‘Spirit of Punjab’: Riyaaz Qawaali Presents Diverse Moods of Folk Music

HOUSTON: “The Spirit of Punjab” was a soulful Sufi folk journey by Riyaaz Qawaali, a Houston-based music group. The performance unfolded through the layered folk history of Punjab — where music has both memory and meaning.
At its core, The Spirit of Punjab refuses the surface-level perception of Punjabi music as conveyed through only dhol and bhangra. The selected songs spoke of longing, displacement, resistance, and devotion.

Riyaaz Qawaali has performed qawaalis for 19 years. The musicians, settled in Houston, have roots from India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, representing multiple religious backgrounds. Trained in eastern and western
classical music, they have released two albums and over 35 singles on social media.

Sonny K. Mehta, their founder, leads the ensemble as its artistic director. The show begins with the sadness that shapes a people: heartbreak, abandonment, and the loneliness of migration. From the pain of Heer to the wandering soul of Challa (originally performed by Gurdass Mann), these songs hold space for grief as a generational language — at home in both Punjab and Houston.

The show weaved through spiritual traditions — Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu — without pausing to draw boundaries. Musical pieces like Yaar Da Deewana (Nooran Sisters), Isq Bulleh Nu Nachave (Kanwar Garewal) are rooted in
shared divinity, much like the Houston communities, where temples, mosques, and churches stand side-by-side. Simplicity and poverty are the backdrops for spiritual clarity and poetic richness.

Later in the set, the music lifts the voices of women — unapolegetic and playful — through folk traditions such as tappay (Chitra Singh) and songs like Saanja Hai Punjab Saada (Arif Lohar) . In a city shaped by migration and complexity, this is not just Punjab’s story — it’s Houston’s too. — program notes from Asia Society Texas.