Punjabi roots
ENS - Express Cities - Ludhiana, India
Friday, April 13, 2007
Dr.
Madan Gopal Singh, an acclaimed scholar and music artist, who was in
city today, while dwelling into Sufi singing in Punjab, said: “Hans Raj
Hans is a repertoire of Sufi poetry in Punjab. Blessed with impeccable
training, he is genuinely a great musician.”.
Madan,
a teacher of English at Delhi University, also sai, about singer Rabbi
Shergill, that he is a person intensely related to the songs he sings.
“I know several singers who sing poems just for the sake of singing -
like a school child singing in rhythm. But Rabbi is class apart. He
puts life into the poems. He adds visualization to the words and weaves
a magic”.
He
said Punjab has been blessed with such people who are creating waves.
Refusing to classify Sufi music in a particular form, he said Sufi
music is like a diverse stream. “Every Sufi singer tries to preset
something different. There are no hard and fast rules in it. It just
flows from your heart,” he added.
Closely
associated with films, Madan has composed music for the movie ‘Khamosh
Pani’ - a French-German-Pakistan co-production that won the best film
award at Locarno Film Festival, 2003.
After
Bhojpuri and Bengali films, Punjabi cinema has the third biggest
language constituency in the Indian sub-continent, he said, adding that
there was a need to tap this. There are crores of Punjabis all over the
globe who want to watch good movies, listen to good music, Madan said,
adding, “But sadly, nothing is being done in this context. In fact
movies like ‘Taal’ and ‘Dil Se’ have many music compositions that have
roots in Punjab.”
Madan
is presently working as a music composer on Mani Ratnam’s next project
‘Lajo’ with musician A.R. Rehman and is also busy completing his book
‘Heer-Ranjha’, which he has conceived in the form of ‘Raag’.
He
has translated a wide range of Sufi lyrics and international poets into
Punjabi, Hindustani and English. Madan has also penned the script for
‘Rasayatra’, a film on well-known Hindustani classical vocalist
Mallikarjun Mansur that won the National Award for the best short film
in 1995, screenplay (jointly with director of the film, Anoop Singh).
He also wrote ‘Toona’, an adaptation from Bulle Shah, rendered by
Shubha Mudgal for Mira Nair’s ‘Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love’.
Madan
was here on the invitation Media Artists, which has organised the
concert as per International Year of Rumi, as declared by UNESCO. He
also interacted with the students of Department of Communication at
Punjab Agricultural University (PAU).
