Date: 23.05.21
Upon Loga’s insistence, I sat with her to watch a concert on YouTube given by the Berklee Indian Ensemble and was completely carried away by the ripple, wave, underwater current and eddy of a wonderful musical experience not to be associated with escapism but with the certitude that life can be made meaningful.
“What started out as a class at Berklee College of Music in 2011 has become one of the hippest global acts to emerge from Boston: the Berklee Indian Ensemble. Founded by Indian Berklee alumna and faculty member Annette Philip ’09, the ensemble provides an open and inclusive creative space for musicians from all over the world to explore, study, interpret, and create music influenced by the rich and varied mosaic that is Indian music today.
With high-profile collaborations featuring iconic artists A. R. Rahman, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Shreya Ghoshal, Shankar Mahadevan, Vijay Prakash, and Clinton Cerejo, the Berklee Indian Ensemble is renowned for its global Indian sound that honors traditions while experimenting with cross-pollination of genres, cultures, and multidisciplinary art forms. From a Carnatic thillana or a high-adrenaline konnakol conversation to Indo-jazz experiments or qawwali, the ensemble performs an expansive repertoire in addition to the 20 original student compositions the group has premiered to date.” (BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC)
The prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, is mostly known for its work on and teaching of jazz. Our great jazz musician, the late Ernest Wiehe studied and taught there. But little is known in Mauritius of an original musical creative experiment embodied by the Berklee Indian Ensemble.
IMAGINE:
1. Talented composers, musicians, singers and dancers working as a team;
2. Talented artists, male and female, from all over the world, sharing the same enthusiasm generated by their love of music;
3. The whole gamut of musical genres from India expressing originality and blending into each other to produce new musical experience;
4. Musical instruments from all over the world embracing sorority and fraternity.
In a nutshell, this is what I experienced on YouTube.
What can all the immigrants on this (our) beautiful creole island learn from Berklee Indian Ensemble? We have talented artists from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds; musical genres from all over the world; musical instruments from across the globe. But it seems that we tend to focus more on what divides us rather than on what could unite us. The different musical genres and musical instruments are perceived as markers of ethnic and cultural distinctiveness rather than venues for cross-pollination/miscegenation/metissage.
Ernest Wiehe and a few other talented musicians have felt the need to chart a new original creative course and have tried to initiate changes without much success because very few are those who are prepared to leave their comfort zones.
But today, because of the presence of different racist initiatives, it is imperative that artists in the musical field start to bring down walls and build bridges. Only they can teach us to hear and feel the beautiful music of human understanding, kindness and love.
Since music IS the food of love, play on brothers and sisters of music; charm us with your magic.

 

Date: 12.05.21
This opinion piece will certainly irritate most Mauritians who tend to find solace in focussing on only one side of any matter. To dare say that COVID-19 could be a blessing in disguise is ‘blasphemous’ and ‘sacrilegious’ as it deliberately ignores its negative impact on business.
1. Since the 1980’s, political, economic, social and cultural pundits have placed their faith in the basic tenets of neoliberalism (ultraliberalism): globalisation on the one hand and “less government” on the other. Globalisation, i.e., the free circulation of money and goods, has revealed its other face: the free circulation of viruses.
2. The neoliberal belief which says that the state should not interfere with economic matters, has simply dissolved into thin air. Instead of less government, we now need more government to fight diseases and subsidise economic activities.
3. Mixed economy (private and public involvement) has returned with a vengeance at planetary level. Regulation and more state control are now the order of the day.
BUSINESS AS USUAL OR CREATE NEW NORMAL?
With the rise of industrialisation and capitalism there has been a tendency to consider nature as a mass of inert objects at our disposal to be used, consumed and thrown away. The result has been a total destruction of nature leading to global burning and climate crisis. We have to learn to rebuild nature and live in harmony with it. What does this mean?
1. ECONOMIC REFORMS: An economy driven by cupidity and selfishness can never be sustainable. It will simply favour a minority but drive the majority below the poverty line. Profit by itself is not a problem if it is one of the measures of efficiency which should include social and ecological responsibility, not the ONLY one. A good mix of private and public enterprises supported by a strong cooperative movement is what we should aim at. Humanity must start to prize solidarity and sharing which is strongly prescribed by some religious texts.
2. FOOD SECURITY: We must grow what we eat and eat what we grow. This can be done. New home-grown staples (potato, sweet potato, grapefruit, cassava, corn, arrowroot) should eventually replace the existing imported ones (rice and wheat). The production of red meat should be discouraged and fish farming and free-range poultry farming encouraged. Food security also means a new food culture which can help us fight such pathologies as obesity and diabetes.
3. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: This should become an integral part of our national culture and for this to happen we must undertake a massive reform of our education sector which, at present, manufactures thousands of non-literates every year. Universal literacy and generalised IT go together like your ox and cart. Universal bilingual functional literacy (UBFL) can be achieved by a judicious use of our two creole languages, namely Mauritian Creole and English (another creole language).
4. A GREEN OUTLOOK: All activities must take into account their impact on nature. Fossil fuels must be banned.
If we want to face COVID-19 and other future pandemics, humanity must develop new attitudes towards MOTHER NATURE. It is now a question of survival, not one of choice. We have already done too much damage to nature.