Jodhpur, Oct 25 Polish singer and composer Karolina Cicha named her opening song at Jodhpur RIFF “Chosen to Love”, which combined words from her native language and Ukrainian, as a message of solidarity with Ukrainian refugees who fled their country after the war with Russia in 2022.
Before arriving at Jodhpur RIFF, which began here at the Mehrangarh Fort on October 22, Cicha, while deciding on her setlist, briefly considered whether her music should be apolitical.
“Last year, I added some verses about free Palestine in my performance. This year, I was thinking that the music should not be political. The music is our heart. The music is about love, about being human,” she told PTI.
However, as she sat down to plan her set with Rajasthani folk singer Anita Dangi and listened to her songs in a foreign language that spoke of similar emotions, dreams and love, she realised that “deep in our hearts, we are all the same”.
“But in fact, the dialogue between the cultures would not be possible if we do not agree with it politically. Deep in our hearts, we are all the same. No matter from which caste, country or language we are,” the 47-year-old said.
Although the duo did not share a common language, they managed to create a performance over three days, rehearsing for two hours each day, with the set thematically built around “a dialogue between two cultures”.
In response to one of Cicha’s songs about finding a connection with the universe within oneself, Dangi performed the popular devotional song “Sawariyo ghat mai re”, which conveys that God resides in one’s heart and that there is no need to look for it elsewhere.
“When we were rehearsing our songs, the translator conveyed my emotions to Anita. I could not stop my tears when I heard that her song meant the exact same thing I was saying in my song,” Cicha said.
Dangi, who comes from a family that has been the custodian of the Rajwaadi Maand for generations, and carries forward the form that closely resembles thumri and ghazal, said that there was no trouble communicating with each other during the practice as they could catch each other’s intentions.
“She would play something and we would be able to match it in tone and context. She gave us the idea of her songs and we had similar songs in Rajasthani music. Our rehearsal happened on its own,” Dangi told PTI.
“She was singing in her own tune. And I was singing in my own tune. And at some point, our tunes matched. We didn’t feel the need to talk to each other, we were communicating through our music,” the 36-year-old added.
Cicha said that even when they could not understand each other’s languages, they could “understand each other as humans”.
“And while I was singing with Anita, our voices were the same. We are from completely different worlds… And it is the message of the music itself. So, this is my politics.
“Sometimes I touch political items. But in fact, politics is there only so that we can be humans. That is the use of politics. To allow us to love,” the Podlaskie-based musician said.
The “one-woman orchestra”, who uses electronic music combined with a Polish accordion that has a keyboard on one side, was joined on stage by Aslam Khan on dholak and Chanan Khan on dhol.
Jodhpur RIFF music festival, organised by the Mehrangarh Museum Trust, is hosting its “wildest and widest” guest lists yet with new and returning roots musicians from six continents and about a dozen countries playing along the centuries old music of Rajasthan and India’s traditional folk artistes.
Apart from more than 250 folk musicians from Rajasthan, and other Indian states, the festival is hosting legendary roots musicians for the first time such as Filipino-Murrawari rapper Dobby, Latin American duo Camila y Silvio, UK’s Uilleann pipe player Michael McGoldrick, and American folk and blues singer Martha Redbone.
(PTI News)
