A chance meeting with an Australian tourist in Assam introduced Manas Chowdhary to the didgeridoo.
And thus began his lifelong affair with the wind instrument, that’s native to the indigenous tribes of Australia. Today, Manas is the only didgeridoo player in Mumbai, probably even in the whole of the country.
The didgeridoo, for the uninitiated, is an Australian folk instrument made out of hollow live eucalyptus tree that has been attacked by termites; a rim of beeswax is applied on the mouthpiece end. It is rumoured to be the man crafted first wind instrument, created by indigenous Australians around 1,500 years ago and is still widely used, both in Australia and around the world. The didgeridoo is an intense part of the indigenous tribes who believe in ‘Dream Time’ and play it for all occasions in their life time. The didgeridoo has three variations – one for each major purpose for which it is played – Ceremonial Purpose (Regular one), Meditative Purpose (long one with low pitch), and a Healing Purpose (short one with high pick sound).
Manas is basically a bass guitarist who has always been attracted to low pitch sound instruments, and that, he says, made him admire the didgeridoo even more. He happened to meet an Australian tourist in 1996 in Assam who was carrying a traveling didgeridoo and showed him how to play. Manas first tried making his own didgeridoo with bamboo and says the sound was almost close to the original one. Luckily, he happened to visit Australia and stayed with the indigenous tribes and learnt to play it the right way.
Says Manas, “In fact, in places like Thailand and the Philippines, people have tried making the instrument out of bamboo, which has a mid-low pitch, whereas the original has a low pitch.” Manas now wants to create his own bamboo didgeridoo using the Assam bamboo species and introducing them on the world stage.
On the other hand in South America people made Didgeridoo out of huge cactus available in the desserts, but the longevity of such instruments is sometimes doubtful. They call it ‘Dream Pipe’.
Manas says he has never come across anyone who plays the didgeridoo in India, in his decade long career as a musician. He tried showing it to many, but people can’t pick it up since it essentially requires ‘circular breathing’. Even the native Australians were surprised to see him playing their instrument and wondered if he had any Australian blood connection, he says. He is proud of the fact he could pick up ‘circular breathing’ quite easily as it’s usually a life long process.
Manas indulges the meditative style of the didgeridoo and is reluctant to put it to commercial use, hence he has refrained from playing the instrument for films.
But encouragement for the young musician has come from many quarters – veteran musicians like Hariharan, Mohit Chauhan and Rahul Sharma keep asking him to play the instrument for their performances. He appeared on MTV Unplugged recently with Mohit Chauhan and played the Didgeridoo for the song -babaji. He also played the didgeridoo in two songs of Mohit Chauhan’s last album Fitoor. Similarly he opened the show with Hahiharan in Melbourne with didgeridoo and created the aura better than any other instrument. Manas usually plays didgeridoo for live concerts and has done many fusion concerts with Rahul Sharma.
His residence in suburban Mumbai boasts a huge collection of various didgeridoo in different shapes and sizes. The paintings that cover the instrument are also part of Manas’ study – each represents a different village and story, he says.
Currently, Manas is on a whirlwind tour – Hong Kong for Asha Bhosale’s live concert where he is playing the bass guitar, then Singapore to play the didgeridoo for an open concert with Rahul Sarma (santoor), Richard Clayderman (Piano) and Buddy Wells (Saxophone) – where experts around the world will be present to judge his performance, he says.
And while the didgeridoo may take a back seat back home – his bass guitar is going to be heard in a slew for feature films lined up for release this year.