Rahat Fateh Ali Khan speaks to Anuj Kumar in The Hindu on his uncle, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, composing for Bollywood and Sufi music
He sings up to his name. Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s voice provides the relief we need in this frenzied world. “Sukoon is the word”, he insists, as he settles for the interview. Sufi music is making waves, but the genre is being interpre ted in myriad ways. What is Sufi: the person, the voice, the verse or the music? “I believe it is the thought and the style. A sufi is a person who doesn’t believe in any particular religion and loves humanity. That’s why he is closer to Allah.” Can a voice be Sufi? “Of course, the voice which has masoomiyat...the innocence that connects you to the One above.”
He clarifies what he sings in Bollywood is not always Sufi. “‘Laagi Tumse Man Ki Lagan’ is Sufi while ‘Naina Das Lenge’ is not, though both of them have been used to suit the plot of the film.”
CNN’s Anjali Rao interviews Indian film director Shekhar Kapur in front of a live audience:
AR: Shekhar, we just saw you in Dharavi, which is one of the biggest slums in the world, which is going to be the location for your next movie, “Paani.” Why is this such an important story for you to tell? You’ve wanted to do it for such a long time.
SK: I mean water is the biggest issue internationally. Most of the wars in the world are now being fought over water. Water is gonna be the new oil. It’s gonna be the new oil. It’s happening everywhere. Cities are running out of water everywhere, and when a concentrated body of 20 million people run out of water, there’s going to be an immediate war.
AR: You’ve compared this film to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” in terms of how much money you expect it to take at the box office. “Crouching Tiger…” took US$128 million in the US alone. That’s a pretty tall order for “Paani” don’t you think?
SK: I’ve got to get the funding for that. No, but it is. You it’s time that everybody… it’s a musical, it’s in English and Hindi and it’s going to be…It’s time the largest filmmaking country in the world made a film that the world over becomes a major international commercial success. And the only reason we’ve not been able to do it is because we’ve not come up with a story that everybody says, yeah that’s a story we want to hear.
