‘We sing to the God’

Amarjot Kaur

A formally dressed ‘corporate world’ audience makes it to Tagore Theatre on Friday evening to attend the grand finale of Connect Super Jodi Season 5. While participating couples exhibit chemistry through dance performances on stage, Jyoti Nooran and Sultana Nooran, of the duo Nooran Sisters, are backstage, preparing for their gig. “This will be our third performance for Videocon,” says Sultana Nooran, dressed in a green-coloured sharara.

Her sister, Jyoti Nooran, raises her hands up in the air, summoning almighty’s goodwill to bless them before they go on stage; she calls it ibaadat. “But honestly, when we go on stage, I don’t know what happens to us! It’s almost as if a divine energy guides the course of our performance. That’s the beauty of Sufi music,” say the Nooran Sisters, known for popularising the Sham Chaurasia gharana of Hindustani classical music in the mainstream, commercial music.

Here to stay

Though the duo rose to the front-burner of fame with MTV’s show Sound Trippin, which featured their indie-hit Tung Tung, they have since sung songs for both Bollywood and Punjabi film industry. With three unreleased songs under their belt, the Nooran Sisters establish an understanding that they are here to stay and that too, without compromising on the legacy of their musical roots. After all, their father had battled all odds to get his girls into the male-dominated Sufi music scene. “We are the ninth generation singers of Sham Chaurasia gharana. Though he invited resistance, especially because qawwali is sung mostly by men, my father offered a reasonable argument to favour us. My grandmother Bibi Nooran and Swarn Nooran were well-known Sufi singers. He told people, if our grandmothers could sing, so could we. We had a lot of proving to do, however,” says Jyoti.

Big break

From singing Sufi songs at melas and qawwalis at dargahs, the Nooran Sisters landed their first international gig in Canada. The response they got from Canadians back in 2012, fostered their confidence and belief in Sufi music. “We never expected people to like Sufi music, especially because it faces tough competition from mainstream pop music. However, people loved our performance in Canada. That’s where we realised that there is a void that popular music can’t fill; that was our calling,” they say.

Solid stance

Considering that commercial music dilutes the essence of Sufi music in the garb of experimentation, it rattles the Nooran Sisters when the lyrics don’t justify the depth of Sufi music. “When we sing to Allah, there’s a depth not just in words but in feelings, in sur and taal too. If the fusion can’t do justice to that depth, then it ruins the essence of Sufi music and defies the very purpose of it, which is to connect with God,” they say. The duo also takes an uncompromising stance, with regard to the content of their songs, when it comes to pressures faced by commercial music. “They (music labels) ask us how we’d like to sing the song and its content and we maintain that we won’t sing anything that comes in the way of Sufi music’s purity of thought and expression,” they say. “We do sing for people, but most of all, we sing to the God; that separates our music from the rest,” they sign off.

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