Sat Ma­haraj

In­di­an Ar­rival Day, which is cel­e­brat­ed on May 30 every year, com­mem­o­rates the ar­rival of the first In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers from In­dia to Trinidad, in 1845, on the ship Fa­tel Raza­ck. In­di­an im­mi­gra­tion to Trinidad end­ed in 1917 with the ar­rival of the last two ships, the SS Ganges and SS Mut­lah. Dur­ing the pe­ri­od, 1845-1917, over 150,000 In­di­ans were trans­port­ed to the is­land. When the Fa­tel Raza­ck sailed in­to the Gulf of Paria in 1845, it brought not on­ly a new labour force but al­so a new cul­ture, as the In­di­ans brought with them their re­li­gion, food, dress, lan­guage, plants, dance, mu­sic and, of course, the in­stru­ments to cre­ate and com­ple­ment their ren­di­tions.

The jour­ney was long and ar­du­ous and when they ar­rived the liv­ing con­di­tions were de­plorable; they were sub­ject­ed to phys­i­cal abuse, poor di­et and a hos­tile un-trust­ing so­ci­ety. Nev­er­the­less, these ad­verse con­di­tions al­lowed them to form a unique bond and struc­ture with­in their com­mu­ni­ty that en­abled them to sur­vive, pro-gress and pros­per. One key as­pect of this bond was the mu­sic and in­stru­ments of their moth­er­land. The mu­si­cal in­stru­ments of an­cient In­dia were both var­ied and mys­ti­cal in num­ber and in the sounds that they pro­duced. In­dia is the in­her­i­tor of one of the most an­cient and evolved mu­sic sys­tems in the world.

In the Natya Shas­tra, com­plied by Bharat Mu­ni dat­ed 200 BC-200 AD, the mu­si­cal in­stru­ments of In­dia have been di­vid­ed in­to four main cat­e­gories on the ba­sis of how sound is pro­duced. First­ly, there is the tata vadya or chor­do­phones or stringed in­stru­ments such as the sitar and vina. Then there is the sushi­ra vadya or aero­phones or wind in­stru­ments such as the bansuri (flute) and har­mo­ni­um. Third­ly, there is the avanad­dha vadya or mem­bra­nophones or per­cus­sion in­stru­ments such as the tabla and dho­lak. Last­ly, there is the ghana vadya or id­io­phones or sol­id in­stru­ments that do not re­quire tun­ing such as the man­jeera and jhal. We in Trinidad are in turn the in­her­i­tors of these mu­si­cal sys­tems and in­stru­ments from In­dia. Mu­sic, there­fore, was and still is a fun­da­men­tal part of the In­di­an way of life.

Our an­ces­tors brought their mu­si­cal in­stru­ments with them when they mi­grat­ed to Trinidad and most of these in­stru­ments were both un­known and un­heard of in the Caribbean re­gion. Some of the more pop­u­lar in­stru­ments that came in­clud­ed the tas­sa, tabla, dho­lak, man­jeera, bansuri, sitar and har­mo­ni­um. Mu­sic was a con­stant com­pan­ion for our an­ces­tors. Mu­sic height­ened the joy of their hap­py mo­ments and less­ened the bur­den of heav­i­ness that came with the sad times. Life on the es­tate was se­vere with nine hours of work in the field for 25 cents a day, six days a week. Thus, at the end of the week they would as­sem­ble for an eve-ning of singing and danc­ing. In the gen­tle lull of the late evening, one would hear the sooth­ing sounds of the dho­lak, har­mo­ni­um and dhan­tal as they waft­ed through the vil­lage.

It is in­ter­est­ing to note the ori­gin of the dhan­tal. The dhan­tal is a long steel rod that was adapt­ed from the axle used to con­nect the yokes of the bul­locks that trans­port­ed the cane-filled carts on the es­tates. The met­al horse­shoe used on the es­tate's hors­es and mules was used to strike the dhan­tal. The dhan­tal is close­ly re­lat­ed to the ear­ly in­den­tured-work­er in­stru­ment called the "dan­datal," which was a wood­en stick and had a rec­tan­gu­lar shaped strik­er. The word "dana" means stick and "taal" means rhythm. In this way, in­den­tured labour­ers cre­at­ed the dhan­tal as a new in­stru­ment for pro­vid­ing rhythm. Thus, the in­no­va­tion of our an­ces­tors to adapt to their en­vi­ron­ment and cir­cum­stances can be seen in the dhan­tal. The tas­sa, which is made from the trunk of the man­go tree and cov­ered with goatskin, is an­oth­er pop­u­lar in­stru­ment. At wed­dings and at Ram­leela cel­e­bra­tions, the sounds of the tas­sa and the jhal res­onate through­out the vil­lage adding rhythm and tem­po to the joy­ous oc­ca­sion.

At re­li­gious cer­e­monies such as Ra­mayan and Sat­sanghs the flute or bansuri and har­mo­ni­um are two in­stru­ments used to cre­ate the mys­ti­cal and spir­i­tu­al vi­bra­tions re­quired for such oc­ca­sions. The bansuri is revered as Lord Kr­ish­na's di­vine in­stru­ment, and is of­ten as­so­ci­at­ed with "Kr­ish­na's Leela." The word bansuri orig­i­nates in the San­skrit bans (bam­boo) and swar (mu­si­cal note). The bansuri is made from a sin­gle hol­low shaft of bam­boo with six or sev­en fin­ger holes. In the ear­ly days of in­den­ture­ship, the bansuri was some­times made from cane stalks as well. Even fol­low­ing the death of a per­son, de­pend­ing on what part of In­dia you came, singing and mu­sic would give com­fort to rel­a­tives and friends. As such, when our an­ces­tors came to Trinidad 166 years ago, mu­sic and the in­stru­ments pro­vid­ed men­tal, emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal sus­te­nance in the time of op­pres­sion and de­pres­sion.

Sat­narayan Ma­haraj is the

sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the

Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha