Sufi Singer Kavita Seth performs at IIT Mumbai

Need to finish the Extremism -- Kavita Seth on Mumbai Attacks

After 26/11, I’m numb and I’m very depressed to see all the drama on TV. We see the people of India – so helpless. We don’t know what to do now. This is the mental State of every Mumbaikar.
But few things we have to find – what is the root cause of this kind of Terrorism? What they want? How much we care for our country, city, society, and colony.
It starts from home. People who belongs (specially gunned man) from neighbor country, who also attacked on Mumbai, New York, Lahore are poor, illiterate. The person or groups behind these people have mastermind, these are just like (Pyada) or Mohra. They can do anything for money.
But it is our -: every citizen of India -: individual duty to stand up and take care of his home from outsiders. For this we need honest, anti-corrupted, dedicated citizen, who can’t sell their self respect for some coins.
People are talking about attack on the neighbor country, but revenge is not the solution. We have to make the people alert and spread the message of peace not hatred.

Sufi is above all the religion. It reaches humanity, tolerance. I just want to spread the message of peace by Sufi sangeet to make people connect with love to God.

Sufism - The message of love
Sufism is love and affection. It is the cure for hatred and nothing more. Sufism is the path of faith and affirmation of unity. This is the incorruptible religion.
Sufism is, in it's essence, the way of love. Love is considered to be a spiritual alchemy by means of which the basic quality of a human being are transformed into higher ones.
Try to make your life a rose that speaks silently in the language of the heart.
THERE IS ONLY ONE RELIGION -- LOVE
THERE IS ONLY ONE LANGUAGE -- OF THE HEART
THERE IS ONLY ONE CAST -- HUMANITY
THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD.

Kavita Seth with Mahesh Bhatt

DM releasing Sufiana Album at Lucknow

Muzaffar Ali Releasing Sufiana Album in Delhi

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Mission Sufi

In a world where even classical musicians’ offsprings are moving Westwards, Kavita Seth is on the mission to spread the mystical charm of Sufism. Her maiden album, Sufiana, has been raking in appreciation.

Kavita Seth is delighted that her Times Music album worked out so well both in content and its release. “We released the album at the 800-year-old Khaman Pir Ka Dargah in Lucknow at the hands of the actual maulanas there,” she says excitedly. “Before this I had multi-city concerts in India and abroad.”

Kavita reveals that Maulana Rumi, on whose verse the album is based on, was probably the most eminent poet in the Sufi school and remains the best-selling one over eight centuries. “The UNESCO has declared 2007 as the Year Of The Poet in memory of the 800th birth anniversary of the Maulana, and back home Muzaffar Ali is planning a film on him in Delhi,” she says. “Maulana Rumi wrote Persian ghazals and it is said that he loved playing the rabab and the flute.”

Kavita has read a lot of Rumi and is spellbound by his intensity. “I know Persian well as I used to work at the Iran Culture House many years ago. And I wanted to do this album for a good while. It is my great privilege that though I have been performing now for years my first-ever album is on this great poet’s work.”

Obviously needing a wider connect with the audience and listeners, Kavita felt the need for translating the treasury of in-depth thoughts and their expression into simple Hindi and Urdu. “Here again I was lucky,” smiles the lady. “I met Syed Ali, a poet who is himself not enamoured by worldly trappings in a dargah. He translated a lot of his songs for me and I have also included a beautiful original song of his in the album, which has been receiving a lot of appreciation. I have selected the tracks here based on the response I got while singing them in my concerts.”

As an example, she mentions a couplet in one of the songs,

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n “Hazaaron saal nargis aap be-noori pe roti hai

n Badi mushkil se hota hai deedaawar paida.”

(The woman lamented her misfortune for thousands of years

For it’s with great difficulty that a deliverer takes birth)

Kavita has herself composed the music, and Yaar mera has a special place in her heart among the tracks. But why did she have to sing a ‘me-too’ version of Damadam mast qalandar in the album? Kavita smiles and says that it was the music label that wanted this all-time popular track.

The singer-composer is known to film music buffs for her popular songs for Satish Kaushik’s Vaada (Maula) and Anurag Basu’s Gangster (Mujhe mat roko). So when will we hear her again in films? “When I get something as dear to me as these two songs,”she replies.

Till then, it is Mission Sufi.

The article appeared in Screen India on 4th Jan 2008

Connecting to Eternity

CONNECTING TO ETERNITY: Sufi singer Kavita Seth of Mumbai's Karwaan group performs along with Irani artistes as part of a two-day cultural festival organised at Chowmahalla Palace on Friday. The event is being organised to showcase the palace as a centre of arts, crafts and culture.

Times of India, Saturday, 5th January 2008