The audience goes into raptures as Amir Khusro’s ‘Chhaap tilak’ fills the air. The qawwal Fareed Ayaz sings it with great tenderness: “My fair, delicate wrists with green bangles on them; You have held my wrists tightly with just a glance.” The audience, and the all-male qawwals, find nothing strange about a man singing personified as a woman.

The Sufi path to pure love and devotion to God is often symbolised as a woman yearning for the Beloved. The feminine voice represents the journey from worldly or majazi love to Divine or haqiqi love, expressed as yearning and surrender to God.

Gender fluidity is a recurring theme in Pakistani cultural traditions. Few notice that the scriptwriters and songwriters of early blockbuster Pakistani cinema were men who seemed to understand the emotions and desires of women. A ghazal written by a male poet sounds equally natural if sung by a man or a woman. The power of the poem lies in its emotional authenticity rather than the author’s gender.

This convention is rooted in Urdu literary tradition, where it was natural for a male poet to express longing, vulnerability, helplessness — emotions normally associated with the feminine. The male poet writing in a female........

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