The Qawwali Capsules featuring Qawwal Ateeq Hussain Khan Bandanawaz

The Qawwali Capsules, where the practitioners speak, is an initiative by Manjari Chaturvedi wherein the practitioners themselves speak about their performance art, their lives, their association with the spiritual art they perform. This is focussed on smaller town musicians who practice their art amidst the people in an organic, non commercial set up. Their art form "Qawwali" is sung as a means of spiritual elevation a music form always associated with the Sufi traditions in India and Pakistan. This is an attempt by the Sufi Kathak Foundation to document the traditions as they exist at the shrines itself.

This video capsule features Qawwal Ateeq Hussain Khan Bandanawaz who belongs to Hyderabad. As most Qawwals associate themselves to Sufi shrines, he takes his name from the 15th century Sufi Saint Hazrat Khwaja Banda Nawaz Gaisu Daraz of the Chishti Order, who advocated understanding, tolerance and harmony and the Qawwal is dedicated to the shrine at Gulbarga now in Karnataka.

Qawwal Ateeq Hussain speaks on the spiritual connection of Qawwali and Sufism, and how Qawwali forms the food for the soul. He talks of his own connection through generations to the Shrine of Hazrat Gaisudaraz. Ateeq also touches upon the difference between the commercial popular Qawwali and the Qawwali sung at shrines called as Khanqahi Qawwali. Like most Qawwals, he also insists that what makes a Qawwal truly a Qawwal is the association with the Sufi Saint and the Shrine.