This event is co-sponsored by the Center for South Asia and the Department of Art & Art History.

Synopsis
 A Delhi-based filmmaker spends half a year traveling across Pakistan, trying to understand how the state of Hindostani classical music has fared after 1947 and Partition. He discovers that cultural revisionism has wrested some of the tradition from the people of Pakistan. From Lahore to Karachi, Khayal Darpan not only presents some of the surviving practitioners and patrons of classical music Pakistan, it describes how innovative ways have been utilised to keep traditions alive. The film raises fascinating questions about cultural identity, nationalism and the survival of Hindustani classical music in South Asia

About the Film Maker
Yousuf Saeed is an independent filmmaker, author and archivist based in New Delhi, India, producing documentary films and writings on South Asia’s shared culture and arts since 1990. His most prominent films—Inside Ladakh, Basant, A Life in Science-Yashpal, and the Train to Heaven—have been shown at numerous film festivals, academic venues and on TV channels. Yousuf also worked for Encyclopedia Britannica (India) as the Arts Editor. He has been a Sarai Fellow (in 2004), the Asia Fellow (in 2005–06) and the Margaret Beveridge Senior Research Fellow (at J.B.Media Resource Centre, Jamia Millia, New Delhi, in 2009). Saeed's feature length documentary film Khayal Darpan (2006) about the state of classical music in Pakistan has been shown at numerous international film festivals. He is the co-founder and project director of TasveerGhar.net, a digital archive of India’s popular visual art. Saeed wrote and published an illustrated book Muslim Devotional Art in India (Routledge, 2012/2019) that explores the history of Islamic poster art in India. Yousuf regularly makes lecturing tours in India and abroad. Through much of his recent work, he tries to document and present the pluralistic and shared cultural traditions, music and arts in India. He continues to work on several new documentary films as well as writing projects. Learn more

Yousuf Saeed was nominated by the Center for South Asia.