Watch Sawaal / Kande Utte
Plays here via youtube-nocookie.com — nothing loads from YouTube until you press play.
The Story Behind Sawaal / Kande Utte
Sawaal / Kande Utte brings Ali Azmat and Muazzam Ali Khan together in the fifth and final episode of Coke Studio Season 6. Produced by Rohail Hyatt, the 2013 performance joins Azmat's existential rock song Sawaal, drawn from his second album, to the older qawwali Kande Utte. Muazzam enters with his qawwal group as the arrangement opens from tense reflection into an expansive Sufi rock surge. Harp, dholak, acoustic guitar, Serbian strings and brass give the nearly ten-minute piece unusual scale without drowning its vocal contrast. The pairing was later selected for The News International's top-ten survey of Coke Studio, where it was praised as a fierce, lush collaboration. Its strength lies in the handoff: Azmat's restless questions find an emotional answer in Muazzam's devotional longing.
Meaning & Translation
Sawaal means “questions” in Urdu, while Kande Utte means “on the riverbank” in Punjabi. The two halves move from restless inquiry to spiritual longing. Ali Azmat's section asks what remains amid change, joy, grief, existence and mortality. Muazzam Ali Khan's qawwali turns toward the Sohni-Mahiwal legend, where a lover waits at the water's edge and risks the crossing for reunion. In the Sufi reading, the beloved becomes ultimate truth, and the dangerous river represents the distance between the human soul and its source. The song does not offer a neat intellectual answer. It suggests that peace arrives through inward surrender, even while life's questions and separations remain.
Details
- Artist
- Ali Azmat, Muazzam Ali Khan
- Category
- Coke Studio
- Collection
- Coke Studio Season 6
- Released
- 2013
- Mood
- Melancholy, Devotional
- YouTube Views
- 3.35M
Artists & Credits
- Ali Azmat singer
- Muazzam Ali Khan singer
- Ivana Pavlović musician
- Omran Shafique musician
- Rohail Hyatt producer