“When people start dancing, they dance like they don’t know they are doing it.”

Yes, you’ve got to sing from the depths of the heart.

I like to experiment with my voice, besides music.

I was just studying with my father, a very difficult task for me since he was a great, great Qawwali singer.

From childhood, I had been instructed in the tablaa by my father, along with the astaais and antaraas specific to our Gharana.

People listened to Farsi texts, and to the great texts of our Baba Bulleh Shah, Khwaja Ghulam Farid, Mian Mohammad Bakhsh Jehlmi. People do listen to it these days, but much less than in those days.

As the times change, people change, and so do their tastes, so I try to understand what the public wants, what they require. I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand.

I also like Western classical music and jazz.

You’ve got to sing from the depths of the heart. Without heart, you cannot be a Qawwal.

It is not necessary that the scion of a singing family, even if he sings, can excel in it. In order to reach his peak he has to work very, very hard.

Yes, I tried to change the classical style in a way that people who don’t understand it can enjoy.

I do listen to other music though, and try to pick up what is good.

A man learns all his life and dies the day he thinks that he has learnt everything.

I am not a Sufi, but I follow the Sufi.

There are two languages that I love: Farsi and Panjabi. Because the depth of Sufi thought in these two languages cannot be found in any other language.

A performer learns with experience and with age. I did not know the future when I left home and started out to begin my career: I started qawaali; then I met Peter Gabriel and was exposed to a lot of new ideas.

There should be change – the West should understand our music and culture, and vice versa. With such collaboration, artists can come closer to each other and come to know each other.

Married to the game. If we’re dancing with the devil at least teach us how to dance when the son of making dollars.

Life is like dancing. If we have a big floor, many people will dance. Some will get angry when the rhythm changes. But life is changing all the time.

I never wanted to be a painter; I wanted to be a tap dancer.

Golden bracelets, diamonds and rare blue pearls. New gadgets and sparkling shoes, Things I do not own left languishing in the wooden drawer I do not have. I am too busy walking in parks admiring the city from afar and mesmerising dancing trees.

The mocker will not have the last laugh. You see, dancing on the grave of an extinguished Christianity is farcical at best. Because the grave is empty. And the one who knows the way out of the grave sits in the heavens and laughs.

No matter what, nobody can take away the dances you’ve already had.

Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain.

And she is going to dance, dance hungry, dance full, dance each cold astonishing moment, now when she is young and again when she is old.