Geetanjali Krishna: Ahmedabad's blues singers

When I was watching the Union Budget unfold last week, a song kept buzzing in my head. It buzzed and buzzed and refused to go away until I remembered all the lyrics. Then, of course, I had to translate some of the verses to reproduce here:

“My hands have the right to know why they have been empty for years.

Why they do not have a job even today?
My legs have the right to know why they walk from village to village.
Why is there no trace of a bus?
My hunger has the right to know why there are foodgrains rotting in the godowns.
Why I don’t even have a handful of grain?”

I’d heard it a fortnight go, sung by an Ahmedabad-based duo, Charul and Vinay. The words were so simple, the thoughts so profound that the audience was riveted. As they sang, people began to join in, first with tentative claps and then with the words. After their performance was over, I just had to have a chat with them, for I’d never thought that the sound of protest could be so sweet. Vinay turned out to be an agricultural engineer with an MBA degree from IIM Ahmedabad, while Charul was a trained architect.

The duo founded Loknaad in 1992 when they realised that their music hit the right chords with a wide cross section of society. Soon, with a few more compositions, Charul and Vinay began stringing the songs together with a simple, yet compelling commentary. “The songs just happened,” said Vinay modestly, “they weren’t premeditated at all in the beginning.” He happened to arrive as a student to Ahmedabad at a time when there were some violent Hindu-Muslim riots. “I assisted with a film being made at that time on the riot victims. Their testimonies anguished me beyond measure. From this anguish grew the seeds of my first song, Mandir Masjid,” he recounted. The first year student had no idea that the song would become famous, but it did. Soon Charul and he began getting invited to public functions to sing this anthem to communal harmony.

Today, when they see unplanned development that just doesn’t trickle down like it’s supposed to, Charul and Vinay are moved beyond measure. “We seem to value all the wrong things, ignoring the fact that so many Indians still have no access to life’s basic needs,” he said. During the course of their research on Gujarat’s pastoralists, they realised that the glitz of urban development was light years away from them. “Our desire to sing about issues that afflict people like them grew from the belief that people like us need to be sensitised to them,” he said. “The issues are age-old, but our songs are a reminder that we shouldn’t take them for granted or forget them.”

Today, the duo has written over 50 songs and delivered more than 300 performances. The challenge they now face is to take these songs to broader audiences. In some ways, singing for NGOs and similar organisations is a bit like preaching to the converted. “It’s important for us to sing our songs in schools, colleges, government functions...to carry the voices of the marginalised to the offices of the decision makers,” Vinay said. He fears, however, that in the era of electronica, their songs may not catch on. “It’s just us singing to the beat of a small tambourine…” he said modestly. All I know is that I sang their songs all day while listening to our revered finance minister present another “welfare” Budget.