Often, the ghosts of the Partition have been assuaged by music and poetry from either side of the border – melodies about lost lovers and broken hearts, about rivers and the affections that blossomed across their banks, about millet cobs and a white cockerel on the parapet, a bride’s wail about a milk churn and leaving home, and stories of mothers and daughters who reminisce the past. These have been crooned with much affection by musicians such as Noorjehan, Surinder Kaur, Mussarrat Nazir and Asa Singh Mastana among others, turning the idea of geographical boundaries on its head. The shared language and aesthetics, the tropes and motifs in these melodies have blurred the lines that have caused much political upheaval for years. So when a song named Raavi – a gentle ditty originally sung by Pakistani singer Sajjad Ali and an ode to the river that flows in India and Pakistan – began to get much affection and attention on social media in the last couple of months, it was a reminder of the shared heritage that people have so keenly spoken about and hung their hopes with. Since Ali is based in Dubai, he sang of his home through the song – how if Raavi flowed by him in the foreign land, its presence would be a reminder of his home in Pakistan’s Punjab. Born and raised in Lahore, which is located on the banks of Raavi, Ali sings in Punjabi - Je aitho kadi Raavi langh jaave, hayati Punjabi ban jaave, main bediyaan hazaar tod laan, main pani cho saa nichod laan ( If the magnificent river Ravi flows through here, I will feel the presence of Punjab, I’d break free from all constraints, and extract life from the river’s streams). The song was an ode to the diaspora, the "pardesis", those who'd left home and now lived elsewhere. Released about three years ago, the song did well enough and then went off the radar, until Ludhiana-based singer Hinanaaz Bali heard it and created a cover. Released about two months ago, she made the piece gentler, soothing and sans any percussion. The results were extraordinary. She didn’t expect the over four lakh views that she's got for the same. The response came from across the border, too; they loved it, including Sajjad Ali who liked her post. Bali, 27, says that she fell in love with the tune the moment she heard it, “as it takes in its fold many emotions such as the Partition, its pain, and the story of lost love.” She learned music from her musician father Maqbool Bali, who, learned music under the tutelage of Pakistani ghazal singer, Ustad Ghulam Ali. Her mother Nazima Bali and aunt Sharanjit Parmar are also radio and TV artistes in Punjab. Her version of Raavi had many bonding over it on social media. Instagram reels were created and a dozen more versions of the song were made in India and Pakistan, leading many back to Ali’s piece. “The song has received a lot of love, especially from the neighbours,” Ali said, in a recent live rendition of the piece on his YouTube channel. Many more covers in India and Pakistan followed her rendition, suddenly turning the piece into a vewy hummable ditty. Based on Tilang, the sweet-sounding, pleasant night raga with a hint of longing at the heart of it, Raavi falls into the composition structure of a raga which was often used in the Sufi pieces and is also the 29th raga from the 60 ragas in the Guru Granth Sahib. Interestingly, it was used by Guru Nanak, Guru Ram Das, Guru Arjan, Guru Tegh Bahadur, Kabir and Namdev for their hymns. The cultural core of the five rivers in Punjab has not only given an eponymous nomenclature to its expanse (Punjab means land of five rivers) across Indo-Pak borders but also a number of verses in songs, poetry and proverbs that are fundamental to the region’s identity. There's Vagh di aye Raavi (The Ravi flows) describing a woman’s pain and sorrow about her beloved leaving her alone, made popular by Ustad Asad Amanat Ali or Noorjehan’s famed Saanu neher wale pull te bulake te khaure maahi kithe reh gaya (After inviting me to the overpass over the canal, where is my beloved lost) in the Pakistani film Dukh Sajna de (1973), which has found many covers in the recent years. Then there's the theme of grief and mourning in the context of a river in Ajj aakhan Waris Shah nu (Today I invoke Waris Shah) – Amrita Pritam’s famed poem about the brutality of the Partition – where she writes: .Aj bele laashaan vichiyaan, aj lahu di bhari Chenab (Corpses are strewn on the pasture, blood runs in the Chenab). There is also the famed qawwali Dumadum mast qalandar, an ode to Shahbaaz Qalandar – the famed Sufi saint of Sindh. Believed to be penned by 13th-century poet Amir Khusrau and modified by Baba Bulleshah in the 18th century, one of the well-known lines from the song goes as Uchra roza peera tera, haith vaghe dariya (Your shrine is lofty, o saint, below flows the river). A few years ago, in 2015, popular musician Gurdas Maan also added a delightful reference to Punjab’s rivers in Ki banu duniya da (O, what is becoming of our world?), the song by Pakistani singer Sarwar Gulshan popularised by him at home in the 80s and made dazzling by Maan. In 2015, he recalled the Partition along with Diljeet Dosanjh in Coke Studio @MTV and sang, Saanu sauda nahi bhugda/ Raavi toh Chenab puchhda, ki haal hai Sutluj da (The Partition cost us dearly/ Now Chenab often asks the Raavi, How is the Sutluj doing?) Rivers for Punjab aren’t just water bodies or metaphors used to invoke a bevy of emotions, their references and the concept of their free flow, for years, have superseded the geographical authority and identity created by the powers that be; the references that treat people as people, that miss and love people as people with shared identities, references and language, especially the language, and never with shared religion. A melody like Raavi from the other side of the border and embraced in neighbouring India is a blazing example of that. 📣 For more lifestyle news, follow us on Instagram | Twitter | Facebook and don't miss out on the latest updates!
