One more post on this duo, Tanya Wells and Paulo Vinicius. This video is from the same performance in New Delhi, same crowd, but what I find interesting this time is a little later in the song, as the camera pans the audience, you see how vividly certain members are living the song. It's a ghazal by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, who's beloved in the Urdu-speaking world. I've only read one volume of his poetry, but when someone is taken to heart in this way, it must be for good reason. And so as Tanya Wells sings this ghazal, you see how deeply affecting it is for people -- they have lived with these lyrics, these songs, and it has gotten inside them. It is a living part of their lives. This is the way poetry and song is alive and vital in the Urdu language.
I want to know who writes the melodies for this music, this poetry? Because, whoever they are, they have a direct line into the human heart and its intrinsic pain and longing. I wish I lived in this culture; I have nothing in common with my own. I'm an exile in my homeland. This music is my heart's true homeland.
These two people are a bridge over which we can cross to experience beauty in another form, in another part of the world. And maybe the people there will finally feel seen, and heard.
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