BOOCHOON JAGMOHAN
KING OF THE
DHANTAL
By Caldeo Sookram
Sunday Express
Section 2
May 14, 2000
Page 29
For 60 of his 72 years, Boochoon Jagmohan has been playing and carefully
transforming the classical Indian instrument into the dhantal of today.
Boochoon Jagmohan has been fine tuning his skills as player and
maker of the instrument known as the dhantal for over 60 years.
Launching
his career as a blacksmith in 1939 with Caroni Ltd, Jagmohan made dhantals,
among other tools and instruments. It
is he who modified the dhantal from its crude shape to the beautiful instrument
that it is today.
Jagmohan
knows everything about the dhantal. As
a blacksmith he has made the instrument in a variety of sizes and shapes to
extract sweet sounds. But he never sold
one.
"I
made them and just gave them away to people."
The
dhantal made the long voyage from India to Trinidad with indentured labourers
more than a century ago. Local Hindu
scholar Ravi-ji recalls; "I saw people with the dhantal in Uttar Pradesh,
India. It had a metal ball at its
base. I would say it has been modified
in Trinidad. Instead of the ball, the
Trinidad version has a circle at the base."
And
as Jagmohan, who lives at Woodland in south Trinidad, gets ready to mark his 73rd
birthday on June 23, he remembers that occasion when he first picked up a
dhantal at a function in Picton. The
dhantal player was absent that day. So
he picked up the instrument and accompanied the singer and drummer. From that moment he became a dhantal player.
He
has played for such greats as Henry "Tuloom" Dindial, Ramdhanie
Sharma, James Ramsewak, KB Singh, Kawal Maharaj and others. His services on the dhantal were always in
great demand. He says: "I was the
best player around. I played for almost
every singer in competitions."
For
his outstanding performances on the dhantal, Jagmohan received many trophies
and cash prizes from audiences around the country.
He
said his art was not simply knocking two pieces of iron. "There are beats with set rhythmic
patterns which must be followed."
These include the takka, taal, gher, dowr and bharti.
He
further explained the pattern of the different beats.
Takka
is a slow beat; taal is simply keeping timing; Gher is embracing the song; Dowr
is a fast beat, followed by cutting of taal and return to the normal beat;
bharti is a fast steady beat that is kept up until taal or rhythmic pattern is
broken.
Jagmohan
uses coil springs from vehicles and sometimes a fork, because these metals
produce good musical notes. The dhantal,
he claims, is shaped like a snake - thin at the tail, big at the centre, then
thin again at the neck, ending up with an eye, which is really the curl at the
end.
To
make the dhantal, he heats up his forge on which the metal is burnt until red
hot, then he beats it on the anvil until it is straight with a curl at one
end. From the fork, he cuts out the two
fingers at the centre along with the handle, then heats and beats the metal to
shape.
Jagmohan
says that his career as a musician and blacksmith went hand in hand. And from his trade he earned the nickname
"Smithy". Many of his friends
of long ago still call him by that name today.
He has
also passed on his musical skills to his children and has taught several
students the art of making and playing the dhantal.
At one
time the dhantal was pushed aside. That
was when electronic instruments took over the musical landscape.
But
with the chutney explosion over the past decade, the dhantal has been brought
back to prominence, and along with the dholak and harmonium, it is now one of the
key instruments for chutney recordings and concerts at home and abroad.
The
dhantal, however, has its counterpart in the steelband - the iron - which
grandmaster Lord Kitchener immortalised in his 1990 hit the "Iron
Man". Of the numerous topics on
which chutney singers have extemporized, only Kenneth Seepersad has recently
given some kudos to the dhantal in song.
And
so the dhantal will take centre stage at the Mere Desh Awards on Indian Arrival
day this year and given its rightful place in the history of local Indian
music.
Section 2
July 2, 2000