Blurring the borders with her music

Shailaja Khanna

The Partition of India tore a nation into two. The effects of the Great Divide have shaped the psyche of a generation of Punjabis and are the theme of a new multimedia production by Sonam Kalra and her Sufi Gospel Project. She recently performed at the Kasauli Literature Festival.

Tell us about your show on Partition.

My show focusing on Partition and separation has various thoughts behind it. I have a piece by Amir Khusrau in Farsi; it talks about meeting the beloved after separation. There is poetry by Amrita Pritam and Ustad Daman in Punjabi. In fact, the poignant words by Ustad Daman — Laali akhiyan di dasdi ai, roye assi vi, roye tussi vi (the redness of the eyes show we cried and so did you) — were the stimulus behind my creating this project. There was a cricket match in Mohali where a gentleman from Pakistan had come across the border, with a child carrying a placard with these words. It touched me; my eyes welled up. I knew I had to do something on this subject. When I went to Pakistan to perform for the first time, I crossed over the border on foot. Iexperienced the same overwhelming feeling and my eyes welled up again. I thought: ‘Bas, aapne ek lakeer kheench di (that’s it, you’ve drawn a line, and made a border) and we are divided!’

Both my parents were from Pakistan — my mother’s family from Rawalpindi and my father’s from Sargoda. The stories that my grandparents told me are those that need to be preserved and honoured to serve as lessons for the generations to come. The music that I created was based on these stories and on the poetry by writers from both sides of the border. The voices of Manto, Ali Sardar Jafri, Daman, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Amrita come through in my retelling of this holocaust that tore our country apart.

Performing at the Khushwant Singh Literature Festival was exciting; Khushwant Singh himself represented the agony that Partition entailed and Kasauli, like other parts of Himachal Pradesh, saw hordes of refugees settle after 1947.

Your music is experienced more through your live concerts than records or YouTube. Why is it so?

The experience of a live performance is always special. I’m quite old world and I feel one should savour every aspect of the experience. I see people at my concerts watching me perform through a phone as they’re recording, and I feel like saying, stop it, enjoy the moment fully! Put your phone aside! I sing from the heart, for God. My greatest inspiration has always been parents, who taught me to express myself with honesty.