Ludhiana,
October 17
The Manganiyars of Rajasthan, the only existing tribe that has been carrying Sufi & instrumental music for the past 150 years from generation to generation, performed for the students of Guru Nanak Public School this morning. To bring these singers steeped in tradition with amazing singing prowess was made possible by SPIC MACAY which has made it its mission to bring the youth closer to their unique heritage.
The Manganiyars dressed in their colourful headgear and in their exquisitely crafted dresses had brought with themselves the charisma of their musical instruments much to the joy of the schoolchildren.
Leader of the troupe Anwar Khan introduced the traditional instruments that their great grand fathers and their fathers had been using from generations. The instruments used were kamacha,sarangi, morchang, dholak, and khartal. K.K. Khan mesmerised the audience with deft playing of khartal. The khartal comprised four wooden pieces, two each were held in one hand and the music was created by clicking them. K.K.Khan clicked them with the fingers of a magician and just ordinary wooden pieces produced a wonderful and amazing music.
The students enjoyed jugalbandi between khartal and dholak player and cheered lustily.
Later K.K.Khan said, ‘‘As far as I remember I always had Khartals. Watching other members, I started playing. And now I can play for hours effortlessly. People abroad love my performance’’.
The sweet notes of shehnai contained a beautiful bhajan by Meera Bai. The bhajan ‘Radha Rani de daro mori bansi gori mori, Krishan is requesting her to return the flute as it was the breath of his life. When the singers started singing ‘nimbuda nimbuda’, their folk song made very popular by Aishwarya Rai in one of her films, ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’, the students clapped rhythmically.
Since they are Sufi singers, they rendered a popular song of Bulle Shah, ‘Damadam Mast Kalandar’. The song electrified everyone and later they recalled that the noted Punjabi singer Hans Raj Hans once was so moved by the rendering of this song that he joined them and sang with them for two hours at a performance.
Kumari Rekha of Kalbalia tribe, who are traditionally snake charmers and have switched over to doing snake dances, executed a very fast snake dance. Her black dress embellished with mirrors and cowrie shells made her look very attractive. She performed an amazing feat where she placed Rs 10 notes on the floor and bent backwards and lifted those rupees on her eye lashes much to the amazement of all present there.
Later in the press conference, their leader Anwar said, ‘‘None of us go to learn classical music to schools. The music is in our blood and right from our childhood we learn the ragas effortlessly by listening to our elder members. We drink, eat, sleep and live music all time. We are the tribe where the ‘jajmani’ system is still prevalent. We mostly visit homes of our patrons on special occasions like child birth and weddings. It was one of our patrons Mr Komal Kothari who had sent us abroad for performance and ever since that we have travelled extensively throughout the world. Our only regret is that the government is not helping us much to preserve our invaluable tradition’’.
