[Urbanstudy] A talk with Ranabir Barwasaniya

[Deepak Kadyan]

Hi,
   
  I am a recepient of student stipenship programme 2006 and wourking on popular music in Haryana. In my earlier postings I discussed the emergence of cassette industry and its shifting to delhi as the nodal agency for production and distribution and the graduan transfromation of this industry into visuals form as well. This posting deals with the identifying of prospective singers and their own aspirations and thier relation with the industry itself.
   
   
                                           A talk with Ranabir Barwasaniya
   
  The following posting is a description of my meeting with Ranabir Barwasaniya, a singer in regional cassette industry in Haryana and a renowned name in this industry. It is an attempt to understand cassette industry form the below that is investigating the initial years of ragini singers and the evolution of cassette industry and the changes that have accompanied the process till recent times. All cassette industries are based in Delhi but these singers come from villages( yes, I meant  traditional villages which forms the smallest unit of India’s landscape but there are some discernible changes as well in terms of occupation, material conditions, houses but traditional in the sense that all the structural aspects have somehow escaped the penetrative forces of capitalism), requiring me to go to Ranabir’s village. It is just more than 50km from my place and public transport seemed to be the best mode of travel and this provided some of the unforgettable experiences to me.
   
  The bus is about to leave for Sonepat as it was told by the conductor but it took another half an hour for the launch in the July of Delhi that is during monsoon but this has not been experienced by Delhiites for a long time causing much pain to ordinary folks like me and bringing everyday embarrassment to Indian Met department as their foretelling always gets belied by the untimely hide and seek by the clouds. It is july and there hasn’t been a good rain, what shall we term this period, is it pre-monsoon since rain is being eagerly awaited by everyone and above all by Met department to which newly imported device will prove its efficacy, or monsoon itself, let us excuse rain gods for not delivering this time, and hope everything is fine there(heavens) or has  any politician recently made a visit which might have politicized the whole matter of distribution. Or shall we call this period as post-monsoon since no rain has appeared and further chances are very bleak. Let us
 leave it for a poet or a linguist or completely abandon using any term like monsoon and just extend it as summer. If it’s boring you people please forgive but for past some time I am badly missing rain. But once take-off is made it is really pleasing moving out of Delhi with long stretches of trees on either side of the road and fields in the backdrop, very soon this atmosphere was filled with biri and cigarette.
   
  “ Sir, can you please stop smoking”, I pleaded to one of the passenger.  
  Well, this statement introduced me to all the passengers and also made me an object of ridicule for the rest of my journey.
  “look at this present generation, it decries elders for biri and hukka and gives lectures warning about the possible dangers caused to health. Though, I myself don’t smoke but present generation is so used to double-speak”, responded one of the passenger to my intervention.
   
  With this prophetic sermon, he was now the architect of the discussion that will take place inside the bus and also his necessary interventions saw that everyone gets a fair chance in this somewhat little journey of mine, and also reserved the unproclaimed status of group leader but sometimes his insights were extremely carefully weaved into the discussion and his witty remarks maintained his position of someone know-all status.
   
  “ I am a daily traveler and these young people asks us to stop smoking in the bus and show themselves to be the most sincere students but never misses an opportunity to taking drugs and other high-class intoxicants, they don’t like biris or hukkas but would nod for a cigarette costing three rupees the least. Don’t we know the stories what is found in the backyard of hostels and some even resorting to phenyl in desperation, we know it all,” he continued.
   
  These stinging remarks or should I say observations brought two different worlds to me, one where smoking and drugs become fashion statements and a rebel to societal norms but on the other it becomes very much part of state policy and also a consensus as to who the smoker is and how to get rid of this malaise from society.
   
  “ you are very right sir, take the case of Rahul, caught red-handed and no action, and if it had been any of us would we have had any access to media or to anyone else for that matter. But surely his career is over, Congress has got an issue and BJP can’t defend him and it has been only Vajpayee who has come in his defence and surely no one would like taking a chance with Rahul. This guy is gone”, added another passenger from the back.
   
  “ Are, this is the beginning of an illustrious political career, what is politics without any controversy, he has started on an excellent note,” remarked our leader.
   
  “ yes yes, you are very right. Nothing has happened to the politician’s who are caught in sting operations, they are in power, we don’t have any power. No one cares for common public, they are too busy in their own political gains. Rahul is a politician’s son, he will come clean on this and someone else will be made the scapegoat,” adds another one.
   
  “ do you know the story how Pramod screwed Relinace, when he was cabinet minister, he made a big fortune out of that. Even if Rahul plans to sit at home, he has that much of money to spend all his life without doing any work. But the real loser in this episode is the police, it is not even in a bargaining situation, how would one ask for money. If  it had been a businessman’s scion they would have really been the happiest lot. I am in police and earlier was in PMO and know all what is not reported on TV channels and the nexus that is there between the business, politics, police and media. Though we can’t prove it and there is very little in this world that can be proved, it is all words game. Nowadays, I am posted in a thana(police station) and how police behaves with the relatives of accident victims you don’t know, police doesn’t miss even an opportunity to make profits from a dead body. They ask for tips before handing over the dead body and if someone doesn’t pay for
 the service charges, it is really trouble times for the family. Do you know what happens in post-mortem, who performs it? Almost all of post-mortms are done by trainees and they are so fed with the job, they just make cuts from anywhere and weave body in such a hurry that most of the times it is not well bound together. No dead body is going to come over for complaints” continued our leader.
   
  This exposition of some the dark sides of his own profession though in an apologetic manner, defamiliarized  me to a process presumed to be highly sophisticated and painful was presented in such a  blunt manner that for sometime it numbed most of us in the bus and for sometime it was complete silence in the bus, perhaps praying for all those who have undergone this process.
   
  Suddenly, bus makes a jerk, well, to board girls from the bus stop and form the next stop a group of boys also gets in and well, yes, you guessed it right, there was an eye contact between the two groups and it was the time for boys to show their well toned muscles in the gym and for some it was time to show his new mobile with added features and for another it was the time to tell his friends of his outgoing nature and his adventurous excursions on his last expedition with his friends. Well, for sometime it was this group which had occupied the imagination of all others and these boys left no stone unturned in impressing beautiful girls but what’s this they are getting down fro the bus. Oh, their bus stop has come,  “ I think we are in the wrong bus, we were going somewhere else,” exclaimed one who had just lost his heart to one of the girls but was made to sit silently by his friends but the exit of girls had really dampened the atmosphere in the bus which was
 accentuated by the exit of these boys as well after some stops.
   
  “ I don’t what has happened to girls these days, they are so thin, weak and fragile. In our times girls used to be really strong and had a good stamina to work in the fields as well,” remarks not so old man puffing out biri and ends with a clever smile on his face. This smile was interpreted intelligently by others as well and very soon I also realized his points of references and my guess is that his pastime is more on Ftv rather than any programme.
   
  Well, I don’t know how this account would be received but just making an attempt of writing or say reporting of what I am seeing which is entirely different from working in archives. I am  ending it prematurely  and jumping on directly to my interaction with Ranabir Barwasaniya.
   
  After an hour and half’s travel I am finally in Barwasani, a village in Sonepat district in Haryana. 
   
  “ can you tell me where Ranabir Barwasaniya’s house,” I asked after getting  down from the bus.
  “ that singer,” he replied suggestive of my good fortune of meeting with the right person.
  “yes,”
  “o.k., come with me I will take you to his house, otherwise you will have to ask so many times,” replied he.
   
  Well, I was quite fortunate in this matter, as this attitude is completely different from Delhi. But, there is no real problem with Delhiwallahs, it is just that in a  city where so many people of different background live and mostly involve din diverse professions, socialization is very limited and thus acquaintance with streets and people in not that much barring young people who venture out everyday for new faces in the city.
   
  “ it is really a big village,” I thought to reciprocate his good behaviour towards me.
  “ yes, it has about 3600-3700 votes,” replied he.
  Though taken aback by his reply I didn’t try to extend the link between the size of a village and votes, very much keeping in mind the relationship between the number of votes and the real size of the village. But, it also revealed an exclusionary aspect of the way our democracy has come to render people only in terms of numbers and if something doesn’t count, it doesn’t exist. I remember my visit to a village a decade and half back and when someone had enquired about the size of village, it was expressed in terms of the number of houses and the extent of school facilities in an area, as it was the school going students who determined the size of a village, since a big village will obviously have facilities upto senior secondary standard. I can’t really express this niumerical expression into any explanation as I am very sure it has excluded women, lower castes to an extent, all that school going population.
   
  “ from where have you come from,” asked he.
  “ Delhi,”
  “ Dilli! It’s a great place, electricity never goes off there, coolers, fans, even cars equipped with a.c.’s. people sleep there so comfortably, no mosquitoes. Here electricity goes off in the morning, will appear only around 7pm and again go off in about two hours and from 4 in the morning will stay for another four to five hours,” replied he, very excitedly.
   
  Although, this village is not so far from Delhi being just about 50km distant, and in recent years there has been considerable expansion of Haryana Industrial area in adjoining areas of Delhi thus acting as a buffer between rural and urban for instance Sonepat is fast becoming a destination for industries but the picture of city and the imagination of a city life always engages the desires of people and propels them to cities both permanently and temporarily.
   
  “ three sub-castes(well it is difficult for me give an equivalent in English for the intra-caste hierarchy, or whether different surnames can be assigned caste status which is so very common in rural areas, different surnames are considered castes but within a broader homogenous category of one particular caste like jats, gujars, etc., he meant it to be surnames or gotra but under the rubric of caste) of ours(jat) reside in this village,” continued he.
  After five minutes walk we reached to Ranabir’s house, which was distinct from other houses in its design and conformed more to Delhi’s houses with an electrical bell on door and his name being engraved on a stone on one side of the entrance. But, Ranabir would be utterly disappointed with all this spending since anyone hardly pays heed to pressing bell and is more comfortable in calling him from outside or moving inside. 
   
  “ Kaki(aunt), has Ranabir come from function,” asks he to an old lady in the house.
  “ he is sleeping now, is something urgent,” lady asks him.
  “ this boy has come from Delhi and wants to talk to Ranabir, see if you can awake him,”
  “o.k., what would you like to have, it’s afternoon have lunch,” she asks me with a very soft voice reminding me of my grandmother taking care of mine and even scolding my father if he tried to be disciplinarian with me, and in even otherwise I had no plausible reason to make an excuse.
  After having a good lunch, it was time to talk to Ranabir and by now had realized that any formal penning down of conversation will kill the informal atmosphere that has emerged but Ranabir gave me the option of writing as well which I exercised here and there in the form of short points which would help me in elaborating and complementing my memory and thus the following account is partly memory based and partly documented.
   
  “ when did you first sing for a cassette company,” questioned I.
  “ I have been singing since I was a child, I used to sing in the functions organized in our school, I never missed any public performance in my childhood and over the time practiced whenever I got time. I wasn’t good in studies but because of my good voice I was asked to sing on every Saturdays in my school and elders of village asked  to sing for them in evenings and soon adjoining villages also started calling me in religious functions. I don’t remember the precise year but I was contacted by a cassette company in early 1990’s and was asked to bring my own party that is musicians and other artistes,” replied he.
   
  “ from where did you arrange artistses,”
   
  “ before entering cassette industry, I already had formed my own group. There are eight to ten members in my group including me, my elder brother, four matka(pots) players, one banzo player and one harmonium player. In case of recording it can increase to ten for chimta(tongs) etc., all this part of kaccha saj,”
   
  “ Can I ask a more personnel question regarding money,”
   
  “ it’s fine, initially for two or three years, when there was cassette boom, we were very busy and even did thirty five recordings in a month and were paid about six to eight thousand per recording,”
   
  “ how much artiste in your group get out of this,”
   
  “ our relationship is based on partnership rather than formal employment, they get anywhere from six to eight percent and about ten to twelve percent to the main singer,”
   
  “ then what does these artiste when you don’t have any work,”
            
  “ even now we attend almost twenty to twenty five functions in a month and everyone needs rest as well, in slack season they can sing for other groups as well. But it is highly improbable of them changing their loyalties, almost every group has its fixed members, see him he is with me for past fourteen years and others are here for more than eight years or so,”
   
  “ are they from traditional musician community like mirasis,”
   
  “ in our village there was not a single family of mirasis, so I had to form a group which was interested in music and all these were playing music in the adjoining villages as well and since it is very small region I was located by them and since then we have been together,”
   
  “ nowadays, this form is available in VCD’s as well, you must be paid higher now, and in case of outdoor locations where do you go. It also increases cost of production, do the producers tell you costs and the money they make out of it,” continued I.
   
  “ in case of outdoor shootings, you must have seen a string of resorts and restaurants in Nangloi and other small towns, producers hire these. We don’t care how much producers make from our recordings and our interest is only in our payment. We are taken care of food and other necessary items on the sets and finish recording in five to six hours in case of VCD’s and about three to four hours in case of audios,”
   
  “ since, you are so popular in this region, you must been contacted by Doordarshan and Akashvani as well,”
   
  “ yes, we have performed for Doordarshan in Delhi as well but with the establishing of a Doordarshan center in Rohtak we haven’t got opportunities in Delhi also it has been dominated by the singers from UP, I really don’t know what they sing but it’s not Haryanavi. I n case of Doordarshan, payment depends on the time and we get about Rs.4600 for one full programme and in case of Akashvani amount is less but here also it depends on duration of the programme,”
   
  “ which are the cassette companies that you have sung for,”
   
  “ we have sung for almost for every cassette company like Maina (Delhi), Jagdish( Narela), Max(Delhi), Sangwan(Bahadurgarh) and few others which are now no more,”
   
  “ Maina has its studio in Delhi are there any other studios based in Haryana also,”
   
  “ yes, the main regional studios are in major towns of Haryana like Chameli and Surtal in Rohtak and one in Dadri  and you can find atleast atleast on e each in cities like Hisar, Kaithal and many in Chandigarh which produces maximum Punjabi music and remixed version of Haryanavi music as well,”
   
   
                                                                                                           To be continued,
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
         
   
   
   
                    
   
   
   
       
   

 		
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