Kritis to the Abandon of Yellamma's Singers
BENGALURU: Five Jogappa musicians from northern Karnataka are gearing up for an unusual performance in the city on Sunday – with South Indian classical vocalist T M Krishna.
These transwomen from Belagavi and Vijayapura districts rarely ever practise, they tell City Express. They live on their music, using it to ask for alms or bless the childless or those eagerly seeking marriage.
But the room at Ashirvad Community Centre on St Mark’s Road they are staying in at the moment reverberates with music from their vast repertoire of Kannada and Marathi songs. Most extol glories of Yellamma, the goddess they worship.
It’s easy to understand why Krishna, renowned in his own field, is captivated by the effortless power in their voices. “It (the Jogappas’ voice) has an earthy openness,” the Chennai-based musician tells City Express during one of his trips to Bengaluru to prepare for the upcoming event.
“They sing with gay abandon. I can’t match their voice,” he says, his eyes lighting up as he talks about the musicians. “It has an honest quality that those of seasoned performers have lost.”
As soon as Shubha Chacko of Solidarity Foundation, an organisation working for the rights and welfare of sex workers and sexual minorities outside of the city, approached him, he agreed to be part of the fundraising event Aikya.
“Many corporates whom we approached for sponsorship were apprehensive of being associated with a fundraiser involving the community,” Shubha says. “But T M Krishna -- I went to him because he’s known for being progressive -- agreed to more than we had imagined.”
Krishna says he wasn’t familiar with the Jogappa’s music before this. “I only knew that they had a singing tradition,” he says. Yet, his first instinct upon Shubha’s offer was, ‘Let’s do something together,’ he says.
So he has learnt one song from them, a Purandara kriti, Ninagu aane Krishna, probably not part of their original repertoire, he says. But he will sing the popular composition in their style on Sunday.
Krishna first met the Jogappas when he came to town last month. “I sang for them at IIMB, and they said, ‘Not bad, your Kannada, when you sing, is pretty decent,’” he recalls with a laugh. They began conversing, a challenge in itself, according to Krishna.
“Most of us, when it actually comes to it, aren’t very comfortable around transgenders. On the intellectual level, we might imagine that we are,” he says with his charatersitic frankness.
But soon they got talking and even jesting with one another. “They also told me about their history,” he says.
He likens their music to the bhajan and nama sankeertanam traditions. “Musical motifs are repeated with different lyrics,” he says. “Their rhythms and tempos are great.”
The challenge, however, is to combine two different genres of music without compromising on either. “We had to figure out where I come in, where I go out,” he says.
The Jogappas, who traditionally sing to the suthi, an ektara-like instrument, the chowdki, a percussive instrument, and the tala, are thrilled to have the mridangam, ghatam and tabla accompanying them as well.
“It’s like a meeting where people of a community from different nooks and corners of a country are present. Obviously, more will come out of it than in one of those regular meetings,” says a Belagavi Jogappa Davul Saab. She is referring to her community’s ongoing struggle for rights and recognition. The others take up the thread.
Lakshman, part of the Vijayapura trio, worries about the future. “We’ve begged and performed and filled our stomach in our youth,” she says. “Soon, that’ll be past. Then we’ll be left to the care of foothpaths to die.”
Families are often not accepting their choice, or Goddess Yellamma’s calling as the community believes. “When we have money, they eat off our living,” says Siddappa, the other musician from Belagavi. “When we don’t, they shun us.”
Unlike the Devadasis, who usually have children, Jogappas are rarely ever cared for in their twilight years, she adds. “The names on our official documents don’t correspond with our gender, so authorities refuse us housing and financial benefits that are supposed to reach transgenders,” she says. But for now, they revel in their music that -- to use Satish’s words -- fills them with happiness and makes them well up in agony. They have no problem handling dualities, according to Shubha who has interacted with them over many months now. After all, these are the people who are called in to sing so others may tie the knot or have children, while their own families don’t invite them to auspicious ceremonies and social gatherings.