SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Farooq Ahmad Shaksaaz presses a button on his 1970 Sharp cassette player, and with a hefty clack the machine whirrs to life. As the Kashmiri tailor stitches, the machine crackles for a moment before Ghulam Ahmad Sofi’s otherworldly voice fills his shop with verses about divine love and the pain of separation from the beloved creator of the universe.
Shaksaaz, a tailor in the Kashmiri city of Srinagar, inherited his passion for local Sufi music from his grandfather along with a meticulously preserved collection of audio cassette tapes from the 1970s, which he often listens to as he works.
He belongs to a small, dedicated community that believes cassette tapes are the best way to listen to and archive the Sufi music of Indian-controlled Kashmir, where music inspired by local and central Asian Muslim saints have historically served as profound expressions of spirituality and emotion. Numerous individuals seek solace in music for spiritual guidance, or seeking an escape from the region’s long periods of street conflict, shutdowns and security restrictions.
For decades, cassette players have conveyed the soul-stirring poetry of Sufi saints and the enchanting melodies of Kashmiri instruments like the sarangi and santoor, and it’s long been a local ritual for families to gather around the warm hum of a tape player. Even today, the region’s traditional Sufi music gatherings are often recorded only on the disappearing audio format, which was widely used from the 1970s to the 1990s.
While the music is increasingly available on digital formats, many Kashmiris say that it’s best heard on cassette tapes.
“There is something unique about this machine that for me plays recordings of spiritual guides,” said Abdul Ahad, a carpet weaver. “It is a sacred ritual in itself to press the play button of a cassette player to listen to a song on spiritual moorings.”
Numerous cherished albums came out from local record labels during the peak of the audio cassette, yet dedicated fans of the genre continue to bring tape recorders to gatherings. Digital recorders are frequently not welcomed at these nightly music sessions, as Sufi music lovers claim they blur together the unique sounds of the different instruments.
“It is a different experience to listen to music on a tape recorder,” said Abdul Hamid Khan. “Tapes are smooth and you can feel the sound of every instrument, you don’t get that feel in these new players.”
Still, as tapes wear out and more music moves to digital streaming platforms and smartphones, the tactile and deeply personal listening experience of cassettes is becoming harder to keep going.
Many families have been forced to part with their players due to mechanical failures, while others struggle to preserve their cherished cassette collections, some of which hold rare and irreplaceable recordings passed down through generations. Some collectors have opted to digitise their old recordings to preserve them for future generations.
Only a few shops in Srinagar, the region’s main city, sell tape recorders or blank tapes, and the availability of spare parts and qualified repair technicians has significantly decreased.
A handful of mechanics in the Kashmir Valley still cater to a dedicated population of Sufi music lovers, carefully repairing machines made by beloved Japanese brands like Sharp and Kenwood in the last century.
Mohammad Ashraf Matoo, a self-taught mechanic, has spent years keeping decades-old cassette players running even as spare parts become increasingly scarce. He purchases non-functional recorders to salvage functional parts, and manufactures some parts himself to keep his customers’ devices going. Once repaired, a well-functioning tape recorder is sold for a price between USD150 and USD850, depending on its brand and condition.
Shaksaaz, a lifelong Sufi music devotee, called it a “personal mission” to preserve the legacy of cassette tapes.
“It is a bridge to the past, a way to remain connected to our spiritual and cultural roots in this ever modernising and digital world,” he said.
