Expressions of Muharram

Saeed Naqvi is a senior journalist, widely known for his TV interviews with world statesmen like Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro, Yitzhak Rabin, Mikhail Gorbachev and others. His commitment and passion for India’s syncretic culture and civilization lurks in the columns he writes every week. In the late 90s he produced Mera Bharat, a pathbreaking thirty-five-part short film series on India’s composite culture. He is the author of Reflections of an Indian Muslim, The Last Brahmin Prime Minister and Being the Other – The Muslim in India. In 2003 he was given the National Integration Award by the National Commission for Minorities “for his outstanding contribution towards promoting communal harmony and national integrity.” 

Farah Naqvi is by profession a writer, consultant and activist, working on justice, peace and development. Farah has authored two  books – Waves in the Hinterland (2008) about the birth of two award-winning newspapers – Mahila Dakiya and Khabar Lahariya, and Working with Muslims: Beyond Burqa and Triple Talaq (2018) about how civil society engages with India’s largest minority. Farah is co-director of ‘The Colour of My Home’ (2018), a film set in Muzaffarnagar, about displacement and rebuilding broken lives, in collaboration with Srishti films, Bangalore. Farah learnt the art forms associated with the observance of Muharram from her ancestral home in Mustafabad.

Askari Naqvi is a Lucknow based performing artist & entrepreneur. He is a trained vocalist under the tutelage of Pandit Amit Mukerjee. Apart from performing the art forms of Muharram, specifically Soz-Khwani, Askari also has a repertoire of light classical compositions consisting of ghazals, thumris, nazms & dadras. He has curated performances like Mehfil e Tarranum, Tarannum se Kabir & Tarannum se Hasrat. Askari is also an accomplished Dastango & has performed at various performance spaces nationally and internationally.

Yusra Naqvi is a vocalist and instrumentalist, pursuing Alankaar (Masters) in Hindustani classical music from Gandharva under Khushal Sharma and Pt. Madhup Mudgal. She belongs to Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, where she did her schooling and simultaneously learnt classical music from  Dr. Rupam Bajpai for six years. Currently a student of History at the Jamia Milia Islamia University, Delhi, she is also a performing artist of khayal, dhamaar, thumri and dadra in the classical genre, and of ghazals and bhajans in light classical music. She learnt Soz and Salaam from elders in her extended family and has been reciting these forms from a young age. Yusra is an enthusiast of Urdu resistance poetry.

Dipta Bhog is an educator by profession, working on gender and education from a feminist lens. She is co-founder of Nirantar, a Centre for Gender and Education in Delhi, and has worked on women’s literacy, education and rural journalism. She is founder of The Third Eye, an online multi-media portal for feminist educational resources. With no formal musical training, her travels across rural India have sustained her joy in vocal music of varied forms, including many folk styles and oral traditions of Kabir. She was first introduced to Soz recitations during a visit to Mustafabad over a decade ago.