By Roland Francis Source: Goan Voice Daily Newsletter 11 Aug 2013 at www.goanvoice.org.uk
In the 50s and 60s of the last century, until a dour Communist Government took over the state of West Bengal and drove all the fun out of its capital Calcutta, that city was considered the soul of India with a vibrant night life while Bombay was merely the country's financial center. Calcutta was the city where the pedantic but easily excitable Bengali coexisted with the minorities of Marwari, British, Anglo-Indian, Goans, Jews and Armenians. The city was volatile with violent crowds forming as quickly as today's flash mobs but the situation was well-handled with the Anglo Indian-led Calcutta Armed Police who knew a thing or two about cracking heads with bamboo batons with the same finesse as their chiefs would sweet-talk to mob leaders to get crowds into meek submission, from awe of their towering personalities. One of the duties the police performed was to provide street corner pickets to keep the peace and maintain order along the routes of major events like Durga Puja for Hindus and Moharrum for Muslims. The final stage of Durga Puja consisted of carrying the effigies of the goddess (protector from evil and remover of miseries) from local shrines, in procession to be immersed in the river Hooghly, much like the Ganapati elephant-god processions in Bombay that end with immersion of the idols in the Arabian Sea. The ornateness of the effigies was a competitive point between neighborhoods as was the procession usually led by a street band called the "pooh-pooh" band locally. In police circles, these street bands were laughingly referred to as 'Harrison's Pipe and Drums' after the Harrison Road neighborhood in which they lived. Street bands followed no conventional music structure and varied in number according to the customer's capacity to pay and the availability of musical instruments which the musicians had to hire. What they lacked in musical talent they compensated by the garishness of their uniforms, a main feature of which was that that they were not uniform; the range of kit worn was subject to availability and vagaries of personal taste and other eccentricities of dress. Outrageous colors and indiscriminate wearing of buttons were affected for chimerical effect rather than identification. Mismatched trousers and tunics were topped off with an exotic variety of head gear worn at rakish angles. Footwear was subject to the personal circumstances of the wearer with flip-flops predominating. The group was led by a principal musician who played an E-flat clarinet with wild flourishes, rendering an energetic version of a Bollywood 'filmi' tune while the pipers struggled with a strange version of "Cock 'o the North" in the background; all musical conflict in key and tempo being concealed by the thunderous output of the percussion section which consisted of half the band. Musical arrangements were impromptu, harmony an abstract concept and musical expression swept aside in favor of decibel output which was judged to be more essential than melodic content for the purpose of customer satisfaction. Blaring out in unison and not necessarily in the same key was general practice. While these street bands parodied the military bands of the armed forces and police services of India from whose former members their principal players were often drawn, they emphasized their casual, civilian nature by strolling about in loose formations. Spontaneous street corner concerts were indulged in at intervals, heavily encouraged by cheering bystanders who poured onto the street in outbreaks of Bollywood dance routines requiring the intervention of police to keep traffic moving. Outbreaks of gratuitous violence rated high in the entertainment scale. Order was restored in the usual Indian police way by a liberal and indiscriminate application of the half-lathi (3 foot bamboo batons) to all in the vicinity which dispersed the crowd swiftly. During the Christmas to New Year week, occasional bands used to forage into the central Anglo Indian and Christian enclaves to cash in on any seasonal goodwill with band members emitting raucous blasts of Auld Land Syne, The British Grenadier, When The Saints Go Marching In and Scotland the Brave - all at the same time, as if oblivious to each other. There is an apocryphal tale that once as a hearse passed an Indian wedding party on its way to a Christian funeral, as a mark of respect the street band broke out into a rousing rendition of the old-time music hall ditty "Hold Your Hand Out, You Naughty Boy." Musical and sartorial incongruities aside, Pooh-Pooh bands were a harmless and colorful feature of Calcutta street life. They spread good cheer and in a complex multicultural society beset by poverty, intermittently splashed with episodic violence and the grind of daily survival, they had an almost universal appeal. While they may have set music lovers' teeth on edge, they provided an inoffensive, neo-opiate diversion for the masses to dull the pains of a hard existence. Long may they flourish! (Except for my introduction to Calcutta, this is a condensed version of an article sent to me by Peter Moore J.P., of Perth, an Anglo Indian, when I condoled with him on the August 3rd death of his father Ronald Allen Moore IPS retired who was a legendary head of the Calcutta Armed Police of his day. Peter himself was a sergeant in the Calcutta Armed Police, later joining the Metropolitan Police Force of London and ultimately immigrating to Australia and retiring as the Director of Prisons in the Western Australian region. For the full version of Peter Moore's article, embellished with 12 photos, see http://bit.ly/1blYOf2 )
