Manipuri singer GURU REWBEN MASHANGVA is credited with keeping the Tangkhul Naga folk music tradition alive. Folk songs tell stories that humans want to hear, he says to RANJENI A SINGH
He walks onstage sporting a traditional haokuirut hairdo with a long ponytail and cleanshaven sides, carrying the yangkahui, a three-feet long Tangkhul Naga flute. He also has an acoustic guitar strapped to his back and a mouth organ hanging around his neck. He first blows into the flute to produce deep, haunting notes. He then strums his guitar and launches into a solo that sounds like a fusion of Delta blues and tribal folk music. He is Guru Rewben Mashangva, singer-musician-composer from a remote Manipuri village, who not only rediscovered and reinvented the variegated rich folk traditions of the Tangkhul Nagas, but also refashioned their tribal musical instruments to suit the western tonal scale to woo youngsters.
If you happen to spot young boys and girls enthusiastically swaying to the music Mashangva belts out, that’s because he has spent three decades reviving traditional instruments,songs and stories; he has worked hard to give them a new life though the more accessible sound of the blues. Interestingly, he is also known as the Bob Dylan of the Nagas. He rues that today’s youth has lost touch with its past.
“It all started when Christian missionaries started promoting English as the mode of communication between Naga villages. Folk songs that were rooted in local dialects and geography began to fade. During my growing up days, children were exposed to mainly Church music at Sunday Mass.However, I was lucky.When my carpenter father travelled far for work, he would take me along. So I got to hear a variety of folk songs, especially during the sowing and harvesting seasons. I w o u l d h u m them on the way. That is how I got interested in music. Since we could not afford musical instruments, my father would make flutes and fiddles for me and I would play them,”Mashangva recalls. Later, he also started listening to rock music on shortwave radio stations like the BBC and Voice of America, broadcast from Rangoon.“I was introduced to legends like BB King and Eric Clapton. In a state riddled by insurgency and unrest, while most young people sought refuge in aggressive rock and heavy metal, I found folk and blues songs soothing and fulfilling,” he says. Mashangva has created many Naga tribal folk songs based on blues and ballad rhythms. He is also credited with reinventing the tingtelia, a fiddle- like traditional stringed instrument to suit modern tone and tenor.
“The pentatonic scale — a scale of five notes, with the last a higher repeat of the first — is integral to both blues music as well as Naga folk. In order to coherently combine the two, I had to modify some folk instruments,” he explains. Among Mashangva’s collections are four yangkahui flutes that he designed himself.“The rare bamboo used for the flute is found only near the Myanmar border.The biggest challenge was to find bamboo with the perfect ratio of diameter to spacing between the i n t e r n o d e s . “The longer the internodes, the better, but since the size of the bamboo’s diameter is directly proportionate to its internodes, most bamboos with long internodes are impossible to play as they do not fit well in the mouth,” Mashangva says. “I have only one life and I have one talent and that is to sing. Through my songs, I want to spread the message of love and peace.Manipur has seen a long spell of violence and unrest and the common people in the state are fed up.All they want is to carry on with their daily chores peacefully.My songs offer a ray of hope and positivity to the people,” he says. “Folk music touches everyday life. Folk songs tell the stories that humans want to hear. So it is important to keep the folk art forms alive, since their popularity is waning. I am glad that my music is being received well in other parts of India. I have performed several times in Goa,” says Mashangva. Though his music is steeped in western blues and folk rock, he has earned the epithet ‘King of Naga folk blues’.
In 2004, the Union ministry of culture, under its G u r u - S h i s h y a Parampara scheme, conferred on him the formal title of ‘Guru’. How can music help restore peace? Music is the best medium to understand other people and culture. Music is the best ‘weapon’ to counter violence. If I were to only give lectures and talks, few people will come, but if I sing, thousands of people will come. Music is one of the most appreciated medium because it easily helps you to share your innermost feelings, what your heart says. In the northeast, there are many tribes. Long ago they used to fight with each other. Slowly, they realised that fighting is futile.Over time, several tribes merged and created bigger groups.After every passing generation, things are changing.Younger people are slowly seeing the larger picture. I am hopeful that sometime in future, all tribes will live like one big family. And I hope my music plays a big role in this,” he says. Explaining his state of mind onstage, Mashangva laughs and says, “Whenever I’m on stage, I feel so good, I believe that I was born to perform on stage.” On a more serious note, he says, “I cannot do anything without the presence of the Creator. I cannot see him but he inspires me. Sometimes I feel that it is He who sings through me.” Mashangva performed for audiences in New Delhi on September 28 during the annual Jashn-e-Aman festival of peace jointly organised by the NGO Standing Together to Enable Peace (STEP) and IIC. ■
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