Nadaan Parindey Ghar Aaja...

I have been listening to this Sufiana rock song for the last few days and it has touched a chord on so many levels for me. One some level each of us is searching for home, and we look for it in our music, our art, in love, in friendships and in relationships. The elusive home where we are perfectly happy with who we are and at ease with ourselves, where we are at peace...

The search for the divine is one such search, where the soul yearns to be with the divine. This is the ethos behind sufi love where the divine is the home and the Sufi is on a journey to unite with the divine. I think this is the reason why sufi songs, music and ideas seem to be so loved today by everyone. Music has the ability to connect to our soul and since we are all on some level on a search for our home, we identify with such music that speaks the same language as our inner selves.

Ending with my favourite sufi lines, which were also used in this song...

Kaaga, Sab Tan Khaiyo, Sab Maans Chun Chun Kahiyo
Yeh Doh Naina Mat Khaiyo, Inme More Piya Milan Ki Aas...

(O crow, please eat all my flesh if you have to, but not my  eyes, for in them I harbour a desire to meet my lord)

The Thread of Continuity

Compositions are permanent, sashwat, continuous. Each time we sing or dance, we make a connection to all the greats who have infused the composition with a piece of their soul. Everyone who danced before us and all those who will after us are singularly joined in time by the permanence of the composition and thus we become part of an infinite thread ...
I see this when I see people around the world who have never heard of Thyagaraja and other greats, being immersed and touched by the music even though they may not understand the composition. At that point isn't the artist channeling the soul of the composer through his own? When we lose our own soul and become one with the composition , the divinity of the composer makes our own soul divine at that moment. It then becomes a journey where the more we lose ourselves, the more we gain....
I feel this the most whenever I see Pt. Birju Maharaj Ji dancing Kathak. The origin of Kathak is associated with the fabled dance of Lord Krishna on the hood of the snake Kaalia,  and when I see Maharaj ji lost and immersed in the thread of Kathak, he is Krishna reincarnate. Maharaj ji dancing to a composition by Bindadeen Maharaj is a unique example of the composer, the composition , the dancer and the rasika all becoming part of this continuous thread of composition...