The rain in Kerala is soft today, tapping a slow, rhythmic beat against the palm leaves outside my window. There is a deep, fertile quiet here, the kind that forces reflection. It was this quiet, miles and decades away, that recently pulled me into a startlingly clear memory, tracing a path I had not realized was so perfectly circular.

It all started with a ghost of a name: “Marchand.”

Part I: The New York Decade and the Urdu Requiem

For ten years in New York City, I was immersed in the world of independent and international film. My search began for an Indian director named « Marchand, » but the map of memory quickly corrected itself to the master Indian producer—and later director—Ismail Merchant.

Merchant, who famously founded the legendary Merchant Ivory Productions (MIP), was a bridge between cultures, much like the journey I now recount. While MIP is famous for lavish English period dramas, the film that truly resonated with the threads of my memory—of family issues, culture, and the power of the subcontinent—was Merchant’s own feature directorial debut:

In Custody (1993/94).

This film, which I must have seen presented in New York around its release, was a passionate farewell to Merchant’s mother tongue, Urdu. It wasn’t about river sequences, but about the flowing river of a dying culture. The plot follows a humble Hindi professor’s desperate, chaotic attempt to interview his idol, an aging, decadent Urdu poet. The film masterfully weaves family squabbles, artistic decline, and the melancholy of a vanishing language. The music—that unforgettable score featuring the tabla genius of Zakir Hussain—became the emotional anchor for the entire experience. It was a piece of India, focused on its cultural heart, presented to the world in an elegant New York theater.

Part II: The French Rencontre and the Magic of Sufism

Decades later, my journey took a radical shift, not in cinematic terms, but in musical ones, leading me to a concert in France. The memory of the Urdu-speaking poet of In Custody resonated when I experienced a different kind of cultural fusion: the meeting, or Rencontre, between two musical masters:

• Titi Robin: The inventive French musician, whose string work (guitar, ‘oud) already fused Mediterranean and Romani traditions with the deep rhythms of North India.
• Faiz Ali Faiz: The Pakistani Qawwali maestro, whose voice is a torch carrying the devotional flame of Sufism.

The project, aptly titled Jaadu (“Magic”), was transcendental. It was a spiritual collision of traditions, performed live on a French stage, proving that the deepest cultural languages—like the fervent poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz—transcend all borders. The Qawwal’s Pakistani heritage met Robin’s French-Indian sensibility, resulting in an ecstatic, unifying performance that spoke not to separate identities, but to a shared, powerful human spirit.

Part III: The Circle Complete in Kerala

Today, I sit in Kerala, at the southern tip of India, reflecting on a circuit that started with an Indian film in an American city and moved to Pakistani music in a French venue.

The unifying thread in this entire journey, whether it was the struggle to save the Urdu language in In Custody or the powerful delivery of Sufi poetry by Faiz Ali Faiz, has been the singular voice of the subcontinent.

Here, in the tranquility of Kerala, there are no flashing marquee lights or booming concert halls, only the soft sound of rain. But that soft tapping is enough to remind me that the « magic » of art, whether cinematic or musical, is not in its origin, but in its journey—in the way it travels the globe, bringing together seemingly disparate places like New York, France, Pakistan, and India, all through a single, unforgettable vibration.

And that, I realize, is the finest souvenir I could ask for.