Rabbi Shergill’s Sikh Call: Pagri Sambhal Jatta
Guest Blogged by Mewa Singh.
A bit late, but every bit warranted.
Let me begin. I am a HUGE Rabbi Shergill fan. I went to a Dharmendra/Sunny Deol “concert” two years ago (why they are called ‘concerts’ I have no clue) and Rabbi Shergill was performing. I think I was the ONLY 
Rabbi Shergill fan in the audience and in certain parts of California that isn’t too surprising. Although my friends and family made fun of me, they were kind compared to the rest of the audience. The audience yelled their ever-so-kind “Eh ki bakwas hai? Bhangra Ga!” (What is this crap? Sing Bhangra!) and began to boo him off the stage in the middle of his ‘Chhalla’ performance. Although I love my hometown, sometimes we are stupid.
Rabbi’s first self-titled album played in my car for months straight. Despite the ridicule of all of my friends, I was mesmerized by his brilliance. In my own version of ‘elitism,’ I just thought they couldn’t “understand” Rabbi. How brilliant was this contemporary music artist not only recreating but reinterpreting classic poetic metrics and musical composition forms with current political and social content. While his “Bulla Ke Jana” garnered critical attention and success, for me his “Jugni” with its political content, “Totia Manmotia” for its social charge and reinterpretation of a whimsical Mughal-period popular dialogue between parrots, and the thrilling rendering of his Shiv Kumar Batalvi in “Ishtihar” sent tingles down one’s spine. Sepia Mutiny’s Amardeep criticized Rabbi’s earlier supposed “Sufi/Sikh spiritualist” image, however, such a reading could only be made by one that had never listened past “Bulla Ke Jana.”
Although three years in the making, Rabbi returns with a new album Avengi Ja Nahin (the website includes song samples, videos, and even lyrics). The album has 9 tracks and I have yet to listen to all of them. The cover song “Avengi Ja Nahin” is a nice love song. The other song to gain much attention is his “Biqlis” that provides a voice to the many voices lost during the anti-Muslim government-sponsored pogroms in Gujarat in 2002. The song is stirring, being both patriotic but critical.
Punjabis can argue whether Gurdas Mann’s classic Chhalla from the movie Laung Da Lishkara is the best or Rabbi’s new rendering. For my vote, I just want to add that Rabbi is on the world stage singing Punjabi (in his Jugni invoking that the solution to today’s problems was to invoke the Guru’s name), while during the 1980s and early 1990s Gurdas Mann went to Bombay and record plenty of Hindi content.
However, especially important for a Sikh audience would be a discussion on his song “Pagri Sambhaal Jatta.”
Interestingly, in one of Jodha’s first posts recalling the “Top 5 Sikh Successes of 2007,” he wrote:
As discussed previously, the ‘Sikh turn’ is occurring. The psychological tragedy of the post-1993 Sikh community is beginning to wane and we may be witnessing the dawn of a new era. It may not be in the Khalsa symbolic form that many hope, but a religio-ethnic movement is occurring. The youth are not disinterested and disconnected; they are engaged and can be mobilized. The pull of the pagri is not dead in Punjab either as we see many Bihari migrants joining the Qaum’s ranks. This is a good sign. A new generation will soon have its own version of ‘pagri sambhal jatta.’ [Emphasis added] [link]
Could Rabbi have read Jodha’s post? Well I doubt it, but still I do not think Rabbi’s version of Ramdhari Singh Dinkar’s classic poem will be that clarion call, atleast because it does not have a catchy tune (am I smoking crack or does the beginning sound a little like REM’s Everybody Hurts?). Still the song warrants a discussion. Even Jagmohan Singh Tony, one of Punjab’s leading thinkers, has written an open-letter to Rabbi praising his music.
The original poem was written Ramdhari Singh Dinkar during the early years of the 20th century. Taken up by the Punjabi patriots seeking to overthrow the British yoke, they called out
Pagri sambhaal o jatta; pagri sambhaal oye
Loot Leya Maal Tera, Haal Behal Oye,
Oh Faslaan nu khagaye keerhe, tan te nahin lere lirhe
Bhukaan ne khhoob nachorehe, ronde ne bal oh Pagri
Bande ne tee leader, raje te khan bahadur
Tenu le khaavan khafir, vichh de ne jaal oh- Pagri
Hind hal tera Mandir, usda pujari tu
Challega kadon tak, apni khumari tu
Larhne te marne di, kar le tayari tu – Pagrhi
Seene te khaave teer, Ranjha tu desh hai heer
Sambhal ke chal tu vir–Pagri
Tussi kyoon dabde veero, uski pukar oh
Ho-ke ikathe veero, maro lalkaar oh
Tarhi do hattharh bajje, chhatiyan nun tarh oh
Pagri sambhaal jatta, pagri sambhaal oh.
Many casteists believe that the call to the ‘jatts’ has something to do with caste. The movement was widespread amongst the entire peasantry. The limitation of the term ‘jatta’ from ‘farmers’ in general, to specify one caste is only movement within the last seventy years. Prior, the term had far more widespread usage.
In Rabbi’s re-rendering of the classic poem, he adds a litany of Sikh historical heroes. Calling for Sikhs of today to remember those that have laid a path before them, Rabbi is engaging in a historical exercise that is similar to our Ardas, except our Ardas does not specify particular names apart from those of the Gurus. Rabbi’s lyrics can be found here.
Rabbi calls for his listeners, a new generation of Sikhs:
Bina Guru ko na vali jatta/ No one but the Guru is your master peasant; Kasna paina tainu lakk aapna/ You’ll have to tighten up your waste-strap (where the sword once went); Lanbhion aa ke kisey nahion sambhnan/ No stranger is coming to your rescue
The last line is brilliant. Too many times I hear Sikhs wishing for a “great Sikh leader” to magically appear or they are waiting for the SGPC, or Parkash Badal, or some other person to come and ‘save’ our community. However, our community’s liberation will not come at the hand of another. No one will come to “save” us from the heavens. It will be our work, our seva, our strength, our determination, our unity, and the Guru’s kirpa that will transform our community.
After remembering on some of the Sikh greats from centuries past, Rabbi recites the powerful words of Guru Nanak:
Jau tau prem khelan ka chau/ If you wanna play the game of love; Sir dhar tali gali meri aau/ First put your head on your palm; It marag paer dharijaey / If you set foot on this path/ Sir deejai kaan na keejay/ Don’t evade self sacrifice”
However, he cannot help but ask:
Asan keeta jo aakhia si Guru/ We did what the Guru asked; Par ajj kittey phassiay jo kadey hoia si shuru/ But today where have we become stuck which once we started?
Finally, in his conclusion he makes an ominous description of our current state:
Tere hath ki aaya jatta/ What did you lay your hands on peasant; Tavarikhan da ghatta/ The dust of history; Be-ittefaqian de turhi/ The chaff of disunity; Aa vekh uddadi pai u/ See how it flies
Some idiots in the Indian media have seen this song as ‘communalist‘ because they read Sikh history as a fight against Muslims. (I am assuming they would want all Sikh history banned as well?) However, only those with a communal interpretation of Sikh history could make such an asinine statement. Sikhs are to fight against tyranny and injustice whether committed by Afghan invaders, a chauvinistic Indian state, or even themselves.
Rabbi’s song is a powerful statement and clarion call. Rabbi is following in the footsteps of others of his generation, including Tigerstyle, that have pushed for Sikhs to remember their past and prepare for their future. Other thoughts and comments?
96 Responses to “Rabbi Shergill’s Sikh Call: Pagri Sambhal Jatta”
Beautiful song, and a long awaited album. The the message and content of his albums are a great contrast to some of the BhangraPunjabi music put out these days.
Beautiful song, and a long awaited album. The the message and content of his albums are a great contrast to some of the Bhangra\Punjabi music put out these days.
You have said in your articles, what I wanted to say . I was angry when I read how people had criticized Rabbi. My fear that Sikhs and other Indians are not capable of understanding the calibre of this young man was reaffirmed. But after reading your article, I stand corrected, we have people like you who understand him, his work and have the talent to give explanative expression to it.
You have said in your articles, what I wanted to say . I was angry when I read how people had criticized Rabbi. My fear that Sikhs and other Indians are not capable of understanding the calibre of this young man was reaffirmed. But after reading your article, I stand corrected, we have people like you who understand him, his work and have the talent to give explanative expression to it.
hi nobody can campere any other punjabi singer gurdas maan he is a real maan punjab da even ask rabbi.
pagri sambhal jattaa song is already song by many singers even maan saab song this song in toronto show in 2003.
hi nobody can campere any other punjabi singer gurdas maan he is a real maan punjab da even ask rabbi.
pagri sambhal jattaa song is already song by many singers even maan saab song this song in toronto show in 2003.
Arshdeep: Thank you for your kind words. I am humbled. By chance are you also a psychiatrist? If so, please message us through the 'contact' page.
Jaspreet: Of course others have sung the song before. Most songs have been sung before because they are pulling from the oral folk tradition. However, Rabbí's song is new in the sense of the creativity of his reinterpretation. His litany of Sikh heroes should send many people searching wikipedia so that they can learn more about our past inspirations to employ for our present aspirations.
Arshdeep: Thank you for your kind words. I am humbled. By chance are you also a psychiatrist? If so, please message us through the ‘contact’ page.
Jaspreet: Of course others have sung the song before. Most songs have been sung before because they are pulling from the oral folk tradition. However, Rabbí’s song is new in the sense of the creativity of his reinterpretation. His litany of Sikh heroes should send many people searching wikipedia so that they can learn more about our past inspirations to employ for our present aspirations.
Thanks for explaining the context of the Ramdhari Singh Dinkar poem. I had quickly Googled "Pagri Sambhal Jatta" before doing my post on Sepia Mutiny on Rabbi, but didn't know exactly what the origin of the song was. Your post helps me understand the new song better.
Also, just for clarification, I didn't *criticize* what I described as his "Sikh/Sufi" image, I simply appreciated the fact that he's not letting himself get pigeonholed as somehow otherworldly.
Thanks for explaining the context of the Ramdhari Singh Dinkar poem. I had quickly Googled “Pagri Sambhal Jatta” before doing my post on Sepia Mutiny on Rabbi, but didn’t know exactly what the origin of the song was. Your post helps me understand the new song better.
Also, just for clarification, I didn’t *criticize* what I described as his “Sikh/Sufi” image, I simply appreciated the fact that he’s not letting himself get pigeonholed as somehow otherworldly.
Thanks for the clarification Amardeep. I see what you are saying. Welcome to The Langar Hall!
Thanks for the clarification Amardeep. I see what you are saying. Welcome to The Langar Hall!
Avengi Ja Nahin has broke into #1 in Radio City Indi Pop charts.
Way to go Rabbi
Avengi Ja Nahin has broke into #1 in Radio City Indi Pop charts.
Way to go Rabbi
1. Ramdhari Singh Dinkar (September 23, 1908 – April 24, 1974), a Hindi poet from Bihar, did not write the original Pagri Sambhal Jatta song – a song written in the Punjabi language which the distinguished poet unfortunately did not know.
2. The song was written in 1907 and Dinkar was born in 1908. Unless he 'trailed the Worsworthian Clouds of glory', he was unlikely to have written this song almost a year before he was born.
3. The writer of the original 'Pagri Sambhal Jatta' was Lala Banke Dayal for the Punjab Peasant Movement(?) which was led by Ajit Singh – uncle of Bhagat Singh.
4. This little-known movement(?) was a commemorative attempt to recall the 1857 uprising – a very unusual fact indeed since the Sikhs are always perceived as having actively opposed the uprising. Their role was complicit and brutal.
5. Rabbi's Pagri Sambhal Jatta, unlike the original, is symptomatically communal. It begins by invoking the names of the temples destroyed by the Muslim invaders. He begins with Somnath Jagannath Ayodhya Banaras Mathura Kannauj. He names six Muslim invaders – Ghazni Ghauri Tughlaq Aibak Lodhi Babar.
6. It is interesting to note that LK Advani started his bloody Rath Yatra in 1992 from Somnath and vowed to end it at Jagannath touching the rest of the temples on the way. The names of the invaders mentioned above were raised to frighten the Muslims along the route.
7. The history of the communal strife in India in recent times is so complex and so delicate that you cannot afford to sing a song such as this and hope that your radical credentials would remain undented. By doing a song like this, you push the already marginalised Muslim community further into a shell of fear and distrust.
8. Thats not all. The song goes into a long list of Sikh (read Jaat) martyrs. The history of resistance in Punjab to the tyrannical regimes includes the Beshara Sufis (the list would be too large to be spelt out here), Mian Mir, the Nawab of Malerkotla, and outside people like Dara Shikoh, Ashfaqullah, Hindus like Mangal Pande and Sukhdev and Rajguru and Ramprasad Bismil.
I think there should be a debate on the other songs of the album – both musically and poetically. I do not share the enthusiasm of Jaspreet, Ridhima and Mewa Singh. The album has serious problems. Do not try to extol it just because it departs from the crass Bhangra-Balle Balle culture of the Punjabi audience. There can be a serious and searing critique of this album. As for the album making it to the top position – the non-film scene in India is so bleak that even if you manage a sale of 200 copies in a week, there is a reasonable chance that you will break into the first five.
BTW, Gurdas Mann is musically zilch. He is a great stage performer but musically, he is besura. If you really want to hear Chhalla, listen to Shaukat Ali – the original. His voice goes cutting deep inside. Rabbi will have to be born many times over to even think matching up that level of musical excellence.
How can Prof Jagmohan Singh – nephew of Shaheed Bhagat Singh and an eminent historian; Madan Gopal Singh – eminent musicologist and a cultural activist; and, Sohail Hashmi – Late Safdar Hashmi's brother and a literary historian and educationist be called – as you do – 'idiots' just because they call the communal overtones of this song into question? Grow up Mr Mewa Singh!
1. Ramdhari Singh Dinkar (September 23, 1908 – April 24, 1974), a Hindi poet from Bihar, did not write the original Pagri Sambhal Jatta song – a song written in the Punjabi language which the distinguished poet unfortunately did not know.
2. The song was written in 1907 and Dinkar was born in 1908. Unless he ‘trailed the Worsworthian Clouds of glory’, he was unlikely to have written this song almost a year before he was born.
3. The writer of the original ‘Pagri Sambhal Jatta’ was Lala Banke Dayal for the Punjab Peasant Movement(?) which was led by Ajit Singh – uncle of Bhagat Singh.
4. This little-known movement(?) was a commemorative attempt to recall the 1857 uprising – a very unusual fact indeed since the Sikhs are always perceived as having actively opposed the uprising. Their role was complicit and brutal.
5. Rabbi’s Pagri Sambhal Jatta, unlike the original, is symptomatically communal. It begins by invoking the names of the temples destroyed by the Muslim invaders. He begins with Somnath Jagannath Ayodhya Banaras Mathura Kannauj. He names six Muslim invaders – Ghazni Ghauri Tughlaq Aibak Lodhi Babar.
6. It is interesting to note that LK Advani started his bloody Rath Yatra in 1992 from Somnath and vowed to end it at Jagannath touching the rest of the temples on the way. The names of the invaders mentioned above were raised to frighten the Muslims along the route.
7. The history of the communal strife in India in recent times is so complex and so delicate that you cannot afford to sing a song such as this and hope that your radical credentials would remain undented. By doing a song like this, you push the already marginalised Muslim community further into a shell of fear and distrust.
8. Thats not all. The song goes into a long list of Sikh (read Jaat) martyrs. The history of resistance in Punjab to the tyrannical regimes includes the Beshara Sufis (the list would be too large to be spelt out here), Mian Mir, the Nawab of Malerkotla, and outside people like Dara Shikoh, Ashfaqullah, Hindus like Mangal Pande and Sukhdev and Rajguru and Ramprasad Bismil.
I think there should be a debate on the other songs of the album – both musically and poetically. I do not share the enthusiasm of Jaspreet, Ridhima and Mewa Singh. The album has serious problems. Do not try to extol it just because it departs from the crass Bhangra-Balle Balle culture of the Punjabi audience. There can be a serious and searing critique of this album. As for the album making it to the top position – the non-film scene in India is so bleak that even if you manage a sale of 200 copies in a week, there is a reasonable chance that you will break into the first five.
BTW, Gurdas Mann is musically zilch. He is a great stage performer but musically, he is besura. If you really want to hear Chhalla, listen to Shaukat Ali – the original. His voice goes cutting deep inside. Rabbi will have to be born many times over to even think matching up that level of musical excellence.
How can Prof Jagmohan Singh – nephew of Shaheed Bhagat Singh and an eminent historian; Madan Gopal Singh – eminent musicologist and a cultural activist; and, Sohail Hashmi – Late Safdar Hashmi’s brother and a literary historian and educationist be called – as you do – ‘idiots’ just because they call the communal overtones of this song into question? Grow up Mr Mewa Singh!
@Panini Pothoharvi:
If those who destroyed temples and committed other atrocities like trying to forcibly convert others to Islam and brutally murdering those who refused (sawing them into two, hoisting them on to spiked wheels, wrapping cotton around them and burning them alive, beheading them, sawing off the tops of their skulls, among other ways), is it communal and anti-Muslim to say that what they did was wrong simply because they claimed themselves to be Muslims?
As far as I know, true Islam does not preach destroying the places of worship of other religious faiths or trying to forcibly convert others to Islam and torturing them to death if they refuse to do so.
Going by that, were any of the tyrants and invaders named in the song true Muslims even?
If not, how can the song be termed as communal?
"Gurdas Mann is musically zilch. He is a great stage performer but musically, he is besura."
What can I say to that except calling for a great round of applause for the one who made it! 😀
BTW, was it…er…communalism that inspired it, rather than objectivity? 😀
@Panini Pothoharvi:
If those who destroyed temples and committed other atrocities like trying to forcibly convert others to Islam and brutally murdering those who refused (sawing them into two, hoisting them on to spiked wheels, wrapping cotton around them and burning them alive, beheading them, sawing off the tops of their skulls, among other ways), is it communal and anti-Muslim to say that what they did was wrong simply because they claimed themselves to be Muslims?
As far as I know, true Islam does not preach destroying the places of worship of other religious faiths or trying to forcibly convert others to Islam and torturing them to death if they refuse to do so.
Going by that, were any of the tyrants and invaders named in the song true Muslims even?
If not, how can the song be termed as communal?
“Gurdas Mann is musically zilch. He is a great stage performer but musically, he is besura.”
What can I say to that except calling for a great round of applause for the one who made it! 😀
BTW, was it…er…communalism that inspired it, rather than objectivity? 😀
You can keep on complimenting yourself Sidhu Sahab since your comments do not reflect the objectivity of one who knows music (obviously you have no idea of what 'sur' is!). You can save your sarcastic glee about my being communal since you have suffered a huge loss of logic as reflected in your mails. You view life only in terms of plus and minus. If Gurdas Mann is besura, it doesn't mean he is not culturally relevant. He has a huge stage presence. Things are a lot more grey than you would like to believe they are.
The problem with you Sidhu Sahab and many others like you is that you do not wish to face the fact that an objective history of the Sikhs will never be allowed to be written. You want to create a pantheon of Sikh heroes. There is many a sordid chapter in the annals of the Sikh exploits which will continue to be excised. I do not wish to go any further for fear of igniting strife.
You can keep on complimenting yourself Sidhu Sahab since your comments do not reflect the objectivity of one who knows music (obviously you have no idea of what ‘sur’ is!). You can save your sarcastic glee about my being communal since you have suffered a huge loss of logic as reflected in your mails. You view life only in terms of plus and minus. If Gurdas Mann is besura, it doesn’t mean he is not culturally relevant. He has a huge stage presence. Things are a lot more grey than you would like to believe they are.
The problem with you Sidhu Sahab and many others like you is that you do not wish to face the fact that an objective history of the Sikhs will never be allowed to be written. You want to create a pantheon of Sikh heroes. There is many a sordid chapter in the annals of the Sikh exploits which will continue to be excised. I do not wish to go any further for fear of igniting strife.
Sidhu Sahab, I visited your blog and was absolutely thrilled to know that you do not appreciate Peenaz Masani's music at all. I cannot figure out for the life of me why and how singers(?) like Peenaz make it to the limelight in the first place!
Sidhu Sahab, I visited your blog and was absolutely thrilled to know that you do not appreciate Peenaz Masani’s music at all. I cannot figure out for the life of me why and how singers(?) like Peenaz make it to the limelight in the first place!
Panini Pothoharvi you are erudite, your English is exquisite, just beware of Pride.
I will agree with Panini that Rabbi “may” needs more practice to sing like Shaukat Ali, but Panini will have to agree with me that Shaukat Ali would need to have a different training to write and sing his, “own song”. When we get to know what, “sur” is, the risk is that pride may take over, we may start to feel our knowledge and experience as superior to others. The real risk is that we become like mechanics more interested in efficiency of the engine. The experience of music boils down to the ability of musician to reach to the heart of the audience. So if he/she has sur enough that his lack of perfection will not distract the audience and if what he says is important enough that people will listen, it is good enough. That will explain the success of Gurdas Mann who has sung songs that have forced people to review social attitudes, values e.g. “Kureeye Izztan Thureeye”. You actually do note that he is socially relevant, which is good.
I don’t think that Rabbi’s song is communal at all. As a Sikh it did not make me feel angry towards anyone else but only my people and myself. I don’t think this song could start communal violence if that is your fear or Sohail Hashmi’s. To understand the point I am making you will have to pay attention to the last lines where he points out that, what we have on our hands at the end of the day is only the dust of history. He is not asking the addressed to fight another nation, like Sohail Hashmi’s less well thought of comment said. He is asking them to get up, tie their cummerbunds, take charge and give a new course to their destiny. If Rabbi would have included a comment about 1984, then Hindus will be up in arms against him; it is the Muslim brotherhood that is somewhat more irked this time. I don’t really feel it is any attack against a particular community it is essentially a recounting of historical facts (which is by no means complete) and using them to bring to attention of people the decline we have gone through. He exhorts us to get up and take care of ourselves in the form of to my projection, better education, economic development, finding solutions to our social problems etc. That is not wrong. Every religio-cultural/socio-political/national group does that. Muslim’s do it, Hindus do it, Jews do it. I am impressed with Rabbi’s ability to look at our history, our present and make such a powerful observations and comments despite his age.
Cummerkassey hameshaan horan naal jang karan vastey naheen banney jandey, kadey kadey oh apnee honee noo naveen disha den vastey vee banney jandey ne. Rabbi keh reha key asseen eney lokan naal bhirey kadey apney vastey kadey horan vastey, apna dheyan vee naheen keeta tey huth saddeey kee laggegya? Hun apa suwaran da vela hai.
BTW what are people thinking of the song “Bilquis”? I wonder if that song helps “marginalized Muslim community”, and will give poor Rabbi some respite.
The problem with you Sidhu Sahab and many others like you is that you do not wish to face the fact that an objective history of the Sikhs will never be allowed to be written. You want to create a pantheon of Sikh heroes. There is many a sordid chapter in the annals of the Sikh exploits which will continue to be excised.
I agree.
Panini Pothoharvi you are erudite, your English is exquisite, just beware of Pride.
I will agree with Panini that Rabbi “may” needs more practice to sing like Shaukat Ali, but Panini will have to agree with me that Shaukat Ali would need to have a different training to write and sing his, “own song”. When we get to know what, “sur” is, the risk is that pride may take over, we may start to feel our knowledge and experience as superior to others. The real risk is that we become like mechanics more interested in efficiency of the engine. The experience of music boils down to the ability of musician to reach to the heart of the audience. So if he/she has sur enough that his lack of perfection will not distract the audience and if what he says is important enough that people will listen, it is good enough. That will explain the success of Gurdas Mann who has sung songs that have forced people to review social attitudes, values e.g. “Kureeye Izztan Thureeye”. You actually do note that he is socially relevant, which is good.
I don’t think that Rabbi’s song is communal at all. As a Sikh it did not make me feel angry towards anyone else but only my people and myself. I don’t think this song could start communal violence if that is your fear or Sohail Hashmi’s. To understand the point I am making you will have to pay attention to the last lines where he points out that, what we have on our hands at the end of the day is only the dust of history. He is not asking the addressed to fight another nation, like Sohail Hashmi’s less well thought of comment said. He is asking them to get up, tie their cummerbunds, take charge and give a new course to their destiny. If Rabbi would have included a comment about 1984, then Hindus will be up in arms against him; it is the Muslim brotherhood that is somewhat more irked this time. I don’t really feel it is any attack against a particular community it is essentially a recounting of historical facts (which is by no means complete) and using them to bring to attention of people the decline we have gone through. He exhorts us to get up and take care of ourselves in the form of to my projection, better education, economic development, finding solutions to our social problems etc. That is not wrong. Every religio-cultural/socio-political/national group does that. Muslim’s do it, Hindus do it, Jews do it. I am impressed with Rabbi’s ability to look at our history, our present and make such a powerful observations and comments despite his age.
Cummerkassey hameshaan horan naal jang karan vastey naheen banney jandey, kadey kadey oh apnee honee noo naveen disha den vastey vee banney jandey ne. Rabbi keh reha key asseen eney lokan naal bhirey kadey apney vastey kadey horan vastey, apna dheyan vee naheen keeta tey huth saddeey kee laggegya? Hun apa suwaran da vela hai.
BTW what are people thinking of the song “Bilquis”? I wonder if that song helps “marginalized Muslim community”, and will give poor Rabbi some respite.
The problem with you Sidhu Sahab and many others like you is that you do not wish to face the fact that an objective history of the Sikhs will never be allowed to be written. You want to create a pantheon of Sikh heroes. There is many a sordid chapter in the annals of the Sikh exploits which will continue to be excised.
I agree.
Let us try and do a slightly more faithful translation of Bilqis than the one given on Rabbi’s website about his latest album Avengi Ja Nahin (Will you come or not – almost an uncouth, gender insensitive mode of address) and picked up by Prof Amardeep in the write-up here:
1. My name Bilqis Yakub Rasool
2. By me was made just one mistake (although bhool is less a mistake than an error of judgement)
3. That when they were looking for Ram
4. Then I (happened) be standing on the way
(Rabbi’s translation being:
My name is Bilqis Yakub Rasool
I committed just one mistake
That I stood in their way
When they were looking for Ram)
The first line is without the verb ‘to be’ and is therefore intended as a mere statistical detail, objectively rendered.
The second line picks up a near reluctant subjective mode of narration. It is important to note that the ‘mistake’ is made in the passive voice and is therefore imbued with not a little bit of tragic irony. This, dare I say, is very different from Rabbi’s own translation which is ‘I commited just one mistake’ where the volitive act is differently placed.
The translation of the last two lines amplify this point further:
Rabbi’s translation is :
‘That I stood in their way
When they were looking for Ram’
‘Standing in someone’s way’ is not the same thing as ‘happened to be standing on the way’. The difference is as stark as that between ‘volition’ and ‘chance’. Nowhere in the line “To Maen kharhi thi rah mein’ is the fact of standing in THEIR way evident. In fact the trauma of Bilqis is doubly tragic precisely because she just happened to be passing by the way where the murderous mob was butchering the Muslims in well thought out macabre move supported by the state. She wasn’t – couldn’t have been – in any conceivable way ‘standing in THEIR way.
One doesn’t quite understand who Bilqis is; where she was going; under what circumstance she met the people looking for Ram; in addition to asking her a question (and what questions), what else did they do to her! Does it have anything to do with the rape, arson , looting and pogrom of Muslims un leashed by the Hindu right after Godhara? The song tells you absolutely nothing. If you chose to be moved by the song, it is either because you liked the song as a song that felt likeable or because you already had enough information about Bilqis. The same is true of Rabbi’s reference to Satyandranath Dube and Manjunath. A non-initiate is unlikely to know why there is a bullet in the heart of Satyendranath and the place where it happened or why the corpse of conscience is lying in the middle of the road at Lakhimpur Kherhi. The only exception is the reference to Ms Navleen Kumar whose murder we are informed by the lyricist-singer has something to do with her resistance to the villages being looted by the open market; to the forcible acquisition of land and the eventual dislodgement of the people to ‘hell’.
This brings me to the next point – one of confusing the logical types of the 4 tragic cases the song, Bilqis, takes up. Whereas Bilqis’s tragedy is purely non-volitive, Satyendra Dube’s act of ‘blowing the whistle’ is quite clearly an act of quasi- political volition. Manjunath, on the other hand, is merely executing his duty as an officer of the Oil Company for which he worked – (this, incidentally, does not make his death any less grim or disturbing). Ms Navleen Kumar’s is the only one which is properly in the domain of political activism as a deeply felt existential anxiety.
The song, as such, serves a very limited, albeit welcome, purpose.
Let us try and do a slightly more faithful translation of Bilqis than the one given on Rabbi’s website about his latest album Avengi Ja Nahin (Will you come or not – almost an uncouth, gender insensitive mode of address) and picked up by Prof Amardeep in the write-up here:
1. My name Bilqis Yakub Rasool
2. By me was made just one mistake (although bhool is less a mistake than an error of judgement)
3. That when they were looking for Ram
4. Then I (happened) be standing on the way
(Rabbi’s translation being:
My name is Bilqis Yakub Rasool
I committed just one mistake
That I stood in their way
When they were looking for Ram)
The first line is without the verb ‘to be’ and is therefore intended as a mere statistical detail, objectively rendered.
The second line picks up a near reluctant subjective mode of narration. It is important to note that the ‘mistake’ is made in the passive voice and is therefore imbued with not a little bit of tragic irony. This, dare I say, is very different from Rabbi’s own translation which is ‘I commited just one mistake’ where the volitive act is differently placed.
The translation of the last two lines amplify this point further:
Rabbi’s translation is :
‘That I stood in their way
When they were looking for Ram’
‘Standing in someone’s way’ is not the same thing as ‘happened to be standing on the way’. The difference is as stark as that between ‘volition’ and ‘chance’. Nowhere in the line “To Maen kharhi thi rah mein’ is the fact of standing in THEIR way evident. In fact the trauma of Bilqis is doubly tragic precisely because she just happened to be passing by the way where the murderous mob was butchering the Muslims in well thought out macabre move supported by the state. She wasn’t – couldn’t have been – in any conceivable way ‘standing in THEIR way.
One doesn’t quite understand who Bilqis is; where she was going; under what circumstance she met the people looking for Ram; in addition to asking her a question (and what questions), what else did they do to her! Does it have anything to do with the rape, arson , looting and pogrom of Muslims un leashed by the Hindu right after Godhara? The song tells you absolutely nothing. If you chose to be moved by the song, it is either because you liked the song as a song that felt likeable or because you already had enough information about Bilqis. The same is true of Rabbi’s reference to Satyandranath Dube and Manjunath. A non-initiate is unlikely to know why there is a bullet in the heart of Satyendranath and the place where it happened or why the corpse of conscience is lying in the middle of the road at Lakhimpur Kherhi. The only exception is the reference to Ms Navleen Kumar whose murder we are informed by the lyricist-singer has something to do with her resistance to the villages being looted by the open market; to the forcible acquisition of land and the eventual dislodgement of the people to ‘hell’.
This brings me to the next point – one of confusing the logical types of the 4 tragic cases the song, Bilqis, takes up. Whereas Bilqis’s tragedy is purely non-volitive, Satyendra Dube’s act of ‘blowing the whistle’ is quite clearly an act of quasi- political volition. Manjunath, on the other hand, is merely executing his duty as an officer of the Oil Company for which he worked – (this, incidentally, does not make his death any less grim or disturbing). Ms Navleen Kumar’s is the only one which is properly in the domain of political activism as a deeply felt existential anxiety.
The song, as such, serves a very limited, albeit welcome, purpose.
Panini Pothoharvi,
I can't wait to buy your album. Since you are the "master" of lyrics and "sur", I eagerly await your album's release. Please keep me informed!
Panini Pothoharvi,
I can’t wait to buy your album. Since you are the “master” of lyrics and “sur”, I eagerly await your album’s release. Please keep me informed!
I am not a practising musician so you will have to wait – i.e. assuming that you believe in the Hindu belief in rebirth and assuming more importantly that, having being born a human in my next life (which seems unlikely) I further wish to be born a musician. Sorry to disappoint you but I do not have an album in the market. BTW, such childish remarks smack of a foolish and intolerant bent of mind and are antithetical to all meaningfull debate.
My earlier remark vis-a-vis Shaukat Ali had one error which I wish to rectify. The reference to Rabbi is inadvertent. It is Gurdas Mann and not Rabbi that I wished to compare with Shaukat Ali. Rabbi's Chhalla is exceptional. Need I say more!
My comments on Rabbi from another website:
I am not a practising musician so you will have to wait – i.e. assuming that you believe in the Hindu belief in rebirth and assuming more importantly that, having being born a human in my next life (which seems unlikely) I further wish to be born a musician. Sorry to disappoint you but I do not have an album in the market. BTW, such childish remarks smack of a foolish and intolerant bent of mind and are antithetical to all meaningfull debate.
My earlier remark vis-a-vis Shaukat Ali had one error which I wish to rectify. The reference to Rabbi is inadvertent. It is Gurdas Mann and not Rabbi that I wished to compare with Shaukat Ali. Rabbi’s Chhalla is exceptional. Need I say more!
My comments on Rabbi from another website:
[…] song for the Sikh youth, and I wouldn’t be able to say much and as well as is written here on The Langar Hall which I found very interesting. […]
@Mewa singh
Punjabis can argue whether Gurdas Mann’s classic Chhalla from the movie Laung Da Lishkara is the best or Rabbi’s new rendering. For my vote, I just want to add that Rabbi is on the world stage singing Punjabi (in his Jugni invoking that the solution to today’s problems was to invoke the Guru’s name), while during the 1980s and early 1990s Gurdas Mann went to Bombay and record plenty of Hindi content.
Well…Rabbi is a good singer, no arguments about that. But i would argue on what you wrote about Gurdas Maan. Can you please share some more information about the "plenty of hindi content" he did ?
I have been listening to Gurdas Maan for the last 17-18 years. This is for the first time i have come across such a thing.
And about which "challa" being the best ? It would be actually stupid to compare both the things. That original challa is some 200 years old folk song of Punjab. Rabbi wrote his own verses on the same rhythm tone. Thats great. But where comes the question of comparing the two ? BTW in his last album Gurdas Maan sung "challi". Have you listened to that ? What message it has to give ?
@Panini Pothoharvi
BTW, Gurdas Mann is musically zilch. He is a great stage performer but musically, he is besura. If you really want to hear Chhalla, listen to Shaukat Ali – the original. His voice goes cutting deep inside. Rabbi will have to be born many times over to even think matching up that level of musical excellence.
I have listened to all Shaukat Ali,Inayat Ali,Gurdas Maan, Reshma and now Rabbi. Shaukat Ali is a classically trained singer and in that way Gurdas Maan is not but that doesn't make him "besura". He is one of the most energetic and excellent stage performers Punjabi ever produced. His stage shows go up to 3-4 hours and people enjoy each and every bit of his performance. He is a complete singer, in my opinion. Obviously, he doesn't need to sing raag "bhairvi" & "darbari" on the stage. Thats what Nusrat, Mehdi Hasan and others do the best.
BTW, who trained Reshma ? You call her also besuri ?
My 2 cents…
@Mewa singh
Punjabis can argue whether Gurdas Mann’s classic Chhalla from the movie Laung Da Lishkara is the best or Rabbi’s new rendering. For my vote, I just want to add that Rabbi is on the world stage singing Punjabi (in his Jugni invoking that the solution to today’s problems was to invoke the Guru’s name), while during the 1980s and early 1990s Gurdas Mann went to Bombay and record plenty of Hindi content.
Well…Rabbi is a good singer, no arguments about that. But i would argue on what you wrote about Gurdas Maan. Can you please share some more information about the “plenty of hindi content” he did ?
I have been listening to Gurdas Maan for the last 17-18 years. This is for the first time i have come across such a thing.
And about which “challa” being the best ? It would be actually stupid to compare both the things. That original challa is some 200 years old folk song of Punjab. Rabbi wrote his own verses on the same rhythm tone. Thats great. But where comes the question of comparing the two ? BTW in his last album Gurdas Maan sung “challi”. Have you listened to that ? What message it has to give ?
@Panini Pothoharvi
BTW, Gurdas Mann is musically zilch. He is a great stage performer but musically, he is besura. If you really want to hear Chhalla, listen to Shaukat Ali – the original. His voice goes cutting deep inside. Rabbi will have to be born many times over to even think matching up that level of musical excellence.
I have listened to all Shaukat Ali,Inayat Ali,Gurdas Maan, Reshma and now Rabbi. Shaukat Ali is a classically trained singer and in that way Gurdas Maan is not but that doesn’t make him “besura”. He is one of the most energetic and excellent stage performers Punjabi ever produced. His stage shows go up to 3-4 hours and people enjoy each and every bit of his performance. He is a complete singer, in my opinion. Obviously, he doesn’t need to sing raag “bhairvi” & “darbari” on the stage. Thats what Nusrat, Mehdi Hasan and others do the best.
BTW, who trained Reshma ? You call her also besuri ?
My 2 cents…
Amardeep Ji, Reshma was not besuri (not in her initial years at least) but you can't say the same about Gurdas Maan. I agree with you about his energy and stage presence and his great importance as the first Punjabi singer to be noted all across India thanks to the Doordarshan terrestrial uplinkage of India into one cultural unit. What is more Gurdas Maan is a very good person – genuinely 'nek' something you can't say about a whole lot of Punjabi singers who are classically trained but otherwise fakes. The thing about Shaukat Ali is not his training in classical music – which in any case isn't much – but the passion with which he pushes the voice. I disagree with you when you identify NFAK and Mehdi Hasan with classical music. In fact, they will come across as extremely mediocre singers were they to sing pure classical music.
Rabbi's Chhalla is important because it brings it within the contemporary idiom without in anyway taking anything from the seriousness of the genre. But he has changed it in a most unexpected way. This isn't always easy to do. In this sense alone Rabbi is unsurpassable. And there are at least half a dozen other qualities I can cite to argue what a great phenomenon Rabbi is but I am not sure if this is the space to do that.
Sorry about the typographical error. My comment
should read
Amardeep Ji, Reshma was not besuri (not in her initial years at least) but you can’t say the same about Gurdas Maan. I agree with you about his energy and stage presence and his great importance as the first Punjabi singer to be noted all across India thanks to the Doordarshan terrestrial uplinkage of India into one cultural unit. What is more Gurdas Maan is a very good person – genuinely ‘nek‘ something you can’t say about a whole lot of Punjabi singers who are classically trained but otherwise fakes. The thing about Shaukat Ali is not his training in classical music – which in any case isn’t much – but the passion with which he pushes the voice. I disagree with you when you identify NFAK and Mehdi Hasan with classical music. In fact, they will come across as extremely mediocre singers were they to sing pure classical music.
Rabbi‘s Chhalla is important because it brings it within the contemporary idiom without in anyway taking anything from the seriousness of the genre. But he has changed it in a most unexpected way. This isn’t always easy to do. In this sense alone Rabbi is unsurpassable. And there are at least half a dozen other qualities I can cite to argue what a great phenomenon Rabbi is but I am not sure if this is the space to do that.
Sorry about the typographical error. My comment
should read
I don't agree the Gurdas Maan doesn't sing in sur. He is not classically trained but he is besura, that i don't think so and never heard such a thing. People won't be able listen to a besuri awaaz for more than 3 hours and that too with so much josh…taang and dhiyan. He has got a soothing voice. Just play the couplets of Heer from Waris Shah. I nowhere see that he sings so bad that you call him besura.
Don't go by the literal meaning. What i meant to say was that they are the singers whom people expect classical stuff from.
Moreover the reason that they are not singing total classical is not that they can't do it but rather that there are very few people to listen to that pure classical stuff. Nusrat rightly used to say that these days you can't sing that core classical stuff as people don't have time to listen to those 1 hour single raagas. So its better if we mix classical with a bit of modern gayaki. And thats what he did.
Had he been singing total classical how many of us would listen to him ? Just like how many of us have listened to his father Nusrat ali khan and bade ghulam ali khan and other legends of classical music.
bhul chuk maaf…
I don’t agree the Gurdas Maan doesn’t sing in sur. He is not classically trained but he is besura, that i don’t think so and never heard such a thing. People won’t be able listen to a besuri awaaz for more than 3 hours and that too with so much josh…taang and dhiyan. He has got a soothing voice. Just play the couplets of Heer from Waris Shah. I nowhere see that he sings so bad that you call him besura.
Don’t go by the literal meaning. What i meant to say was that they are the singers whom people expect classical stuff from.
Moreover the reason that they are not singing total classical is not that they can’t do it but rather that there are very few people to listen to that pure classical stuff. Nusrat rightly used to say that these days you can’t sing that core classical stuff as people don’t have time to listen to those 1 hour single raagas. So its better if we mix classical with a bit of modern gayaki. And thats what he did.
Had he been singing total classical how many of us would listen to him ? Just like how many of us have listened to his father Nusrat ali khan and bade ghulam ali khan and other legends of classical music.
bhul chuk maaf…
Bhaisaheb Amardeep Ji, Like you I too am an admirer of Gurdas Mann. The man has a clean heart. I love him. I love his performances. I love his sincerity, his verve and, above all, his desire to touch people's hearts which he does so convincingly. He is obviously not as besura as any old bathroom singer. He carries off his singing quite convincingly. But his sur gyan and pakarh of sur is not quite as masterly as that of Shaukat Ali or Master Salim or even Sukhvinder. We are judging sur at this level of excellence and not at the level of street smart singing. I hope this answers your anxiety about a person you admire so much and rightly so.
BTW NFAK's father's name is Fateh Ali
Yes ! All three of them are classically trained while he is not. So one cant expect him to know the classical stuff. What i mean to say is that calling him "besura" is harsh, in fact. We can say he is not classically trained.
Thanks for the correction. Just mixed the stuff in the head.
Bhaisaheb Amardeep Ji, Like you I too am an admirer of Gurdas Mann. The man has a clean heart. I love him. I love his performances. I love his sincerity, his verve and, above all, his desire to touch people’s hearts which he does so convincingly. He is obviously not as besura as any old bathroom singer. He carries off his singing quite convincingly. But his sur gyan and pakarh of sur is not quite as masterly as that of Shaukat Ali or Master Salim or even Sukhvinder. We are judging sur at this level of excellence and not at the level of street smart singing. I hope this answers your anxiety about a person you admire so much and rightly so.
BTW NFAK‘s father’s name is Fateh Ali