Significance
The intellectual significance of the project is expressed in its scope of including poetic and musical traditions from a broad variety of languages and cultures spanning various time periods. For example, barring a handful of very popular poets such as Saadi, Rumi and Hafiz, a huge body of rich Persian literature and poetry is yet to be explored, examined and exposed to the outside world. Poetic traditions from minority languages such as Kashmiri are yet to be fully introduced to and integrated into the world body of cultural knowledge. Most of these traditions are barely scratched at the surface by scholars if any. The lead project team are cultural ambassadors who bring these treasures to the international stage and present them in an artistic and creative way. The broader significance of the project lies in its being an attempt to challenge the existing socio-political barriers which express in the form of sanctions and restrictions and create hurdles in cross-cultural communication and understanding. Its objective is to connect the world through poetry, art and music from diverse cultures and traditions. Using a series of interconnected themes and cross-cultural tropes that touch various chords of human psychology while also highlighting some of the shared — both bitter and sweet — experiences of the humankind, the core vision is to make one world and unify voices through the common bridge of music. The project is a message for spreading the word of peace through music and poetry as a transformative tool that heals and at the same time connects people.