The Sindhi cultural world historically encompassed multiple regions that now straddle the India-Pakistan border. Although connections between these regions have been increasingly hindered since Partition in 1947 and the India-Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971, Sufi musico-poetic performance in western India continues to map out a transborder cultural landscape through shared melodies and stories, and songs that affirm the unbordered sovereignties of saintly figures. Building on ethnomusicological studies that demonstrate how possession trance practices distill historical and social relations in dramatic form (Friedson 2009; Jankowsky 2010; Perman 2011), this paper works with Bakhtin’s concept of chronotopes (Eisenlohr 2015; Wirtz 2016) to tune in to the historical resonances of an Islamic possession ritual in western Rajasthan called the mauj (wave, surge; emotion, ecstasy). In the mauj, Marwari-speaking Muslim hereditary musicians sing Sindhi-language songs that commemorate locally entombed martyrs of the Battle of Karbala, whose dismembered limbs soared across the battlefield and landed in Rajasthan. This presentation focuses on a mauj in 2018 in which a Sindhi-speaking saint occupied the body of a Marwari-speaking spirit medium (faqīr, bhopo) to offer curative advice concerning a woman suspected to be possessed by a ghost. In view of the gradual decline of Sindhi-language knowledge in western India since Partition, the translinguistic dimensions of the mauj raises questions about how Sindhi music and the non-living beings whose spiritual arrival it engenders traverse across temporal, spatial, and bodily boundaries to maintain the collective memory of greater Sindh.

Although the influence of mysticism can be found throughout India, sarangi (North Indian bowed viol) players developed a profound connection to Sufism. Sarangi players’ association with the “ineffable” developed an efficacy through tasir (spiritual impression) and asr (affect); it could transcend their everyday. In Hindustani (North Indian classical) music, the Sanskritic aesthetic was highlighted by early oriental writers (Jones 1799; Willard 1834) and the revivalist Indian musicology advocated for theory and notation based ideas (Bhatkhande 1963). However, the Sufi phenomena, crucial to sarangi player’s understanding of music, has received less scholarly attention.

Through phenomenological ways, this paper interprets the Sufi concepts of tasir and asr found in sarangi music, particularly, using the works of Edmund Husserl (1969) and Jean-Luc Nancy (2007). On one hand, research on phenomenology constitutes an independent, well-developed area in music and other disciplines. On the other hand, its study on sarangi players is non-existent. I use ethnographic research to uncover affective traces of the ineffable in sarangi players’ music and culture. My research combines ethnomusicological approaches––drawing on relevant literature and original ethnographic data––with reflexive personal experiences gained under my sarangi teacher and grandfather, Ustad Sabri Khan (1927–2015). I argue, while the presence of Sufism in sarangi players may be indescribable, it is not inaudible. Its power derives from its vibrational potential.

In India, Bhakti (devotional Hinduism) in contrast to the more orthodox and exclusionary Brahminical ritual-based practices put the singing of devotional songs and poetry as a primary way of reaching the divine. There are various Bhakti performative traditions such as Ratijoga (night vigil), Satsang (singing congregation), mela (fair-cum-pilgrimage), etc. In this paper, I propose to interrogate the inroads that devotional music has made into a new context i.e. music festivals, especially in Rajasthan, India. Music festivals are becoming an increasingly important site for devotional singing and have enabled Bhakti to venture into a new social space i.e. urban elite population who doesn’t necessarily believe in the ritualistic aspect of traditions. These festivals span a spectrum of musical styles overall and attract a more elite audience that other Bhakti traditions are not been able to tap into. The paper will look at state and non-state actors' participation in organizing these festivals and programs of Bhakti singing and the patterns of funding. As music festivals are becoming a major draw among performers and sponsors, I will look at what strategies are employed by artists and organizers that distinguish Bhakti renditions in music festivals viz-a-viz their traditional counterparts. It will analyze Bhakti music’s dynamism to find a new audience viz-a-viz its vulnerability to appropriation.