When I listen back I think, the texture, the sonic weaves of time spent with women is so different from the recordings with men. Unlike men, women do not have the option, perhaps even the desire, to detach themselves from the collective. To set aside the babies, the lake, the animals. I resist the temptation to call these sounds songs, to render them sonic objects. These sounds are living sonic traditions, that circulate in repetition, that echo, seena dar seena, that enliven and are enlivened by ritual and resistance. They are necessarily contingent, dynamic, & collective. A clean recording threatens to fix a song, to make an icon of it. Every leakage, every interruption is a truth being told. Every leakage every interruption honours the boundless vitality of the tradition.
Ibrahim Hyderi, December 2023.
Ibrahim Hyderi is an ancient creek and another one of the oldest neighbourhoods of Karachi. Those who live here are descendants of Mai Kolachi, after whom the city is named. A heroic fisherwoman, Mai Kolachi was also a wanderer, and is said to have set up the first settlement around which Karachi emerged. She is also known as the hero who threw herself into the wild oceanic waters to save her youngest son, Moriro, who had been consumed by a crocodile. A crocodile, or a whale, or a serpent. It is a story that echoes the biblical story of Yunus. It also echoes the folktale of Sohni Mahiwal. There are as many versions of this story as there are people to tell it, as there are waters to locate it in. Echo practice. Worlds on worlds spring forth in moments of collective remembering.
This song tells the story of a mother’s anguish when her son’s boat returns empty to shore. Storytelling is a cosmographical practice. Like the boat, memory is a vessel. Like the boatman the storyteller is the medium between realms, a wanderer who connects stars and shores with voice, with sound. And the fish, the crocodile, the river, the moon, the birds, divine witnesses, all say shhh. Listen. They’re remembering a story.
In one version of the story Mai Kolachi softens the grip of the crocodile, coaxes him to let her son out, by intoxicating the crocodile with a lullaby. Lulling the crocodile to sleep with a song. I don’t know what the lullaby was. We heard and sang so many lullabies that day. It could be any. It could be them all. The lullaby is also a wild wandering tradition. No one improvises as much as someone who is singing a lullaby. The lullaby is also a bridge between worlds. From the world of the awake to the world of the asleep. From the world of the day to the world of the night. From the world of a womb to this world we find ourselves in now. And perhaps these lullabies, sonic memories that move heart to heart, mouth to mouth, can also move us into a new world yet to be built, yet to be born.
Ibrahim Hyderi is an ancient creek and another one of the oldest neighbourhoods of Karachi. Those who live here are descendants of Mai Kolachi, after whom the city is named. A heroic fisherwoman, Mai Kolachi was also a wanderer, and is said to have set up the first settlement around which Karachi emerged. She is also known as the hero who threw herself into the wild oceanic waters to save her youngest son, Moriro, who had been consumed by a crocodile. A crocodile, or a whale, or a serpent. It is a story that echoes the biblical story of Yunus. It also echoes the folktale of Sohni Mahiwal. There are as many versions of this story as there are people to tell it, as there are waters to locate it in. Echo practice. Worlds on worlds spring forth in moments of collective remembering.
This song tells the story of a mother’s anguish when her son’s boat returns empty to shore. Storytelling is a cosmographical practice. Like the boat, memory is a vessel. Like the boatman the storyteller is the medium between realms, a wanderer who connects stars and shores with voice, with sound. And the fish, the crocodile, the river, the moon, the birds, divine witnesses, all say shhh. Listen. They’re remembering a story.
In one version of the story Mai Kolachi softens the grip of the crocodile, coaxes him to let her son out, by intoxicating the crocodile with a lullaby. Lulling the crocodile to sleep with a song. I don’t know what the lullaby was. We heard and sang so many lullabies that day. It could be any. It could be them all. The lullaby is also a wild wandering tradition. No one improvises as much as someone who is singing a lullaby. The lullaby is also a bridge between worlds. From the world of the awake to the world of the asleep. From the world of the day to the world of the night. From the world of a womb to this world we find ourselves in now. And perhaps these lullabies, sonic memories that move heart to heart, mouth to mouth, can also move us into a new world yet to be built, yet to be born.
Sindh is named after Sindhu, the ancient river that flows, expands, contracts across its surface. It is a profoundly sacred and deeply revered river. The Rig Vedas were written at the banks of this river, and they mention Sindhu over 150 times: ‘Waters, the worshipper addresses to you excellent praise… the rivers flow by sevens through the three worlds; but the Sindhu surpasses all the other streams in strength.’ This river predates the Himalayas. Through the massive geological shifts that birthed the highest mountains on the planet, the Sindhu endured and softly shored a path.River worship is an ancient and ongoing tradition here. Devotees are known as Daryapanthi: those who walk the path of the river. Another name for Sindhu, and for Sindh, is Mehran. A name connected etymologically to Mehr/Mitra - the Indo-Persian diety of water and friendship.
Mitr. Friend.
Mitr. Friend.