This Pakistani Band's Beautiful Retelling Of Sassi Punnu's Tragic Love Story Will Give You Goosebumps

By Ather Ahmed | 25 Feb, 2018

Folk tales have always fascinated people since time immemorial. A lot of musical acts in Pakistan have sought inspiration from local folklore and Sufi poetry because these love stories were inspirational, passionate, tragic, enchanting or all of these together, and so much more. One of the most iconic songs, that Noori recently sang during a season of Coke Studio, Paar Channa De, tells the iconic love story of Sohni and Mahiwal who lived by Chenab river in Punjab.

This Pakistani band is retelling the beautiful tale of Sassi and Punnu in a hauntingly beautiful way

‘Nafs’ is a band that regards itself as an ‘indigenous clan of music enthusiasts’. In their song Sassui, they told the evergreen tale of Sassi and Punnu like never before.

sassi-tale-1
Source: dostpakistan.pk

The song is called Sassui with lyrics in two different dialects of ‘Siriaki’.

Many Sufi saints like Shah Bhittai, Bulleh Shah and Baba Fareed have written about this iconic love story. Shah Bhittai was influenced so much that he even created a sur named sassui, but our song is not in that sur. We came up with the idea and merged poetries of Bhittai and Fareed and made up a song describing the story of sassui ” the band told MangoBaaz.

 

The song merges the many retellings of the folk tale in a harmonious way

For example, the first verse is from Baba Fareed’s poetry  while the second verse is from Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai.

Source: tiroksinghartist.com

The song itself is a narration of the famous folk tale that has been around since the time of the Indus Valley Civilization.

Sassi, was separated from her parents at birth due to the belief that she was a curse on her family’s prestige. She was raised by a washerman and caught the attention of Punnu a prince of that region of Sindh. The two get married but tragedy befalls them just a day after as Punnu‘s family successfully conspire to separate the two.

The lovers do end up together but in their graves buried underneath a valley of mountains by God’s intervention. It is said that the legendary grave still exists.

 

The band who aim to retell their culture’s historic tales and folklore through their songs is composed of vocalist Noman Ali Tahiri, guitarist Saad Khan and bassist Jinser Kadhero

nafs-band-members
Source: Bina Shah / YouTube

“The response is amazing, we are working to hit our album by this year, a music video is in pipeline as well. Hopefully, you would be seeing us in upcoming music festivals”, concluded the band.

 

The iconic love story of Sassi and Punnu will forever be cherished by a new generation who discovers this beautiful song by Nafs.

Listen the beautiful song here:

 

This Is The Tragic Love Story Behind The Iconic Song ‘Paar Chanaa De’

 

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Cover image via: desiblitz.com

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