The last decade of the 20th century witnessed an amazing musical phenomenon in the art of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948-1997), a hereditary qawwal (performer of qawwali) from Pakistan. The singer took...
Bhajan is the generic name for any kind of Indian, usually Hindu, devotional song. It is completely text-led, its devotional nature underpinned by the words rather than by any specific musical style....
Qawwali music is the main communal worship ritual of the Sufis – a mystic strand of Islam. The act of listening to qawwali, usually at the shrine of a past Sufi master,...
Shabad kirtan, literally meaning ‘word chant’, is the central communal worship ritual of the Sikhs – a religion based on the realisation of the oneness of God through singing and listening to...
“Sacred music is no longer confined to temples or limited to the fringe groups of Hare Krishna devotees marching down busy metropolitan streets with their cymbals and drums. Kirtan – devotional chanting...
The ancient Hindu festival of Navratri celebrates the female form in all its avatars When Antara Sharma* looks back at her childhood memories of growing up in India in the 80s and...
The Arabic word Ishq means love or passion. And Islamic tradition has many shades of ishq. Beset by gilded ornamental lamps, draped in fine shawls and indigenous block-printed ajrak, two brothers sit...
Why does India celebrate Teachers’ Day? For Baselia Neves, a primary English school teacher at a private school in Mumbai, a typical weekday morning involves waking up at 6:00 am, attending to...
Could Rasa and Bhava be the bedrock of modern-day Psychology? And how does music lead to religious enlightenment? It’s often said that the Indian artistic ethos is not fragmented or neatly...
There are spiritual reasons to wake up at this so-called ungodly hour. Keep calm and Riyaz on Western folklore has instilled in our minds that 3 am is the witching hour. However,...