When immigrants, in large numbers started coming to North America to seek refuge or work, two concepts of multiculturalism- one of a melting pot and the other of a salad bowl were coined to describe their integration into the American and Canadian societies respectively. From biblical times, India too has given refuge to persecuted communities, such as the Jews from Galilee, Christians from Syria, and lately Tibetans. While preserving their individualities, they have enriched India’s culture and status in many ways. India’s many conquers, especially those who stayed, also wove their motifs in the Indian tapestry of many hues and designs.

A sampler of this awesome tapestry was presented by Rashtravani of Toronto on 3rd May 2003 at Les Salles Gesu, organised by Kabir Cultural Centre of Montreal. Rashtra means nation and vani means speech. The emcee explained that the audience should not interpret the term Rashtra in the narrow sense of a nation state but in terms of art and culture. Nation states appear and disappear from time to time but art and culture have remained common to the whole of South Asia. It is said that the classical music of nation states of South Asia from Afghanistan to Bangladesh originated from Saama Veda in ancient times. It has developed and flourished by give and take but is common throughout the region. Folk music on the other hand, reflects the life styles of people in regions in which it is sung and has in turn influenced classical music. Tappa, a particular style of singing in classical music is the music style of camel drivers of the deserts of Sindh and Rajasthan. The very name tappa means a stage of a journey. The style consists of throwing one’s voice in a rumble of tones – ascending or descending that could travel long distances. When Satyajit Ray was shooting his film Sonar Kellah (Golden Castle) in Rajasthan, he recorded the music of the desert. On his way back to Calcutta, when he stopped over in Delhi, he played some of it for me. Even a lay person like me could recognize its closeness to Tappa. Ragas like Pahadi or Bhatiyali are based on the folk music of different regions. The raga, which is based on the folk music of mountainous region or Pahad, is called Pahadi and the one based on the bhatiyali songs of the boatmen of Bengal (both in India and Bangladesh) is called Bhatiyali. Santoor, a string instrument that came to Afghanistan and Kashmir from the Middle East now has an honoured place among the instruments of classical music. The drum known as pakhavaj, originally a folk instrument got split up to become the tabla, now an essential part of classical music. The Rashtravani has carried assimilation tradition even further to bring in other elements that are typical of the West.

Indian choral music as it is practiced in South Asia is singing of melodies by a group of people. Rashtravani choir was orchestrated. The singers read music from notation sheets placed on stands in front of them; they needed cues when to begin and end because sometimes the whole group sang certain musical phrases and sometimes only a few did; pieces of instrumental music came on, not merely as accompaniment to voices but as separate entities; the articulated sound was sometimes matched with pre-recorded visuals of fractals and other images that moved in consonance with music; the lighting too varied both in colors and brightness to suit the mood. Thus the conductor had a real task to perform. This borrowing from the West made the three-hour programme of classical and folk music very much more interesting. It was a full house with a mixed audience of South Asians and others. India’s High Commissioner Shashi U. Tripathi, who is a musician in her own right, attended the programme. In a speech that was pertinent and short, she encouraged the choir, its leader, and the organizers of the Kabir Centre for undertaking something which was not only entertaining but also a worthy reminder of the region’s fantastic diversity and its unique way to accommodate it and forge healthy alliances.

The guiding light of Rashtravani is Dr. Ramier Siva-Nandan or Dr.Shiva for short. He is a man of many parts and excels in each of them. His early training has been in Carnatic style of classical music but he learnt the Northern style and light music from Satish Bhatia and Anil Biswas who have composed music for many films. His gurus used music to enhance the power of images; Dr. Shiva uses images to enhance the sound. He learnt about harmony and orchestration features of Western music at the Royal Academy of Music. He plays on various instruments and is adept at using digital technology. He prepared both the videotapes and audiotapes that accompanied the presentation. In a country so far away from South Asia, it is impossible to have a live orchestra. After composing music, he played it on different instruments, mixed the tracks and recorded the final sound digitally in his Art studio at Toronto. The training of the choir group of about 20 persons –very few of whom had previous music training was the most challenging task. Only two or three persons were properly trained in music in India; that too had become rusty when cut from the source. Most were newcomers, albeit enthusiastic about music and willing to take the trouble to learn. Dr. Shiva’s genius lies in the fact that he gave to each of them what they were best able to do and get an excellent group performance that boosted their morale and determination to do better. Incidentally, one of the singers told me that for most of the people here popular South Asian music means just Indy Pop or Bhangra Rap. What she found very exhilarating was to realise the different music styles and forms, be able to learn a few of them along with their rhythms from different regions of South Asia and sing in many of its tongues As the Indian High commissioner said, India alone has about 18 officially recognized major languages, (let alone other minor languages that run in hundreds).

Dr. Shiva graduated as a doctor from the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences at Delhi. He worked at his profession both in India and the Middle East. But the music urge drove him to start a choir in Kuwait. After he came to Toronto he started Rashtravani as a labour of love. At the moment the repertoire of his students except for a few numbers, reflects India the nation state. This is perhaps inevitable because in a region of 1400 million people, India alone has more than 1000 million and therefore that much more variety. But widening of this scope is very much on cards. There are examples of such efforts in the art scene of Montreal. The Theatre Group Teesri Duniya began with Indian immigrants but expanded to accommodate other South Asians and then all other communities, because even in the first world there is very little space for voices of the deprived silent majority.

The forces of globalization do not remain limited to political and economic matters but aggressively invade cultural domains as well. The world-view that these forces present is the imperial one of control and of making everything look the same. It is the salad bowl or the tapestry concepts of Canada and India that promote preservation of diversity. By anchoring itself to the multi-racial and multi-cultural heritage of South Asia, Rashtravani attempts to make the mainstream Canadians aware that there is a land of great cultural diversity elsewhere in the world; an even more important mission it performs is to remind Canadians of South Asian origin that their heritage is plural and diverse and to remain true to it would amount to being in consonance with the values of their adopted land. The Kabir Cultural Centre started by the South Asian Community of Montreal made a good beginning with its first programme of music concert by two maestros: Pandit Jasraj and Shahid Parvez. The desecration of the grave of a great Indian maestro Faiyaz Khan of Agra School by vandals during the Gujarat riots deeply hurt every decent person and especially musicians and music lovers. The money collected from the concert was sent to the riot victims. Its second programme of Rashtravani is timely, because taking a leaf from tactics of globalization, some elements in South Asia are out to destroy the variegated tapestry and dye it in one color: red- red as the blood. Organisations that promote plurality and diversity therefore, need support of both the state and the civil society. A Canadian media guru, McLuhan once described the world as a global village. It has now shrunk further and looks more like a space ship. In this small space, there is no room for selfishness and if the ship is to survive, the welfare of one must become the concern of everybody in it.