Here were all kinds of smuggled and second-hand goods – leather, electronics, Islamic literature, cassettes of music and religious discourses, cloth and a myriad other sundries. Finally, directed to a narrow lane of stalls tucked away behind the main market street, I found what I was looking for. It seemed, however, that transborder references were somewhat taboo in public, and none of the well-stocked music shops had what I was looking for. The qafi, however, remains a rich source of regional, crossborder history for both Kutch and Sindh. Although Sindh is a mere 140 kilometres away from Bhuj, I had found few overt traces of the Pakistani province. This haunting poetic genre is originally from Sindh, but remains popular among the Muslim pastoralists of northern Kutch, sung in the wide expanses of the Great Rann of Kutch. A couple of years ago, while living and researching in Bhuj, the capital of Kutch District in Gujarat state, I became interested in purchasing some recorded qafis.
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