It happened more than a year ago. I was staying in India, not long after Lahooti Melo festival (Hyderabad, Pakistan) ended, where I represented one of the colours on a beautiful palette of cultural extravaganza. The festival had taken place in a part of Pakistan where various ancient Sufi shrines are located, each one bearing the name of a famous Sufi personality - just like the shrine where Latif's (Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, 18th century poet) compositions are performed several times a day. I had not visitied it, but the faqeer musicians who do their daily service there, were transported to the festival venue, so I was able to witness their performance.

As I said, I was in India when this shrine was shaken by a bomb blast with several casualties and seriously injured. People were queuing at the hospitals to give blood, and soon the shrine's community joined forces to come together and fill the walls of the shrine again with music and dance, standing up against extremism. 

Musically speaking, the singing of faqeers is everything but "velvety", and yet, anyone who has heard it, believes to have taken a plunge into eternity... The song emerging from strong male throats - an essence of Latif's Sufi poetry and Sindhi folk music - does take us back a few centuries. 

The poems stem from a love story of Sindhi and Rajasthani folklore. The tragic tale of Momal and Rano is mingled with Islamic mysticism... The stringed instruments (ektari) and throaty voices weave a "carpet" of sound, which is often rended by high-pitches cries... signs of ecstasy.

Let me show you what I mean. Here is a group of faqeers in a studio/living room in Jamshoro, presenting a composition in the usual structure: starting with free style, and then joining into a beat (the latter starts at 8:27.)

Here is how the same musicians performed in a Coke Studio production:

The one-year anniversary of the bomb blast was celebrated not long ago. To make the story complete, let me add a video from the celebration. It's a Sufi dhamaal performed by a contemporary Sufi singer, Arieb Azhar. The atmosphere speaks for itself. It would be great if the people who talk about Pakistan anywhere in the world, would also remember to mention this kind of humanity, love for life and matchless unity against evil.