You can see Rakesh Yankaran on the Harmonium to Rasika's right on the floor, and Surender Ramoutar on the Steel Pan standing between Rakesh and Rasika
My best experience with Chutney Music came in February 2005 (14th Feb 2005 to be exact). I heard from Shruti that a series of Indian Diaspora music concerts were being held at University of Hyderabad and that a group from Trinidad has come…I couldn’t hide my excitement…Shruti and I reached the venue almost an hour before the scheduled start…and on the steps of the auditorium I saw a man in a distinctly colourful shirt chatting with a group of students…I too sat down to listen and discovered that this man was part of the music group called D’Bhuya Saaj [a bhojpuri term meaning ‘sitting on the ground (bhuyaan) and singing/entertaining (saaj)’] from Trinidad which would be performing that day…
I still remember…we were talking and I told this man that I had visited a site called www.ajeetpraimsingh.com and learned a lot about Trinidad and Indo-Caribbean music...about Dhantal…about Doubles...about this person called Ajeet Praim Singh, an industrious merchant and music producer who is working hard to keep Indo-Trinidadian traditions alive in Trinidad...the music of Kabir Das…and he said ‘it is myself’...I was stunned and surprised and delighted and clasped his hand …it was totally unexpected and it turned out that he was the manager of the group and also was on stage with the shak shak…I spoke to him for quite some time about chutney music and it was a delight to hear the sing song West Indian English…he urged me to write a book… ‘you write a book, maan’…
After we talked, I entered the auditorium and to my surprise, saw that Dr Helen Myers was also there...I had read her book and here she was in person and I couldn’t believe my luck that day...the entire Diaspora music concert series was organised as lec-dems with one expert talking about the music before the actual performance and Helen Myers was the expert for Chutney Music…she was one of the earliest to write about chutney music and according to the person who introduced her, Dr Myers has followed the Bhojpuri Diaspora around the world and has researched, written about and recorded their music in such distant lands as Fiji, Mauritius, and of course Trinidad and Guyana…I could speak to her briefly and told her about my interest…she was happy to know that I had read her book and gave me her e-mail and asked me to keep in touch…
And then the music began ...it was mind-blowing...a live chutney music performance at my doorsteps literally!! I heard and saw famous names like ‘D’ Rani Rasika Dindial, ‘D’ Raja Rakesh Yankaran, Lily Ramcharan and just like any Bhojpuri song performance in India, the group also had a dancer, ‘Princess’ Priya Kelly… who came in on some songs and danced in typical thumka style (for quick reference…‘beedi’ and ‘namak ishq’ songs in Omkara!!!) which had the audience roaring in approval… I had heard Rasika's song on tape and it was so nice to hear her live on Lazy Man, her mega hit of the late 90s…Rakesh Yankaran sang a devotional song ‘ganga jamuna saraswati’ at the beginning and also his most famous Mousie … and also Dholak Baje… Lily Ramcharan sang The New Dawn, a song written to mark the arrival of the first Indians in Trinidad…and talks about the trials and tribulations and progress made by them… and the group also sang some typical crossover chutney soca songs like Lover Boy, Lazy Man and we also heard typical Tan singing by Rakesh Yankaran who sang Savari Surat, a devotional Trinidad style thumri…
The live sounds of Dhantaal, Dholak, Steel Pan Drum…and the other members of the group Molly Ramcharan, Devarnand Nagessar, Rishi Ragbir and Jagdeo Deebaram (on Dhantaal and Dholak…in fact all singers took their turns with the Dhantaal…) Surender Ramoutar (steel pan)…and of course, Ajeet Praim Singh on the shak shak… and all of them were moving and dancing on the stage and it was infectious…they urged the audience to come on and dance on stage…I had half a mind to go, but didn’t see anybody else volunteering and so suppressed my urge to dance with a live chutney band….maybe sometime in future when I go to Trinidad, I will muster enough courage to go on stage and dance to chutney tunes…
And the icing on the cake… ever the entrepreneur, Ajeet Praim Singh had brought some chutney music CDs produced by him and I hadn’t forethought this…Shruti and I fished around in our wallets and pockets and pooled together enough to buy 3 CDs ... of my favourite singers that day...Rasika's and Rakesh's and the special CD on India Arrival Day...
It was truly a memorable evening for a chutney fan… I didn’t have a digital camera or any camera at that time, but I wanted my readers to have a feel of the performance and so I searched the net and found some photos in online editions of newspapers of their tour in India and I have pasted a couple of photos of the D’ Bhuyaa Saaj performances in India (they performed in 7 cities in India)…these are 2 photos of ‘Princess’ Priya Kelly dancing with other members of the group in the background…
More to come…ha ha ha…
Jayasrinivasa Rao
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