Watch Dastaan-e-Moomal Rano
Plays here via youtube-nocookie.com — nothing loads from YouTube until you press play.
The Story Behind Dastaan-e-Moomal Rano
Coke Studio Season 11 sent The Sketches back to the source. The Jamshoro band, the Sufi folk rock outfit Saif Samejo built around his own voice, gave Episode 5 a ten-minute reading of Dastaan-e-Moomal Rano set to a kalam of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, whose Shah Jo Risalo carries the Thar romance of Moomal and Rano as one of Sindh's great tragedies. Samejo composed it with Ashfaque Ahmed, and Zohaib Kazi and Ali Hamza produced and directed the session in their first season in charge of the show. The arrangement keeps the folk instruments in front rather than behind: Fakir Zulfiqar's narr carries the long breath of the melody, Bhagat Bhooro Laal's ektara and khartaal set the chanting pulse under it, and Haniya Aslam threads a Turkish bağlama through a Sindhi tale.
Meaning & Translation
Dastaan-e-Moomal Rano means the tale of Moomal and Rano, and the title is a promise: this is a story being told, not a lover's address. Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai's Sindhi verse follows Moomal, the princess of Kak Mahal in the Thar desert, and Rano, the chieftain who rides out again and again to reach her, until one night's misunderstanding parts them for good. What Bhittai takes from the legend is not the plot but the ache after it, the long separation his poetry keeps returning to. The Sketches sing it the way Sindh's folk singers do, as lament rather than complaint, so the tragedy lands less like an ending than like something the desert has always known.
Details
- Artist
- The Sketches
- Category
- Coke Studio
- Collection
- Coke Studio Season 11
- Released
- 2018
- Language
- Sindhi
- Mood
- Romantic, Melancholy
- YouTube Views
- 1.56M
Artists & Credits
- The Sketches singer
- Saif Samejo composer
- Ashfaque Ahmed composer
- Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai lyricist
- Haniya Aslam musician
- Fakir Zulfiqar musician
- Bhagat Bhooro Laal musician
- Zohaib Kazi producer
- Ali Hamza producer