Steven P. Kerchoff

PICO Iyer personifies the concept of a writer without borders-born in England to Indian parents, raised in the United States and the United Kingdom, and now living in Japan. For Iyer, the whole world is equally alien or equally home. His writing explores the space between cultures, and the people who inhabit that space. Iyer writes in The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home, "Having grown up simultaneously in three cultures, none of them fully my own, I acquired very early the sense of being loosed from time as much as from space-I had no history, I could feel, and lived under the burden of no home."

Iyer was among the writers, editors, readers, publishers and performing artists who gathered at Diggi Palace in Jaipur, Rajasthan, to engage in spirited conversation during the Jaipur Literature Festival 2009, sponsored in part by the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. A range of genres were featured, including not only belles lettres but also journalism, travel writing, history, biography and children's literature. The theme of writing that transcends borders emerged repeatedly at the event, with participants from India, the United States, United Kingdom, Pakistan, Australia, Malaysia, China and Bangladesh.

Chronicling his development, Iyer joked that as a student of literature he learned no marketable skills, only how to read and write. "The more I studied literature, the more I was only qualified for unemployment." Despite this modest claim, however, he went on to become an essayist with Time magazine. Iyer later took a leave of absence to write Video Night in Kathmandu: And Other Reports from the Not-So-Far East, published in 1989 amid an explosion of travel writing. In exploring the clash of cultures that occurs when East meets West, Iyer saw a reflection of his own multicultural heritage. "To some extent," he said, "it was my background speaking."

In contrast to this global soul, American memoirist Michael Patrick MacDonald focuses on one very specific place and time, yet he too conveys something universal about the human experience. In his deeply moving memoir, All Souls: A Family Story from Southie, MacDonald narrates his experiences of growing up in the impoverished South Boston neighborhood known as Southie.

MacDonald chronicles the neighborhood's poverty, violence, and crime, which no one would acknowledge or discuss openly. This insular neighborhood skyrocketed to national infamy in 1974 when riots broke out over the racial desegregation of schools.

In his remarks at the festival, MacDonald recounted his experience of leaving this neighborhood, "moving from a small, tight world which you thought was the only world." He described his subsequent work as a community organizer in black and Latino neighborhoods, where he found that "people didn't even know that there was such a thing as white poverty." His decision to write a memoir grew out of his experience as a community organizer, when he heard mothers telling their stories as a way of reaching out to other people and witnessed the impact of storytelling both on the audience and on the storytellers themselves.

MacDonald observed that having a love/hate relationship with one's place of origin is a universal experience, and that a return to that place can be a part of the healing process. Reminiscing about the connectedness and community and the sense of being part of a larger social fabric, he stated, "It still to me is the best neighborhood in the world."

In a post-festival interview with SPAN's Deepanjali Kakati, MacDonald described writing as "…finding a language to speak about sometimes unspeakable things." He said, "Writers kind of sort things out for others by de-tangling chaos and making a story that has some value. Ultimately, when we do this, we are also sorting things out for ourselves. And if we really go there for ourselves, then it tends to work for others...it tends to be universal. And basically, turning any tragedy and pain into a gift (for others but ultimately for ourselves) ought to be our mantra for making this world livable for all."

MacDonald told SPAN that his second book, Easter Rising, deals with "that oft-asked question" of how he avoided being trapped in Southie's cycle of violence and poverty. "...For me it is ultimately not about getting out, but instead learning to embrace all that we come from and learning to work with it in order to go forward. So getting out, seeing the bigger world was one step toward my own 'rising,' but the return home (in a new way, with a new understanding of how to be in the world in all of its chaos and pain) was just as important....the return home, to Southie, to learning to embrace everything about my family and my community (wherever I may end up geographically)."

In the fiction of Nadeem Aslam, a British writer of Pakistani origin, the social fabric is also rent asunder by violence, and by warfare and religious fundamentalism. Aslam has often publicly expressed his admiration for the Sri Lankan-born Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient. When a member of the audience asked Aslam about Ondaatje's influence on his writing one might have expected his answer to focus on style, since both writers exhibit an extraordinarily lush prose. Aslam responded, however, that it was Ondaatje who liberated him geographically and inspired him to expand beyond his own experiences of Pakistan and England and to explore the entire world in his writing.

In a session on travel writing, moderator William Dalrymple, the British writer, asked Vikram Seth, who is perhaps better known as a novelist and poet, what the travel writer offers to the reader that the Encyclopædia Britannica does not. Seth responded that he hadn't originally planned to write a book when he hitchhiked through Tibet, but people kept asking him about the trip. When he wrote a few pages about his journey, his father encouraged him to seek out a publisher. The resultant book, From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet, focuses not merely on the journey itself but on the personalities and the encounters, the people as well as the places. Born in Calcutta and educated in the United States, as well as in England and China, Seth is a traveler whose writing reflects his experience living in several countries. During his years at Stanford University in California, he studied economics, poetry and Mandarin and returned there to teach writing. A polyglot, he is influenced by a variety of cultures, yet says English is the "instrument" in which he conveys his art.

Iyer described travel writing as autobiography in disguise, an inquiry, a conversation and a self-portrait, "using a place to work things through that you wouldn't be able to work through at home." All of the great travel writers, he said, are "fiction writers on holiday."

In Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar, American travel writer Paul Theroux describes the experience of serious readers meeting their counterparts. In a passage that captures perfectly the spirit of the Jaipur Literature Festival, he writes, "I think most serious and omnivorous readers are alike-intense in their dedication to the word, quiet-minded, but relieved and eagerly talkative when they meet other readers and kindred spirits."

MacDonald experienced this during his interactions with people in India. It's one thing to find that there is a universal language that allows communication from South Boston in Massachusetts to the South Bronx in New York, he said. "But it's another thing to find out, when traveling to the other side of the globe, to India, that we do indeed have the capacity to tell stories and to hear stories with understanding and empathy and total connection to the universal elements."

[Courtesy Span magazine]
[The writer Kerchoff manages American Libraries in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Deepanjali Kakati also contributed to this article.]

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Bhai Avtar Singh and Bhai Gurcharan Singh the old-guards of dhrupad based gurmat sangeet

Harjap Singh Aujla

BHAI Avtar Singh and Bhai Gurcharan Singh, formerly of village Saidpur near the holy town of Sultanpur Lodhi in erstwhile Kapurthala State (presently Kapurthala district of Punjab) are considered a live-wire between the music of the era of the great ten gurus and the modern day Sikh community. Worthy sons of Late Bhai Jawala Singh ji (an accomplished Kirtania of his time), they started learning vintage “Gurmat Sangeet” from their iconic father. By the time they formed an independent “Kirtan Jatha”, after getting blessings to do so from their father, they had already mastered the art of rendition of approximately five hundred “Reets” (tunes) spanning into all the thirty one Raagas” mentioned in the holy “Sri Guru Granth Sahib”. All this meticulous training they received from their father. Bhai Avtar Singh, the younger of the two brothers, went to his heavenly abode in November of 2006. Throughout his life as a “Kirtania”, he (Bhai Avtar Singh) remembered all those five hundred “Reets” and had recorded all of them for the Punjabi University Patiala and approximately three hundred and eighty of these “Reets” he recorded for T-Series Recording Company for commercial release.

For a layman, it will be appropriate to tell the difference between the “Gurmat Sangeet” rendered by Bhai Jawala Singh ji and his sons Avtar Singh and Gurcharan Singh ji and the “Sikh Sangeet” of their other contemporaries. Bhai Jawala Singh and his sons were considered “Dhrupadias” and most of the other stalwarts are called “Khayali Gayaks”. These are two distinctly different streams of classical music.

“Dhrupad” is the oldest known form of rendition of the North Indian Classical Music. This form was prevalent during the times of the ten Gurus of the Sikh faith. Some scholars are of the opinion that “Dhrupad” style of classical singing was evolved by the “Pandits” thousands of years ago and they kept evolving and sophisticating it over the medieval centuries. But as far as the Sikhs music is concerned, there is no denying the fact that during the life time of the founder of our faith “Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji”, “Dhrupad Shalley” of classical music was alive and flourishing. The great masters like Tansen and Baiju Bawara were both exponents of the “Dhrupad Shalley” of music and Guru Nanak Dev ji was not alien to this form of classical music. “Dhrupad” is a distinct “Taal” for drummers.

Bhai Avtar Singh and Bhai Gurcharan Singh have been claiming that the original “Gurmat Sangeet” prevalent during the times of the “Ten Sikh Great Gurus was “Dhrupad” based “Gurmat Sangeet” and the “Kirtan Chowkis” during the times of the gurus were invariably performed in “Dhrupad” and “Dhamar” styles. For me there is no reason to question the wisdom and research of Bhai Avtar Singh and Bhai Gurcharan Singh. Even Bhai Samund Singh ji agreed with this claim. My father (Late Sardar Sochet Singh) was of the view that the “Khayal” format of North Indian Classical Music started taking shape during the life time of the tenth master of the Sikh faith Guru Gobind Singh ji. Bhai Balbir Singh an “Ustad” Sikh musician and former Huzoori Ragi of the Golden Temple also confirms this view. If we go by the “Bani” enshrined in “Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji”, most of it was composed by the first five gurus with a small portion was composed by the ninth guru. As such the originally sung Sikh music was of course composed to be sung in “Dhrupad” style of classical music. Considering all this, the music sung by Bhai Jawala Singh and his sons was indeed the original form of “Sikh Religious Music.

Bhai Avtar Singh and Gurcharan Singh have been claiming that one of their ancesters (11 to 16 generations ago) had been regularly present in the “Diwans” held in the presence of Guru Gobind Singh ji. According to them, their ancestor had learnt the music of the “Darbar” from the “Rababi” musicians of the times. This music was essentially in the “Dhrupad”, “Dhamaar” and “Partal” formats. After Guru Gobind Singh ji left for the South of India, their ancestor returned to their ancestral place near Sultanpur Lodhi, where he kept this musical tradition alive from generation to generation. During the same timeframe some other musicians at Tarntaran were also performing “Shabad Kirtan” in “Dhrupad” style.

Bhai Jawala Singh had also clarified some finer points of this music by learning from his contemporary “Brahmin Ustads” of Tarntaran. Bhai Jawala Singh was a devout Sikh and strict in “Nitnem”. In addition he spent several hours everyday in “Riyaz” of the “Raagas of Gurbani”. This hard routine cultured his voice so much that he developed a special vibration, which was unique to him alone. His voice had a continuity, which is akin to a string instrument like “Sarangi”. At times he used to perform with a group exceeding ten musicians. Bhai Gurcharan Singh was born in 1915 and at the young age of eight he was imparted rigorous training in music and by the age of ten he was inducted into his fathers “Jatha” as a drummer. Bhai Avtar Singh was born in 1925. Even he was inducted into his father’s “Jatha” in 1936. For the next twelve years both brothers were an integral part of the “Jatha” of their father. Bhai Jawala Singh’s “Jatha” originally consisted of several “Taus”, “Saranda” and other string instruments. Later on his “Jatha” also adopted “Harmonium” and “Tabla” as the main instruments. But every member of the “Jatha” had its basic training in the string instruments of the time.

Around 1948 – 49, Bhai Gurcharan Singh and Bhai Avtar Singh’s group received approval from All India Radio Jalandhar – Amritsar as casual artists with “B” grade. This gave them both name and fame. Within the next two years, they moved to Delhi and got employment as “Huzoori Ragis” at Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib in Chandni Chowk Old Delhi. In seniority next only to Bhai Santa Singh ji, their “Jatha” received their due acclamation from the lovers of “Gurmat Sangeet” not only in Delhi but in Punjab too. While performing “Shabad Gayan” at All India Radio Delhi, Bhai Gurcharan Singh most of the time played “Tanpura” too.

After about a decade they were joined by their nephew Bhai Swaran Singh, who used to play “Tabla”. This trio served the historic Sikh shrines of Delhi for almost half a century. They received several state and national honours. Around 1995, Bhai Gurcharan Singh took retirement from the “Jatha” and in the new millennium Bhai Avtar Singh’s younger son Bhai Kultar Singh joined the “Jatha”.

Bhai Avtar Singh quickly imparted the ancestral education in Sikh music to his engineer son Bhai Kultar Singh. About three decades ago a few “Jathas” in Punjab were capable of performing “Shabad Kirtan” in “Dhrupad” style, but at present only the “Jatha” of Bhai Avtar Singh and his son is capable of performing this unique kind of “Shabad Kirtan”.

Bhai Avtar Singh left for his heavenly abode, after a brief bout with cancer, on November 23, 2006. But his son Bhai Kultar Singh accompanied by Bhai Swaran Singh is still keeping the ancient tradition alive. May God bless them with talent and fortitude for keeping this great tradition alive.

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