Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Mo­ments be­fore Anaya Gokool steps on stage, still be­hind the cur­tains, she thinks about her grand­moth­er. She even looks up to the heav­ens some­times, whis­per­ing, “This is for you.”

Gokool is a bha­jan singer, per­form­ing East In­di­an clas­sic songs. She al­so plays the har­mo­ni­um and the dolak. It might be hard to be­lieve Gokool is on­ly a Form Five stu­dent at Saraswati Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege.

How­ev­er, her ear­ly ex­po­sure to the art form would have an im­me­di­ate and last­ing im­pact on her. When she was just sev­en years old, Gokool sat in the crowd and watched her aunt, Pan­di­ta Pamela Gokool sing bha­jans. The lat­ter is one of on­ly a hand­ful of fe­male pun­dits in Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T). She is the pan­di­ta of both the Dow Vil­lage Hin­du Mandir and the Tem­ple by the Sea.

Gokool would fol­low in her aunt’s foot­steps–not so much in be­com­ing a pan­di­ta, but in singing bha­jans. She said, “I be­lieve with­out her, I wouldn’t be as suc­cess­ful as I am. She re­al­ly mo­ti­vat­ed me to con­tin­ue on my mu­sic ca­reer and the path I am on in my mu­si­cal jour­ney, and with­out her sit­ting down and lis­ten­ing to her chant­i­ng, she helped me with the cor­rect pro­nun­ci­a­tion of words.”

It was one of the ear­ly chal­lenges Gokool en­coun­tered. She need­ed to learn the Hin­di words and pro­nounce them prop­er­ly. Her aunt would spend a lot of time help­ing her to per­fect it. But Gokool said her grand­moth­er al­so has a spe­cial place in her sto­ry.

She added, “She is very spe­cial to me since she was the one who sat with me, lis­ten­ing to bha­jans. We would sit to­geth­er singing the chants of Bhag­wan (a San­skrit term mean­ing God), and she would play her man­jeera and sing along to the mu­sic, and we were like best friends. We shared a very close bond, so she’s re­al­ly spe­cial to me.”

The im­pact Gokool’s grand­moth­er has had stays with her now, even though she is not here. “Be­fore I go to per­form, I would al­ways think of my late grand­ma. She’s no longer here with me, and it’s like a lucky charm be­fore I per­form. I would al­ways think about her like she’s in the heav­ens watch­ing me, and when I get the chills be­fore I per­form, I al­ways keep in mind that she’s watch­ing me from above, and it calms me.”

She re­called how she strug­gled to get a han­dle on the bha­jans she so des­per­ate­ly want­ed to sing. “I re­alised I didn’t re­al­ly know how to pro­nounce many of the words, but in ad­di­tion to lis­ten­ing to my aunt chant­i­ng them, at home in my free time, I would try singing the bha­jans and lis­ten­ing to YouTube videos to mas­ter my pro­nun­ci­a­tion,” she ex­plained. It took her three years to start get­ting some­where.

From a timid sev­en year old strug­gling to pro­nounce the Hin­di words prop­er­ly, Gokool now sings at func­tions and tem­ples across the coun­try.

Now, she has set her sights on per­fect­ing both in­stru­ments she plays. She ex­plained, “I’m try­ing to play the har­mo­ni­um, and hon­est­ly, I love it so much, and if I could in­stant­ly mas­ter it, I would, be­cause it has such a deep, beau­ti­ful sound, and it re­al­ly con­nects with me while I’m play­ing it. That’s one of my main goals, to mas­ter play­ing the har­mo­ni­um.”

She said the dolak was more of a side tal­ent, hav­ing al­so start­ed to learn that in­stru­ment at the age of sev­en. Her goal is to per­form on the main stage of the Di­vali Na­gar. Last year, she per­formed Yu­va Manch, and the re­ac­tion of the crowd has dri­ven her to want to share her tal­ent with the world.

Gokool is cur­rent­ly study­ing busi­ness man­age­ment at sec­ondary school, which in­cludes eco­nom­ics the­o­ry and oth­er as­so­ci­at­ed busi­ness field sub­jects. While she thinks she may want to be­come an ac­coun­tant, she is still un­de­cid­ed on her ca­reer path.

How­ev­er, when it comes to per­form­ing, it’s less about ca­reer path and more about giv­ing the au­di­ence a treat they can ap­pre­ci­ate.

Gokool said, “To me, per­form­ing makes me feel very hap­py, know­ing when oth­er peo­ple are there lis­ten­ing, and see­ing them clap­ping along, it’s re­al­ly such a good feel­ing. I’ve seen younger kids who would come up to me and say they want to be like me one day and ask how I don’t get shy to sing, and I just tell them, ‘Any­body can do it once you put your mind to­wards it.’”

At the end of her per­for­mances, she wants her crowd to be sat­is­fied. “I re­al­ly hope that it would amuse them and make them feel pas­sion to like my mu­sic when I sing and be in­spired to sing and play the in­stru­ments on their own some­times,” Gokool said.

He goal is to in­spire oth­er young girls and boys to try In­di­an clas­si­cal singing and play­ing the in­stru­ments. Gokool in­sist­ed her faith guides her through life.

Di­vali, she be­lieves, is a time for her to spend with her fam­i­ly while giv­ing praise to Moth­er Lak­sh­mi. She said of her Hin­du faith, “It re­minds me that every ac­tion, no mat­ter how small, car­ries mean­ing and that dhar­ma or right­eous­ness.”

Gokool’s sto­ry is one that Hin­du el­ders will not on­ly be proud of in T&T but al­so hope can be repli­cat­ed in towns and vil­lages across the coun­try. She is a bea­con of light in the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty that the fu­ture of the faith can be pro­tect­ed and passed on for gen­er­a­tions to come.