The Qawwali Project - An Untold Story

The strength and power of Qawwali as a music form is used to convey a mystic religious message. The poetry is passed as a oral tradition from one generation to the other. The Qawwal has to draw and hold the attention of a randomly converged audience and it is the perfectly honed skill that the best Qawwals excel at.

saiyan sajilay torey naina rasilay, jiyaraa par kar gayo vaar re…
Listen to one of the traditional centuries old composition of this silsila sung as a Qawwali on this link

The Qawwali Project, is an initiative conceptualized by Manjari Chaturvedi where the untold story of Qawwali unfolds through the eyes of photographers. The practitioners are photo-documented with their performance art, their lives and their association with the Sufi shrines where they perform. Qawwali is the performance art and Qawwal is the practitioner. This is an attempt by the Sufi Kathak Foundation to document the traditions as they exist at the shrines itself.