The Wandering Minstrel

Ali is not your average playback singer. A musician from the Mirasi community, singers for over 800 years, from Pugal, Rajasthan, Ali has spent most of his life singing at weddings and jaagrans. “When TV became big, no one bothered about smaller musicians like us, so to remain alive I sang at jaagrans. I had already tried farming and rearing animals. But one day, I decided to get back to music and earn whatever little I could,” says Ali. He was soon discovered by Shabnam Virmani during the filming of her documentary on Kabir. Virmani’s assistant suggested Ali’s name to Duplessy.

In his performance at the festival, Ali stuck to the poetry by Amir Khusrau and Kabir amid trademark wahs and much appreciation from the audience. “I live on the border of India and Pakistan, a place where Baba Bulleh Shah, Baba Farid and Shah Hussain propagated their philosophies. I’m the happiest when I’m singing them. The Hindus and Muslims of our area sing at dargahs and mandirs alike,” says Ali. He isn’t keen that his children take up music in Bollywood. In a world of self promotion and hunger to break into the big league, Ali seems to have renounced it all. “I need my tradition to continue. Money won’t give the satisfaction an artist needs,” says Ali.

He isn’t pleased with the kind of music that plays on his boxy radio in his pucca house in Pugal. “Aajkal ka gaana hum nahi ga sakte. It’s not something that I was born to do. So I’m back to singing what I do best — the qalams of Amir Khusrau, the dohas of Kabir and poetry left behind by the saints. There are many who can sing in Bollywood. I don’t care much about that. I am in search of the soul. I get a whiff of it in the music I perform,” says Ali.

suanshu.khurana@expressindia.com