In a few days, Hindus across the globe will celebrate Phagwah, or Holi. This festival is celebrated on the day after the full moon in early March (12th in Guyana) every year. Initially, Holi was a festival to celebrate good harvests and fertility of the land. Holi is now a symbolic commemoration of a legend from Hindu mythology. The story revolves around a king who resented his son, Prahlada, for worshipping Lord Vishnu. He attempted to kill his son, but failed each time. Finally, the king’s sister, Holika, who was said to be immune from burning, sat with Prahlada in a huge fire. However, the Prahlada emerged unscathed while his aunt was burned to death.
Holi is a festival that expresses good over evil and eventual triumph of faith in God. Holi is spread over sixteen days. The mental side of Holi stresses giving up past grudges, repairing bad relationships, and showering and sharing love and happiness. The physical side encourages people to meet and mingle; hug and huddle; spray abeer (a red-coloured water), water and powder – and in some parts of the world mud – on friends, foes, strangers and anyone around you.
Groups of singers and dancers would go from house to house to perform and sometimes engage in competition with nearby villages. Food and sweets, and in Guyana lots of alcohol, are consumed.
Holi was brought to Guyana from India by indentured Indians in the nineteenth century. Remarkably, unlike the caste system, Holi survived the indentureship, but has evolved to form a unique Caribbean-Indian cultural identity. Amongst the myriad of characteristics in Holi, I am particularly fascinated with the Hindu folk music/songs Chowtal, and the music instrument Dhantal, during the elaborated celebration. What interests me so much about Chowtal and Dhantal is not necessarily how they sound – that is appealing in and by itself – but rather how these Indian music songs and instruments have evolved in tandem with oral traditions.
Indians in the Caribbean might be surprised to know that the Chowtal songs that are usually played at the Holi festivals in Guyana do not display the same characteristics as those played in India. Like so many Indian customs, Chowtal has also taken Guyanese creole cultural elements. The ethno-musicologist Peter Manuel makes this point in his book, Tales, Tunes and Tassa Drums: Retention and Invention in Indo-Caribbean Music, but he has also cautioned that the geographical distance between India and the Caribbean does not mean that Indo-Caribbean music has become totally Western or creole-oriented. Instead, and in spite of the fact that a majority of Caribbean Indians have lost meaningful contacts with India since indentured emancipation in 1920, Caribbean-Indian music has evolved uniquely into a Caribbean-Indian musical sensibility and identity. This identity is neither like India nor other ethno-musical groups in the Caribbean. I agree with Manuel’s assertion.
I am, however, concerned with the following question I posed in my review of Manuel’s book, which was published in the reputable British Ethnomusicology Forum. I enquired about this: “The question to ask is: How have Caribbean-Indian people managed to continue some semblance of their homeland music while also developing their own musical forms, especially when they were “forced” to assimilate to creolization – a mix of Euro-Afro sensibilities, values, and norms that are more associated with Western than Eastern Hindu and Muslim accruement?”
For the sake of this column, I combed through Manuel’s book once more, and I think he answered my question partially. He writes that: “In the new conditions in the Diaspora, its constitutive elements have taken a variety of trajectories, including decline, consolidation, compartmentalized persistence (including as marginal survivals), creolization, extensive growth, extensive growth and development, and elaboration along neo-traditional Indian lines of evolution” (p. 224).
I do not believe the above is sophistry, but the “musicalization” of Caribbean-Indian experience, which obviously can be seen in Holi.
I am also moved in no small way wherever and whenever someone plays the Dhantal, a long iron rod and a horseshoe instrument played by striking them together to produce a rhythmical beat. The sound of Dhantal is inescapable if you are from the villages, former indentured yards, during the weekends and during various Indian celebrations. It is the experience of growing up, a rite of passage.
What is also inescapable are some village conversations, and even arguments amongst older folks, as to the origins of Dhantal. The pendulum of arguments generally sway from the thought that Dhantal never existed in India to that it was developed in the Indo-phone Caribbean. These are arguments not to lament over but be excited about, because they generate a sense of amusement and even ridicule amongst the speakers and listeners. To date, no one, including Manuel, knows where Dhantal has come from. We know, however, that as long as Holi survives the trials and tribulations of modernization, so will Dhantal.
There is no doubt that Holi breaks down walls of ethnic separation and brings us closer. I have witnessed all ethnic groups celebrating Holi in ways that would shock people from the Sub-continent, where ethnic and religion division is the norm rather than the exception. I wish my Guyana would feel like Holi every day, but this might be only a dream. ([email protected])
