At the age of 6, I had never ever heard an English song. In Nairobi, there were thriving radio stations blaring out Hindi songs, Gujarati songs and in addition, there were many cinemas showing the latest Hindi movies. One could pick up multiple radio channels from India so Hindi music was part of everybody’s daily life! Restaurants had Hindi music playing all the time and in addition music parties were held in many houses frequently, especially to celebrate weddings. In other words Nairobi was like a mini-India. Imagine therefore arriving at a school, not knowing a word of English, where nobody spoke Gujarati or Hindi and where nobody even owned a radio! As if that wasn’t bad enough, in Prep School (i.e., class 1 to 4) morning assembly consisted mainly of ‘community singing’! I have set out the songs and juxtaposed these with Hindi songs which were popular at the same time but which were simply not allowed into the school:
With reference to the above two, 6 year old boys had no idea what the song ‘My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean’ meant and to mock the song, words were substituted by the boys, viz, instead of singing ‘my bonnie lies over the ocean’, the boys sang ‘my polly lies over the ocean’ , polly being Lawrence School slang for penis!
With reference to Lipstick on your Collar, none of us knew what the song meant! We just mouthed the words taught to us! Imagine though, what exactly was being taught; the words suggest that some man had been caught cheating on his girlfriend! What an astonishing song to teach urchins!
Tom Dooley didn’t even refer to an Englishman; rather it was to an American! There wasn’t even a remote chance that a 6 year old would understand the song.
Make no mistake about it, John Brown’s Baby is a song based on the Battle Hymn of the Republic, of the USA! What possibly could be the relevance to Indian Hindu urchins who were barely familiar with the English Language?
In Nilgiri House, the atmosphere was such that if a little Tamil, or Malayalee or Punjabi boy was singing in their own language and Housemaster Mac walked in, that boy would die of embarrassment!
Not that I am an enemy of Western Music. In 1962, in London I saw two movies, The Young Ones and Summer Holiday both starring Cliff Richard. This is long before the Anglo-Indians in Lovedale had even heard of him! It was I who brought back from London LPs of Pat Boone which caused some of the Anglo-Indians to go into a jealous rage! None of them even knew that Cliff Richard is an Anglo-Indian himself! Many years later, the Anglos and others went crazy about Engelbart Humperdinck once again not knowing that he was another Anglo-Indian!
After I left Lovedale, I must have been the record holder for the number of live concerts I attended which included Pink Floyd, Earth Wind and Fire, Santana, Electric Light Orchestra, Wings and many more. I have also attended in the UK music concerts of Asha Bhosle, Anoop Jalota, Pankaj Udhas and more. Give me the Indians any day!
Culture Shock – Part 2
One of the main events during the Founder’s celebrations was the Dance. Most of the pupils – little Tamilians, Malayalees, Punjabis, and various other INDIANS went into this event bewildered! This was simply not part of the culture they were brought up in. No pupil and certainly no parent from say Coimbatore or Madurai or Bhubaneshwar would even have heard of ‘Dinner and Dance’! That said, the Anglo-Indians, Mac in particular had given the impression that a knowledge of Western dances called Foxtrot, Waltz and Jive were the epitome of sophistication. I considered that school of thought stupid then and consider it even more stupid now! Why on Earth would Indians, in Independent India, while honouring an East India Company Colonial, Sir Henry Lawrence, want to show their sophistication by having or gaining a knowledge of the symbols of the very colonialism we got rid of?
This is the culture we were encouraged to follow: Foxtrot, Waltz and Jive. Nothing wrong with these dances but I preferred then and prefer now, the Indian dances shown below following the Western dances!
See also the Sanskrit recital by a Westerner; this is the sort of culture we were never ever exposed to or encouraged to learn.
See also a recital by a couple of saree clad young ladies. Although I am not familiar with the language (Tamil) I feel extremely comfortable listening as the dress-culture is exactly what I as an Indian would accept as are the expressions and tone of the young ladies.
Finally, hear what Rashmi Samant, an Oxford scholar has to say!
The Indian Culture that should have been more prominent