By IANS
New Delhi : With relations between India and Trinidad & Tobago (T&T) growing, India might just add one more item to its list of exports to the Caribbean nation in the days to come – the steelpan!
At a function held here Friday evening, Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi didn't try to mask his fascination for the musical instrument so ubiquitous throughout the Caribbean, home to a large population of persons of Indian origin (PIOs).
Even as he entered Hall Number 1 at the Taj Palace Hotel here Friday where he inaugurated the celebrations to mark the arrival of the first batch of Indians in Trinidad in 1845, a steelpan band from T&T – T & Tec Nada Sangam Steel Orchestra – started playing popular Hindi numbers drawing everybody's attention.
Turning from the path to the head table of the official banquet hosted by T&T High Commissioner to India Pundit Maniedeo Persad, the minister walked up to the spot where the band was playing.
Confessing that he had never seen the instrument before, Ravi watched with rapt attention as the PIO artistes played on the instruments. Later, the band played the Indian and T&T national anthems to mark the start of the official function.
After concluding his speech in which he repeated his fascination for the instrument, the minister again walked up to the orchestra asking what it is all about.
"Let me try it," he said, and asked for a pair of drum (or pan) sticks that are used to play the instrument.
Even as Ravi tried his hand on the instrument, the T&T high commissioner explained that this was the only musical instrument to be invented in the 20th century.
The steelpan – also known as the pan or the steel drum – is a pitched percussion instrument, usually tuned diatonically but sometimes chromatically, made from a 55-gallon oil drum.
In 1939, Winston 'Spree ' Simon took an oil drum, and while beating it with a corn cob, discovered the first sounds of steelpan music. The first record on a pan band was in a report of the Carnival in the 'Trinidad Guardian' newspaper way back in 1940.
Early bands were essentially rhythm bands. However, during the 1940s, discarded 55-gallon steel oil drums became the preferred type of pan and perhaps noticing that constant drumming changed the tone of the pans, techniques were developed to tune them to enable melodies to be played. Ellie Mannette is credited as the first to use the oil drum in 1946.
By the late 1940s, the music had spread to the neighbouring islands in the Caribbean.
In Friday's function, an official from the T&T high commission explained to the minister that his country imported the instrument mainly from Japan.
Given India's vibrant steel industry, India too can manufacture and export it to T&T, the official said.
"So, there is scope for India to export this to Trinidad," the minister remarked seriously. "Yes, there is tremendous scope," came the reply from the T&T side.
Following Friday's function, the T & Tec band is scheduled to tour places in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar from where the Indians had migrated to Trindidad in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
"Please pay Indian numbers wherever you go and make this instrument popular," the minister, who is leaving for Trinidad on an official visit, advised the officials and the artistes.