Sound of Nation

In 2005, a bomb blast in Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi killed 10 and injured 40 people. Lashkar-e-Qasab, an offshoot of Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba claimed responsibility for the attacks. Ten years later, the Pakistani ghazal legend Ghulam Ali performed at Sankat Mochan Sangeet for its annual music festival. That night, facing the sanctorum in a packed temple courtyard, Ali sang, among other things, about clandestine love affairs and the pains of partition, despite protests by far-right regional party Shiv Sena before and during the concert.

If the relevance of an art form is in breaking barriers, music is the most transcendental of them all. Perhaps this is owing to the fact that the impact of a song is more immediate than film, painting or literature, its interaction with the receiver so visceral that it leaves little room for prejudice.

Composer Shantanu Moitra recalls meeting someone during a visit to the USA a few years back who described A.R. Rahman as a “Muslim composer”.