“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.”

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

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.

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

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.

There is a famous musician, Peter Gabriel, who has used my voice in the movie, ‘The Last Temptation of Christ.’ He used my song in the background.

In my opinion, being an all-rounder is good. It is not right that I should be content with qawwali and ignore other forms, since I am basically trained in classical singing. We should be masters of all forms of singing.

My father gave me formal education in raagdari. He died in Lahore in 1964 when I was 13. I was in the tenth year of school, and my father’s brother took me into the qawwali ensemble and started giving me formal education in qawwali.

I used to be so angry. I think back to my early days as a critic in the late 1990s, and I blush.

My rule is to break one sweat a day.

I used to soak my mitts in a bucket of water for about two days. Then I’d put a couple of baseballs in the pocket and wrap it up with a rubber band.

Some days I feel like my soul is being pulled in one direction and my heart in another.

The words I heard from you today, are said when there’s nothing left to say. What I would give to make you stay, I would give it all away.

The ache will always be there, but the intensity will fade, and you’ll find other beautiful things to fill your days with.

We number our days and divide our seasons. We endlessly define what it is to be in love. When in truth, spring blurs into summer and always has, long before that line was ever drawn.

There are days when the melancholy settles on you like a sudden change in weather. The kind of sadness that is intangible. Like the presence of an ache where you can’t pinpoint exactly where it hurts, you just know it does.