Navaratri festivities will kick off in the next few weeks in spec-tacular fashion with concerts headlined by Falguni Pathak, the undisputed queen of dandiya.
Fans will be delighted with the singer’s UK tour, with hotly anticipated September shows in London (21) and Leicester (22), which will blend garba, Bollywood and her greatest pop songs. The voice behind timeless hits such as Maine Payal Hai Chhankai, Yaad Piya Ki Aane Lagi and Meri Chunar Udd Udd Jaye will bring her signature energy and festive spirit for UK audiences.
Pathak is famous as one of India’s finest live performers, who has been entertaining audiences since she was nine years old.
The singer spoke exclusively to Eastern Eye about her music career, enduring appeal and the joy of performing live for worldwide audiences. She also revealed what to expect from her UK shows and had advice for aspiring artists.
How do you reflect on your remarkable journey?
This journey started when I was a four-year-old, listening to music at home and singing in school, including in competitions. Then, at the age of nine, I started doing professional music shows. At the time, I used to sing film music. After some years, garba happened; then came the pop albums. I have been very lucky and can say that I am blessed to have been given an opportunity to sing such a great variety of songs. I am very happy and content. I thank god every second for all this.
How have you maintained such a high standard for so long?
Actually, I don’t even realise how all these years have gone by so quickly. Time has flown by. With god’s grace I have been able to work with such a wonderful team that is so very supportive. I never thought about joining the rat race or whatever is trending. This hasn’t even crossed my mind – that I must do what is currently trending. Whatever opportunity I got, I tried to do my very best.
The standard has always been stunningly high, especially on the live circuit…
I try to improve every step of the way. It has now been 29 years with my garba group. Every year we look at our own shows and think, ‘how can we improve?’
Every year we have the same process – how can we be better?
And I’ve been fortunate to have such a lovely audience who motivate me further. It’s god’s grace that I been blessed with the opportunity to do this. I never take that for granted.
Pathak performing for a huge crowdHow much does live performance keep you motivated?
I started with live performances. This journey began at the age of nine, when I didn’t really know anything. So it was that response from the audience, seeing the joy in their eyes, the love they have, and their smiles. That motivates me to do better every year, and it has been constant since the beginning, when I first took to the stage.
What has it been like performing on stage all over the world?
It feels great that a global audience loves my music. I started to feel that love worldwide after my first album, Yaad Piya Ki Aane Lagi, was released; it was an international hit. After that, people on the garba scene started to get to know me. It feels really great to perform all over the world and people love my music.
How much are you looking forward to returning to the UK?
I have so many great memories connected to shows in the UK, including in London. I remember especially performing the big garba shows in Wembley. Those memories are still fresh in my mind. I remember people enjoying those shows so much. It was such a fantastic response. After that we have been waiting to do a big show in London… and now it’s happening. It is such a great feeling to return to the UK, and we are all excited.
What can we expect from the UK shows?
There will be a great variety of songs, which will include the much-loved garba classics and popular songs from my albums. There will also be some popular Bollywood music, so it will be a great mix of songs and genres.
Which songs do you enjoy performing the most?
Actually, I think all the songs are very close to my heart. I enjoy performing all of them, equally.
Do you ever get nervous before going on stage?
(Laughs) Yes, despite having performed all these years, all over the world, I do still get that nervousness before going on stage. I get those butterflies in my stomach, and that slight tension. I start thinking of the audience and what the response will be like and if they will enjoy my performance. I think, what will happen? I hope everything goes well. And I pray to god. All this does happen before each show.
What is the secret of generating so much energy on stage?
First, singing and music are my biggest passions. That passion gets inside my heart and being. It spreads throughout me. Also while performing garba, you are singing for a higher power, which generates more energy inside you. We are celebrating Navratri, which is also joyous. Plus, you get that great response from the audience, which gives you added energy. Seeing people dance and enjoy my music really does increase those energy levels for me.
What inspires you?
The biggest inspiration is my audience. I have been performing for them for decades now and the unconditional love they give me always inspires me. They motivate me to perform even better every single time.
You are a great music icon. What advice do you have for young artists starting out on their journeys?
Keep working really hard. This profession demands a lot of hard work. Also, be passionate about your craft. It is really important to have that passions for whatever you want to do. Believe in yourself, believe in god, pray hard and work hard. Don’t compare yourself to others or feel like you have to do what they did. Have self-belief and concentrate on your own journey.
Falguni PathakYou have achieved a lot, but do you have any unfulfilled ambitions?
The higher powers have given me everything. I have also been blessed to have been given things that I have not even asked for. But the best thing is that my passion has become my work. What more can one ask for? So, I thank god for whatever he has given me. Jai Shri Ram.
Falguni Pathak at OVO Arena, Arena Square, Engineers Way, London HA9 0AA, next Friday, 20 (www.ovoarena. co.uk); and Mattioli Arena, 12 Memory Lane, Leicester LE1 3UL next Saturday, 21 (www. Leicester arena. Co.uk)
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A seated Jain enlightened teacherAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Ganesha from JavaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Chinese silk painting depicting the BuddhaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
ArdhanarishvaraAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Head of a grimacing yakshaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
NagaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Bimaran casketAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Hunia Chawla
A still from rehearsal
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
The cast of Marriage Material in key moments from the play, including Avita Jay, Kiran Landa, Omar Malik, Irfan Shamji and Anoushka Deshmukh
Sathnam Sanghera’s 'Marriage Material' adapted into bold new play on conformity
The play Marriage Material at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel of the same name, which first came out in 2013.
She is lucky to have Iqbal Khan direct Marriage Material. The play, a co-production with the Birmingham Rep, is set in the late 1960s. Mr and Mrs Bains (played by Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay) run a corner shop in Wolverhampton. Their younger daughter, Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh), is 16, her sister Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) is just a bit older.
They have a neighbour, Patwant Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), who, as we shall soon see, is not a very pleasant man. In fact, he comes across just as racist as Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West for the Tories from 1950 to 1974.
It will be recalled this was a time when Sikhs working on the buses were told they couldn’t wear a turban. That was a hard-fought battle that had to be won.
The Bains, meanwhile, simply want to get their girls married off.
Nothing new here, I thought.
What makes the tale different is that the plot twists and turns down the generations. Mr Dhanda, who has the makings of a paedophile, makes a pitch for one of the girls when Mr Bains dies early in the play. “A life with no man in the house is no life,” he informs the newly widowed Mrs Bains.
Mr Dhanda has a wife but she has returned to India so he considers himself to be a free man.
Surinder’s English teacher from school, Miss Flanagan (Celeste Dodwell), who is also head of the fifth form, tells Mrs Bains about her daughter: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but she is bright. Ridiculously bright.”
She adds: “Mrs Bains, I think it would be a pity if Surinder didn’t stay on at school.” The initial response from Mrs Bains is not encouraging: “Too much education makes people’s brains get mixed up, they don’t sleep at night…”
But she is finally persuaded that Surinder should be allowed to stay on for a while longer before being married off.
Mr Bains was very old school. When Surinder confides she would one day like to be “a somebody”, he is amused that “my daughter wants to be a somebody”.
“Like you,” she tells her father.
Mr Bains consoles his daughter: “We will find a somebody for you to marry.”
At the point of a possible marriage, however, Surinder is sweet-talked by chocolate salesman Jim Wilson (Tommy Belshaw) into running away with him. They share a love of literature, and he calls her “Sue Bains”. But the relationship does not end well.
Once she has left, Surinder is written off as “dead” by her family. The story that is circulated is that she was only 16 when she was killed in a car crash. That’s better than to let on that she ran off with a white man.
By the time she is reconciled with her sister towards the end of the play, a great deal has changed. Kamaljit married Tanvir Banga (Omar Malik), a young man who helped out in the Bains’ corner shop. When the two sisters meet again, Tanvir has also died. But he and Kamaljit had a son, Arjan Banga (Jaz Singh Deol doubles up for this role after the death of Mr Bains). He has come home after his father’s death to help his mother who is still running the family corner shop.
Meanwhile, Mr Dhanda’s business has prospered. He now has a son, Ranjit Dhanda (the role is taken by Omar Malik after Tanvir’s death), and he is nearly as unpleasant as his father.
Arjan has an English fiancée, Claire (Celeste Dodwell). In London, Arjan worked as a creative director. But after deciding to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, he decides he cannot marry Claire because she is white. In other words, Asians are not free of racism, either. Happily, at the end, the couple are reconciled.
As for Surinder, she parted company with Jim Wilson after realising he was all talk, depended on her for money and had failed to earn a penny from his literary pretensions. She had prospered, though, as a hotel owner and had been transformed in time into a well-groomed businesswoman. After being tracked down by Arjan, she decides to return to her roots in Wolverhampton and help Kamaljit run the family corner shop. Perhaps 50 years had passed during the passage of the play.
Being subjected to racism turned some Asians into racists themselves. The word goreh (white person) is repeatedly spat out with venom. Maybe it is worth remembering the play’s audience isn’t exclusively Asian – white folk are watching as well. And maybe some of the toilet humour ridiculing white people, which always makes me cringe, could be cut out.
In Sanghera’s novel, there is a quote from Enoch Powell’s speech in November 1968: “The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a west Indian or an Asian still... he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one. Time is running out against us and them. With the lapse of a generation or so we shall at last have succeeded – to the benefit of nobody – in reproducing ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’ the haunting tragedy of the US.”
In Marriage Material, where the acting is marvellous (apart from Mr Dhanda’s Indian mannerisms and accent being overdone) we do travel across a couple of generations.
There is a scene when Tanvir rejects Mr Dhanda’s vision of creating a little Punjab in Wolverhampton.
Mr Dhanda wants to take over the Bains’ corner shop and is putting pressure on Tanvir to sign the papers. He says: “In this country, money is the path to freedom.”
“Sign, please,” he instructs Tanvir. “We must make sure our children learn to behave nicely, according to our rules.”
He insists: “We maintain our identity so we can be ourselves.”
Tanvir disagrees: “We can be us here. With the goreh.”
Dhanda warns him: “Then we will be inviting chaos.”
Tanvir’s comment is telling: “You sound like Enoch.”
Kamaljit, who is expecting a baby with her husband Tanvir, says: “I would like my child to grow up knowing the history of the Gurus and to read the Granth Sahib. And to love their culture.”
Tanvir tells his wife: “I would like my child to go to the finest schools, to cheer for England in the World Cup and eat Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday.”
Kamaljit sets out a dream that has perhaps come to pass with many third and fourth generation British Asians: “Maybe our child can do both.” Much, much later, in a throwback to the past, we learn of Surinder’s O-level results: “Biology A, Chemistry A, English Language A, English Literature A, French A, History B, Latin A, Mathematics A, Physics A…”
Kamaljit tells her younger sister: “Never mind about the B.”
And that is quintessentially Asian. Their acting is outstanding.
Marriage Material is at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until June 21, and at the Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5