Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Chut­ney icon Sun­dar Popo not on­ly took lo­cal mu­sic in­to an­oth­er di­men­sion but opened door­ways for many lo­cal artistes to de­vel­op their own mu­si­cal tal­ent.So said mu­si­col­o­gist and sitar mae­stro Mun­gal Patasar on East­er Mon­day, dur­ing an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian at the Her­itage Sam­me­lan, Debe Junc­tion, Debe, which was held in hon­or of Sun­dar Popo.The event, which took the form of a con­cert to ho­n­our Sun­dar Popo, whose death an­niver­sary will be marked on May 2, was held next to his stat­ue at Debe Junc­tion.

It fea­tured per­for­mances from broth­ers Naren­dra and Shiv­anand Ma­haraj, Lily John, An­tho­ny Bat­son, Pun­dit Kr­ishen­dath Ramd­hanie Shar­ma and Dru­patee Ram­goon­ai.Sun­dar Popo, born Suni­lal Popo Ba­ho­ra, of Bar­rack­pore, died in 2000 at the age of 57. He suf­fered from kid­ney fail­ure.Patasar said Sun­dar Popo was still re­gard­ed as a pi­o­neer of lo­cal mu­sic and his con­tri­bu­tion to its de­vel­op­ment could not be for­got­ten as he laid the foun­da­tion for chut­ney mu­sic.

"He came at a junc­ture where he cre­at­ed a form to be fol­lowed by oth­er younger peo­ple and that is how im­por­tant he was," he said.Patasar said even though Sun­dar Popo be­came pop­u­lar he still main­tained his hu­mil­i­ty and that was one of the per­son­al­i­ty traits he re­mem­bered about him.He said, in re­view­ing Sun­dar Popo's con­tri­bu­tion to lo­cal mu­sic, the chut­ney icon cre­at­ed a shift in the mu­si­cal style in T&T.

Patasar ad­mit­ted he was not ex­pect­ing younger lo­cal artistes to fol­low Sun­dar Popo's mu­sic but to im­prove up­on what he cre­at­ed."How­ev­er," he said, "that is where the prob­lem lies. I am not see­ing im­prove­ment in what he has done. What I am see­ing in the mu­sic is that it is get­ting more and more elec­tron­ic which does not re­quire any skill."Ram­goon­ai, told the T&T Guardian that Sun­dar Popo should be giv­en more promi­nence for his con­tri­bu­tion and she was pleased that such an event was held to ho­n­our "a great artiste."

She added: "He is an icon and will re­main one. Even though he is gone his songs will nev­er die. A Moth­er's Love is song every one does. Every Moth­er's Day you hear that song. His mu­sic keeps him alive," Ram­goon­ai said.John re­mem­bered per­form­ing with Sun­dar Popo at many con­certs lo­cal­ly and abroad.Bat­son had the au­di­ence en­thraled with his per­for­mance of Sun­dar Popo's hit, Nani and Nana, as it sound­ed al­most like Sun­dar Popo in the orig­i­nal song.

The sam­me­lan was host­ed by Her­itage Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (Her­itage Ra­dio 101.7FM).