'Sacred Amritsar' preview: Soak in music and poetry at this cultural festival in the Punjabi city

The city of Amritsar is all set to play host to a festival that celebrates mystics, poets and their timeless verses. For three days, starting today (March 24), Sleepwell Presents The Sacred Amritsar will be held at the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Summer Palace. Of course, the focus is on music and poetry, but there will also be literary discourses, insightful conversations with artistes and heritage walks to soak in the culture of the city.

Says Sanjoy Roy, managing director of the arts and entertainment company Teamwork Arts, “The Sacred series began with the Sacred Pushkar some years ago. Our effort has been to create a platform to explore the mind, body, soul space through poetry, music and the arts, as well as explore the built heritage of the city.” While Punjab has always been associated with “the khaate peete mauj karte Punjabis”, Roy adds that it also boasts of excellent writers and poets like Nanak Singh and Bhai Veer Singh who brought us unforgettable stories including Khooni Vaisakhi, Pavitra Paapi, etc to more recent poets such as Sujit Pattar, Nirpupama Dutt, among others. “It seemed appropriate to set this new festival here and include the Gobindgarh Fort, Town Hall and the old city in the programme,” he says.

The opening day will see an evening of music and poetry with singer-songwriter Harpreet and former diplomat and author Navdeep Suri — the latter’s translations of two novels on Partition of India have been recently published as Hymns of Blood. On the next two days of the festival, morning music will see Taus recital by Sandeep Singh, songs of the mystics by Shabnam Virmani, who initiated the Kabir Project’s journey in 2002 and Swagath Sivakumar, a Shankar slide-guitar recital by Dr Kamala Shankar who is the first Indian woman classical slide guitarist, among others. The evening music sessions will see a folk performance by Dolly Guleria, featuring Sunaini Sharma and Carnatic vocalist Aruna Sairam’s performance, among others. The closing musical performance is by popular musician Rabbi Shergill.

Dr Kamala Shankar is the first Indian woman classical slide guitarist.