Mardana’s Children: The Rababis of Lahore (Short Film)–Kabir’s Open Thread

I don’t want to post too much in one day but this short film is worth sharing. On BP, there is a lot of focus on the negative side of Pakistan (understandably since this blog’s commentariat is mostly Indian nationalists and of a “Saffron” persuasion). Often, I feel that this commentariat finds the very existence of Pakistan personally offensive.  

This film serves as a counter to that discourse. 

A short film on the Rababis of Lahore, a community of Pakistani Muslim musicians with deep-rooted ties to the Sikhs by way of a centuries-old music tradition. Mardana’s Children traces the current descendants of Bhai Mardana (the 15th century musician and disciple of Guru Nanak), piecing together a story of shared devotion across India and Pakistan, traversing the modern boundaries of religious and nation, and highlighting the unifying power of music in the face of the divisive legacy of identity politics and the partition of 1947.

Disclosure: I know one of the producers (Kirit J Singh) from SOAS where he was doing a Phd on Sikh Music.  My father facilitated one of Kirit’s research visits to Lahore.

A useful piece to accompany this documentary is Arieb Azhar’s essay “Soundscape: When Punjab Sang as One” published in yesterday’s DAWN.

Finally, I would like to share a clip of myself performing the Shabad “Suraj Kiran Milay”. This shabad was composed in Raga Darbari by Ustad Hamid Hossain.