This conversation with Karo Hajam was recorded during the Echoes of Karoonjhar artist residency in Bodesar, Nagarparkar, beneath those ancient face-shaped rocks that feel like they’re always listening. Karo lives in a village near Mithi. He’s a farmer, a barber, a flute-maker, and someone who understands rhythm through his hands, through his breath, and through the land itself.
 

At the centre of this portrait is Malhaar: not just a raag, but a feeling. A mood that Thar knows very well. Malhaar holds both ache and celebration. After months of longing for rain, for green, for bloom, Thar finally receives. And when it does, it bursts into Malhaar. That’s when the sky responds, and the land sings back
 

He tells us he started listening to the radio when he was five. Back then, the been was played again and again. Raag entered his life through those frequencies. And it stayed. Today, he still listens to the radio, though he says they don’t play Alghozo or been anymore. That silence means something too.Karo doesn’t separate his music from the environment. He speaks about wind the way some people speak about seasons. In Sindhi, the monsoon is called Chumaaso, and it doesn’t arrive all at once. It travels. He knows which wind carries which spell, which one brings a dust storm, which one carries rain. “When the western spells come, the lightning strikes increase,” he says. “The eastern and northern rains don’t bring that much. Just one or two.”

We remember the tragedy in Weri Chhip, a village near Mithi, where over a hundred people were walking to a festival. Lightning struck. Three people died on the spot. Three more passed away later in the hospital. He says some people believe this all started after the digging for the Thar coal project. He doesn’t say it as a theory. It’s just something he’s heard, something felt.
 

But rhythm is still here. In the animals, in the bells, in the chimes. “Cattle have rhythm,” he tells me. “If one strays from the herd, the rhythm brings it back.” These communities decorate their animals too. Designs shaved into their fur, henna on their cheeks, dye across their shoulders. “Just like humans don’t look good when unkempt,” he says, smiling. There’s joy in beautification. It shows in how he ties bells around their necks, and in the way he speaks about style.
 

His two instruments are the Alghozo and the Changg. He learned to play from Rehmatullah Diplai, and learned to make the been from Abdullah Khoso. He was deeply inspired by Misri Khan and Khamiso Khan, names that still carry weight in the world of Alghozo. He decorates his flutes too. Aluminium foil, reflective and simple, becomes something beautiful. “People think if someone doesn’t decorate their flute, what kind of music will they play?”
 

Barbering is his family profession. “Trimming beards, styling hair, giving head massages: these are our old running skills,” he says. “In the past, people were known by their profession. My own son does beard and hair now too.”
 

Sometimes he doesn’t want an audience. “I sit alone with my changg or alghozo and play. When there’s no one else to talk to, my instrument speaks to me.” Music isn’t just performance for him. It’s company. “It makes me forget everything else and what's left is just peace. When there's no one around to talk to, my instrument speaks to me.”

 

He talks about pain and joy. “They’re brothers,” he says. “If there’s only joy, where will the pain go?” One is older, one is younger. Sometimes you lean toward one, sometimes the other. Both are needed.

At the end of the conversation, he says, "Everything becomes Rano."

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In Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai’s Risalo, Sur Rano follows the story of Moomal and Rano. It’s a story of love, miscommunication, grief, and union: not in life, but after everything has been stripped away. Moomal burns herself in despair. Rano follows. What’s left is not the story, but the feeling it leaves behind. Rano becomes the sur where everything quiets down. Where longing has nowhere else to go. Where you stop asking for answers.
 

So when Karo says, “everything becomes Rano,” he’s not just closing a conversation. He’s letting it dissolve. The words, the questions, even the self. It all returns to the sur. To the last note. To something that doesn’t need to be spoken. It’s not an ending. It’s a release.
 

Where rhythm rests.

Where silence holds meaning.

Where Malhaar visits, and Rano lives.