Love and life, music and religion, dreams and aspirations - it is in these that we see the oneness amongst our human collective. When we let go of organized chaos, rules and rituals, dogma and prejudices, generalizations and fears; we become one with self and the other.
Tolerance is ones capacity to endure pain and hardship, it speaks of stamina and fortitude, it is about endurance. It is not tolerance that helps us rise to greater heights as a human with humanity. For that we need to learn and appreciate acceptance.
Alfat, the new album by Sonam Kalra, teaches us how to do just that.
For finding our humanity, to be civilized members of a civil world order, we must find acceptance within us of all that are around us. Irrespective of race, religion, class or creed.
Sonam Kalra, her Sufi Gospel Project, her latest single Alfat, and the words, attitude and presence that she puts out for the world to embrace, appreciate, cherish and follow; are valuable treasured tools that help us find ourselves. Finding acceptance for our own self, and thereby becoming accepting and loving of those we deem the other.
No Stranger to me, Sonam and I have been friends for three decades. Almost one of which we spent singing, studying, dancing, debating, challenging, teasing, supporting and ignoring each other, as we went through the motions of being students at Modern School, Vasant Vihar in New Delhi.
Sonam and I were part of a handful that helped lead the morning assembly at school. This had us closely connected, for around an hour each day. No matter what click we were attached to at any given time during our days at school, we found time to come sing and begin our days together.
Then there were the summer vacations when we found ourselves at the Lady Wellingdon's Bath at the Delhi Gymkhana Club. Swimming with our grandparents in tow, often just us kids with our siblings, a handful of other schoolmates also around - we found ourselves seeing another side of our own lives, and getting familiar outside of the walls of a school.
We have seen each other through our awkward growth spurts and been there for each other when we didn't want anyone around. A smile, an ignoring glance, a snide look - all comes back with warmth in front of my eyes. Those were passing moments. The good, the bad and the ugly - what has endured and stood the tests of time, is our lasting affection, respect and love for each other. A bond we never lost, one that grows with each passing year.
I share this as I try and understand all the many traits that make Sonam the remarkable lady she is today. Sonam is not a one trick pony, or a one "single" sensation.
Sonam's is a most holistic story of growth as a human. She has worked hard to invest in her own self and those around her in life. As she loves herself more, she loves everyone more deeply.
Sonam lives the life her songs celebrate and paint into a visual canvas for our eyes through words and notes. She can sing these deeply powerful songs, with a dynamic resonant voice, because she is not merely singing them and recording them for posterity, but her singing is her devoted meditation. Her music an extension of her being, her living and breathing their meaning, echoing the brilliance of their words, and mimicking the legend.
This is a song sung from the depths of the soul, coming out for the world to appreciate only after the heart has felt it, and the mind reflected upon it. It is not just a single, or a recording, or a performance, but part of a continuum that is greater than any one element that gives it shape and form.
Sonam's voice and music have a deeply guttural strength, magic and haunting charm - they are mirrors into her mind, thinking and soul.
How lucky are we then, to behold this beautiful new single from her, Alfat, her rendering of a kalaam (a poem) by the much revered 17th century Sufi Master, Baba Bulleh Shah?!?! "The song celebrates a very simple truth", says Sonam. A truth that is much necessary to be heard and read, found in music and wherever people find inspiration, and go to for help with reflection.
She continues, "your temples, your shines, your churches, your mosques, your synagogues are not within the four walls of a building or structure. But these are within the walls of your own heart, and those of the people next to you. Love is the greatest religion of all", and having understood that, and living it, she brings her vocal genius for all to behold, hear, reflect upon, be inspired by, and use as food for their own souls.
With music like that which Sonam sings, and inspired by her life and accepting personality and presence, we have hope for tomorrow and the day after, and for our world to still become a place more accepting of itself and all that make home here.
Her fellow accompanists, her fellow musicians and geniuses, are from different faiths, even agnostic, and of different ages, and through their empathetic acceptance of each other, and the other, they are humane humans, who are of the ages and beyond nationalist or jingoistic boundaries.
Just back from Banaras, the oldest living city in the world, I find in Sonam's voice and Alfat, the message that will outlast us all. A message that could save us from ourselves.
Please take time, click on the link for her album, and hear her sing Alfat and celebrate the musical genius that is Sonam Kalra and the Sufi poet, Baba Bulleh Shah.
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