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
