South Asian Joy

I caught just one day of the excellent four-day South Asian Sounds festival (March 7-10) at the Southbank Centre, but among numerous artists was one of the best Sufi qawwali bands I have ever seen. Several members of Chahat Mahmood Ali Qawwal from Faisalabad have worked with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Faiz Ali Faiz, and it shows in the passion and fire of their delivery. Chahat Ali, who is only 20 years old, is a student of Rahat. They began with ‘Allah Hoo’ and closed with ‘Dam Mast Qalandar’, pretty standard choices, but the performances were thrilling. The good news is that they are based in Birmingham for 12 months, so there’ll be more chances to hear them – including in Trafalgar Square on April 20 to celebrate Eid.

The vividly dressed folk singer Malini Awasthi performed songs from Varanasi and the Awadh region of North India, although we were also hoping to see Anwar Khan Manganiyar from Rajasthan whose visa didn’t arrive in time. However, Aswathi was sublime, with a harmonium-like aura around her warm alto voice plus rhythmic punctuations on tabla and dholak as her hands expressively framed her face following the contour of her lyrics. She introduced her songs in Hindi, but I got feelings of longing, wonderment and ultimately joy.

Malini Awasthi (photo by Nandi Desai)

The excellent Anglo-Bangladeshi group Khiyo, led by charismatic singer Sohini Alam, added a contemporary flavour and some folk rock. Meanwhile, in the Festival Hall was a rare jugalbandi duet of sitar and surbahar (bass sitar) with brothers Nishat and Irshad Khan. The two instruments involve a lot of jangling strings, particularly as Nishat seemed obsessed with strumming the sitar’s high chikari strings which were pretty tiring on the ear. The surbahar isn’t just low but seems to have centuries of history attached. It was like a vast bottom-feeding fish full of subaquatic mystery in the shadows.