Yeh jo halka halka...

BY RAJNI ANAND LUTHRA

Is he a qawaali artiste, a Sufi singer, or a pop star?

Singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s particular style that mixes genres and transcends barriers is proving to be a winning formula for an audience that is seeking new pastures - a respite from both traditionalism and MTV.

As he embellishes an ancient art form with modern tones, he is winning new fans for a centuries-old tradition, and in the process, becoming one of the subcontinent’s most captivating performers of our time.

Rahat’s innovations with style came through as soon as he stepped on stage in Sydney recently, shimmering in understated gold. The opening number Allah Hu (God is truth) served many purposes: while it paid obeisance to a higher authority to kick start the concert, it was also a tribute to the performer’s illustrious uncle and guru Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the poster-boy of the qawaali and Sufi artform, whose signature tune this number has become. As well, it was a perfect number to introduce the spiritual frenzy that Sufi singing can evoke, as Rahat worked up the passion so characteristic of this particular style of devotional singing.

Helping him reach this state of fervour were his back-up singers, part of a 13-member ensemble that included traditional as well as modern instruments.

Saxophone and bass guitar at a qawaali concert? It was Jiya dhadak dhadak alright from the very outset, and even before that hit number came on, as the drums dhadak-ed to your very core.

Combining his soulful lyrics with some pretty intense singing, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan showed what the new entertainment industry in India is all about: contemporary treatments applied to traditional fare.

The tenderness in Aaj Din Chadheya and Teri Ore, and the exhilaration in Kaisa Yeh Ishq Hai brought a beautiful Sufi quality to modern expressions of sentiment.

With Tum jo Aaye Zindagi Mein, and the new number Chahat, Rahat combined both tenderness and exhilaration like only his genre can allow. The sargam explorations in O Re Piya and in Main Jahaan Rahoon impressed just as much as the sax and guitar in Main Tennu Samjhavan

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan brings on some halka halka suroor at his Sydney concert

. Who knew that seemingly different schema can come together so successfully?

And when the affecting dhadak dhadak number did come on, you could tell from Rahat’s demeanour that he knew he had them eating out of his hands.

If his famous uncle is credited with reviving the qawaali and Sufi singing as art forms, Rahat can be credited with taking them to the masses. And Bollywood can claim to have played a not insignificant part in this rush of popularity.

Rahat had recorded Man ki Lagan way back in 1998 for a private album when film-maker Pooja Bhatt picked it up. Her film (Paap) was released a full six years later, but it landed Rahat onto India’s entertainment scene with a bang. He arrived, travelling on the torso of a shirtless John Abraham. Who said Sufi singing would not appeal to the subcontinent’s MTV generation?! There was no looking back for Rahat, as hit after hit followed, and concert after concert all across the country and amongst the diaspora. With a judging role on a leading TV music reality show, he was right up there with the most-loved in the industry. That he was loved and admired was obvious when the public forgave him with the same reverence accorded to the most charismatic in the business, his detention at Delhi airport for a foreign currency transgression. But such is the appeal of Rahat’s art, that none of it seems to matter today. “Sell-out” is a term that is used in the same breath when describing his concerts – whether at Sydney most recently, as the organisers took pains to point out repeatedly.

Five months in the making, Sydney entrepreneur Nash Patel’s Red Chillies Entertainment planned the Rahat concert quite meticulously. It was still ‘Indian Standard Time’ at the Sydney Convention Centre, though, but the crowds were patient. The warm-up musical act, a new age fusion of tabla, didjeridoo and hang by Yama, Scot and Prabhu, went down beautifully, and the kathak-kuchipudi presentation was pleasing in its authenticity. And there were definitely some aspects that other event organisers might learn from, such as the film clips that played on the giant screen behind the stage. These served not only to tease the audience’s memory but also brought in a splash of glamour. Some of India’s most desirable personalities have lip-synched to Rahat – one wonders whether they have added to Rahat’s appeal, or whether it is Rahat that has given them a longer lease on life (Dabanng Salman of Mast Mast Do Nain fame, are you listening?)

But seeing the sponsors on screen, in rather pointless and lengthy interviews, right in the middle of the show – let’s hope that’s a trend that doesn’t catch on!

For an artiste who claims in interview after interview that he is indebted to the audiences at large for his success, Rahat’s interaction with the audience at this concert was minimal, such as with the briefest ever introductions to an upcoming number. But did he know how to play the audience?

You betcha: his trademark babyfaced smiles and that boyish charm made sure he did!

Without a doubt it was with his music that he connected best, showing more than once that if you want to dance while sitting cross-legged, this is how you do it – elbows and shoulders that seemed they would have gone wild if they didn’t have to be connected at the extremes to that harmonium, and thighs flapping like they wanted to break out of that sitting posture. The men in white behind him – professional ‘clappers’ – turned into a chorus of Energizer bunnies similarly caught up in the fervour of it all, almost as if they had worked themselves up into a rage! Together, they transmitted to the listeners more than sufficiently, the devotional frenzy that this particular style of singing creates. Dare yourself to be still, they seemed to be saying, with numbers such as Akhiyan Udeek Diyan, Mast Nazron se Allah Bachaye, Maine Masoom Baharon Mein Tumhe Dekha Hai, and Dhamaal Mast Kalandar

But nowhere was this more evident than in Halka Halka Suroor – by far the most memorable number from the night if one was forced to pick. This phenomenal number, sure to be on anyone’s list of top ten qawaalis, was once famously sung by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan at a stretch for 68 minutes. (Nusrat, it has been described, would continue with his qawaalis until he had ‘satisfied his hunger for spiritual ecstasy’).

The sargam explorations in O Re Piya and in Main Jahaan Rahoon impressed just as much as the sax and guitar in Main Tennu Samjhavan Ki.

(This mild intoxication

Is all thanks to your eyes

For they have taught me the pleasures of wine).

While the lyrics are ostensibly about alcohol and love, in typical Sufi tradition, they are a metaphor for the love of the divine. (The poet seems to be saying, “Now that we have abandoned ourselves to the love of God, can we reasonably be expected to be completely in control of ourselves?”) Rahat and his boys were left happily breathless at the end of it all.

Days after the show, one continues to be ‘mildly intoxicated’ with Halka Halka Suroor – reading various translations and listening to American musician Jeff Buckley’s version.