On a winter afternoon, a Sunday, we - some twenty of us - had gathered at a friend's place for lunch. Shamsher began to narrate details of a story that he was writing, about a young man he knows, who goes missing from home. As he paused to recollect something, someone encouraged him to go on by singing, "Guddu gumshuda hai, hum se yun juda hai". (Guddu has gone missing, he is separated from us...) Slowly everyone joined in, returning to Shamsher his story as he was narrating it. Soon we had the lyrics for a song, which we recorded as we went along.

An year later, we e-mailed Bernadette, a composer and singer who lives in Hamburg, and who we had met when we were in Hamburg for a storytelling performance in 2004, asking her if she could consider setting the song to music. She not only thought it was a good idea, but transformed the recording of the making of the lyrics into a song. The song continues to be made and exchanged between CM and Bernadette over the internet, between Delhi and Hamburg/Berlin.


[DOWNLOAD Latest Version - June 2008]


[DOWNLOAD Version May 2008] mp3, 5.5 mb

[DOWNLOAD Percussions in response to Tabla by Kulwinder Kaur, September 2007, CM]

[Flute recording in response to Tabla by Priya Sen, August 2007 - will be available soon]

[DOWNLOAD Tabla beat by Bernadette Hengst, July 2007] mp3, 3.2 mb

[DOWNLOAD an edited version of the making and recording of the lyrics, February 2006] mp3, 5.7 mb

[Read English translations of lyrics HERE]