“I love you,” screamed a fan. “I love you!” responded the maestro, blowing a kiss. This love talk punctuated the Boston concert which also launched Rahat Fateh Ali Khan‘s 23-year-old son Shahzaman.
By Sachin Gupta/ Global Southasia
Bright faces, phones lifted toward the stage with cameras already open, voices humming familiar melodies, and an unmistakable sense of anticipation: this was the common scene as the audience waited for one of the most celebrated musical voices across India and Pakistan to take the stage.
On 2 October, Boston became the first stop of the Once Upon a Time – World Tour 2026, featuring legendary Sufi and Bollywood singer Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, performing alongside his son, Shahzaman Ali Khan drawing an audience of around 2,000 people, with tight security measures in place and security personnel stationed throughout the venue.
For an audience gathered in an ice hockey rink, drawn largely from the Southasian community, the evening was much more than another concert. It became a celebration of a musical heritage that has long travelled freely across borders through poetry, Sufi traditions, Bollywood, qawwali and the collective memories of generations.
The evening began on a comparatively intimate note. Instead of immediately filling the hall with heavy instrumentation, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and his ensemble opened with a special segment that placed the emphasis on the human voice. The restrained accompaniment allowed the vocals to take center stage, reminding the audience of a musical tradition in which a voice itself can carry poetry, devotion and emotion.
“I’m loving it,” Sergeant Scott Pulchansingh of Boston police told Global Southasia. Originally from Trinidad, he said he had heard this music before, but this was his first time hearing it live.
Shahzaman Ali Khan
The stage was then taken by Shahzaman Ali Khan, just 23-years old, representing a new generation carrying forward the family’s formidable musical legacy. His rendition of popular songs including Dil Par Zakhm Khate Hain was met with enthusiastic cheers and shouts from the audience.
In one of the evening’s lighter moments, Shahzaman reflected on what it means to perform alongside his father. Although Rahat Fateh Ali Khan is his father, he joked that he too has the right to call him “Khan Sahab,” just as everyone else does.
The remark drew laughter while also capturing the reverence surrounding the musical tradition he has inherited.
When Rahat Fateh Ali Khan returned to the spotlight, the atmosphere intensified. As the familiar opening of Afreen Afreen filled the hall, audience members joined in. This was followed by other beloved songs, including Tum Jo Aaye Zindagi Mein.
By then, remaining still had become difficult: people swayed in their seats, sang along, and, in places, danced to songs that have become part of the cultural memory of Southasians around the world.
Qawwali
But after a short break, the audience returned to what felt almost like a different concert.
The performers who had earlier appeared in Western attire now entered the stage wearing traditional dress. The transformation signaled a shift not merely in appearance but also in musical form. The contemporary concert atmosphere gave way to something older, communal and deeply rooted in Southasian spiritual culture — the qawwali.
Qawwali, a centuries-old tradition of Sufi devotional music from Southasia, has historically used poetry, repetition, rhythm and increasingly intense vocal exchanges to create a shared musical and spiritual experience. With harmonium, percussion, clapping and collective voices joining the performance, the distance between stage and audience seemed to narrow.
The wait ended with one of the most recognizable compositions associated with the tradition: Dama Dam Mast Qalandar.
The rhythm transformed the arena. Clapping grew louder, voices from the audience joined those onstage, and the energy moved beyond simply listening to a performance. The audience became part of it.
“Seeing so many diverse people singing together— Indians and Pakistani’s side by side to embrace the wonder of life— made the spirit of Qawwali feel alive in the room. This was my first time hearing Qawwali music live, and I will never forget it! ” said Stephanie White, an Armenian-American from the Boston area.
This may also explain why Qawwali continues to have such an extraordinary reach. Though rooted in Sufi devotional traditions, its audience has never remained confined neatly within a single religious or national identity. Its poetry and music have travelled through shrines, streets, films, recordings and concert halls, finding listeners across India, Pakistan and the wider Southasian diaspora.
The Boston evening reflected that history.
After the Boston concert, the performers were set to drive to New York overnight before continuing to New Jersey for the next stops on the tour, event host Anushka Arora told Global Southasia.
Arora, of Indian origin, grew up in London and now based in New York, has worked with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan on several shows in the past.
Southasian identity
In a world where Southasian identities are frequently described through borders, the music offered another vocabulary. People did not need to share the same nationality or faith to recognize a melody, complete a familiar line, clap to the same rhythm or be moved by the same voice.
Rahat Fateh Ali Khan himself represents something of this border-crossing musical journey. Rooted in the celebrated qawwali tradition associated with his family — his uncle Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan being the most celebrated — his voice has also become deeply familiar through popular music and Bollywood.
Songs born in one country have been embraced in another, while qawwalis carrying centuries of spiritual history now find audiences in concert halls thousands of miles from Southasia. Rahat Fateh Ali Khan performed the Aman Ki Asha anthem, alongside Shankar Mahadeva, penned by renowned lyricist Gulzar.
This shared inheritance was perhaps the most memorable part of the night.
The first stop of the Once Upon a Time – World Tour 2026 was certainly charismatic, filled with powerful vocals, familiar songs, cheers, dancing and countless phones trying to preserve a few seconds of the evening. But underneath the spectacle was something quieter and more enduring: a reminder of music’s ability to create spaces where identities can meet without having to compete.
For a few hours in Boston, Indians, Pakistanis and other members of the Southasian diaspora did not need to discuss what divided them. They simply sang together.
And perhaps that has always been one of the quiet powers of this music: borders may determine where people live, but they have a much harder time determining which songs they love.
Sachin Gupta is a physicist, educator, and writer from India who recently completed his PhD in Physics at the University of Massachusetts Boston, specializing in quantum physics. He currently teaches physics at University of Massachusetts, Boston.
This is a Global Southasia (formerly Sapan News) syndicated feature available for republication with due credit to sapannews.com.
Why ‘Southasia’ as one word? Because our histories entangle, our struggles intersect, and our futures are bound together.
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