Create ONE World through Music By Shirish Ravan As I sat in the taxi in Beijing on my way to the airport, the driver started singing ‘mera juta hai japani, ye patlun englishtani’, the moment he learned that I am from India. He showed me his ‘enormous’ liking about Indian music by singing three more songs ‘awara hoo’, ‘o o o muze kisi se pyaar ho gaya’ and ‘noorie, noorie’. He was at his mid-fifties and must have learned these songs when he was child. While media, while talking about India and China, focus on political differences, arms competition, border disputes etc., that creates barrier between people of two nationalities, the Indian music connects their hearts and dissolves those barriers from their minds. This is power of music. It rises above all issues and brings people together, it makes the World ONE. Similar experience I had when I was in Afghanistan during my UN assignments, I saw tremendous liking of Afghans towards India and one of the major underlying factor was ‘Indian music’. When I attended few ‘home based’ music concerts in Kabul, I was surprised to know that many popular Afghan songs are indeed based on Indian songs, especially based on songs of Manna Dey, Hemant Kumar, talat mahmood etc. India stays in hearts of Afghans through classical music. Pakistan is no exception. Whatever bitterness prevails between two countries, both Indians and Pakistanis share common base…. the classical music. That explains popularity of Gulam Ali and Fate Ali Khan in India and admiration for Jagjeet Singh, Lata Mangeshkar and all signers of Bollywood in Pakistan. Often Indians and Pakistanis become good friends when they are out of India…. much of it is because of our admiration for one common factor in both countries – the music. While I was reflecting on role of music in dissolving political and social barriers amongst nations, I realised that people in China and Afghanistan recite old songs. These songs have lived through several decades, from 1950s to 2013. The obvious reason is those compositions have sound classical base. The commercial music has not been able to break those barriers. No wonder, Ravi Shankar’s Sitar travelled in all continents of the World and especially received great admiration in USA and institutionalised Indian Classical music there. With all mixture of good and bad in India, India is still admired by the World for its music that has travelled across the continents and connected hearts of people. In a way our music has served humanity by making the World ‘ONE’... trying to unify hearts of people living in the radically divided World.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Oct 2013 01:00:09 +0000