THIS ABOVE ALL
Yearning for lost youth
Khushwant Singh

LOSS of youth is a popular theme in Urdu poetry. The picture of an old man crippled with age walking with his head bent low as if looking for something that he has lost is thematic:

(I lost my youth and I didn't even realise it. It is this that I am looking for with my waist bent low).

Another poet compared the world to a sarai where people come to stay for a while and go their way. So, while youth comes and departs never to return, old age comes and stays till the end of one's days.

Mirza Ghalib was the most eloquent on the subject. Recalling nightlong drunken orgies of his younger days that have now became memories, he says:

(Where have those nightlong orgies of drinking gone? Get up now, far gone are the sweet dreams of dawn).

And

Singing sardar

He is a sardar, but not the stereotyped one. He certainly looks like one with his turban, beard and sturdy built. Though 58 and sporting a greying beard, he looks a good 10 years younger. First his name: Dya (instead of Daya) Singh. He speaks both Punjabi and English fluently without the slightest trace of a local accent. He is highly educated - a Chartered Accountant with a degree from England - and is in consultancy business in Australia. But he is best known as a raagi (a singer of Gurbani). Unlike other raagis who sing in ragas of Hindustani music with harmoniums and tablas, he has evolved a unique style of singing, which is a kind of blend of eastern and western music with guitar and banjo. He is accompanied by his troupe that comprises white Australians. I have tapes of his singing the Sikhs' five daily prayers (nit neym) and the morning hymn Asa di Vaar. Everyone who has heard him concedes that though at first it is strange to the ear used to hearing Gurbani in the conventional form where the music often blurs the message, with Dya Singh it is the other way round — the divine messages came through clearer than in kirtans that one usually hears.

Dya Singh was in Delhi recently for a few days. He dropped in to see me and I got some details of his life and career.

He is the son of Giani Harchand Singh, who was a regimental granthi-cum-preacher, attached to a Sikh regiment in the British Indian Army. He gave up his job to become a granthi (teacher) and raagi in a gurdwara in Malaysia. Dya Singh was born in Raub on Baisakhi day (April 13) in 1950 and is a Malaysian citizen (the family originally came from Rai Kot Basiyan near Ludhiana and are Dhaliwal Jats). He first went to a Muslim primary school. Thus he was taught how to perform the namaaz before he learnt Sikh prayers (It reminded me of Guru Nanak's first disciple, the Muslim rebab player Bhai Mardana, whose descendents remained the chief kirtanyas of Harmandar Sahib in Amritsar till 1947). Dya Singh joined an English- medium school in Kuala Lumpur. At the age of 12 he began singing ghazals and Gurbani in Indian programmes on Radio Malaysia. Mohammed Rafi, Jagjit Singh, Bhai Avatar Singh and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan inspired him. But he has a distinct style of singing. He earned enough to enable him to go to England for higher studies. He fell in love with a local girl and married her. The couple has three daughters.

Dya Singh completed his course in chartered accountancy and decided to settle in Australia. The family now lives in Adelaide where he continues his profession with public performances of his style of kirtan in different parts of the world. Though he has not had as much exposure as he deserves in the land of his ancestors, he is a unique phenomenon.

Moonstruck

(Contributed by P.S. Nindra, New Delhi)