WHEN participants of the Punjab Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Music Exchange Project — 2000 went to the UK on an exchange visit recently, they were in for a pleasant surprise. Their British counterparts, led by Ronan Harvey, presented to the leader of the Indian group, Rajpal Singh, £ 366 (Rs 25,000 approximately) as monetary relief for the destitutes of Pingalwara at Amritsar. The British participants had visited Pingalwara twice last year under this exchange programme and had been moved by the plight of the inmates there. On going back, these youngsters did odd jobs on weekends and pooled their earnings to provide this aid.

This rare and noble gesture, though tiny in financial terms, has added a humanitarian dimension to an intrinsically music exchange project.

This international exchange programme enables young artistes of the two countries to work together in a specific art form, and create a new art form by bringing out the best nuances of both cultures. Public shows of the synthesised art form are then held in the host country. Each artiste lives with the family of his/her foreign counterpart and experiences their lifestyle, customs, traditions, cuisines, social mores etc. In short, East walks up and embraces West, and vice-versa, and the twain do meet.

Music was selected as the basic art form for the 1999-2000 project. The British ensemble visited Punjab and Chandigarh last year, while the Punjabi group that returned the visit comprised Kanwalroop, Poonam Chaudhary, Amandeep Singh, Siddharth Singh, Sahil Ahmed Khan, Gurinder Kainth, Amrit Prabha, Mamata, Gauri and Akshiptika. Dr Smita Bahuguna, a classical vocalist and Head of the Music Department, Dev Samaj College for Women, Chandigarh, accompanied as music director. The group was led by Rajpal Singh, Director of Heritage, a voluntary cultural organisation in Patiala. The entire project has been the brainchild of this organisation.

Keyhole Trust, a picturesque countryside farmhouse, about 30 km from Shrewsbury town, provided a perfect setting for holding a joint workshop. The outcome was the production of captivating musical compositions that included A hymn to God Ram, Taj Mahal, Sunset, Water of the Ganges, Creation, Journey through the Desert, Hip-Hop and Dama Dam Mast Kalandar. Poonam Chaudhary’s Heer-Ranjha, Kanwalroop’s Ghazal, Gurinder’s Mirza, Amandeep’s Guldasta of Punjabi folk songs, Gauri’s classical Indian composition on sitar, and a traditional Punjabi group song presented jointly by Poonam, Mamta, Gurinder, Kanwalroop and Smita won the hearts of audiences everywhere. In the shows held at Balmont Arts Centre, Glasgow City Hall, Worester, and some other places, the melodious notes emanating from tabla, sitar, harmonium, Indian flute, santoor, guitar and dilruba harmoniously mingled with those coming from western instruments like bassoon, clarinet, disc jockeys, saxophone, western flute, cello guitar, djembi (African drum), marcus, drum and synthesiser.

What could be a better way of interacting with the world community of artistes than participating in an international festival of music and dance? The 54th ‘Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod’ in Wales with the motto "Blessed is a world that sings. Gentle are its songs" offered a rare opportunity to the Punjabi artistes to exhibit their folk talent and to witness various dance forms of scores of foreign lands. The stage resonated with Punjabi jhoomar and giddha, keeping the international audiences spellbound.

The Punjabi participants are back with fond memories of their stay in the UK. Says Kanwalroop, "Warmth was what we felt throughout our stay in that cold country — warmth of love and care showered on us by people who were, only sometime ago, strangers. Participants from the two countries came so close that anyone referring to the group in two parts was frowned upon. It was neither an Indian group nor a British group — it was ‘our’ group." Siddarth Singh, whose guitar broke down just on reaching England, was extremely grateful to Marc who allowed him to use his guitar throughout the sojourn. About his memorable stay with his host Ben Wilson, Amandeep reminisces, "I did not feet homesick even for a moment, thanks to his and his family’s immense affection and care."