Dhruv Sangari also known as Bilal Chishty Sangari بلال ڇݜتى سنگارى is a Sufi and Classical Indian vocalist, composer, lyricist, savant and teacher. He is the son of well-known scholar and author Kumkum Sangari and noted painter Mahendra 'Manu' Sangari.

Early life and training

Born in 1981, Dhruv began his training in

Hindustani classical music Hindustani classical music is the classical music of northern regions of the Indian subcontinent. It may also be called North Indian classical music or, in Hindustani, ''shastriya sangeet'' (). It is played in instruments like the violin, sita ...

at the age of seven with Shahana Bannerjee and continued under Ustad

Iqbal Ahmad Khan Ustad Iqbal Ahmed Khan (195417 December 2020) was an Indian classical vocalist from Delhi Gharana. Biography Khan was born in 1954 into a family with a rich musical pedigree. Ustad Chand Khan and Ustad Jahan Khan were his grandfathers from the ma ...

. He also trained in the tabla from Pandit B.S. Ramanna. Later, he developed an interest in Sufism and Sufi music and started learning qawwali from Ustad Meraj Ahmed Nizami of the Qawwal-Bachhe

Gharana In Hindustani music (North Indian classical music), a ''gharānā'' is a system of social organisation in the Indian subcontinent, linking musicians or dancers by lineage or apprenticeship, and more importantly by adherence to a particular mus ...

at the

dargah A dargah ( fa, درگاه ''dargâh'' or ''dargah'', Turkish: ''dergâh'', Hindustani: ''dargah'' दरगाह درگاہ, bn, দরগাহ ''dorgah'') is a shrine or tomb built over the grave of a revered religious figure, often ...

of the Sufi saint

Nizamuddin Auliya Muhammad Nizamuddin Auliya (sometimes spelled Awliya; 1238 – 3 April 1325), also known as Hazrat Nizamuddin, and Mahbub-e-Ilahi () was an Sunni Muslim scholar, Sufi saint of the Chishti Order, and is one of the most famous Sufis from the India ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

. His journey in music led him to discover Pakistani

Qawwali Qawwali ( Punjabi: (Shahmukhi), (Gurmukhi); Urdu: (Nasta'liq); Hindi: क़व्वाली (Devanagari); Bengali: কাওয়ালি (Bengali)) is a form of Sufi Islamic devotional singing, originating from the Indian subcontinent ...

maestro

Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan ( pa, ; born Pervez Fateh Ali Khan; 13 October 1948 – 16 August 1997) was a Pakistani singer, songwriter, and music director. He was primarily a singer of qawwali — a form of Sufi devotional music. Sometimes ...

, whom he eventually met and learnt from in the mid 1990s. Having completed his studies in Hindustani classical music from the University of Delhi under such musical stalwarts as Dr.

Krishna Bisht Krishna (; sa, कृष्ण ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme god in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is one of ...

, Dr. Najma Parveen Ahmad and Ustad

Ghulam Sadiq Khan Ustad Ghulam Sadiq Khan (22 August 1939 – 15 May 2016) was an Indian classical vocalist. He belonged to the Rampur-Sahaswan gharana. Musical career He was initiated into music at the age of nine by his father Ustad Ghulam Jafar Khan, who wa ...

, Dhruv went on to become a full-time concert and recording artiste and has been performing with various bands since 2000. During this period he anchored a 25 episode series based on Indian classical

Ragas A ''raga'' or ''raag'' (; also ''raaga'' or ''ragam''; ) is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music akin to a melodic mode. The ''rāga'' is a unique and central feature of the classical Indian music tradition, and as a ...

'Tarang ki Mehfil' broadcast on

ETV Urdu News 18 J&K-Ladakh-Himachal ( ur, ) is an Indian television network that broadcasts in Urdu and is owned by Network 18 which is owned and operated by Reliance Industries. It was launched on 15 August 2001 by Media Baron Ramoji Rao. It is the ...

. A decade ago a chance meeting with Syed Salman Chishty and Syed Dr. Peer Najmul Hassan Chishty led him down the spiritual path and he took hand with the latter in the city of

Ajmer Ajmer is one of the major and oldest cities in the Indian state of Rajasthan and the centre of the eponymous Ajmer District. It is located at the centre of Rajasthan. It is also known as heart of Rajasthan. The city was established as "''Aj ...

, thus being formally inducted into the

Chishti The Chishtī Order ( fa, ''chishtī'') is a tariqa, an order or school within the mystic Sufism, Sufi tradition of Sunni Islam. The Chishti Order is known for its emphasis on love, tolerance, and openness. It began with Abu Ishaq Shami in Ch ...

Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...

Order. During his travels across the world as a musician he also became close to Sheikh Ibrahim Farajaje and Sheikh Muhammad bin Yahya al-Ninowy. A follower of Sufi Islam, Dhruv remains an active voice on issues of

Sufism Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...

and Sufi Culture and regularly performs offerings at various Sufi shrines across the Indian Subcontinent. His spouse is Anam Hassan, whom he married in 2016.

Biography, career profile and discography

Popularly known as 'Prince of Qawwali' Dhruv has sung and composed the mystic verses of poets and saints such as

Baba Farid Farīd al-Dīn Masʿūd Ganj-i-Shakar ( ; – 7 May 1266) was a 13th-century Punjabi Sunni Muslim preacher and mystic, who was one of the most revered and distinguished Muslim mystics of the medieval period. He is known reverentially as B� ...

Amir Khusrau Abu'l Hasan Yamīn ud-Dīn Khusrau (1253–1325 AD), better known as Amīr Khusrau was an Indo-Persian culture, Indo-Persian Sufi singer, musician, poet and scholar who lived under the Delhi Sultanate. He is an iconic figure in the cultural his ...

Mirabai Meera, better known as Mirabai and venerated as Sant Meerabai, was a 16th-century Hindu mystic poet and devotee of Krishna. She is a celebrated Bhakti saint, particularly in the North Indian Hindu tradition. Mirabai was born into a Rathore ...

Rumi Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( fa, جلال‌الدین محمد رومی), also known as Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (), Mevlânâ/Mawlānā ( fa, مولانا, lit= our master) and Mevlevî/Mawlawī ( fa, مولوی, lit= my ma ...

Jami Nūr ad-Dīn 'Abd ar-Rahmān Jāmī ( fa, نورالدین عبدالرحمن جامی; 7 November 1414 – 9 November 1492), also known as Mawlanā Nūr al-Dīn 'Abd al-Rahmān or Abd-Al-Rahmān Nur-Al-Din Muhammad Dashti, or simply as J ...

Bulleh Shah Syed Abdullah Shah Qadri ( pa, ; ; 1680–1757), known popularly as Bulleh Shah ( pa, ; ) and Bulleya, was a Punjabi philosopher and Sufi poet during 17th-century Punjab. His ancestors had migrated from Bukhara (modern-day Uzbekistan) ...

Kabir Kabir Das (1398–1518) was a 15th-century Indian mystic poet and saint. His writings influenced Hinduism's Bhakti movement, and his verses are found in Sikhism's scripture Guru Granth Sahib, the Satguru Granth Sahib of Saint Garib Das, ...

, Saim Chishty,

Allama Iqbal Sir Muhammad Iqbal ( ur, ; 9 November 187721 April 1938), was a South Asian Muslim writer, philosopher, Quote: "In Persian, ... he published six volumes of mainly long poems between 1915 and 1936, ... more or less complete works on philoso ...

, Bedil and Shah Niyaz among others. His early experimental works were with Swiss electronic musicians Lionel Dentan and David Scruffari with the band Da-Saz. Their debut album 'Jet-Lag was released by Phat-Phish Records in 2008. In 2008 Dhruv scripted and anchored another series based on

Indian Classical Music Indian classical music is the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It has two major traditions: the North Indian classical music known as '' Hindustani'' and the South Indian expression known as '' Carnatic''. These traditions were not ...

titled 'Raagon ki Haseen Duniya' that aired on

DD Urdu DD Urdu is an Indian free-to-air television channel broadcasting from the Doordarshan Studios in Delhi. It broadcasts entertainment, cultural , news and infotainment Infotainment (a portmanteau of ''information'' and ''entertainment''), al ...

. In 2011 he went on to collaborate on the album 'Hope' with artists Timothy Hill and Eric Thomas for the Nasreen & Alam Sher Foundation, US. In 2012 he sang Saim Chishty's famous poem 'Haq Ali Maula'(originally sung by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) with his band Humble mystic for oke_Studio_MTV_at_Reliance_Studios,_Mumbai.html" ;"title="MTV.html" ;"title="oke Studio MTV">oke Studio MTV at Reliance Studios, Mumbai">MTV.html" ;"title="oke Studio MTV">oke Studio MTV at Reliance Studios, Mumbai. Apart from singing the 2013 chartbuster 'Lutt Jawaan' for Music Director Mannan Shah in the movie Commando: A One Man Army starring Vidyut Jamwal, and the hit Coke Studio (India) MTV track 'Kyun Na' with composer Amit Trivedi; Dhruv penned the lyrics for song 'Abr e Karam' sung by Shilpa Rao for the movie [ hopal: A Prayer for Rain released in 2014 starring Martin Sheen, Mischa Barton and Kal Penn. Dhruv was also featured in

Fox Life Fox Life is an international pay television network, launched by the Fox Networks Group in 2004. The network has been discontinued in several markets over time, except for the Middle East, Bulgaria, Portugal, the Balkans, India and Greece. The ...

’s series Sound Trek (season 2) in the episode 'Dumdam Must Qalandar' in 2014. In 2017 he gave voice for the score of Andy Serkis's film Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle with London-based composer

Nitin Sawhney Nitin Sawhney , D.Mus (; born 1964) is a British musician, producer and composer. A recipient of the Ivor Novello Lifetime Achievement award in 2017, among multiple international awards throughout his career. Sawhney's work combines Asian ...

. Currently Dhruv is working on a series of single tracks and on reviving old and less heard

South Asian South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, ...

Sufi melodies. Primarily influenced by

and classical maestros including

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan ( pa, ; born Pervez Fateh Ali Khan; 13 October 1948 – 16 August 1997) was a Pakistani singer, songwriter, and music director. He was primarily a singer of qawwali — a form of Sufi music, Sufi devotional music. ...

Abida Parveen Abida Parveen (Urdu, sd, ; born 20 February 1954) is a Pakistani singer, composer and musician of Sufi music. She is also a painter and entrepreneur. Parveen is one of the highest paid singers in Pakistan. Her singing and music has earned he ...

Sabri Brothers The Sabri Brothers ( Punjabi, ) were a musical band from Pakistan who were performers of Sufi qawwali music and were closely connected to the Chishti Order. They are considered as one of the greatest Sufi qawwali singers of all times. The Sabri ...

Ustad Rashid Khan Ustad Rashid Khan (born 1 July 1968) is an Indian classical musician in the Hindustani music tradition. He belongs to the Rampur-Sahaswan gharana, and is the great-grandson of gharana founder Inayat Hussain Khan. He is married to Soma Khan. ...

Madan Gopal Singh Madan Gopal Singh (b 1950, Amritsar) is an Indian composer, singer, lyricist, actor, screenwriter, film theorist, editor and polyglot. He is currently Senior Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New ...

and

Shubha Mudgal Shubha Mudgal (born 1 January 1959) is an Indian singer of Hindustani classical music. Her repertoire includes the genres of khyal, thumri, dadra, and Indian pop. She has received the Padma Shri in 2000. Early life Shubha was born in Allahabad ...

; Dhruv-Bilal, in addition to his music, has also collaborated, taught, performed and presented papers at conferences with several artistes, scholars, international institutions and universities. He worked with Theater director

Habib Tanvir Habib Tanvir (1 September 1923 – 8 June 2009) was one of the most popular Indian Urdu, Hindi playwrights, a theatre director, poet and actor. He was the writer of plays such as, ''Agra Bazar'' (1954) and ''Charandas Chor'' (1975). A pio ...

on the proscenium Hypatia, with Joachim Schloemer's PVC Tanz at

Auroville Auroville (; City of Dawn) is an experimental township in Viluppuram district, mostly in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, with some parts in the Union Territory of Pondicherry in India. It was founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa (known as "the Mo ...

, India, Stadttheater and

House of World Cultures The Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), in English House of the World's Cultures, in Berlin is Germany's Performing arts center, national center for the presentation and discussion of international contemporary arts, with a special focus on non-E ...

, Germany for the critically acclaimed play The Abduction of Sita, based on artist

Nina Paley Nina Carolyn Paley (born May 3, 1968) is an American cartoonist, animator, and free culture activist. She was the artist and often the writer of the comic strips ''Nina's Adventures'' and ''Fluff'', after which she worked primarily in animati ...

's 'Sita sings the Blues ; at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

, DC; as

Artist in Residence Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space a ...

Colby College Colby College is a private liberal arts college in Waterville, Maine. It was founded in 1813 as the Maine Literary and Theological Institution, then renamed Waterville College after the city where it resides. The donations of Christian philanthr ...

, Maine; and in various events at Stanford University, Johns Hopkins, SAIS, DC; Berkeley, SFO; New York University, NY, US Library of Congress and the University of Virginia, US, National College of Art, Lahore and the National Center for Performing Arts, Mumbai. As lead vocalist for a number of bands like Da-Saz, Rooh Sufi Ensemble, Humble Mystic etc., Dhruv has performed at Indian and international festivals such as

Bhakti ''Bhakti'' ( sa, भक्ति) literally means "attachment, participation, fondness for, homage, faith, love, devotion, worship, purity".See Monier-Williams, ''Sanskrit Dictionary'', 1899. It was originally used in Hinduism, referring to d ...

Utsav, Gurgaon Utsav,

ICCR The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), is an autonomous organisation of the Government of India, involved in India's global cultural relations, through cultural exchange with other countries and their people. It was founded on 9 Apri ...

International Sufi Festival, International Sufi Festival of Kolkata, Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad Jayanti, Hriday Drishyam, Samagam,

Prem Rawat Prem Pal Singh Rawat (born 10 December 1957), formerly known as Maharaji, is an international speaker and book-author. His teachings include a meditation practice he calls "Knowledge", and peace education based on the discovery of personal re ...

Sahaj Yoga Sahaja ( pra, সহজ sa, सहज ) means spontaneous enlightenment in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist spirituality. Sahaja practices first arose in Bengal during the 8th century among yogis called Sahajiya siddhas. Ananda Coomaraswamy describe ...

Navras "Navras" is a composition and a song from ''The Matrix Revolutions'' soundtrack by goa trance band Juno Reactor, whose remix version is composed by Don Davis and Juno Reactor featuring vocal elements by Lakshmi Shankar and Azam Ali. The song con ...

Siddhartha Festival Siddhartha or Siddharth is the birth name of the founder of Buddhism, Gautama Buddha. Siddhartha may also refer to: Books * ''Siddhartha'' (novel), about a fictional contemporary of the Buddha, by Hermann Hesse Film and TV * ''Siddhartha'' (1 ...

Vana Foundation Vana (or with diacrits, e.g. Váňa) may refer to: * Vana, Gujarat, a village on Saraushtra peninsula, western India * Vana State, a former princely state whose seat was in Vana, Gujarat * Vana, Iran, a village in Mazandaran Province, Iran * V ...

The Sufi Route ''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...

(headlined by

A.R. Rahman Allah Rakha Rahman (; born A. S. Dileep Kumar; 6 January 1967) is an Indian music composer, record producer, singer and songwriter, popular for his works in Indian cinema; predominantly in Tamil and Hindi films, with occasional forays in int ...

, Gaana BMP, Krishnakriti,

Phool Walon Ki Sair Phool Waalon Ki Sair meaning "procession of the florists" is an annual celebration by the flower sellers of Delhi. It is a three-day festival, generally held in the month of September, just after the rainy season in the region of Mehrauli. It ...

Serendipity Arts Festival Serendipity Arts Festival is an annual arts festival held in Panaji, Goa over a week in late December. It was founded in 2016 by Sunil Kant Munjal, chairman of Hero Enterprise. It is the only arts festival in the country whose programming spans ...

, Parramasala Festival,

Parramatta Parramatta () is a suburb and major Central business district, commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the ban ...

(with

David Hykes David Hykes (born March 2, 1953, Taos, New Mexico) is a composer, singer, musician, author, and meditation teacher. He was one of the earliest modern western pioneers of overtone singing, and since 1975 has developed a comprehensive approach to ...

Serpentine Gallery The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Central London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Gallery, ...

, London, Chhandayan, NYC and Sufism at the Smithsonian, Washington DC. Empaneled with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations

and the Festivals of India Abroad,

Ministry of Culture (India) The Ministry of Culture is the Indian government ministry charged with preservation and promotion of art and culture of India. G. Kishan Reddy is the current Minister of Culture. Recently the government has established the National Mission on ...

, Dhruv (along with filmmaker Yousuf Saeed) is a founding member of

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

cited organization Ektara India which has worked towards archiving and disseminating materials on Sufi-Bhakti culture based themes. The organization has also regularly conducted workshops and heritage trails highlighting the contribution of the Sufi saints. Dhruv has conducted and co-facilitated spiritual immersions across India, Pakistan, Turkey and the US and been an experience architect for

Times Passion Trails Time is the continued sequence of existence and events, and a fundamental quantity of measuring systems. Time or times may also refer to: Temporal measurement * Time in physics, defined by its measurement * Time standard, civil time specific ...

(with

Sadia Dehlvi Sadia Dehlvi (1957 – 5 August 2020) was a Delhi-based activist, writer and a columnist with the daily newspaper, the ''Hindustan Times'', and frequently published in '' Frontline'' and Urdu, Hindi and English newspapers and magazines. She w ...

) and

Hindustan Times ''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media, an entity controlled by the KK Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia. It was founded by Sunder Singh Lyall ...

PACE among others. For his work in the field of Sufi-Bhakti music Dhruv has received awards and recognition from institutions such as

Rotary Club Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations in the world. Its stated mission is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through hefellowship of business, profe ...

Amir Khusro Foundation Emir (; ar, أمير ' ), sometimes transliterated amir, amier, or ameer, is a word of Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person possessing actual or ceremo ...

and

University of Baroda The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, formerly Baroda College, is a public university in the city of Vadodara, in Gujarat state, India. Originally established as a college in 1881, it became a university in 1949 after the independence of ...

References

{{reflist

External links

Official siteEktara India Google page
Sufi music Indian qawwali singers Performers of Sufi music 21st-century Indian male singers 21st-century Indian singers Coke Studio (Indian TV program) Chishtis