Jaipur to Japan: Kachra Khan weaves Sufi musical magic

The soulful Sufi festival ‘Ruhaniyat’, which concluded on Sunday, boasts of among others, a voice that has traversed the sand dunes of Rajasthan and touched the oriental shores of the Land of the Rising Sun — Japan. Kachra Khan, a musician belonging to the ‘Manganiar’ community, goes down memory lane about his association with the festival and his trip to Tokyo. 

The rustic voice leads you to the venue and you inch your way through the crowd to catch him rendering a soulful Bulle Shah poetry. It’s a congregation of diverse Sufi and mystic artists from all over India and you experience the trance-like feeling that hangs in the air. He sings effortlessly and his cascading vocals leave the audience in raptures.

“Music is bhakti, it’s my life, I sing every year for ‘Ruhaniyat’. In fact, I opened the festival five years ago,” says Kachra. Describing his every performance in the festival as pleasurable, he humbly points heavenwards for the talent he possesses.

“It comes from the heart. I got the art from my father on whose chest I laid my head while sleeping as a child,” says Kachra with humility.

His 45-year-long musical journey includes his treasured performance with Ustad Sultan Khan and also an unforgettable trip to Japan. “Khan saab said he would like to share the stage with me and you cannot imagine how happy I felt,” grins Kachra. He also has cherished memories of his performance in Japan.

 “It was a jugalbandi with a well-known Japanese musician. The journey was great, though I disliked their food. We just picked up each other’s notes and jammed, communication being a problem,” explains Kachra. “I still have those travel tickets with me,” he smiles.

Coming from a musician community, Kachra recollects the names of about 15 generations prior to his. “We sing at big weddings or at other social ceremonies in Rajasthan. There was a time when we would starve for days due to lack of grains caused by droughts,” he says.

Kachra sings ‘Jhangda’, ‘Sufiana Sindhi’, and ‘Punjabi Sindhi’ styles and dotes on poetry by Bulle Shah apart from Heer-Ranjha and Laila-Majnu. Quiz him about his Bollywood ambitions and he fumes over the industry that thrives on rip-offs.
“My song ‘nimbuda’ (Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam) was used with no acknowledgement offered to me,” he complains.
Naming Late Ustad Alla Rakha and Zakir Hussain as his idols, he dreams of passing on the legacy to his children.