BENGALURU – Khanak Joshi, who is just 11 years of age, seems to have been blessed by nature with a rare combination of intelligence, wisdom and unique singing talent.
Climbing up the ladder of successes, she is now being recognized as an emerging name in the field of Sufiana singing. Her current level of popularity can be measured by the fact that her rendition of “Mere Rashke Qamar” has already received more than 1.5 million hits on YouTube.
Khanak was born on May 18, 2006 in the remote town of Shirdi of Maharaster State, and she received primary education there. Being the only child, she received the undivided attention of her parents Rajesh and Komal Joshi. Her father was deeply interested in Sufi culture and music, and was a great fan of the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He often visited the shrines of Muslim Sufi spiritual leaders in Dariya Ganj locality of New Delhi, taking his daughter along.
It was here at these shrines that Khanak was first introduced to Qawwali and Sufiana Kalam. She started humming at a very early age, and that was her father recognized her talent. He arranged for proper music and singing training when she was seven years old, which she is still undergoing.
https://youtu.be/7paRPSlKTUo
In the meantime, there came a turning point in Khanak’s life. Around this time music director Shankar Mahadevan has established his own music academy in Bengaluru. This academy, in collaboration with the prestigious Indus International School organized a contest in 2013 to hunt for brilliant students both in studies and music, and Khanak was selected. Consequently, she was offered free education in this otherwise costly educational institution up to 12th grade, along with free music coaching in Shankar Mahadevan Academy. In order to take advantage of this offer, the Joshi family moved to Bengaluru.
As a result, just at the age of 11 years, Khanak developed a reasonable status in the field of music under the guidance of veteran Ustads including Pundit Vinod Kaushik, Shri R.P Singh and Vidushi Uma Garg (Dean of Music faculty Delhi University). Currently she is learning light music from Pandit Harikishan Pahwa of Bengaluru and classical music from Ghulam Murtuza Niyazi 0f Karachi. Khanak is also learning Sufiana singing from Ustad Tanveer Ahmed Khan Sahab of New Delhi. She had the honour of singing with India’s well known singer and music director Shankar Mahadevan in Banglore in 2014.
After her intensive training, she developed enough confidence to form her own band, titled the Nemat Sufi Band, along with tabla players Gopal and Gauruf, dholak player Dheraj, keyboard player Govind and chorus singers Satinder, Suraj and Amjad. YouTube channel Mushairah TV was instrumental in helping her promote her band.
Her forte are Urdu and Hindi songs but occasionally she has also sung in Punjabi, English and Persian languages as well.
When she was asked how many awards she has won so far, her answer was “so many”. The long list she provided with confidence included Shankar Mahadevan Award, Sangeet Shree Award, International Rotary Club, National Bal Kala Utsav ( 2 times ) Delhi, Kala Kreeti Award (Dehradun) Harivallabh Sangeet Sammelan (Jalandhar), Children Music Conference (Kolkata), Vistar School of Music (Kolkata), Sapthak Music Academy (Dehradun), All India Radio (New Delhi), Times Kids Award (2 times), Noise to Note Award ( Bangalore ), Madhurima Sangeet Samiti Award (3 times in a row) (Haridwar), Jawaharlal Youth Centre Award (Haridwar), Dev Bhoomi Idol Award (Haridwar), Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Award (Haridwar), and Delhi Pratibha Puruskaar (Delhi).
Khanak is just as serious about her studies as she is about her music, recognised by her teachers for being hardworking, brilliant, responsible, good-mannered, respectful and obedient. She holds in great esteem her school principal Ms. Sarojini Rao and CEO General Arjun Roy, as well as Vice Principal Ms. Preeti Prabhu and head of her class Miss Heta Seth, all of whom appreciate her efforts and extend their support by generously granting leave for her music show performances. She gives full credit to her teachers’ teaching methods.
Her school, Indus International School, has honoured her with Blue Star Award for 2016-2017. Khanak is now in 7th grade now and her subjects include English, Math, Physics , Biology, History , Geography and Computer Science. While she expresses interest in History, Geography and Computer Sciences, she has not made up her mind which subject she will pursue her higher studies in.
Being very young, it is very natural that she is not much interested in her country’s or regional politics, but she is fully conscious of human and social values. She has given much thought to contributing to creation of peace and harmony in the region by using the common bond of music in general and spreading the Sufi philosophy of peace and love for whole humanity though singing Sufiana Kalam in particular. For this purpose Khanak has created a social media group titled Indo Pak music. She says that the modern day blend of Hindi and Urdu spoken in both countries, the songs sung by Pakistani artists and listened to by millions of Indians and Pakistanis have connected the two countries in a way they have never been before. The younger Indian generation’s love of Pakistani bands has done what politicians find difficult — reduced tension between the two countries. Khanak complains that in India and Pakistan, politicians have done little to help the countries connect culturally but at the people level,that bond exists and only needs to be strengthened.
Khanak’s biggest inspiration is the music legend the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, but she also admires Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Maqbool Sabri and Aslam Sabiri. Her favourite poetry is the philosophical and Sufiana poetry of Allama Iqbal. She is also a great admirer of Malala Yousufzai, to whom she has already sent a goodwill message in her interview earlier published in UK newspaper, and expressed her desire to support her cause through her music programs.
This little girl named Khanak Joshi has to go a long way in her studies and singing career. We hope God will be kind to this innocent and sincere girl, and help her in fulfilling her dream in both education and singing, and provide her strength to serve humanity as well.
