Recently an evening of forgotten songs of the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) by Sumangala Damodaran was organised by Nehru Memorial Museum and Library to mark their Foundation Day Celebrations.
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library is a unique institution which attempts to recollect, preserve and reconstruct the history of the anti-imperialist struggle in India. It was founded on 1st April, 1966 and was envisioned as a world-class institution of advanced study which would foster academic research on modern and contemporary history. To commemorate the Foundation Day of the NMML, the annual programme is organised on the 1st April every year.
The programme kicked off with the introduction of the programme and artists by Dr. Madan Gopal, followed by the mesmerising performance by vocalist Sumangala Damodaram, who was accompanied by Deepak Castelino (Guitar) and Tapam Mullick (Cello) respectively.
Sumangala presented around 10-12 songs from the musical tradition of the IPTA, which she have researched and documented for the past three years and have been performing for more than a year. The period in which these songs, in different Indian languages (Hindi/Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam, Punjabi and Telugu) were written and performed, was the 1940s and 1950s, covering a wide range of historical events such as the Bengal Famine of 1943, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the Telengana and Tebhaga peasant movements in Andhra Pradesh and Bengal respectively, the Second World War, the trauma of communal violence and the Partition of India.
According to Sumangala, this tradition and its repertoire are interesting for a variety of reasons. First, in all parts of the country, a large number of the best-known musicians of the time were part of the IPTA, the well known examples being Ravi Shankar, Salil Chowdhury, Sahir Ludhianvi, Prem Dhawan, Jyotirindra Moitra, Benoy Roy, etc. Second, the songs that were written have a very wide range in terms of forms and styles of singing. For example, the songs that I have been performing and intend to include in the proposed album consist of three songs on the Bengal Famine, one in the 'Heer' style from Lahore (written in Punjabi by eminent theatre personality Sheila Bhatia), one in Hindi in the conventional North Indian song format (written by Benoy Roy) and a third in the Bengali folk tradition (written and composed by Salil Chowdhury). Similarly, there is a rare song written after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by an unknown poet which was very popular during the freedom movement but which has not been sung since the 1940s. Another song from the repertoire that I have been singing for the past 20 years or so is 'Jaanewaale Sipahi Se Poocho', written during the Second World War by Hyderabadi poet Makhdoom Mohiuddin and throughout, this song has evoked wide appreciation across diverse audiences.
According to Sumangala, her experience with performing these songs has shown the continued relevance of this kind of music and its capacity to move audiences across diverse age groups and contexts due to the musical quality as well as the social themes that they address. Musically, she has found that this music does very interesting experiments with folk forms, western melodic and orchestration structures and lyrics, very often in line with several trends in resistance music in different parts of the world at the time which possibly contribute to them being received favourably now in performance. In fact, in her performances, she has worked with a guitarist, Deepak Castelino, and the 'western' touch that this has imparted has worked well with audiences, even in songs where it would have been impossible to think of using an instrument like the guitar earlier.
The programme was presided over by the Director - NMML, Smt. Mridula Mukherjee. With this programme the forgotten memories were re-lived through the brilliance of Sumangala, Deepak and Tapan who not only entertained the audience but also took them back to the history.
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