I treat my listeners like God: Sufi singer Abida Parveen

Legendary singer says before her every performance, fear remains if she will be able to execute it well


News Desk May 22, 2017
Legendary singer says before her every performance, fear remains if she will be able to execute it well. PHOTO: COKE STUDIO

Legendary Sufi singer and the saint of our times Abida Parveen says her listeners have the stature of God in her eyes.

“Whenever there is a programme scheduled, the fear remains if I will be able to execute it well or my listeners. I treat my listeners like God and present whatever they demand,” Abida said in an interview with BBC Urdu ahead of her concert in London next week.

Abida says she makes a list a day or two before her scheduled programmes and stays engrossed in thinking how and what she will sing.

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“It is always like a test for me – a new field [to conquer],” she says. “I keep this in my mind that I have to present something new as well.”

When asked if she ever fears for her life amid terrorists’ threats after veteran Qawal Amjad Sabri was killed and extremist targeted famous Qalandar Shrine in Sindh, Abida said “all this [chaos] is temporary and the legacy of our Sufi saints is very strongly established” adding that their mission was to unite people through spirituality and it will stay the same.

Talking about her experience of working with the new generation, she said spirituality doesn’t need an old age to sing Sufi songs. Abida recently sang with Ali Sethi in Coke Studio and mesmerised the audience with their song titled ‘Aqa’.

“The Sufi kalams we have are a treasure for us and some of them are extremely intense,” she said adding that all of these words are owned by the God and He gives this wealth to anyone He wants.

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Recounting her childhood days, Abida remembers how she gave most of her time to singing and music, avoiding household works.

“My mother would argue with me that why wouldn’t I work and cook food but my father used to intervene and said that ‘my daughter will not work at home’,” she said.

Abida says her youth was solely spent practising music and she lived a life awash with Sufi ideas. “I would keep sitting with my father who was a music maestro on a charpoy. He would scold me to leave and play outside but I won’t.”

The Sufi singer is set to perform at Rafi Peer Mystic Music Sufi Festival on May 28 in London.

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