Nainital, Uttarakhand

The baithak, or ‘sitting’, is the traditional way in which music was and still is listened to in India. Musicians play for a small and exclusive audience, interacting with the performers. Only a very few people experience this in their lives however, and decreasingly so in our times, when musicians play to large audiences and are regularly on tour.

Here is a chance for one to experience an extended baithak over two days. The music comes from Rehmat-e-Nusrat, one of India’s finest qawwal troupes, led by the outstanding talent Sarvjeet Tamta and their alter ego Himali Mou, a Kumaoni folk band (also led by Tamta). The location is Soulitude by the riverside, a place of stunning beauty nestled in a narrow valley and adjoining a river. Soulitude is one of India’s top rated boutique hotels and just the right size for the intimacy between musicians and audience.

Sessions include two performances by Rehmat-e-Nusrat and one by its sister band Himali Mou, which performs traditional pahadi music, set around workingman lyrics about everyday life in the mountains. Rehmat-e-Nusrat’s repertoire is the traditional northern Indian qawwali music which is said to originate in the Delhi of the 13th century under the musician-poet Amir Khusro (1256-1325).

This is the place, and perhaps the only one, in which this music can be enjoyed with this proximity and this purity. The result is sublime. The analog nature of the instruments, the harmonium and tabla for Rehmat-e-Nusrat and the flute and dafli for Himali Mou, shines through in the peaceful setting. Amarrass has put together a schedule that is both rich in experience and yet easy. The senses come alive at Soulitude, a few hours’ drive on the highway going east from New Delhi and away from the dusty plains.

Mr Tamta will also treat guests to a culinary session and a class where he will conjure up some of the quite unique food of the mountains. This baithak will reward those who are touched by it in ways that cannot be replicated in concerts, and it does so in one of the most beautiful places one will ever get the chance to visit.