SAVUSAVU

September 11, 2007

Yesterday, I arrived safely in Savusavu, on the island of Vanua Levu. The plane ride took about 45 minutes, and was the smallest plane I have ever taken: it was a three-seater, about five feet wide. It was so small that the pilot and co-pilot were touching shoulders. The flight itself was quite beautiful; having an aerial view of blue lagoons and massive reefs truly is a remarkable experience.

The population of Savusavu is just under five-thousand, split evenly between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians. The main street (well, there really is only one big street) borders a boat-filled bay. The surrounding area is very lush; and small mountains envelope the town itself.

Tonight, I went to a Hindu puja. The service was actually not in a temple; but instead on the front porch of someone’s house. There were about thirty people or so, of all ages. The group is not directly associated with a temple; so it was interesting to observe a much less conservative Hindu religious service. The group is called Sathsang Ramayan Mandal.

I arrived after the service had started, but that did not seem to be a problem. The music ensemble consisted of a harmonium player, two guys on the finger cymbals, one on the tambourine, one man playing the dandal (a long metal rod hit with a metal horseshoe type thing – it was new to me), and another playing two dholak drums. The dholak sounds similar to the tabla, but is very different: the dholak is much longer, constructed of wood and goatskin, and can be played on either side.

While the music was playing, one man was reading a religious scripture: from my elementary knowledge of Hindi, I was able to recognize that he was reading from the great Hindu epic the Ramayana. (I kept on hearing the names Ravan and Sita, so I knew this had to be the case).

At the conclusion of the service, I spoke with several people, including the dholak player, a man named Shree Niwasan. He has lived in Savusavu his entire life, but his ancestors came from Madras (Chennai), where I will be basing my research while in India.

When I asked whether it was the Ramayana that was read from, he said yes, and that the Ramayana is the primary text used in their services. Shree Niwasan then informed me that the musicians learn specific parts to specific paragraphs of the Ramayana – called a doha. He has been playing the dholak for about 25 years; and has had formal training. He said he first learned to play by banging on “plastic drum gallons,” which are like shallow buckets, I think.

I was curious as to why a dholak was used in the service, and not the tabla. Shree Niwasan explained that there are five types of Hindu music: bajaan, kerten, ghazel, sangeet, and qawwali (which I had always thought was exclusively Muslim). Bajaan and kerten are the musical accompaniment to weekly readings of texts like the Ramayana; and they never employ the tabla. The tabla is only utilized in the other three genres.

In regards to the dholak, Shree Niwasan said that there are crafters here in Fiji, and I should be able to encounter one in Labasa. But, he also maintained that some dholaks are imported from India.

Without a doubt, there was an element of spirituality to the musical performance. When we were discussing different types of music, Shree Niwasan stated: “Music is diverse because God is diverse.” As a musician, Shree Niwasan felt a certain connection to the Divine through his music, as he avowed, “God only needs love from us; the love comes through music.”

There was a definite Fijian influence to both the music and service itself. First, in addition to the other instruments listed above, every so often, one man would play a conch shell. Clearly, this is Hindu Indo-Fijian practice: I would assume that Hindus in Northern India do not employ this instrument in their religious services. At least, I have never seen that or heard of it. Second, after the service was over (and the women left), all the men drank grog. Grog (made from the kava root) is an essential aspect of the social life in Fiji, and other countries in the South Pacific. While grog is not alcohol, it is a mild narcotic: this is important to recognize, as many Indian Hindus abstain from all drugs and alcohol, especially during a religious service. So between the conch shell trumpet and grog drinking, this was a distinctly Hindu Indo-Fijian service.
The service lasted about an hour-and-a-half; and then we drank grog, with music still playing on, for another hour-and-a-half. It was great way to end the day.