In Sultanpur Lodhi we met for twelve days to sing kirtan and to support the work Bhai Baldeep Singh is doing there to transform an old fort into a conservatory of music, culture and tradition. The community welcomed us and we visited in many homes in town and in the villages where we were greeted with flowers, fruits,  warm hugs and feasts of delicious Punjabi dishes.

Nirvair Kaur plays Taus at the Kapurthala prison.

We also sang at a television station, a prison, a home program, and a cow shāla. All of these were unique experiences. For the television program, Bhai Baldeep was joined on stage by a diverse group of men and women who came together to sing kirtan. The variety of instruments and headdresses illustrated the presence of Muslim and Hindu musicians along with Sikhs from various communities and countries, a colorful garden singing in rāga basant, “The sky blooms, the earth blooms, the Lord King blooms in eternal love, everywhere you look. The Vedas bloom, the Smritis bloom, the Bible and Koran bloom. Shiva blooms in yoga and meditation, Kabir’s master is in everything just the same.” When this program airs, the viewers will see something very different than the usual image of matching rāgis with harmonium and tabla. The listeners will hear a new sound that is also very old, when they hear rāg basant delivered by Bhai Baldeep Singh, accompanied by stringed instruments and Parminder Singh Bhamra on pakhāwaj.

BBS singing Bhagat Namdev's "mokau taar le rama..."

At the prison, we looked out from the stage at bleachers filled with inmates, official guests and prison workers. Bhai Baldeep reminded the group gathered there that he, too, is a prisoner of the mortal body and it’s five wardens. He sang, spoke and joked with the “captive audience” who were treated to a program unlike any they had seen before. The jailers and jailed even joined in singing moko tārle rām. “Swim me across, Lord, I’m ignorant and know nothing about swimming, Dear Father, give me your hand”. The program was an oasis of beauty in a stark, grey, concrete world. The posters and invitations had named the program, “Reviving the Spirit”, and judging by the laughter and spontaneous rounds of “Bole Sone Hāl” from the stands, it seems to have done just that.

Almost every day we had one or more meals in homes in the community. Often the Manganiar boys from Rajasthan would be asked to perform for our hosts. One night we went to dinner in the village and found that a stage had been set up in the courtyard. Several local musicians performed as the assembled folk stayed warm under piles of quilts brought out by our hosts. The Manganiar boys sang beautifully. Although most of our group doesn’t speak or understand Punjabi, we knew the women were being asked to sing when we heard the word “bibi” in the announcer’s message. Fortunately we had taus and electronic tānpura with us and four foreign women sang in rāg tilang.

Nirvair feeding the black cow

The cow shāla is a little piece of heaven on earth, especially for the animals that live there, a centuries-old temple that cares for cows with the kind of devotion reserved for the divine. The animals are beautiful, healthy and gentle. We were handed trays with piles of aromatic greens and home-cooked cakes of porridge and invited into the barns to hand-feed the sacred cows. I especially enjoyed the black one who was being milked as I held out the treats and she stretched her long tongue to grab the snack, curling and flexing it as if she had a thumb attached. We joined Bhai Baldeep on stage to sing in sangat with people and cows. After the program we were treated to fresh, warm, sweet, cardamom-scented, milk. As the sun sank in the sky, local children filled the courtyard and the shāla began its evening distribution of free milk. With prevalent attitudes of mistreatment of animals, it is comforting to know that such a place exists in the world.

The concert at the cow shelter.

Throughout our stay in Sultanpur Lodhi, we encountered the memories of this ancient town, which is at least two thousand and five hundred years old. It has been a center of culture, trade, spirituality and learning for Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Guru Nanak lived here for fourteen years, started his family, and began teaching. A few relics from the time of Guru Nanak remain, but most of the historically significant sites have been replaced with new gurdwara construction as a type of monument to the past. The town was known for beautiful orchards, gardens and surrounding forests, which have now become expansive stretches of flat green farmlands.The Qila, an ancient fort, where we met for the kirtan workshop is home to a  pre-Mugal-era mosque that Guru Nanak himself had visited, the remains of the darbār hall of the King of Kapurthula, colonial-era barracks, and modern-day police offices. It is a place where past, present and future intersect. For the future, Bhai Baldeep envisions a massive restoration effort to preserve what remains of a significant past for the Qila and for the town, while developers are already staking out the ancient undeveloped lands owned by local farms for new housing markets.

In twelve days, Sultanpur Lodhi found a permanent place of residence in our hearts and we will treasure memories of our time there, the learning we engaged in at the Qila, and the community that became our new extended family.

Sultanpur Lodhi
The One in the cow,
The One in the cow herder,
The One in the singer, the string-player and drummer,
The One in the listener, the One in the song.

The One in the child,
The One in the mother,
The One in the young beauty with a red part in her hair,
The One in the gray-haired elder with glasses.

The One in the prisoner,
The One in the guard,
The One in the dignitaries who sit proudly,
The One in the hopeless who sit with shoulders slumped,

The One in the giver of garlands,
The One in the teacher who receives the praises,
The One in the student,
The One in the driver and cook.

The One in the ladies turning chapatis over the fire,
The One in the gentlemen sitting in chairs,
The One in the parrots,
The One in the trees.

The One in the relics of the past,
And hope for a future where they will last.
The One who has always inhabited this place,
The One who brought us here, by His grace.

2-20-12

At dusk in Sultanpur Lodhi rāga āsā appeared as Bhai Baldeep Singh began alāp. As the melody opened up, he requested the Manganiar musicians to sing something in rāga āsā from their tradition. From deep inside Rajasthan, the notes of āsa were the same. Singing in perfect unison accompanied by kamaicha, dolak and kartal, the form of rāga āsā was remembered just as the gurbāni sangeettradition has remembered it.

Rāga āsā is meant to be sung when the sun is at the horizon, rising or setting. As the evening grew dark, Bhai Baldeep taught the group of Rajasthani, Punjabi, Italian and American students as he sang a traditional āsā composition from gurubāni in sikar tāl, a seventeen beat cycle. “Rise early, chant night and day, you won’t have anxiety and misfortune will vanish.” For me these are the perfect words, the perfect reminder.

The Rajasthani tribes share similar roots with the rabābis who have participated in Sikh music since the beginning, when Guru Nanak gave a rabāb to Mardana right here in Sultanpur Lodhi. Until recent years, musicians from these groups have included some gurubāni in their repertoire. On this night, gurubāni is returned to a new generation.

This shabd by Guru Arjan Dev Ji in rāga āsa is one of the songs on my “to-do list”. How can you compare scraping a composition out of the notation and receiving it from a teacher? The former is like unearthing a skeleton, the latter is like meeting the ancient one, full of life, in flesh and blood, decorated with fine clothes and ornaments. The instruments complete the setting, filling the room, giving the rāg some furniture to sit on. Unearthing dry remains can certainly be an exciting discovery. Meeting a living treasure at home is a different kind of miracle.

Kaurs - the little Dhyana, Nirinjan, Harbhajan, Nirvair, Siri Sevak, Gurushabad, and Nadar Nihal Singh...

There is one shabd by Bhagat Kabir Ji in rāga maru that appears in three different rāga āsā compositions in Gurbāni Sangeet. What is it about this bāni that inspired the old kirtānyas to sing it over and over again, creating new melodies in different rhythms–pancham sawāri and tāl talvārā? Why did they like this shabd so much?

“O king, who will come to you? I have seen such love from Bidur, that the poor man is pleasing to me. Gazing upon your elephants, you have gone astray in doubt; you do not know the Great Lord God. I judge Bidur’s water to be like amrit, in comparison with your milk. I find his sāg to be like kheer; the night of my life passes singing the Glorious Praises of the Lord. Kabeer’s Lord and Master is joyous and blissful; He does not care about anyone’s social class.”

It’s easy to see why the ones who have chosen to walk on the path of kirtan love this bāni. They have found delight in the simple pleasures, realizing the distraction of possessions–in Kabir’s day, elephants, today perhaps it would be a Ferrari. They are delighted singing the praises, to them nām is delicious, their thirst is quenched.

Being in Punjab, this bāni is especially relevant. The pleasure of a good plate of sāg really is as good as dessert! We are in Sultanpur Lodhi, away from the comforts of home, meeting in an old fort that is also the home to a mosque visited by Guru Nānak and a darbār hall that once hosted important meetings with the king of Kapurthula. The king’s hall is now a ruin, but the songs that were sung at that time yet remain. The modern comforts and conveniences we are used to might not be here (although we do have wi-fi!), but how do you explain the comfort of a warm cup of cardamom-scented hot milk on a cold night, or a cup of hot tea and aloo paratha after morning practice? And in the evening, when the bones are tired and the chill sets in, what is more satisfying than singing and hearing rāga kalyān accompanied by kamaicha (bowed rabab), dholak and kartal?

Last July there was a story in the news from Kerala that spread quickly all over the world. Jewelry, gemstones, gold, silver and coins worth billions of dollars had been found in vaults below a Hindu temple. For centuries devotees had brought offerings and the collection grew and grew. One family faithfully safeguarded the treasury through the many cultural and political upheavals and now the government of India has decided to intervene. The many rare artifacts, including an eighteen-foot gold chain that weighs more than ten pounds, will challenge the team assembled to assess their worth.

Nirvair Kaur with Iqbal Singh, Siri Sevak Kaur, Sat Kirtan Kaur, Harshdeep Singh Walia and Harbhajan Kaur.

It is amazing to imagine how this could happen. Swarms of ordinary people walking around doing ordinary things, taking care of the necessities of life, doing business,  practicing rituals and ceremonies, never realizing that beneath their feet was a huge fortune that had been carefully collected and maintained by those who had the foresight to protect it. However, no one was actually benefitting from the wealth and the vaults had not been opened for over one hundred years.

The story of this tangible treasure is not unlike the story of the intangible treasure. How many people are even aware of the heritage that exists, where to find it, who knows about it, why it is valuable? How long has it been since the ordinary people have had a chance to see the riches for themselves? For the few that know about it, is it enough to preserve it under lock and key, or is the intangible heritage for enjoying, engaging and enriching? How many are aware that something as magnificent as an eighteen-foot gold chain is even possible? The two volumes of Gurbāni Sangeet are a vault like this. This week I’ve been travelling, but the few moments I’ve been able to spend with the sweet shabds of rāga āsā recorded in Volume One have been refreshing and renewing and a reminder of the insight of those who composed them.

I’m in India with my daughters and granddaughter preparing to join Bhai Baldeep Singh and other students at the Qila in Sultanpur Lodhi for twelve days of music practice. This will be the thirtieth gathering of this group from India, Italy, Canada and the United States that has been meeting twice a year for nearly fifteen years for a hands-on experience with the intangible heritage of Gurubāni Kirtan. This is the first time we have met in India and it is an opportunity for the international group to connect with the people and projects Bhai Baldeep and the Anad Foundation are working with in South Asia.

Arriving at the Delhi airport and descending the stairs into the sea of humanity waiting in the immigration lines I realized what a rare privilege it is to have learned about this fortune and to have the opportunity for a first-hand experience. It is like being invited to join the panel of inspectors assembled to view and assess the value of the hidden treasure in Kerala. I feel fortunate, indeed.