Chutney Music...my experiences - I

It must be sometime in 2004 or so…that I heard about chutney music as the music of Indians living in Trinidad…and then began my deep interest in this music…I scoured the internet in search of information and samples…I got a considerable amount of information and some articles and details about books…and for the first time, I heard the music…it was Bhojpuri songs with a twist…a tangy twist…what they called ‘chutney music’…as tangy as chutney…I then discovered that this music is prevalent in Guyana and Suriname too…that is, wherever Indians were taken in the Caribbean as indentured labourers in the 19th century by the British (pl read Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh)…so, what is chutney music? A lot has been written on this subject by many experts and researchers…so let us say that chutney music is the music of the Indians in Trinidad, Guyana, and Suriname…basically songs of the area around Uttar Pradesh and Bihar known as Bhojpur, now famous all over India as Bhojpuri songs… so what is so special about this?

When the people from this area were taken to these Caribbean islands as indentured labourers, the only imperishable items that they could take with them were their songs…and in an alien land with alien people in the sugarcane fields, singing their songs was the only solace at the end of the day…these songs were the only links to their motherland that they had left behind…these sings sustained them and their families and when slowly and surely their financial situations improved and the second generation of Indians began to flourish in these distant lands, these same songs became songs of celebration and of identity… and over a period of time local musical elements also started influencing chutney music… even the religious and ritual songs began to sung with an upbeat tempo…apart from the dholak and harmonium, instruments which they had brought along with them, chutney music began to use the Steel Pan drum and ‘dhantaal,’ a musical instrument believed to have been invented by Indians in Trinidad, and Tassa drums…Tassa drums are used in the Muslim Hosay festival in Trinidad…so chutney music is now a mix of Indian, Latin American, and Islamic influences…and now a new strand has evolved called Chutney Soca…which incorporates elements of calypso rhythms…and English lyrics…

More in future posts…