How would you improve your community?
Music has been a big part of our lives growing up. Dad used to listen to vivid Bharati and Radio Ceylon all the time. They used to play the top Bollywood songs of the day. While we never went to learn music or sing songs formally, all of us could hold tunes and sing songs. The older siblings were part of the school music team, and the younger sibling continues to inspire me with her voice. I learned Carnatic music for a very brief period in my life and enjoyed the experience, but not enough to continue it when we moved homes. In school, we did not have a choice, if you could hold a tune, then you joined the choir and sang the carols, which I did as well. In grade 5, a new student joined the school. D was learning folk songs and knew quite a few of them. One of them was a parody of perceived modernity. The lyrics were suitably risqué, the tune peppy and the words casting aspersions on all that was acceptable in the world.
Despite being a convent, our school allowed us to learn the song and perform it at an inter-school event. This resulted in me practicing it at home, and the family hearing it. Everyone who heard the lyrics was tickled silly with the crazy innuendos in the song. Antakshari was our go-to game during power-cuts and the entire street used to gather to sing songs and while away the time until the power came back on. Hindi film songs, folk songs, Carnatic songs, shlokas, and anything that had rhythm, tune, or tempo could be sung during this time. And this was one of the songs that Dad made me sing one evening, and it was such a hit, that when we decided to host the Ganesh Puja on the street, it was included as part of the cultural evening.
A community is defined as a social unit with a shared set of characteristics like a set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identities.
A few decades ago, every street was a community of individuals with similar tastes and beliefs. Every street organized the ‘Ganesh Pandal’, which was usually accompanied by a cultural evening, a movie screening, or both. The list of programs for the evening was decided based on the amount of funds the team was able to collect.
That year, the cultural evening included events and a film screening. The organizers got the requisite permissions to set up the tents and hire the required electronics to make the evening memorable. Events and programs were organized, songs, skits, dances, prayers and even a game of Tambola were the usual order of events in this annual extravaganza. The usual kind of songs sung at these events were traditional conservative numbers. Songs that you learned in a Carnatic Music class or a Hindustani Music class. It was after all an evening celebrating Ganesh Puja, not a general get-together when there was a power cut. The audience would include the priests who had come to do the Puja for the idol. Bawdy songs of allusions to modern fashion usually never qualified to make the final list. So, when my song was included for that evening, I was as surprised as the organizers. The humor overrode the innuendo, I guess.
‘Nodamma, ee shoku,
Shokige illada yaa breaku,
Bengalooru peteli dinaglu noduva
Jagatige banda headachu..”
The organizers of the cultural evening chuckled every time they heard the song. The sibling decided to modify some part of the chorus from what it used to be, to something else. The organizers felt that it should be the same. The sibling argued that while none of the organizers sang, she did, and she was confident that the song would only get better with the modification.
This argument between the sibling and the organizers continued. It was never direct; it was through an intermediary. And that was me! I practiced it, with the modifications in front of the sibling, and I practiced it without the modifications in front of the organizers. I never once thought about the actual event. The friction between the teams was tough for me to handle and I had a simple solution. All my practice sessions were spent alternating between the preferred chorus for the team I was practicing in front of.
The day of the cultural evening came, and it was a beautiful setup. There had been a tent set up in the middle of the street and the accompanists who had practiced with me, sat around waiting. The seating was just mats strewn across the road, and everyone sat on the ground. The family was in the crowd. But the sibling and the younger sibling were right in front, smiling expectantly, waiting for me to start. The music started and I joined in, a harmonious start. The audience loved the lyrics and the tune, everyone was enjoying the music and then the chorus started. Seeing the organizers in the side from the corner of my eye, I sang the first half the way they wanted me to sing it, and then I glanced at the audience and saw the sibling shaking her head in disappointment. Eager to dispel her disappointment, I sang the second half of the chorus the way I had practiced it with her. And her face lit up as she nodded her head in acknowledgment. Perfect. She was happy. And then I saw the organizers again, and again, and I shifted to sing the song the way I had practiced with them.
I alternated between the two styles throughout the song. The song could not be over fast enough. I was so exhausted trying to keep both the organizers and the sibling happy. I finished the song to a roaring ovation. Everyone loved the song. It was local and it was hilarious. And apart from the organizers and the siblings, no one was even aware that I had constantly made changes through the song. They loved it. The cultural evening ended on a stupendous high. Everyone was talking about the song. Folks I had never spoken to, came up to have a conversation. What started as a generic cultural evening among strangers, with two clear parties with fixed preferences on how the song should be performed, ended up being an entertainingly enjoyable evening.
When strangers approached the organizers to congratulate them on including a janapada geete or folk song in the list, the evening started to get even more gratifying. The camaraderie after the event exemplified everything that was required in a community. Entertainment, enthusiasm, and making/accepting changes on the go graciously, without anyone being the wiser. The cultural evening was an interesting way to bring the community closer and, on all accounts, it was a huge success.
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