Art for religious fundamentalism is, like water for fire, mere existence, is a form of resistance.

Khumariyaan was born in the age of Talibanisation, sectarian violence, military operations and neo-imperialist expansions, in the region which is a gateway to Central Asia, in the city of Peshawar.

A band of musicians whose tunes are based on their native music, with a tinge of other native music of the world as well, our audience is the educated youth of Pakistan, and our mission is to enlighten the youth with all encompassing aesthetics and performing arts. Our focus is to elevate music to medium of peace of being, and musically, break the tradition of the South Asian vocal based musical culture, thus we are an instrumental band.

Centered on the concept that vocals should complement music, we compose with little fragments of vocals to compliment the overall harmony. We are group of individuals that came together, as on soul, to experience the trance that is live, acoustic music.

To us, music is the best sublimated form of art, and we leave its interpretation to the one who experiences our attempt at being artists. In our journey, we hope to entice musical ‘goose bumps’, and become a moving philosophical experience

The band comprises of the following members, the lines also contain a brief description and an insight to members’ personalities and overlapping lives.

Farhan Bogra – Lead Rubab

Farhan is a well known rubab virtuoso on the music circuit. He is provincial coordinator of Institute for the Preservation of Art and Culture KPK, Pakistan by day, he has represented Pushtoon Music and culture all over Pakistan and even across the border. With the desire to show Pushto music to the world, and break the norms existing about art and thought in the region, he is the light from which the band draws strength.

Shiraz Khan – Lead Percussion

Shiraz provides the backbone that is percussion to all the tunes that the band come sup with, using a native Pushto Instrument that nearly faced extinction, known as the ‘Zeer Baghali’, similar in shape to the more popular ‘Djembe’. Holding a bachelor’s degree, Shiraz met with Farhan at their university and the duo go together with next member to form the initial trio that was to hit the Peshawar music scene. Also represented the country abroad.

Aamer Shafiq – Rhythm Guitar

Aamer met the mentioned members in their university in Peshawar

,and discovered that the solo notes of the rubab were complemented by the rhythm of the guitar almost as if it were instinctual. A well known guitar player in his own right, Aamer gladly took up the role of being the fusion and western element in the band, all three of them understanding that music, if played in harmony,is sublime, no matter the instrument.

Sparlay Rawail – Lead Guitar

Sparlay Rawail, a student of the national college of arts, met the three bands members at a concert for a random jam session. During the first half minute, the members heard what was an amalgam of music intellect and pure fury from a lead guitar player that would create incredible acoustic crescendos and diminuendos, a true purgatory and suspended repetitiveness of an art that would complement the music of the band and give it a new vibrant, radiation, gravity and energy,something the band just brought out in him, a symbiotic. Since then the band never looked back and Sparlay has been playing lead guitar and percussion for Khumariyaan.