Enriched India with Sounds of Harmony

Navina Jafa

No longer just the intangible, living heritage of the Raj in India, choral music embraces different genres, providing a healing touch to parched souls. The past exists to enrich India’s diverse cultural fabric. 

This article was Published in The Hindu on May 16, 2019. Titled:“Expanding Sounds of Harmony

The Torchbearers: Music conductor Late Neil Nongkynrih with the members of the Shillong Chamber Choir

Sitting in a rocking chair in her home in Civil Lines, author, singer, and connoisseur Sheila Dhar once reminisced about the culture of Delhi in the first half of the 20th century. 

       Shiela Dhar

“We were taught to use cutlery, and my mother was given tuition in English. On special occasions, songstresses such as Siddheshwari Bai were invited to sing for a meal when we had a British officer. Even she would sing thumri in English,” said Dhar candidly. The cultural geography of many known and unknown towns in India is peppered with various nuances of the Raj. Christmas singing traditions are central to celebrating the Indian-Colonial culture, in which choral singing has made a place for itself in contemporary India. 

           Capital City Minstrels

It is no longer about winter or Bada Din (Christmas). The ‘summer concert’ of The Capital City Minstrels (CCM), a well-known Delhi choir group, celebrated its 25th year in 2019, singing to a jam-packed audience at the India Habitat Centre. Their performance ended with a standing ovation. The audience rose, whistles shrilled the air, and claps roared. There was the demand for not one but ten encores. The performers chose to sing “The Book of Love’ – Magnetic Fields. The Chorus sang: “But I, I love it when you sing to me; and you, you can sing me anything”. A nostalgic image of Raj’s culture rose.

Choral music in India forms an integral part of the intangible cultural heritage of the colonial period. The organisation of city development programmes such as building Railways presented two broad categories: sacred and secular leisure cultural activities in the Raj. A range of cultural manifestations and activities were evident in cities and towns like Agra, Lucknow, Madras, Calcutta, Bangalore, along with hill stations and several railway towns like Bandi Kui (Rajasthan) and Kharagpur where areas like Civil Lines, Cantonments, Railway colonies, and markets became cultural spaces.

The author at the Bandikui Church

The secular tangible heritage comprised official buildings, designs of homes, clubs, boarding schools, band stands, gardens and marketplaces. The intangible heritage manifested as lifestyles in clubs, coffee houses, theatre, tea parties, and sports like tennis, cricket, and billiards.

Sacred Spaces 

The tangible heritage of the sacred spaces were the churches and cemeteries. Churches represent a range of architectural designs like Gothic and Romanesque Baroque. Their interior décor has stained glass and indigenous Eurocentric artwork, such as the Wedgewood designs in the chapel of La Martinere in Lucknow.

Wedgewood Artwork at the La Martinere School in Lucknow.

Music, integral to the culture of the churches in the Raj, often included unique pipe organs dating back to the late 18th-19th Century and choral music. The tradition of sacred music and religious festivals, in turn, brought a variety of celebrations, cuisines, and rituals laced with local flavours.

Sharmila Livingston, Music Conductor, Capital City Minstrels, New Delhi

The number of those who understood, appreciated, and participated in the world of Western Classical Music as part of the Raj was and continues to remain small. Choral music’s roots are in the Church, says Sharmila Livingston, present conductor of CCM. “The Choral musical tradition has Euro-Western roots in the Gregorian chants (9-10th century) sung by young monks. Gradually, with time, the music came to be performed in secular spaces. The amplification led to the incorporation of different genres of opera, ones that appealed to the masses. The nature of choral music is multi-layered in voice qualities, which becomes a metaphor for the distinct character of choral singing: ‘ harmony’. The music is like a bunch of flowers, where simultaneous qualities and ranges of voices sing together to produce a harmonious effect. Each singer dissolves his personal identity and works together for the same idiom.”

The Cosmopolitan Nature:

Most choral groups in India are linked to churches and present platforms for real-time community bonding. However, recently, several secular groups like CCM have evolved. Reem Khokhar, a writer and part of the governing body of CCM, expresses that it is not about once a week meeting but about the coming together of so many people from different backgrounds and countries who become family when it won the reality show – “India’s Got Talent” in 2010 and other awards. The group’s national and international success has brought the marginalised North East India into the mainstream as a matter of national pride. “Our music is truly like the idea of the choir, a metaphor of harmony and peace,” said the late Neil Nongkynrih, founder of the Shillong Chamber Choir.

Changing Contours

Most choirs used to be a lot about Western Classical, but gradually, CCM, with various conductors, expanded the repertoire. “In 2008, CCM had its first concert abroad. It was an exciting time. Conductor Gabriella Boda, a French married to a Hungarian, brought different languages and genres like African Tribal and Arabic compositions, among others. For the concerts abroad, we carried a series of Indian music, such as a fisherman song. At the same time, Sharmila Livingston, our present conductor, wrote a Ruh-aa – (A prayer in Urdu for church). But the most interesting part was that we sang “Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram” which became a signature tune for the BBC website and the title tune for a German Choir – Remscheider Ensemble,” informs  Michael Pereira, a former police officer he is associated with the Capital City Minstrels for a long time. For Neil Nongkynrih, it was about accepting that Bollywood music ‘IS’ India and the manner of negotiating the music in their repertoire. Says Neil, “Although I grew up with the music of Mozart and other greats of the Western Classical World, I had to leave my snobbery. Bollywood is like a marriage of Freddie Mercury and Lata Mangeshkar with a swing of malt glass. That is my music. I prefer old Bollywood music. It has soul, lyrics, and melodies, which we sang in the St. Paul’s Cathedral in Calcutta. The audience went bananas; they found the music sacred.”

Healing touch 

At times, the choir also plays an important social role in bringing together communities. “Some years ago, when there were communal clashes in Shillong, my son, singers, and I went with our music to stand up for peace,” said Neil Nongkynrih.

Sharmila Livingston says, “We incorporated in our summer concert ‘Bring Me Little Water, Sylvie’, a beautiful melody that factors interactive body percussion rhythm; but we instead have introduced dance for which our members find another occasion to practice separately and bond.”

In the present world defined by virtual reality that has engineered greater human isolation and alienation, the repositioned choral singing of the musical echoes of Raj provides hope to nurture real-time bonding and coexistence. “When I teach young Eva, it is eight hours of humility and two hours of singing; the choir is about synergy, melting of the cancer of the self,” sums up Neil.

         

 

Music gives soul to the Universe,

Wings to the Mind,

Flight to the Imagination

And

Life to Everything …. Plato

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