From the Gurbani singers to bauls, the annual Bhakti Utsav has an interesting line-up for music lovers 
When Harshdeep Kaur sang the gurbani, Ek Omkar, in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Rang de Basanti, her soulful rendition became the song of the nation overnight. On the opening day of the annual Bhakti Utsav in Delhi, when Kaur will take the stage for the last performance of the evening, her rendition of Sufiana qalams will be preceded by that very same number. “It’s a song that puts people at peace, irrespective of religions. I thought it would fit in with the purpose of the festival,” says the 22-year-old from Mumbai, who will be singing qalams from Sufi saint Sultan Bahu’s repertoire. 

This year at the three day Bhakti Utsav, organised by Seher, the city-based NGO promoting performing arts, there will be over 15 artists from all over the country, both well-known and niche, who will come together to celebrate spirituality. To be held between April 2-5 at Nehru Park in Chanakyapuri, the participating artists include kuchipudi dancer and Carnatic vocalist Sadanam K Harikumaran from Palakkad Kerala, Borgeet singer Parinita Goswami from Guwahati, Chennai’s TM Krishna, one of the leading vocalists of Carnatic music, Pune-based Manjusha Patil Kulkarni among others. 

With Ram Navami in the anvil, there seems to be a focus on music centred episodes in the Ramayana. “I’ll be performing about four songs, mostly dealing with episodes from the epics,” says Harikumaran. Uma Farukh Mewati echoes him. “We’ll sing about what happened when Ram met Hanuman for the first time, among other things,” he says. Mewati is part of the Manganiar artists from the Barmer region in Rajasthan, travelling Muslim minstrels who sing for a living, mostly at the house of Hindu patrons. 

Apart from them, this year the Fakirs from Nagore Dargah in Tamil Nadu and Paban Das Baul from Bengal are also part of the line-up. While the former will render traditional Sufi songs in Tamil and Arabic to the accompaniment of the rabahna, Baul will sing paens in praise of Lord Krishna. On the last day, the qawwals, Warsi brothers from Hyderabad, are supposed to do a participatory Shanti Pat with the audience. “Our effort is to blend the best of all religious traditions in a harmonious, symbiotic event,” says Sanjeev Bhargava of Seher. 

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