A conversation with the Delhi-based ensemble Chaar Yaar / Faqiri Quartet about the coming together of the ensemble, language, Sufi poetry, compositions, translation, listening to histories and songs of love, joy, and collectivity in times of divisiveness.
City sounds – the premise of this series prompted a rich set of conversations with the musical ensemble Chaar Yaar or the Faquiri Quartet. As the name suggests, it comprises four musicians – composer, vocalist, and poet Madan Gopal Singh; the ace guitarist, banjo, and oud player Deepak Castelino; the youngest of all and soulful sarod player Pritam Ghosal; and a highly regarded multiple percussionist Amjad Khan. The name of the group Chaar Yaar is a carefully thought out choice since it has had different connotations at different times and different spaces. Initially the term referred to the first four Rashidun Caliphs succeeding the Prophet Muhammad. In 13th century Indian context, it referred to four Sufi saints. Chaar Yaar in this case connotes different religious affiliations of the band members and a bond transcending their socio-religious identities» (Kumar 2021, 90; italics original).
This intention of bringing the group together is something that kept reflecting throughout the conversation with Chaar Yaar. The question of how to think of the sounds of the city reminded Madan Gopal Singh of some of the darkest years in modern Indian history. Coming from Lahore during the Partition of West Punjab and then growing up in a refugee colony in Delhi, the disturbing political situations and the desolation around him in the late 1970s drew him to Sufi music and converted him into a singer. In search of lost edifices and an urge to rebuild, Madan started exploring and inventing his own unique sound in Delhi. He remembers how as a young boy, his imagination was ignited when he looked outside the window of Volga – an old restaurant in central Delhi’s area Karol Bagh – and saw some Goan musicians playing every evening with their huge instruments. His fascination for music grew with varied influences, from Bob Dylan, Peete Seeger, and The Beatles in the West, to Sistla Janaki and Sowcar Janaki from the Bollywood film music and Carnatic music, heard on a program on the radio called «Vividh Bharti». All of it was happening because of the cultural mix that the city provided. This became a springboard to then build cultural bridges across continents as they experimented with a combination of poetry, translations, indigenous, folk, and popular songs and tunes across various cultures, times, and geographies. He fondly mentions that something like this has not stopped happening in Delhi, as his wife is from the southern part of the country, and his kids are learning sounds from that region. They taught him a Kriti by Purandar Dasa, which was about returning the lake’s water to the lake.
Chaar Yaar expresses how it is truly amazing that the younger musicians of Delhi are thinking up and making original music. The guitarist of the band, Deepak Castelino, who has roots in Goa and grew up in Delhi, mentions how the younger lot might think of them as old musicians who are suffering from a colonial hangover. But it was in fact the influence of rock and roll from the West that started in the early 2000s that resulted in songs like «Khambe Jaisi Khadi Hai» or «Dil Deke Dekho» by S.D. Burman and other famous directors of that time. Waltz came from the West too, the influence of which resulted in a very famous Hindi song «Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh». Deepak mentions a lovely book called Taj Mahal Foxtrot by Naresh Fernandes on Bombay’s jazz age, which explains how music from the West shaped music in India.
Amjad Khan, the percussionist of the band, talks about the heavy influence and loose adaptation of Sufi music currently in Delhi. On one hand, listening to this genre of music eases people after a stressful week, but on the other hand, no one really knows anything in depth about the genre. Only Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Sahab’s name is enough for one to be called a Sufi singer in Delhi. He is working towards reviving the old Ghazal music scene in Delhi, which has shifted to Mumbai currently. It is a tour of reciting Ghazals from Persia to India, called «Kahani Ghazal Ki».
The group remembers the silence of the city at the time when COVID-19 hit us. Pritam Ghosal speaks of how music does not stop, it travels across borders and regions. With the help of connecting technologies, his collaborations continued to happen remotely with several artists from outside of the country.
This transient nature of Delhi also reminds Madanji of books about the sounds and smells of Kolkata in the 1950s, as for him both the cities resemble each other a lot. The culture of Delhi has had an influence of Islamic and Sufi registers, which has disappeared with time. Madan talks about how this cultural history is kept alive through archiving sound, by giving an example of Hasrat Sultan Babu’s poem «Yeh Raat Bheegi Bheegi», which was turned into a Hindi film song. Madanji talks about preserving the conscience of the city called Delhi by reminding us of the accounts of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 against the rule of the British East India Company (Dash 2012), then the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, the 1992 Bombay riots (Gill 2020), and the Gujarat pogrom in 2002 (Scroll 2023).
The unbroken conscience of the city of Delhi – that is what we need to return to, salvage, and create with. His profound words and the generous sharing of reflections and responses by all of them stay on with us as we walk away, our hearts full with the experience of meeting and learning from Chaar Yaar.