Yousuf Saeed

Yousuf Saeed is an independent filmmaker, scholar and archivist based in New Delhi, producing documentary films and writings on shared art and cultural traditions of South Asia since 1990. His films like Basant (1997), Sufi Sama (1998), and Khusrau Darya Prem ka (2015) feature Indo-Persian music and literary heritage. Yousuf’s feature-length documentary Khayal Darpan (2006) on the classical music tradition in Pakistan has been screened worldwide. He has also been working on South Asia’s popular culture in areas like the Urdu language, religious art and printed ephemera through writings, web projects and academic events. Yousuf is the project director of Tasveer Ghar, a digital archive of South Asia’s popular visual culture. Yousuf has received support from IFA twice in the past for his work on Urdu popular culture in India.

This grant will enable Yousuf to explore the history and chart the boundaries of Qawwalis in Hindi cinema as a genre of music different from other types of song. He will analyse how Bombay cinema used Qawwali to tell different stories as well as entertain the masses, often subverting the traditional form beyond its norms. He will also explore if cinema has in any way influenced how Qawwali is performed in traditional Sufi setups.

While Sufi music has become trendy all over the world of late, Qawwali as a genre of music was a staple in the Hindi cinema for a long time. Though Hindi cinema is often accused of turning Qawwali into a cheap enterprise of entertainment, Yousuf will attempt to demonstrate that in reality it not only helped popularise the art form but also transformed it from a sacred to a mode of secular device of storytelling and catharsis. However, it also reinforced the Muslim male stereotype where the protagonist is either a local ruffian or a sociable man sorting out problems in his neighbourhood through his wits or muscle power. The art form has also been frequently used in situations dealing with dacoits, thieves and criminals. The men v/s women Qawwali muqabalas or competitions used cliched argument of beauty versus love. Interestingly, while the importance of husn and jalwa or beauty and opulence is mostly defended by the women team, men usually are presented supporting dil, ishq and jazba or heart, love and emotion. Yousuf will examine what a Qawwali enabled a filmmaker to achieve that a regular song did not. He will analyse the ways in which traditional Qawwali has been altered by Bombay cinema to make it the unique ‘Cinema Qawwali’.

Yousuf will make a list of poetic, musical and cinematic ingredients that help identify a cinema Qawwali. He will then prepare a comprehensive list of movie songs that fall within the purview of Qawwali with metadata that will include names of the films, year, singers, music director, lyricist, visible actors, style and feature, context of the story and lyrics. Locating copies of songs that are not available online will form the archival component of this project. Yousuf will conduct interviews with a select set of practicing Qawwals in Delhi and neighbouring towns. These will include Qawwals such as Nizami Bandhu who have featured in films recently. He will also interview lyricists and music directors who have composed cinema Qawwalis or worked with traditional Qawwals.

The outcomes of this project will be an essay and multimedia audiovisual documentation on a digital platform. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA with the final reports will be the essay, audiovisual documentation generated during the fieldwork and a link to the digital platform.