In Distance, We Find Meaning
My friend Karim, a PhD and ethnomusicologist, once told me something that’s stayed with me, “Some genres of music only survive because they’ve become distant enough to be loved again.”
Sometimes, he’d mention qawwali, not the polished performances we see on YouTube today, but the raw, communal renditions captured decades ago in dusty courtyards, where the line between music and prayer blurred.
At the time, I didn’t fully understand what he meant. But I think about this during my visit to Multan where so much history lingers in the air itself, and it is the feeling that something sacred once happened here.
Karim taught me that some things only become visible when we step back. That without distance, we can’t truly appreciate that what we have lost.
And maybe that is why some music survives. Not because it's still sung, but because someone, somewhere, listens and longs. And in that longing, gives it value again.