Sung here by Comrade Fozia Seengar, this song was written by poet Ustad Juman Darbadar. He penned it at the height of the Movement for Restoration of Democracy that had raged across Sindh in the 1980s against the military dictatorship of Zia ul Haq. After witnessing the murder of a young comrade in struggle, he wrote:
We will return in every lifetime
We will return in every lifetime
We will meet by the sweet Mehran
We will meet by the sweet Mehran
We will return in every lifetime
We will return in every lifetime
We will meet by the sweet Mehran
We will meet by the sweet Mehran
Nasirabad, November 2022.
I had never met Fozia Seengar in person before, but I knew her from seeing breathtaking footage of her rallying the women of Nasirabad every day to march across the city a year earlier. They were marching for the recovery of Fozia’s husband Seengar Noonari after he was forcibly abducted by the state for his work as an activist in the left. Fozia along with her comrade Abida Channa spoke of the relief work they had been doing as part of the Women’s Democratic Front and the complete absence of relief efforts from the state. Just weeks earlier the flood waters had flowed into the same home we were sitting in.
The day we met, across Sindh, people were mourning the death of Ustad Juman Darbadar, one of Sindh’s most beloved poets and elders. Fozia told us her toddler hates the sound of her sweet singing, as it reminds him of the long laments she would sing every night when Seengar went missing. But she still sang a song for us that day, for Ustad Juman Darbadar. This song is considered one of Sindh’s national songs, an expression of Sindh’s fundamentally revolutionary spirit.
I had never met Fozia Seengar in person before, but I knew her from seeing breathtaking footage of her rallying the women of Nasirabad every day to march across the city a year earlier. They were marching for the recovery of Fozia’s husband Seengar Noonari after he was forcibly abducted by the state for his work as an activist in the left. Fozia along with her comrade Abida Channa spoke of the relief work they had been doing as part of the Women’s Democratic Front and the complete absence of relief efforts from the state. Just weeks earlier the flood waters had flowed into the same home we were sitting in.
The day we met, across Sindh, people were mourning the death of Ustad Juman Darbadar, one of Sindh’s most beloved poets and elders. Fozia told us her toddler hates the sound of her sweet singing, as it reminds him of the long laments she would sing every night when Seengar went missing. But she still sang a song for us that day, for Ustad Juman Darbadar. This song is considered one of Sindh’s national songs, an expression of Sindh’s fundamentally revolutionary spirit.
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.