RMIM Archive Article "246".
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
#
# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: Manna Magic
#
# Source: India Connect webpages (http://www.indiaconnect.com)
# Author: Daya Kishan Thussu
# Copyright 1996 Panalink Internet Services, New Delhi, India. All
# rights reserved worldwide. Disclaimer.
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THE MANNA MAGIC
by
DAYA KISHAN THUSSU
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Returning home after a heavy week at the university, ploughing
through the mail - much of it junk and a nasty note from my bank,
charging me a hideous amount for exceeding my overdraft - I came
across a shoddily printed information sheet with a rather faded
picture of Manna Dey.
Lo and behold, one of my favourite singer was performing in
Britain. I leapt to the phone and booked a place. A very Bengali
voice at the other end said she would keep a seat for me.
All Saturday, I listened to Manna Dey tapes, from golden oldies
from the films to Harivanshrai Bachchan's delightful Madhushala.
As the evening approached I set off to savour the beauty of Manna
Dey's voice. The hall was full of gorgeously dressed up women of
Indian origin. A flavour of India was in the air - samosas and
tea were being served by well-dressed middle class Gujarati
doctors. A cluster of Bengali bhadraloks were involved in an
animated conversation about liberalisation of Indian economy
while a sprinkling of ever-present and lively sardarjis were
bringing the much-needed laughter to the grey evening!
As the old man - he is 76 - came onto the tastefully decorated
dais, the crowd gave him a warm welcome. He opened the evening
with that gem of a song, 'Bhai ray...neela amber muskai,' from
that gem of a film, Bimal Roy's Do Bigha Zameen. As he started he
told his audience how much he respected the words of Shailendra,
the music of Salil Chowdhary.
One after the other - from great film songs - 'Pyar huwa ekrar
huwa' - to beautiful ghazals - 'Meri bhee ek Mumtaz thee' - Manna
Dey delighted his audience.
The virtuosity of his talent was manifest from the fact that as
well as in Hindi he sang in Bengali, Gujarati and Malyalam.
Although the crowd was predominantly Gujarati, Manna Dey said
that to appreciate a song one does not need a language - music
has its own vocabulary. But it was indicative of how non-resident
Indians feel that they appeared to clap harder when the song was
in their own language rather than Hindi.
The problem with Hindi - despite vigorous claims of its hegemony
by many other Indians - especially in Tamilnadu, is that it does
not have a clear cut constituency or identity which, for example,
Bengali has.
Yet it is Hindi, or more accurately, Hindustani which is spoken
by the widest section of Indians. The Indian film industry - and
here I mean the mainstream Bombay-based film industry which
rather tediously is called Bollywood- is at the forefront of this
linguistic evolution. (I resent the Bollywood label - the
implication of this is that we cannot produce anything which is
our own. Everything has to come from Hollywood, the bastion of
global popular culture.)
With all its faults - and they are many - the Hindi film industry
has contributed to creating a sense of Indian identity. This
identity may often clash with a cluster of regional, linguistic,
religious or ethnic identities. Yet people like Lata Mangeshkar,
Mohammed Rafi and Manna Dey have done more to popularise and
sustain an Indian lingua franca than all the government policies
and learned volumes on national integration.
Despite its poverty, India was one of the first countries in the
so-called Third World to have a indigenous film industry. Our
films were very Indian, much of the music drew its inspiration
from the rich tapestry of folk and classical tradition, the songs
were drawn from a very highly developed culture of verse
composition. I might be wrong, but it is hard to name a single
American songwriter even remotely as sophisticated and profound
in ideas as our very own Shailendra, Sahir, Majrooh and Kaifi.
Indian films are widely viewed - shown in over 100 countries - in
Africa, Asia, the Arab world, Europe and North America, by Indian
diaspora and other audiences. But although India produces more
feature films than the US, in export terms the Hollywood films
earn nearly 750 times the revenue that India earns from film
exports.
The UK, the Gulf states and the US are the three largest export
markets for Indian films. The demand is particularly strong in
the US, home to many Indian professionals who miss a Hindi
tearjerker movie or a Shankar-Jaikishan melody.
As Manna Dey took a break, I went backstage to congratulate him
profusely for his remarkable energy. I could not resist him
asking why is that we do not seem to produce good popular music
anymore. Why is that the lyrics are becoming increasingly banal
and progressively vulgar? What has happened to the simple
brilliance of the words of Shailendra - 'Ye gori nadiyon ka
chalna uchchal kar, ke jaise alhad chale pea se mil kar!'
He held my hand and said with a deep voice that these were
creations of great minds and would pass the test of time. Indeed
as all great poetry - from Shakespeare to Goethe, from Kalidas to
Ghalib, the Hindi film songs too will survive.
The only danger is that the increasing commercialisation of
popular culture may work against development of decent, worthy
poetry and music which will last after the composer is no more.
The signs of this trend are already there. How many film songs
today last for more than a couple of weeks, or at best, months?
Who must get the blame? The government which has left the domain
of popular culture in the hands of corporate sharks? The MTVs of
the world? Or our urban youth culture which thrives on cheap
imitation of American popular culture? What are we left with if
our language, our cultural ethos, our music and poetry become
foreign? Culture is one of the few things we can call our own. In
this age of globalisation, cultural identities are being swept
away by an avalanche of mediated images. Who will resist it and
how?
I was reflecting on these thoughts as Manna Dey got back into
action with that immortal song from that immortal film - Teesri
Kasam - "Chalat musafir moha liyo re." And the whole hall - full
of people, many of whom have never visited India, who speak
Bengali, Punjabi, Malyalam, Gujarati or Tamil, burst into a
frenzy of clapping a Bhojpuri song!
And I thought culture is far too powerful to be destroyed by the
banalities of Western television and wherever Indians live, they
will always be Bharatwasis!
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DAYA KISHAN THUSSU teaches journalism and international communication
at Britain's Coventry University. He has a PhD in International
Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. A former
Associate Editor of Gemini News Service, a London-based international
news features agency, he is co-author of Contra-Flow in Global News
published in association with UNESCO.
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From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian