OTHERLANDS COLLABORATION #13
Date: Jan. 4 & 8, 2020 • Location: Natungram & Kolkata, India
Less than 12hours after arriving to India, my family and I were in a van at 7a, heading north out of Kolkata towards Natungram, a small village known for their wooden doll carving tradition. It was our first time in the country and just about everything would be new — including two of the three people I was to be playing with.
Back in October, I made a short side trip from Portugal to Finland to attend WOMEX, a conference that brings musicians and organizations from around the globe who are interested in promoting music based in roots traditions. It would be my second year attending and I was hoping to meet some folks that could be involved in my Otherlands project. There were a few folks from India attending and it's here that I first met Debalina Bhowmick, the singer in this group.
She was at WOMEX representing Banglanatak dot com, an organization dedicated to promotion and sustainability for cultural traditions of West Bengal, India — which included setting up collaborations for international musicians with local performers. If I could get myself there, they could help. We were already planning to go to India and looking for our first destination, so Kolkata it would be! Was I up for playing a festival immediately after arriving? Why not. Let's dive right in.
*To learn more about the projects and initiatives from Banglanatak dot com, please visit:
Just I was leaving Scotland, Debalina was having a rehearsal with the two other musicians on the gig: Arpan Thakur Chakraborty (dotara and banjo) and Pritam Guha (dubki and cajon). She forwarded videos of three West Bengali folk songs, and I spent my layover at the Dubai airport plucking the fiddle and scribbling approximations of melodies.
On more than a few occasions, people here have asked me with a smile "How has the arrival been to India? Hits you in the face, doesn't it!?" There's certainly a lot of newness to take in. You can read as much as you want about a place, but until you're there (at least this goes for me), you don't really get it...or at least you get it on a deeper level. It's a feast for the senses...and I love it.
I may have been jet-lagged, but for the five hour ride, my eyes were glued to the window. In no particular order, I marvelled at blinged-out hand painted lorries, three wheeled auto rickshaws, tractors and carts piled beyond the brim; motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles; roadside stalls, shacks, and umbrella covered carts selling all manner of fruits and veggies; new pavement, potholes, and dirt roads with bumper to bumper traffic or a seemingly chaotic free-for-all; hazy foggy/smoggy skies turning to blue as the city limits faded away; countless pedestrians, cows, goats, and dogs on their own missions; bright multi-colored homes full of right angles, arches, and flat roofs dotted the towns and countryside alongside shacks and mud homes with roofs of thatched rice.
And deserving of their own one sentence paragraph, I have been blown away by the kindness and generosity shown by people everywhere.
We arrived to the village of Natungram and headed to the community center which Banglanatak dot com helped to build, along with a sawmill for their doll making tradition. While sitting down for my first lunch in India, I learned the proper way to eat with my hands...when a local noticed a bit of struggling. You must push with your thumb.
After a walk around the village to see their crafts (see video) and a bit of rest, Arpan, Pritam and I got out our instruments and just started to play. We jammed on the American fiddle tune Whiskey Before Breakfast, Arpan showed me one of his originals, and I showed him one of mine. And then we moved into playing the tunes that Debalina had sent me. All told, we probably had about 90min to rehearse for a 60min set before needing to get ready and head to soundcheck.
The sun had set and the village was packed with people who had come from nearby villages to see the evening concerts. I hadn't realized it when we were jamming earlier, but the first instrumentals we had played would be part of the set, along with the vocal tunes of course. And then we would finish with a selection of popular songs, which I had never heard before.
It was a surreal experience. I hardly remember what happened, but I know we had fun. Arpan carried the melodic instrumental roles, Pritam handled the grooves, and Debalina owned the melodies...and my eyes and ears were on full alert for musical cues as I exercised my short-term memory and looked for places to lock into the groove or weave around the melody. When it was done, we were presented with our own hand-carved wooden owl dolls.
After loading up back in the van, our group headed on down the road another 90min in the dark to get our rest at the Tepantar Theatre facility, at Satkahania village of Purba Bardhaman. It was another village community that Banglanatak dot com collaborates with. We stayed in a colorful circular cottage (advised to keep the doors locked because of the monkeys), resting to the sounds of nature after an amazing and rewarding first day in India.
On our walkabout the next day, I saw my first monkey in the wild, sitting on a pile of dirt outside a house in the village. (See towards end of the video.) I stopped to take a picture, from a decent distance, and it showed me some sharp looking teeth in a less-than-friendly way. "Better to keep walking," says Arpan to me.
The following week, back in Kolkata, our quartet was to play a concert at the American center. However, it was announced that a city-wide general strike would be taking place on this day to protest the recent passing of the highly controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens. Unfortunately our concert was canceled. But, Debalina, Arpan, Pritam, and I made the best of the situation and spent our afternoon recording a couple of songs.
The song featured in the video is “Sona Bondhu.” Arpan shared this with me about its meaning. “Sona Bondhu” is a love song with dual meaning, expressing love and adoration to the beloved. The poet compares the smile of Sona Bondhu (Dear Friend) with the full moon. Here Sona Bondhu may also refer the almighty or the universal soul, who is the most beloved friend of any individual, soul and we all wait for him to cross the river called life.
CREDITS
Song: Sona Bondhu (traditional)
Music Arranged by: Casey, Debalina, Apan & Pritam
Voice: Debalina Bhowmick
Dotara: Arpan Thakur Chakraborty
Dubki: Pritam Guha
Fiddle & Audio/Video: Casey Driessen
Audio/Video Assistants: Ayush Bhowmick & Emmette Driessen
Additional Music: Chanmukhe (Outro, traditional)
Special Thanks
Banglanatak dot com
Bhaskar Tarafdar