Raipur: A woman from Chhattisgarh has made 45 people of 22 nations to sing a Bollywood song originating from the central Indian state at an international musical concert.
The concert, Khor Der Nationen (Choir of nations) aided by Swiss government, is a program for migrants with a concept for world peace and integration of several nations through music.
Shobhna Yaduvanshi Prakash from Raipur, a Swiss citizen for the past 12 years, made the group to sing ‘Sasural Genda Phool’ (in-laws’ house is marigold flower) from the movie Delhi-6. It was an adaption from a dadaria, one of various types of folk songs of Chhattisgarh.
These songs were part of folklore before 1970s and sung by village men or women while harvesting in paddy fields or during leisure.
In late 1980s, the singing of these songs by any man before a woman or women in private was considered socially unacceptable because of the intimate language of these songs which had developed mostly as ‘question and response’ between a male-female duet.
Shobhana is too patriotic to let German take over her native language, reports The Times of India. Her journey with German language began when she realized that to interact with people there, German was mandatory and now she’s well versed in it.
Shobhna who loves to interact with people, refused to be closeted at home learnt German to connect to the people.
“As a gesture of remembering my country and sharing the culture of my state with foreigners, I and the core leader Luca took three months’ time to teach the song ‘Sasural Genda Phool’ and explain its meaning to 45 members of group from 22 different countries,” Shobhna said during her visit to Raipur.
“It was two years ago when I connected to Khor der Nationen wherein people from numerous countries contribute something or the other from their native places and join others to send a message of brotherhood and through the cultural exchange between different nations,” she said.
Shobhna says that in absence of Indian musical instruments, her Italian music director Luca Fironi took three weeks to make notations on piano.
“I had written the Hindi lyrics in German language to make them understand and pronounce them correctly,” she added.
The video recording of the concert that took place in September at Park Theatre, Grenchen at Solothurn in Switzerland, shows the group of excited faces from different countries playing instrument and singing the Hindi song on Indian tune.
Shobhna was given special opportunity to explain the detail of song about the Indian culture and the system of arranged marriage, to the audience of hundreds.
This group of Choir of Nations has brought together many such citizens of which I am the only Indian, on one platform and help them feel at home with patriotism, Shobhna concludes saying that she loves to wear Sari on several such concerts and represent her culture.