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The Qawwali Project – An Untold Story

Dinesh Khanna

Sufi Kathak Foundation

Sufi Kathak Foundation
New Delhi, India

The young Qutubi Brothers are from a family that has performed at the shrine of Hazrat Qutubuddin Bhaktiyar Kaki for generations, and take their name from the saint. The Sufis believe that music and singing the praises of Allah is also a way to reach the Almighty. The songs are usually 15-20 minute long and the Qawwals keep changing the songs as listeners stand quietly, informally, within the premises with their own individual connect to the music, to the Saint, the Pir.
A steady stream of devotees keep walking in through covered passages lined with shops selling offerings of flowers, incense, the chadar (cloth covering) and in all its simplicity of joined voices, clapping, a harmonium and a percussion tabla, it is this music becomes their voice of prayer to the Saint.

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.

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  • Title: The Qawwali Project – An Untold Story
  • Creator: Dinesh Khanna
  • Location Created: Dargah Hazrat Qutubuddin Bhaktiyar Kaki, Mehrauli
  • Original Language: Text: Manjari Chaturvedi
  • Type: photo
  • Contributor: Sufi Kathak Foundation
  • Rights: Dinesh Khanna
  • Region: New Delhi
  • Qawwali practitioner: Qawwal Qutubi Brothers
  • Photographer's biography: Dinesh Khanna is a managing trustee of Nazar Foundation, and one of the co-founders of the Delhi Photo Festival and was also a photography curator for the first two editions of the Serendipity Arts Festival. He is the visual consultant with Sahapedia and advises on the ‘Sahapedia Frames’ Grant for cultural photography. He teaches photography in various institutions, and is a Director of the Dhrish Academy at the Museo Camera: Centre for Photographic Arts. He has published four books of photography — Bazaar (Penguin: 2001), Living Faith (Penguin & Harper Collins: 2004), Right of the Line: The President’s Bodyguard (Rashtrapati Bhawan, 2014), and Life in Rashtrapati Bhawan (Rashtrapati Bhawan, 2015).
Sufi Kathak Foundation

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