Switch off the bhangra

Take a drive tomorrow through Punjab and you will hear one sound wherever you go.

It is the modern, pop-driven beat of bhangra music which rattles out of car windows, thuds from inside highway dhabas, and is blasted from speakers from any number of corners in the state's major cities.

The sound of the dhol drum, real or electronic, washes over every corner of the state, and the only relief is the melodic sound of gurbani, Sikh devotional music. This too you hear from car speakers, outside shops of all kinds, and, at ear-piercingly loud levels, inside the precincts of the Golden Temple, where a new sound system now shatters the air of what should be one of the most contemplative places on the planet.

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I'm not a fan of bhangra, but I don't dislike it particularly. I am happy listening to a few songs at a club, and put some great bhangra dancers on the dance floor and I'll watch with undivided attention.

There's no doubt about the cultural impact it's had across the world. Hip-hop artists mix it, New York deejays spin it, and Hollywood movies sneak it into soundtracks to give themselves a veneer of modern cosmopolitanism.

If Punjab is a brand, bhangra is its jingle, its anthem, its rallying cry, it's the soul deep shout of a culture telling the world this is who we are. The huge success of bhangra is certainly something to be proud of.

However, spend more than a few days in Punjab and you begin to notice that all you hear is bhangra. If on the first day you find it fascinating to hear bhangra pouring out of almost every window, and on the second day, you find it quaint, by the third, a sense of irritation rises and soon, like a man starving in a desert who starts dreaming of food, you are dreaming of other sounds, any sounds, to break the monotony.

The only exception are gurbanis, which are played almost as often, an endless repetition that I suspect does little to instill deep religious feelings.

Music is a culture's life blood, it can carry the heart of the people with it, along with their values, their memories, their aspirations. It helps drive a culture forward, and helps preserve its traditions, and at the same time it reminds people who they are, and tells the world something of their lives.

But to thrive, neither a culture nor its music can exist in a vacuum, and to move forward it needs outside influences and ideas. In Punjab these days, the almost universal ubiquity of bhangra is creating a deadening musical monoculture, and it's a monoculture that's a broad reflection of the state of Punjabi culture as a whole.

We love our flashy cars, our designer clothes, our sexy women, our muscled men, our blinged out jewellery, our oversized karas, and we love our bhangra and its in your face energy and relentless, driving rhythm. But when all you hear is bhangra, when touring through a city in the afternoon means being flooded from all sides by bhangra, when every song becomes interchangeable with every other song, it is hard not to think that something is wrong.

Despite its rich history, and the vibrancy of its people, musical culture in Punjab is becoming monochrome: the dull, repetitive thud of bhangra, or the rote, religious high-mindedness of gurbani.

What are we so afraid will happen if we step outside the boundaries of these two musical traditions? If we turn our back on bhangra and slip in a few Bach choral works between the gurbanis? New ideas, perhaps, other ways of thinking? Or are we afraid of being the odd one out, the one person listening to something new, something different?

If the mindset in Punjab has become so narrow in regards to its music, if it's unable to think outside the small box of bhangra, can the rest of the culture be much different?

Cultures that don't change, die. And if our attitude towards bhangra is any indication, culture in Punjab is stuck, and stuck fast, in the mud.

There's a rich tradition of classical Punjabi music, much of it devotional and almost all of it ignored, and that of course says nothing of the vast riches offered by classical and traditional Indian music, and the many forms of music, both popular and folk, high and low, from around the world.

To ignore all this is to turn your back on the world. In my late teens, when I started reading seriously, I decided to take six months and only read books by authors I'd never heard of.

I picked books mostly by the covers, and sometimes only by the author's jacket photo. If the photo looked a bit wild, I pulled the book off the shelf, bought it, and read it that night. I found some of my favourite writers that way, writers who continue to mean a great deal to me today.

Not once was I disappointed. I was still young, knew little of the world, and everything held some meaning for me.

Punjab could use some of this attitude. Turn the knob on the radio to a new station, buy a CD by a band you've never heard of, download a song just because you like the name.

And if only for six months, just switch off the bhangra and see what happens.

By Ranbir Sidhu

source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2183293/Switch-bhangra.html