The timeless ballads of Bhupen Hazarika, the legendary Assamese singer, were soul-stirring and vital because of their anti-establishment strain. Rendered in his signature deep baritone, the popular ‘Bistirno Dupare' makes for a rousing, heartfelt paean to Ganga as a life-giver and a silent witness to abuse, suffering and degradation along its banks. It can still kindle that spark of fire and fury in a true patriot's heart. 'People's Music: A Reconstruction', a unique music exhibition in Delhi, channels the unfading revolutionary charm of this anthem at their very entrance, where cone-shaped loudspeakers hanging in the sky belt out folk songs, welcoming visitors through a soundpath of protest and resistance.
The same songs of resistance and solidarity had led visitors in Goa, back in December 2017, to a large freight container holding an immersive exhibition of sound and video installation on people's journey and the soundtracks that shaped their movement across the Indian subcontinent in the last 80 years. At the Serendipity Arts Festival in Panaji, a stretch of the promenade along the Mandovi river became a site to recall and celebrate a genre of music born out of concerns about livelihood, hunger, war, conflict and displacement. This special project on protest music, curated, designed and animated by Sumangala Damodaran, Sudhanva Deshpande and Shaaz Ahmed respectively, has now come to Delhi in a more expansive, deconstructed version.
In this interdisciplinary exhibition, the entire step-by-step process of conceiving this immersive music project is laid bare: right from plastering emails exchanged between SAF and the key collaborators in June 2017, along with notes of logistical arrangements and memos on budget, to the excerpts of the final film shown on the promenade in Panjim. Spread over an entire basement, there are sound booths with videos on loop, special vinyl posters, artwork inspired by South African artist William Kentridge, photographs from the Goa exhibition, art books by Chittaprosad on the Bengal famine, journal entries, animation films using techniques of paint animation as popularised in the film Loving Vincent. All along, these are interwoven with tunes and lyrics of protest songs, showering down from speakers or screaming from the walls. From the iconic Hum Dekhenge by Iqbal Bano to the little known Lagaara, a Telugu song by a migrant road worker. From Din Khoon Ke Hamaar by Reba Roy Chowdhury to Bangladesh Liberation Song, Ekushe February and many more.
A visitor moves around the gallery from one room to another discovering nuggets of history, music, art and the moving image. All coalesce to project an inspiring tradition of dissent over injustice through the all powerful medium of music.
People's Music: A Reconstruction is on view till 6 May at C-340, Defence Colony, New Delhi.