The forests of Vrindavan were the playground of Krishna, where he romanced the gopis. There is nothing of the forest left, and the town is like any other in the cowbelt. Yet, the place is sacred to Hindus. Every year, around this time, Vrindavan plays host to the country’s top musicians when it holds a festival in memory of Swami Haridas, the 16th-century poet, mystic and musician. This year’s festival, the 151st edition, will be held on September 22-23. Pandit Chhannulal Mishra, Sonal Mansingh and the Gundecha brothers are the big draws this time, but the real buzz is around the Nizami Brothers, Ghulam Sabir and Ghulam Waris, who will give the final performance on the second day. It will begin late at night and is likely to continue until the wee hours of the morning.
The Nizamis, as the surname indicates, were the qawwals of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, the 13th- and 14th-century Sufi saint of the Chishti order. (Qawwali was invented by Amir Khusro — soldier, poet, musician, mystic, administrator and Hazrat Nizamuddin’s favourite disciple.) The brothers call themselves the “original Nizamis” and have done over 40 albums. You can catch some of their performances on YouTube.
They live in Chandni Mahal in Daryaganj in Old Delhi, a house gifted by the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, to Tanras, his tutor in classical music, who was an ancestor of the Nizamis. But they meet us instead at their modern flat behind Golcha Cinema, also in Daryaganj. The house is bare except for a couple of sofas and a divan. The brothers wake up long after lunchtime, because their performances end very late at night. Today, however, they are both ready in nicely embroidered kurtas at noon.
The Nizamis are trained in the Sikandarabad gharana of Hindustani classical music. Khusro’s poetry, in Persian, Hindi, and at times a combination of the two, is taught in the Nizami household from childhood. Their maternal grandfather was Haji Altaf Hussain Khan of the Khurja gharana. Ghulam Sabir, the older of the two, informs me that Khan was the first classical musician to get the Padma Vibhushan, the country’s second-highest civilian award.
The qawwalis shown in films, and peddled these days as Sufi music, appals the Nizamis. “Nusrat bhai [of Pakistan] was good initially, but he later changed to pop,” says Ghulam Sabir. Their favourite is the duo of Shankar and Shambhu. “Nobody has called Khwaja Sahib [Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer] like him,” Ghulam Sabir says. What about Habib Painter? “His delivery was good but he didn’t know gayaki [classical singing].”
Their art requires the brothers to sing in harmony — one discordant note can spoil the show. And it shows in our conversations: never does one interrupt while the other is talking. When our photographer Sanjay Sharma focuses his camera on Ghulam Sabir, the senior qawwal protests and says both the brothers ought to be in the frame.
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The Nizamis are well versed in the works of Hindu poets and saints, and go out of the way to show their knowledge of the intricacies of Hinduism, and are almost apologetic while talking of Islam. They plan to sing bhajans composed by their maternal grandfather at Vrindavan. “Kanhaiya [Krishna, in the colloquial] belongs to all of us,” says Ghulam Waris. This, in fact, will be their second year at the festival. It rained heavily last year while the brothers performed, say people who were there, but the atmosphere was electric. Nobody moved.
The Nizamis admit they have had to do some dumbing down in recent times. With Persian having more or less vanished from India, and Urdu in decline, the brothers have no choice but to opt for songs that are understood by all, though they may not be the finest compositions. Ghulam Sabir asks the boys of his household, Ghufran, Zeeshan and Farmaan, to sing for us. They sing well, but these are film songs that the Nizamis frown upon.
From the roof of the building, one can see minarets, slim and robust, in the horizon. Below their house is a Sanskrit school, where the students have broken for lunch. Somewhere, the idea of India lingers on in these congested lanes.