SIDDIS: AFRO-INDIAN TUNES THAT MELD BOTH SIDES OF THE HYPHEN...
naresh fernandes As twilight doused the mud huts in soft sindoor, the clearing became a pulsing circle of painted dancers abristle with peacock-plumed crowns and feathered skirts. They waved musical bows in the air and called to each other in a mixture of gobbledygook, gibberish and mumbo jumbo that they hoped would pass for Swahili. "Gabba gomba, gabba gomba," they cried. "Ouga dooga gabba gomba." If the pageant were being performed in an American auditorium, the more dour members of the audience would have been likely to summon the policepersons of political correctness. At a stretch, you could see how the Tarzan-inspired costumes and faces adorned with African-fantastical curlicues and Nike swooshes could cause offence. After all, racist minstrel shows - in which white actors put on "blackface" to perform caricatures of African-American life - have long been condemned for their viciousness. But here, in a wildlife resort on the edge of the Little Rann of Kutch, the Gujarati dancers didn't need burnt cork to darken their complexions: their skin tones ranged from milky chocolate through cafe espresso. Besides, there was no maliciousness in their invocation of an Imaginary Africa. In a country that believes fair is lovely, the dancers were saying out loud that they were black and proud. They were members of a little-known community known as the Sidis - descendents of African traders, mercenaries and slaves who have lived in India in significant numbers since at least the 13th century. Centuries of discrimination have forced Sidis to live in relative isolation and today African-Indians - who are concentrated in Gujarat and Karnataka - are poorer and less educated than their neighbours. Except for their high melanin counts and other physical features, though, Sidis retain almost no African legacies. They only speak Indian languages and eat the food of the regions in which they've settled. None of them can trace their ancestry back to a specific African country. There's one exception to the amnesia: "Sidi music," said Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy, an ethnomusicologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, "is the most telling clue to their history." Many Sidi instruments are African-derived and some are still known by their Bantu names. For instance, the musindo drum looks like a dhol, but is played only with the hands, not with sticks. There also are armpit drums that resemble African talking drums. The main drum is the mugarman, which sits on feet unlike other percussion instruments from the subcontinent, but is similar to drums from Central and South Africa. Africa also lives in the sound of the music. Sidi shrines often resound with healing dhamals or gomas - the Bantu word for drum ritual, or drum dance. Both the polyrhythmic drumming patterns and the dances that accompany the music resemble African forms, Ms Catlin-Jairazbhoy said. When the BBC's former New Delhi chief Andrew Whitehead did a radio show on Sidi music a few years ago, the media organisation received a flood of messages from around the world. "I got at least six detailed replies (one enclosing a cassette) firmly identifying Sidi music as originating in a particular part of Africa," Mr Whitehead has said. "Alas, my correspondents couldn't agree on which part of Africa - with firm identifications stretching from northern Mozambique to Burkino Faso (West Africa)." When the music was put on the Internet, it generated an even wider response: 400 e-mail missives poured in over two weeks from nearly every continent. "One Ethiopian claimed that the song sung in the broadcast was very similar to one sung by his father's tribe from Harar, Ethiopia," Ms Catlin-Jairazbhoy said. Last year, Ms Catlin-Jairazbhoy, her husband and collaborator UCLA ethnomusicologist Nazir Jairazbhoy and their assistant Abdul Hamid Sidi travelled through Sidi settlements in Gujarat to study the community's musical instruments and see if any - especially the African-derived ones - were disappearing. Two had already vanished: a lyre called the naanga (only a wooden skeleton remains on the wall of a Bombay shrine) and the jayjay (a stringed instrument that some Sidis described to the scholars, but couldn't remember if it was plucked or played with a bow). A third seemed on its way to extinction. It was a struck musical bow called the malunga, and is similar to instruments found in Africa, as well as to the Afro-Brazilian berimbao. Most academicians would be content simply to publish their observations about a cultural artefact on the edge of annihilation in a niche journal and leave it at that. Not the Jairazbhoys. The long-time India scholars teach applied ethnomusicology, which means that they do research that has tangible benefits. One of the aims of their Gujarat tour was to fund repairs of broken instruments. Ms Catlin-Jairazbhoy prepared an elaborate speech to explain her motives to the Sidis. Her interest in African-Indians springs from her childhood experience of the American Civil Rights movement for racial equality, and, after introducing herself, she would talk about America's Sidi community. "Unko 'African-American' ya 'black people' (kale log) kaha jata hai," she would say. (They're called African-Americans or black people.) America's Sidis once had been slaves, she'd note. Then she's pull out a one-cent coin with the visage of a bearded man on it and explain that America's Sidis had been freed by the most beloved President Abraham Lincoln, which is why "pyar se iska naam tha Imandar Abe, ya Honest Abe". Most Sidis would nod in approval at the story, she said, but when they discussed Imandar Abe's deeds among themselves, they would render his name as Ibrahim Clinton. Nonetheless, they were convinced of the scholars' good intentions and members of the community volunteered to assist them. As a first step, the Jairazbhoys made a series of recordings that were released recently as an album titled Sidi Sufis: African Indian mystics of Gujarat (though between themselves they refer to it as their Sidi CD). They also arranged for a Sidi troupe to tour the UK last October. The journey did not start well. When the musicians arrived at Bombay's Sahar airport to board their flight, the immigration officer refused to let them leave the country because, he said, they were obviously Africans carrying forged Indian passports. "They said, 'Hey negro, your passport is a duplicate'," recounted Abdul Hamid Sidi, one of the musicians. The Sidis began to phone to their families back in Gujarat to tell them they'd be home sooner than expected, when an American student of Indian Ocean history accompanying the troupe intervened. "It was impossible for the immigration officials to understand that Indian people could be black, so I had to tell the Sidis to speak Hindi or Gujarati to the immigration officers," said Ned Bertz. "It was only after they heard them speaking Hindi that they started to realise that their Indian passports were real." Such discrimination is familiar to African-Indians. After all, as Ms Catlin-Jairazbhoy noted, Sidis "have everything going against them''. She elaborated, "They're dark, they look foreign, they're associated with slavery and so are considered inauspicious by some people and are mainly Muslim." (This is in contrast to the esteem in which Sidis were held when they were members of royal families or associated with them.) Still, the musicians quickly put their ordeal at Mumbai airport behind them and made their date with destiny. Simon Broughton, editor of leading world music magazine Songlines, was in the audience in London's Queen Elizabeth Hall and was enthralled. He was especially taken with the finale, which involved a performer tossing a coconut into the air and cracking it open with his head. Mr Broughton gasped in his review, "You should have been there." -x-x-x- Popularising Sidi music forms was only one part of the Jairazbhoy plan. The immediate focus, they realised, should be on preserving it. Having discovered that the malunga was likely to disappear in a generation, the Jairazbhoys swung into action to save the bowed instrument. They decided to organise a workshop at which the subcontinent's last malunga players would teach younger Sidis how to make and play the instruments. That's how 16 young African-Indians from around Gujarat found themselves in the picturesque Desert Coursers wildlife resort in Zainabad early in February. The resort's owner, the affable Dhanraj Malik, took a break from driving guests through the desolate flats of the Rann and generously opened his premises to the project for a week. Unlike Sidis from Goa and Karnataka, who are also Hindu and Christians, Gujarati Sidis are mostly Muslim. The malunga, a so-called speaking instrument, is essential to their worship. Skilled players can manipulate its single string to "sing" zikrs - recollections of God. In the hands of one of five ustads at the workshop, the goat-gut string could be heard to trill "Allahu, Allahu" (He is god, he is god) or "nabi ji, nabi ji" (He is the prophet, He is the prophet) or "chal dungar pe" (Let's go up [to the shrine on] the hill.) Sidis claim to have a canon of 125 zikrs, though only 50 could be recalled and recorded by the end of the week-long camp. At first glance, the malunga looks like a rather-more-elaborate version of a hunting bow. But a loop of twine, rather like the wooden bridge on the face of a guitar, divides the malunga's single string into two sections - the deeper nar (man) and the higher-pitched mada (woman). The bridge also serves to bind a pumpkin-gourd resonator to the bamboo frame. The string is struck by a wooden six-inch-long wooden plectrum called a chabook. Malunga players hold colourfully-appointed rattles in the same hand as they hold the chabook, so they work up a complementary rhythm pattern as they're play the zikrs. The zikrs are articulated by moving the gourd towards or away from the player's heart. "When you play this instrument, God and man become one," explained Ustad Malang Mohammed Sidi, one of the teachers at the workshop. Even though Sidis like to claim that music flows in their blood, the participants admitted that the malunga isn't as easy to play as they'd first thought. "The first time I held it, it made a really weird sound," said Mohsin Mohammed, an 18-year-old student from Surendranagar, who wears a hip gold stud on his left ear. "It took me a few days to get the hang of it." He said he'd paid special attention to the instructions on how to transform a seven-notched section of bamboo into a sonorous malunga. "It's important that we keep the culture of our ancestors alive," he said. "If a tree is to grow big and flourish, its roots must be firm." Though they had an admirable sense of their responsibilities, the young Sidis didn't allow themselves to be weighed down by their problems. They were willing to dismiss the racism they've faced all their lives just as long as they had the chance to dance. "It's our heritage," said Rumanaben Siddi, a social worker from Ahmedabad who was assisting at the camp. "We hear a song on the radio and we begin to dance." Dance and music, said Ms Catlin-Jairazbhoy, are the mechanism by which Sidis cope with discrimination. Their worship makes fun sacred. Sidis are Sufi devotees of an African agate trader, Gori Pir. Noted Ms Catlin-Jairazbhoy, "They credit him with bringing the gift of joy (mauj or lehra in Urdu) over the waves (which in Urdu also are referred to as both mauj and lehra). The texts of Sidi songs play with these puns." The cult of the businessman saint Gori Pir is the most prominent embodiment of the Sidis' 'African memory', writes Helene Basu, a professor at Berlin's Free University who is regarded as the pioneer of Sidi studies. The Sidis, she contends, "have created a de-territorialised image of 'Africa' that serves also as a ritual mark of identification. 'Africa' here refers to persons, powers and actions. 'Africa' is thus in and part of Gujarat, personified by the Sidis." Africa lives in the names of Sidi saints such as Sidi Mubarak Nobi (Nobi refers to the Sudanese region of Nubia), Bava Habash (Habash being the Arabic name for Abyssinia or Ethiopia) and Mai Mishra (which bears resonances of the Egyptian province of Misr). The shrines associated with Gori Pir, she says, "provide a performative space for the regeneration of the symbolic Sidi identity by using elements resembling 'African retentions'" - the continuation of African cultural elements despite the disruptions of slavery. Recent processes have added a new dimension to the Sidi conception of Africa. Ms Catlin-Jairazbhoy said that while Sidis "have long accepted alms for presenting their devotional songs in villages and at Muslim shrines ? and some think of themselves as mendicant minstrels'', they now receive more frequent invitations to perform at cultural festivals and in five-star hotels. Enhancing their Africanness has commercial benefits, so they sometimes "bill themselves quite secularly as 'African tribal dancers' or even 'Zulu dancers', retaining and reinventing traces of their African origins by using Swahili sound bytes and Africa-inspired costumes, makeup and movements", Ms-Catlin-Jairazbhoy explained. In fact, the peacocked-feathered costumes that the performers were using at their Zainabad performance appear to be the result of this reconfiguration of their African identities: the garb had its origins in a play titled Hashr, put on in 1988 by a National School of Drama alumnus named Liaq Hussain. The Sidis were recruited to play a generic demonic force. After the play ran its course, they saved the costumes and added a few details they'd seen in comic books and magazine pictures of Africa. Still, no matter how illusory these constructed notions of Africa are, they seem to be a source of solace and inspiration to the young Sidis. Almost all of them expressed a desire to visit the continent. "If we go to Africa, we'll be the majority and we won't be discriminated against," Zakir Ahmed said wistfully. In 1972, two members of the community actually fulfilled their dreams. Sidi Abdulla bin Mubarak, who worked in the household of the Bhavnagar royal family, and Sidi Suleiman Munjavar Rikshavala set out on a performance tour of East Africa. Upon his return, Mubakar published a spare account in Gujarati titled My Travels in East Africa. He was especially was impressed by Nairobi. There is one car for every three people, he said, and the houses have gardens. Africa's Sidis belong to different castes but "with common coordination, they live together amicably". Unlike in India, "every government department employs Sidis". Furthermore, "even though the milk comes in plastic bags, there is no adulteration". Adulteration, and the fear of it, is among the main reasons groups like the Sidis are held in scorn by pseudo-nationalists. The Sangh Parivar, for instance, claims that difference dilutes our essential Indianness, that foreign influences are to blame for our corruption. But to watch the boys perform in the Zainabad sunset, it's immediately apparent that the Sangh's notion of a pristine homeland is as imaginary as the Sidi vision of Africa. Sidi syncreticism shatters the notion that India's is a monolithic culture, perfect and paramount. Their Afro-Indian tunes meld the best elements from both sides of the hyphen so effortlessly and with much energy, you simply have to get up and dance. It's clear that what matters is not where you're from but where you're at. It's safe to say that, as they trained hard for seven days, the 16 neophyte malunga players were unaware of their role as living refutations of the invented history being propagated by the saffron brotherhood. The Zainabad performance was their graduation turn. The students performed a sketch telling of how the malunga was born. A group of hunters once killed a tiger with their arrows, but then its mate came by and began to mourn. Repentant, the hunters began to strike the strings of their bows. The magical strains wafted across the clearing and, as the hunters began to chant, the music brought the slain animal back to life. The spectacle earned the boys long applause from the audience, comprising guests of the wildlife resort and residents of the surrounding villages. Later that evening, after they'd carefully stored away their African costumes, the boys gathered to celebrate their week of togetherness. Someone slipped their favourite song of the moment into the CD player and they began to dance. The Gujarat night came alive with the nonsense-Spanish lyrics of The Ketchup Song. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- BOX: ZAINABAD, THE GREAT BASE... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perched on the edge of the Rann of Kutch, the Desert Coursers resort at Zainabad is the great base from which to take safaris into the last home of the Asian Wild Ass. Other mammals you're likely to see include the nilgai, the chinkara and the black buck, to say nothing of the occasional wolf, jackal and fox. Avian life includes flamingos, pelicans and a variety of ducks. If you're lucky, you could catch a glimpse of the rare Hubara bustard from Saudi Arabia. Desert Courses also is a convenient location for day trips to the Bechar Mata Temple to see its eunuch devotees, Patan, the Sun Temple at Modhera and the Jain temples at Sankheshwar. The resort is run by the charming Dhanraj Malik, who once spent six months as a volunteer cleaning cages at the San Diego Zoo, because it's the only place in the world that has all the world's five species of Wild Ass in one place. Guests stay in pretty mud-walled cottages known as koobas, which are fitted with modern bathrooms that have electricity and hot and cold showers. The resort serves up buffet-style meals. Zainabad is 100 km from Ahmedabad, 260 km from Bhuj and a convenient overnight train ride from Bombay. (Get off at Viramgam station.) For more details see www.desertcoursers.com or phone numbers: 02757-41333/4/5 ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################