many of the people around the social and the cultural issues that we see. So just within a minute if you can just reflect on the Qawali itself the specific characteristic of this Qawali and then I will just show a snippet of the production because we really cannot extend this session but we will certainly have another location for a bigger discussion on Majma Nardi. So anything specific about this the character of the Qawali? Character of what? Majma Nardi Qawal? Majma Nardi just now we heard her name is Hanath Qawal. Thank you. I just wanted to say that this was the first time my Majma Nardi Qawal started. When I went to India I went to Bangladesh for the accuracy of my Qawali. Just a minute. So the connection is definitely to Allah and that is very, very very big characteristic of the Majma Nardi songs. But I think we don't have the time now to show Arman's but Rami Shill's song that Arman has got connects again to the larger social and the cultural questions that we have which begins with this kind of invocation of Allah but then it takes you to a different realm of a journey. So I'm very happy that we could collect a lot of the things. There's a lot of time that goes connecting to artists bringing them in and we lose a lot of time there but I would like to thank Arman for your contribution and we will try and show this your performance on Facebook or other means so that people can see the performance. I will find a way of putting that on the social media and also keep that as some kind of a learning resource. So thank you Jaffer Mai for joining us and also Arman for joining us and we will end the session now. Thank you. And just one word about question answers. The good thing about not putting your questions on the chat but to question answer is that we are able to collect that and we are able to continue with the question answers on a different session and find a way of putting those answers to you in some way. You can expect it. Yes. We've got very small time. Thank you. We've got lots of questions to Sufi Song and practitioner Ricky already. So we will certainly collect the questions and get back to with the answers in a way that is going to make everybody happy. Thank you again. Thank you very much.