Adri­an Boodan

T&T's In­di­an artistes un­doubt­ed­ly made an im­pres­sion when they per­formed on June 30 in Suri­name. The group, in­clud­ing In­di­an clas­si­cal singers Satrupha Seesnarayan, her sis­ter Nir­mala Seesnarayan, Zaid Ho­sein and dancer Ash­man­ny Ram­lochan, per­formed at a Mega Baithak Gana and Qawalie Con­cert on the eve of that coun­try's Eman­ci­pa­tion Day hol­i­day. The event was host­ed by the Saathi Foun­da­tion, an or­gan­i­sa­tion head­ed by Kries Ramkhele­wan, that pro­motes In­di­an cul­ture in Suri­name.

On the day of the con­cert the artistes made sev­er­al stops at tele­vi­sion and ra­dio sta­tions. Ramkhele­wan said the Suri­namese are now de­mand­ing to see any and all artistes be­fore they per­form af­ter be­ing duped by a Toni Brax­ton im­per­son­ator in Feb­ru­ary. One of the mem­o­rable in­ter­views was with vet­er­an broad­cast­er Rosh­nie PD Rad­hak­ishum, gen­er­al di­rec­tor of TV-Ra­dio Radi­ka in Para­mari­bo, who in­ci­den­tal­ly, has a mi­ni T&T flag in her of­fice. The show start­ed around 8 pm at St De Olifant, a venue paint­ed in white and rem­i­nis­cent of Cou­va's Rien­zi Com­plex. The show opened un­der the aus­pices of Ramdein Sard­joe, Vice Pres­i­dent of Suri­name and his wife Ilse Sard­jeo.

Clas­si­cal songs by the Seesnarayan sis­ters and Ho­sein re­ceived rounds of ap­plause. Pa­trons from the well be­haved crowd went as far as plac­ing 100 Suri­name dol­lar notes on the singer's fore­heads as a mark of ap­pre­ci­a­tion. The Suri­namese in the end proved to be the re­gion's best Baithak Gana and Qawalie singers. The 1,000-plus pa­trons at the event were treat­ed to vo­cals from vet­er­ans Ram­per­sad Ramkhele­wan, Ramkhele­wan and Har­ry Sew­bal­ack. The show end­ed with a mega per­for­mance of all artistes on the big stage led by the younger Ramkhele­wan whose pow­er­ful voice spread across Para­mari­bo.

The pro­gramme was al­so at­tend­ed by a con­tin­gent of 12 sup­port­ers from T&T, led by Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo, the man who was re­spon­si­ble for the T&T artistes mak­ing their way to Suri­name. The Tri­nis, of course, had to get up and dance to the in­fec­tious rhythms and in do­ing so en­cour­aged a few Suri­namese. Man­ga­roo, who is al­so the PRO of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture, said Suri­name has un­doubt­ed­ly mas­tered the art of clas­si­cal singing and point­ed out that T&T could learn a lot from them. Man­ga­roo said the NCIC is push­ing for a re­vival in clas­si­cal singing amongst young peo­ple. He said there are about 12 young clas­si­cal singers in T&T, which is a vast im­prove­ment in the last decade.

Man­ga­roo said Suri­name has the edge be­cause the old­er singers are more than will­ing to train the next gen­er­a­tion. Ramkhele­wan said the Saathi Foun­da­tion start­ed in 1985 as in in­stru­ment to pro­mote dra­ma and has grown to be­come a wider cul­tur­al body. Ramkhele­wan said he sup­ports the pro­mot­ing of re­gion­al In­di­an cul­ture. He added that cul­tur­al aware­ness is some­thing every­one in the re­gion needs to de­vel­op so they can be­come ap­pre­cia­tive of each oth­er's unique­ness, while at the same time main­tain­ing their own cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty.

Ramkhele­wan, who is with­out ques­tion the re­gion's best Baithak Gana and Qawalie singer, has record­ed more than 500 songs since cut­ting his first LP in 1975. He be­came pop­u­lar in T&T in the late 1980s with un­for­get­table songs such as Ran­ga Dall and Duniya Jamela.

His record­ed ver­sions are fan­tas­tic, but can­not com­pare to the en­er­gy of a live per­for­mance.