Performance by artists from Kutch (Mazhar Mutwa etc.)
Mazhar Mutwa and group narrate Sufi stories from Sindh and sing verses by Shah Abdul Latif. Shah Abdul Latif’s poetry is widely considered representative of the very soul of Sindhi language and culture. In his stories of the adventures of the Samundis (Sindhi sailors) and their voyages to Sri Lanka, Istanbul, Samarkand, and the Malabar coast, Latif’s poetry reflects the breadth of experience as well as the syncretism embodied in the socio-cultural and economic outlook of the Sindhi community. It was this particular socio-cultural outlook that the Hindu Sindhis found themselves re-evaluating when they migrated to Gujarat in the wake of the Partition in India in 1947. Confronted by cultural contexts of alienation and identity politics, their own cultural roots in ethnic and religious syncretism were under considerable threat. Mazhar Mutwa’s songs and stories not only signify on the elegy of Sindhi identity but also on the many untold stories of immigrant ethnic communities in India.
