The Qawwali Mehfil by Danish Hussain Badayuni

The Qawwali Mehfil is an initiative by Manjari Chaturvedi wherein the practitioners exhibit their performance art with reference to their association with the spiritual connect. This is also largely 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 traditional compositions as they have existed and passed from generation to generation as oral traditions, mostly never written down.

In this video, Qawwal Danish Hussain Badayuni performs a rare composition sung largely in vernacular languages weaving the language of Awadhi and Punjabi to emphasize the overall emotion in the composition. The Qawwals do not stick to one language and during their course of singing they use couplets of poetry of other dialects even languages also which is called as “girah lagana” meaning using similar poetry by different poets or saints to speak of the same emotion. Bahut din beetey saiyan ko dekhe is the composition that is traditionally sung by Qawwals of all regions and Sufi traditions.