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ROCKSTAR

as a tale of Sufi Wisdom: Imtiaz Ali, Rumi, AR Rahman & Irshad Kamil

Oh innocent bird, come home!

No matter how much you cut the air with your wings, you ll never be able to escape
yourself. Break the skies! Burn the world! You won t be able to hide yourself. Ta
ke any path. You reside in you. You ll come back to your own Home. Oh innocent bir
d
- O NADAAN PARINDE lyrics inspired and sung by AR Rahman

The 2011 Hindi film Rockstar can be interpreted as a love story woven with Sufi wi
sdom. I have found no evidence that the director & writer Imtiaz Ali is a Sufi,
however in the film he uses verses from the Sufi master Rumi and an ongoing frie
ndship with the Sufi AR Rahman indicates a shared respect and affinity. The Indi
an Hindi/Urdu poet Irshad Kamil wrote the lyrics to Rahman s compositions and has
created unique fresh poetic images suffused in subtle hidden layers of Sufi meta
phors.
The mystic will always perceive the world as a reflection of the Oneness pervadi
ng and permeating the All, thus romantic love is symbolic of our love for God. T
ales of great profound and often deeply tragic love are understood as the season
s of the mystic s relationship with the invisible One. Like Mani Ratnam s film DIL SE ,
the hidden devotional aspect of our mysterious illusive relationship with the G
od-within is what makes Rockstar compelling, mystical and ultimately classic.
Initially I watched this film because AR Rahman composed the music. However I be
gan to notice how Imtiaz Ali chose to discreetly weave Rumi's Sufi influence thr
oughout the film, especially in AR Rahman's music. In my copy of the Rockstar CD t
here is an illustrated insert with the song lyrics in Hindi. On the back page Im
tiaz Ali writes Rumi, whose words gave us new direction at every corner and quotes
the Sufi master thus:
Sometimes you hear a voice through the door calling you,
As fish out of water hears the sound of the waves
Or a hunting falcon hears the drums
Come back, come back.
This turning towards what you deeply love saves you.
Read the book of your life which has been given to you.
A voice comes to your Soul saying
Lift your foot, cross over.

Move into Emptiness of question

and answer and question.
Imtiaz Ali says again in the CD insert, revealing the level of inspiration he fe
lt: The film wanted to get itself made. It decided when it wanted to get made, ho
w it wanted to get made and by who. I decided to never get in its way. Because I
always knew that this film was bigger than me. This is the sign of true from-the
-heart creativity.

Everything I wish to say is ruined by my words.

From the Rahman song JO BHI MAIN. Sounds Taoist, does it not?

The film Rockstar begins with our hero Jordan, played by Ranbir Kapoor, as a mildl
y inert insensitive fellow who knows little of the journey into suffering he wil
l eventually be driven to, but who nevertheless practices his guitar music with
single-minded devotion. Jordan, who has been described by others as a bull of a
young man, wants to be a rockstar. His older friend mentor tells Jordan that gre
at music comes from only a broken heart. Aware that there has been little emotio
nal pain in his life, Jordan decides to experience rejection in love and quite s
tupidly bluntly publicly declares his love for the prettiest hot girl in his schoo
l, who is named Heer after the heroine in popular tragic romance poetry. Heer is
socially above him, and completely rejects and humiliates him. However, this br
utal rejection is not enough to affect his appetite for fried samosas
and we und
erstand that his thick skin insensitivities will require the application of furt
her assaults.
It is the girl s reaction to Jordan s sudden inappropriate crass declarations of lov
e that shows her affinity with her absurd suitor. Her response is not at all lad
ylike, neat & clean refined and in a surprisingly belligerent anger Heer rudely
tells him to bugger off ! So we sense in her a resonance with Jordan s own crude prim
al nature. Girls with aggressive successful fathers often share these warrior tr
aits and underneath Heer s rich-girl veneer lies something akin to Jordan s wild nat
ure. They are alike.
Eventually Jordan and Heer form a secret bond. Innocently they do what they call
cheap things together, see dirty movies, drink cheap whiskey, and other silly har
mless pranks that give her a sense of freedom, because Heer is to be married soo
n and whatever freedom she has known as a young single girl will vanish in the p
rotected walled worlds of wealth and marriage. She will be the Lady, neat & clea
n no more cheap spontaneous expressions of her wild youth. For his part, Jordan ap
pears willing to do anything for this girl who is far beyond his reach. His love
is one of modesty, servitude and sacrifice, knowing he can never have her. Just
before the wedding in Kashmir, Heer asks him to hug her. For a brief moment the
embrace registers pain for both and then abruptly, she leaves him alone and hur
t.
With Heer married, Jordan returns to India to fulfill his ambition to become a r
ock star and gets kicked out of his parent s house. Homeless, he takes refuge in t
he Delhi dargah shrine of the Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya (see WIKI below), whe
re he eats & sleeps with other homeless men. At the shrine, Jordan plays his gui
tar and joins in the singing of one of Rahman s Sufi qawwali songs KUN FAYA KUN, w
hich means You became . The lyrics of the poet Irshad Kamil enrich Rahman s songs wit
h Sufi wisdom. The song asks God for release from the small self.

Lyrics KUN FAYA KUN [translation from the subtitles on the DVD]: Move into empti
ness, Painter, BE and there was. When even nothing was not, He alone existed. Who
dwells in me, dwells in you. He is the Lord, the Illusion. Do me this favour, Lo
rd, set me free from myself. Let me see myself, free from myself. You dwell in m
e, I dwell in you.

Jordan's inability to conform, to suppress his primal instinctual nature in the

'civilized' world, makes him and his music a magnet for what we have lost. While
singing Sufi qawwali with the others at the shrine, Jordan is spotted by a famo
us older legendary shehnai player, who realizes that the young man has been 'tou
ched by God's grace' and later encourages his recording company to promote Jorda
n. "He will make you a fortune!" Thus it is misfortune that leads Jordan to his
intended destiny. Just as in our own lives, which often take painful and unwante
d directions, we understand that through suffering what first appear as wrong tu
rns with unintended consequences, we experience precisely what we need to learn
and find the path that leads to our true Home.
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Jordan continues on his rocky road to success, but remains unhappy. He feels as
if 'little bugs' are eating away at him. His concert performances show his raw a
bility to express the deep darker hidden feelings of the crowd. As the onstage r
ockstar he absorbs their energies, their need to let out all their more primitiv
e primordial nature. His rage becomes a sort of performance of madness that lets
them channel their unexpressed feelings through him. Much has been written abou
t this occult exchange of energy between the adoring raging fans at rock concert
s and their idols who funnel and utilize these energies in the show. This kind o
f crowd psychology and manipulation are ancient instinctual timeless, maybe even
necessary to youth, as the release of group energies is found in Dionysian ritu
als and other similar crowd behaviours throughout history.
Lyrics to SAADDA HAQ: Our right! Why do you choke my habit of living, this world
is enemy, burn them, heart says, heart says to live by the heart, or die I am nat
ure too. Why do you teach lessons of truth when you cannot even listen to the tr
uth your far, your love, your praise, keep them!

The now married Heer is living Prague as the wealthy lady, but Heer the once wil
d youth feels trapped, despondent, bored, and is physically weakening. Both Jord
an and Heer are beginning to understand that they cannot exist apart. Desperate
to be with her, Jordan signs a contract that compromises his artistic freedom in
exchange for a sojourn in Prague. Again our star-crossed lovers spend time toge
ther, which is life sustaining for both. In astrology, Venus and Pluto in hard a
spect, meaning a square or an opposition, describe this kind of relationship whe
re there is an intense attraction and passion followed by inevitable doom. Anoth
er indication may be Pluto in the 7th House of partnership and marriage.

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Gradually the two grow closer and begin to touch with more than friendly intent.
Heer resists, but Jordan is RAW and says to her
Magic touch! Truly their forbidde
n touch has become the magic that is overwhelming both of them in an irresistibl

e cauldron of desire, secrecy and guilt. Imtiaz Ali portrays the heat of their p
assion with subtle weak-in-the-knees accuracy. This is the drowning in the sea of
love that everyone imagines they want to be in. These feelings of melting heat,
dissolving into one another are precisely the reason why mystics throughout time
have described their union with God as the Beloved in sexual terms. There is a
loss of the sense of separate self as one dissolves into the larger ecstatic Sel
f. The Rahman song AUR HO sung by Mohit Chauhan and Alma Ferovic describe their
feverish state.
AUR HO lyrics: A statement of my helplessness, squeeze out all desire, break you
in my arms, snatch you, let you go. Let there be more, this noise of breathing,
and burn more, passion burning more. It just doesn t stop, does not tire, this st
orm of breath. Don t know what burns where trembling.
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Soon Heer can no longer endure the guilt of a 'heated' double life and betrayal
of her husband, who is portrayed as a kind good man. She pushes Jordan away viol
ently and for two years sinks into illness (aplastic anemia - a disease of the b
lood stem cells that reside in the bone marrow). Her condition becomes so serio
us that her younger sister finally seeks out Jordan on tour and asks him to come
to Heer s bedside. Jordan s intense devotion and the strength of his primal energie
s revive the dying Heer. The two spend gentle happy days together. The ill-fated
Heer insists on accompanying Jordan to his scheduled concert, but his fans and
the publicity hounds intrude on their private world, portraying Heer as the marr
ied adulterous lover. Sadly the two agree to part, but Heer has become pregnant.
With her blood disease, pregnancy is unthinkable and she dies. Jordan goes a bi
t mad, in anger against himself knowing his unbridled passion has ultimately kil
led her.
The Rahman song O NADAAN PARINDE is the most powerful moment in the film. His be
loved Heer is dead and yet Jordan must perform for 1000s of his fans. He is in a
state of extreme agitation, angry with himself, and suffering unimaginable rele
ntless grief.
O NADAAN PARINDE lyrics inspired and sung by Rahman: Oh innocent bird, come home
! Why do you wander strange lands ravaged and tired like a vagabond day and nigh
t? Oh innocent bird, come Home. One hundred bruises cover your body. Clothes of
all deeds are dirty. No matter how much you cut the air with your wings, you ll ne
ver be able to escape yourself. Break the skies! Burn the world! You won t be able
to hide yourself. Take any path. You reside in you. You ll come back to your own
Home. Oh innocent bird (Jordan is now burning up the stage with his grief). Scaven
ging bird, it s my small plea, gorge on all my flesh. Don t eat my eyes. I hope to s
ee my Beloved.
Jordan longs to see Heer once more and his broken heart despair is eloquently ex
pressed by Ranbir Kapoor, who acts out and draws us into the terrible anguish of
his agony to the point of madness in an intense performance, which film critics
in India have rightly praised. Reaching the frenzied depths of his painful hear
tbroken loss, Jordan feels Heer s presence. Within the deafening cacophony of the
crowd, we experience his inner silence as she emerges, lovely, and moves towards
her beloved Jordan. She is happy, released from her diseased body, she is smili
ng. The song TUM KO, sung by Kavita Subamaniam along with the resonating superb
sarangi of Dilshad Khan, conveys the mystery of love in Heer s tender feelings. Sh
e says, You I have finally got in a way that like I am your feelings close to you I a
m.

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Just as the mystic finally rests in union with the Beloved, the ubiquitous Onene
ss, so Jordan and Heer feel an intimate closeness that exists beyond death, tran
scending the limitations of the body and even Space/Time.
The last song is TUM HO: In what way will this world snatch you from me. You too
are me. What s there to fear now? You are meant for me, in a way that I ve lost mys
elf to you and you I have won.
Included within the song is this verse from Rumi:
"Away, beyond all ideas of wrong doing and right doing, there is a field. I will
meet you there."

I will leave the contemplation of the lyrics to the reader. Let me just say that
in spite of its flaws, this film has a depth to it not easily seen in one view.
There are many mystical layers in Rockstar and these layers are revealed the more
one understands the song lyrics. The powerful emotions expressed may draw you c
loser to your goal whispering as Rumi says, Come back, come back. This turning to
wards what you deeply love saves you.
Our temporal existence...
Of course, the film can also be enjoyed as a romantic tragedy. But perhaps the r
eason why we never tire of these tales is simply that our temporal existence her
e on planet earth, where we are under the illusion of being in a state of Separa
tion from our Source and true Self, may also be seen as a sort of often terrifyi
ng romantic tragedy.
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AR Rahman
Rahman is now a legend and needs no introduction. His 10 million+ fans online sp
eak for his place in our hearts. Personally I discovered Rahman in DIL SE when I
realized that the songs I was loving and dancing to have Sufi lyrics, like SATA
RANGI RE. That was the beginning for me and even though I don t understand Hindi o
r Tamil, I have listened to most of his recordings. I could not even begin to li
st my favourites, but I am a sap for the slower melodies, so to name a very few
not in any order of preference:
TUM KO and TUM HO from Rockstar, DIL NE JISE APNA KAHAA from the movie with the
same title, MUJHPE TOOPHAN UTHAYE from Tehzeeb, NAHIN SAMNE TU from Taal, TU MUS
KURA and ZINDAGI from Yuvvraaj, TERE BINA from Guru, TU HI RE TU HI RE and KEHNA
HI KYA from Bombay, MANN CHANDRE, KANNATHIL MUTHAMITTAL and VELLAI POOKKAL from
Mani Ratnam's 'A Peck on the Cheek' and so many more!
I feel that Rahman has brought his inspirational beauty into my life and I am so
grateful to him. His music just gets better. His orchestrations are amazing, br
illiant, waiting to be listened to. I love the way he blends traditional India m
usic and instruments with classical western. He is the master of melody and his
special string arrangements lie beneath, cradling stunning vocals from highly tr

aditionally trained India artists. AR Rahman is a musical genius, a man of chari

ty and philanthropy, and a devoted Sufi. What would life be without his harmonie
s? Even the rock tunes on Rockstar sing with his originality. Thank you! The music
in Rockstar is perhaps one of Rahman s best over all after TAAL. These songs just g
et better with repeated listening. I highly recommend them.
Ranbir Kapoor is an interesting young man with many hidden depths, [Moon in Capr
icorn square a Saturn/Pluto conjunction]. Perhaps his endearing rather ordinary
looks serve to mask his capacity for diverse and profoundly deep emotions. If Bo
llywood doesn t turn him into a lollypop, I feel he has a great future as an actor
.

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I liked Nargis Fakhri, the girl who plays Heer, although she has been criticized
for her lack of experience as an actress. Still she looks right for this part a
nd I can t imagine Kareena or Sonam in this role, so I understand Imtiaz Ali s fresh
-face choice. Imtiaz Ali also made JAB WE MET and has just completed a new one '
Highway' [release date Dec. 2013], which looks promising, as the music will agai
n be composed by AR Rahman.

AR Rahman quotes:
I m a deeply spiritual person. Sufism is about love
love for a fellow human, love
for all round humanity, and ultimately love for God. For me, it s where music and
religion meet
at dargahs, you will find qawwalis. That s my inspiration.
Music is a gift from God and every note should be blessed. Otherwise music becom
es noise if it is not blessed. I am influenced by Sufism, which is also connecte
d with music. Before composing I pray and beg to God to give me something. I bel
ieve every song should have a pure soul in it to reach people.
http://welovesit.com/celebrity/rahman-quotes.aspx

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WIKI: Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya R.A (1238 3 April 1325) was a famous Sufi saint o
f the Chishti Order in the Indian Subcontinent, an order that believed in drawin
g close to God through renunciation of the world and service to humanity. He is
one of the great saints of the Chishti order in India.
Nizamuddin Auliya, like his predecessors, stressed love as a means of realising
God. For him his love of God implied a love of humanity. His vision of the world
was marked by a highly evolved sense of secularity and kindness. ... People beg
an to be inclined towards mysticism and prayers and remaining aloof from the wor
ld.
His shrine, the Nizamuddin Dargah, is located in Delhi and the present structure
was built in 1562. The shrine is visited by people of all faiths, through the y
ear...

Besides believing in the traditional Sufi ideas of embracing God within this lif
e (as opposed to the idea that such partial merger with God is possible only aft
er death), by destroying the ego and cleansing the soul, and that this is possib
le through considerable efforts involving Sufi practices, Nizamuddin also expand
ed and practised the unique features introduced by past saints of the Chisti Suf
i order in India.
These included:
Emphasis on renunciation and having complete trust in God.
The unity of mankind and shunning distinctions based on social, economic, religi
ous status.
Helping the needy, feeding the hungry and being sympathetic to the oppressed.
Strong disapproval of mixing with the Sultans, the princes and the nobles.
Exhortation in making close contact with the poor and the downtrodden
Adopting an uncompromising attitude towards all forms of political and social op
pression.

Qawwali, a form of devotional music, was originally created by one his most cher
ished disciples: Amir Khusro.

Nizamuddin did not much bother about the theoretical aspects of Sufism, believin
g rather that it were the practical aspects that counted, as it was anyway not p
ossible to describe the diversified mystical experiences called spiritual states
or stations which a practicing Sufi encountered.

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