A spirited Manpreet
By Harvinder Khetal
FOR someone having seen Manpreet Brar, former Miss India, only in the media, the first reaction on coming face to face with her was a spontaneous: "Oh! You look prettier off screen." This instantly broke the ice with the tall, lissome beauty from Punjab who handled the compliment with grace. She laughed: "Yah! A lot of people have said that to me. I think I should do live shows more often."

Energy that breaks all confines
By Vandana Shukla

Brian Finnegan’s performance builds an urgent energy that breaks all confines creating a magnetic field that draws audiences to him with natural ease.

A product of a tightly-guarded musical tradition of Ireland, Brian is candid and receptive as a person. Hailing from Armagh, North Ireland, he has travelled extensively to study and absorb different traditions of music.

Performing in India under an exchange programme between the Sangeet Natak Academy and the British Council of India commemorating 50 years of Indian Independence, he feels a greater need to evolve a global language of music.

Brian grew up listening to classical Indian flute players like Hari Prasad Chaurasia, whose music was introduced to him by his father, a Zen Buddhist. Ireland maintains its old tradition of imparting rich folk musical heritage by word of mouth, somewhat similar to our guru-shishya parampara. For flute players, the notes are not written or printed. These are passed on through an “oral tradition”.

A student of flute has to maintain his rhythm pattern calculating the beats mentally. Unlike the Indian system, the young artistes do not have accompanists on the percussion instrument unless they join a band at a later stage. All young learners go to a summer school for lessons in music, where very senior teachers prepare them under strict discipline of their folk tradition.

The summer schools are maintained and financed by the district council or the community, because it is for the sake of the community that these teachers preserve a tradition and pass it on to the next generation. The community pays for the services of the teachers. In our too many expectations from the government and ever-growing frustrations, we can draw lessons of self-reliance and independence.

The Ireland folk tradition of flute playing begins with playing a tin vessel, a small metallic flute, children are given to whistle on. Then a flute made of blockwood is provided to practise finer breath control. At a later stage they have to graduate to play a rosewood flute. Brian feels equally at home with a tin vessel, a bamboo flute or the Irish wooden flute.

Apart from the rich repertoire of Irish folk tunes, Brian has also created his original compositions and tunes. Equally comfortable on the high and low whistle, he has been highly influenced by some American jazz flutists like Rolland Kirk.

Brian has been playing with the top-ranking bands in the UK and is much in demand despite his young years.

Like his many artiste brethren, across the globe, Brian too wants to break the bounds of traditional Irish music and soar high into the world of musical exploration, giving expression to deep unexplored recesses of his mind and heart by incorporating different styles of expressions.

Does it not make him apprehend the loss of his distinct identity? Brian says, “No, in the process I am enriched. I recently did a tour of the UK with ‘Flutopia’, in collaboration with flute players from Hungary, Spain, England, Brittany and Mexico and got influenced by the styles of Spanish and Mexican flute playing. Back home when I performed, they said I was not playing the Irish floute, but they enjoyed my flute all the same.”

What about his Indian experience and Indian music? Brian says there are many commonalties between the two cultures. Irish, being the second oldest language after Sanskrit, contains a lot of traditional wisdom in its ‘Book of Kells’, quite akin to old scriptures of Sanskrit. Our historical struggles for preservation of culture have also been parallel and both countries have a rich and varied tradition of folk music. So there is a lot to share and exchange.

Yet, he feels humbled on sharing a stage with Indian flute player, a product of the tradition that produced masters like Pt Hari Prasad Chaurasia. Brian played flute in jugalbandi with Rajendra Prasanna at Chandigarh under the Indo-British Musician’s Series between the British Council of India and the Sangeet Natak Akademi.

A spirited Manpreet
By Harvinder Khetal

FOR someone having seen Manpreet Brar, former Miss India, only in the media, the first reaction on coming face to face with her was a spontaneous: "Oh! You look prettier off screen." This instantly broke the ice with the tall, lissome beauty from Punjab who handled the compliment with grace. She laughed: "Yah! A lot of people have said that to me. I think I should do live shows more often."

Manpreet was in Chandigarh recently to compere a show of the professional dance troupe from Europe, Euro Dancertainers.

She was dressed casually in trousers, T-shirt and jacket in her hotel room. However, her face was made up in matt finish lipstick and heavy eyeliner, kohl, mascara and eyeshadow, accentuating her large eyes. She was ready to leave for the venue of the show due to begin shortly, where she would change into a glamorous beige off-shoulder long evening gown and take to the stage.

How does it feel to be in Chandigarh?

"It always feels nice to come to City Beautiful," she replies, referring to the cleanliness and green open spaces. Also, above all, she has fond memories of holidays spent with her grandparents and cousins who belong to the city. She was a frequent visitor here before the whirlpool of fame its subsequent perks left her with little time to do ordinary things.

She came here last during the shooting of an episode of Siyaram's Star Miss India show that she was anchoring.

The soni kudi has indeed left days of leisure spent with family far behind. After the heady year of being Miss India and Miss Universe first runner-up, Manpreet took to anchoring and compering even as her more popular colleagues Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai concentrated on films.

What prompted Manpreet to be associated with the dance troupe?

"It is a great pleasure to introduce the artistes to the audience all over India," she explains, while going ga-ga over the amalgamation of various Latin-American dance forms and entertainment that the troupe has synthesised under choreographer Abrashekov Edward.

Also, she says, she wanted a break from the Miss India show that entailed a lot of travelling and helping choose the local beauties of big and small cities. She took up this assignment for a change even though it also is a package of a mammoth 45-day tour of 30 locations across the length and breadth of the country.

And the elan with she conducts the live proceedings in her husky voice proves that she is no dumb beauty. Remember, no retakes here unlike that on TV or commercials?

Which is her favourite dance?

"I like the tango in particular because the movements exude power and pride," is Manpreet's declaration in typical Sikh fashion.

And what does the lass have to say about the tag of being branded with a whisky label that comes along?

"Well! I like to be associated with things number one and Royal Challenge is tops in its field. It has even organised Asia's largest amateur golf event: the golf cup at Calcutta," she informs spiritedly while sipping tea and narrating a joke:

In the olden times, when men were given the choice of taking one-third of their wages in the form of liquor, most of them opted for it. Why? Because the wife couldn't spend it.

by B.N. Goswamy
Saluting the spirits

Immamout Agouet Aroyo
Carrefour
Marassa
Bossou

ONE can be certain that these names do not mean anything to anyone in our part of the world. And yet million of people live by them, their lives guided by these very words, their whole view of the world fashioned by them, in some manner. For the names belong to loas, spirits in other words, which hover about in the very air of Haitu, that Island nation “of enormous contradictions and unsettled realities” that lies east of Cuba. Immamou is the spirit of the Sea, Carrefour that of the Cross-roads and of Chance; Marassa are the sacred Twins; Bossou is the Bull that bestows fertility on the soil.

And these four are just a few among a host of others, benign or angry, peaceful or ‘hot’, some going back to those African roots from which came the slaves who worked the rich fields of this land for their French masters, others freely adapted from the Christian faith that was imposed, initially, upon the blacks by the whites. But, whatever the case, there is no getting away from them. They are there in Haiti, everywhere, elements in Vodou worship, “enabling people to cope with the survive each day in a dangerous world”.

To the outsiders, all this may seem to be little more than magic or ‘shamanism’, but within Haiti, the folk religion called Vodou (or ‘voodoo as it would be named elsewhere) plays a vital role in helping to hold the people of the nation together “by providing community structure, spiritual support, and social order”.

I would have known nothing about all this myself, but for a recent, chance encounter with these things. I was at Colgate University, in that quiet little corner of New York state called Hamilton, where I had gone to deliver a lecture instituted in the memory of Eric Ryan. Colgate is a small but fine liberal arts university, some faculty members of which, including my host, Padma Kaimal, have had a long association with India. Thoughtfully, some appointments had been made for me even before my arrival there, including one that consisted of a visit to the Picker Art Gallery at the campus which was currently featuring a special exhibition with the title I have used above: “Saluting the Spirits: Vodou Flags of Haiti”.

I was a little taken aback by the choice of theme, for it is not easy to imagine that there would be any special interest in Haiti or in the arts of that nation state in Colgate. But then — this is the kind of surprise that one runs into ever so often, and from which one needs to learn — the art gallery is specially charged, by its charter, drawn up by the Board of Trustees of the university, to “present ideas to the community that are not part of the usual curriculum”. It is out-of-classroom learning opportunities for the academic community and for the public at large that the gallery is expected to provide. This is what it was doing.

But to get back to the spirits of Haiti. In them, according to an essay in the small exhibition catalogue, is reflected something of the rich and complex cultural history of the state, for the syncretistic layers in the faith of the people have gathered over thousands of years, making for a complicated fabric, rich in elaborate rituals, filled with symbolism, marked with sacrifices.

When the white colonists brought in, as part of the Christian faith that was theirs, the cult of St. Patrick, who was credited with banishing all snakes from Ireland, the slave population of African descent surmised that the saint was none other than their own “Papa Serpent” whom they had worshipped for centuries; the Virgin Mary, in her beauty and flowing blue robes, was quickly equated by the blacks with their own loa-spirit, Erzulie Freda, goddess of love and beauty.

And so on it went the overlay upon an ancient local faith of the newly arrived Christianity that was all but imposed, even if eventually adopted. Catholic saints and African spirits did not only co-exist; they were constantly being fused.

In practice, and in ceremony, this Haitian fusion takes the form of spectacularly sequined and beaded flags that picture the sacred spirits, and are preserve with great care inside local shrines. All too often they are taken out and paraded in the processions which are so much a part of peoples’ daily lives; but even when they are not in actual use, they are stored inside closed altar rooms where they are believed to be recharging themselves silently with power. The glory of the flags, however, is seen best when in motion, as they flash in the light carried as they are unfurled, swinging freely on a wooden or iron rod, flanking the priest as he walks.

The flags are not necessarily old; they do not bear the look of some relics of the past. These are objects that are constantly being made afresh, renewed, whole groups within the community working upon them together. The size, the material the ritual image on the flags, is determined strictly by convention, but each generation, sometimes a specially gifted individual from a new generation, brings to them something of his own imagination, his or her own flair.

As a group works upon a flag, there are discussions, one learns, even as the fabric is being stretched out on a frame, lithographed calendar-like pictures are being embedded in the design, and thousands upon thousands of sequins and beads are being selected to fill the outlines drawn upon the fabric.

Everyone working on the flag wishes to be personally involved even as priests draw sacred designs upon the floor with cornmeal. The dialogue with the spirits is no one’s special privilege. These earthly salutations to the gods of Vodou belong to everyone.

A common enterprise
As I saw some photographs of groups of persons involved in the making of these Haitian flags, I was reminded, curiously, of our own sanhis, those colourful patterns that worshippers make upon the floors in the Krishna shrines of Shrinathji, at Nathdwara or Mathura, for example. I have seen some of them — it is the privilege of women devotees — do this with great devotion, poring dedicatedly over designs for hours, filling outlines with coloured powder and lentils of all kinds, even flower petals cut into very fine strips. The whole enterprise, ephemeral but intensely colourful, has the air of a joyous sharing, of a truly sanjhi activity, as it were. The context is dramatically different, but the spirit seems to be the same.

Capturing Punjab ‘rooh’
By Nonika Singh

AT a point when the musical world is permeating with heavy metallic sounds and western influences, it’s time to pause and take stock of our vast musical inheritance, the priceless legacy,which, alas, is slowly being asphyxiated to death”. So ruminates Chandigarh’s celebrated photographer Diwan Manna whose exhibition of photoprints titled “Rooh Punjab di” encapsulating myriad facets of Punjabi folk music opens on Friday at the Sector 17 piazza. Punjabi singers of different genre — Sufi Dhadi, googi marhi, raagi dhadi, and the riveting ‘baabeyan da giddha’ in which 15 or so elderly men dance and play diverse instruments — have all been captured through Diwan’s third eye, in the 220 odd photographs being displayed.

Essentially an ethnographic study, the exhibition incidentally is a precursor to a book to be published soon. Traversing the entire length and breadth of Punjab, Diwan’s photographic journey comprised a meeting with dilruba players, discovery of ustaad of dholak Mangat Ram, an interface with late Yamala Jat’s (the great musical doyen of ‘ektaara’ fame) family.

Though the exhibition features household names like Gurmeet Bawa, Hans Raj Hans, Mohammed Siddiqu, Diwan has deliberately kept the focus on unsung heroes for they alone have the gumption and spirit to keep the tradition alive sans remuneration. So, when it came to blowing up pictures, lesser-known names like Mal Singh (now no more) and Banarsi Dass scored over musical heavy weights.

For the man behind the camera whose pictures adorn international galleries and who believes a photograph must go beyond mere recording of events, the exhibition most certainly is not a culmination of his creative potential. Nevertheless, it is childhood revisited. Always a discerning “shrota” while recalling days when he climbed up trees to have a glimpse of his musical icons, this was an opportunity to listen to the musical stalwarts from the closest vantage point.

Sure Diwan’s innate skill is more than palpable in the picture quality and clarity. Besides, the use of special technique (enhancing the yellow and red) brings forth the effusive warmth emanating from the musician’s persona. So, Puran Shah Koti’s (today better known as guru of his famous disciple Hans Raj Hans) profound visage, staring out of a black backdrop remains etched on your mind’s lens. Diwan says,”I ruled out experimental form of photography for I wanted to capture the purity of expression, especially that moment of high in their musical odyssey when oblivious to their environment, the musicians are connected to the supreme power”. Of course thrown in the exhibition are many a stolen moment straight out of their mundane everyday existence. Working on the project for nearly three months, he caught several glimpses of the personal lives of these extraordinary people.

Remarks Diwan, “Interaction with them was a humbling experience. For there they were caught in a quagmire of poverty, yet deriving sheer bliss from their God-gifted talent unmindful of its (lack of) market value”. One day he aspires to click some more hoping that it would bring them recognition (their legitimate due). But for now he perceives this exhibition as their moment of glory and not another feather on his own cap.