To the greatest, highest

THEY think they exist because they might have something more than anybody else sees in them: they are well-known singers, but that’s ‘coincidental,’ and their money is by far a natural accompaniment. So, what’s it that we know little about them? When you see them dance, trance-like, in praise of the murshid (teacher) at a dargah, you tend to believe the worth of their true treasure. Secluded, sufi fakir singers Kanwar Grewal (Malerkotla) , Ghulam Jugni (Ludhiana), Hans Raj Hans (Jalandhar), Saieen Zahoor (Sahiwal, Pakistan), stay in dargahs (shrines), remain devoted and compose music that touches soul. 

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Here they go, it’s evening: ‘Wah wah ramz fakira tere, teriyan tuhiyon jaaney,’ — a melodious sound fills the air at Meera Ka Darbar in Malerkotla. Those who witness the reverie have their eyes fixed on the man singing with his eyes closed and hands folded. Wearing a white kurta-pyjama with a white saafa tied around his head untidily, he swirls slowly, the ghungroos attached to his feet ringing in tandem with the tabla beats. Kanwar Grewal then bends to touch the feet of an elderly woman, bebe, who changed his life, altogether. Kanwar has just got married; his wife and bebe live inside the ‘kutiya’. Kanwar’s single tracks -- Fakeera, Doltan, Mastaana Jogi, Maaf Kari Rabba -- have made it to the top of music charts, leaving him with a ‘generous’ amount of money. Kanwar refuses to move into the city, or even change his dressing style. 

“Money, name and success happen to us, but finding a meaning or life in them is stupidity. It’s Bebe-ji who led me to it. The biggest success comes with surrender; it could be to someone you love, to the existence, or to someone up there,” says this singer. 

At Assi Kalan, Ludhiana, you may like to call Ghulam Jugni a ‘fakkad’ (carefree). Jugni shot to fame because of his popular Punjabi tracks, and also for the ‘miracles’ that he can pull off ‘once a while’. “People wonder what a fakir like me is doing, recording songs, performing at melas or giving live performances. My answer is fakir gaavey nahi tan ki kareyga (what will a fakir do if he doesn’t sing). My singing is dedicated to only my murshid (teacher). I sing to please him,” says Jugni, adjusting the sunglasses on the bridge of his nose. “Fakir di apni mauj hai (a fakir has his own way of fun); I do what I feel like, I live the way I want to, I wear what I want to “asi tan bus usdi raza ch raazi han (I am happy in God’s will),” he whispers as he closes his eyes. 

These fakir singers perform live across Punjab and abroad, something that fetches them as wells as the organizers more than a decent sum “They are not bothered about their social status,” says Babu Assi, Jugni’s close aide. Their happiness lies at the dargarh where they live. “Baba Bulleh Shah’s hand beckoned me to a dargah when I was five years old,” says Pakistani sufi fakir Saieen Zahoor, his eyes moist as he recalls the events that put him on the path of fakiri. 

One of India’s most famous sufi singers from Jalandhar, Hans Raj Hans, is no different. At the dargah, you’d often find him in a white chola, with a saafa tied around his head, as holds a wooden stick in his hand. “No amount of fame or money can match this blissful satisfaction,” says Hans Raj Hans. He hums the couplet of Baba Bulleh Shah, “Bulleh Shah zehar vaikh ke pita te ki pita, ishq soch ke kita tey ki kita, dil de ke dil lain di aas rakhi, vey Bullehia pyar eho jeha kita tan ki kita.” 

Try telling this to a lover today or a singer desperate to make singing his career!