Art add Indian flavor to Singapore

Art add Indian flavor to Singapore

Cameron Dueck, Reuters, Singapore

It is Sunday afternoon, and the sweet scent of jasmine wafts over
the crowds wandering down Serangoon Road as they shop and dine in
the heart of Singapore's colorful precinct of Little India.

Street stalls sell flower garlands and fruit as worshipers
crowd the three Hindu temples along the landmark street,
imparting an ambiance hard to find in other parts of the orderly,
modern city.

"I feel like I am in Chennai, or in Delhi or Bangalore," said
N. Charumathy, principal of a dance and music school, the
Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society, located in Little India.

Women in bright saris and young male laborers chat in Hindi,
Tamil and other South Asian tongues, as they stop for spicy curry
and tandoori dishes at one of the restaurants lining the street
in the Chinese-dominated island state.

The South Asians who flock to Serangoon Road at weekends are
as diverse as the sub-continent itself, but many of them share
the common bond of Hinduism and the traditions of music and dance
integral to the religion.

"There is always music and dance, we can't do without it,"
said Srivathsan, a volunteer with the Temple of Fine Arts, a
community organization that teaches and promotes Indian arts.

"In Singapore, there are so many Western influences and such a
Chinese majority, we have to preserve some of our culture if
someday we want to know where we came from and who we are,"
Srivathsan said.

About eight percent of Singapore's four million residents are
of Indian descent.

Organizations such as Srivathsan's and Charumathy's are an
important part of bringing those people together and keeping
their culture alive.

In each classroom at Charumathy's arts society, housed in an
old school building, is a young Indian practicing to master the
arts that have defined the culture for thousands of years.

Behind one door, a girl with brow knit in concentration as her
feet thump the polished floor, practices Indian dance steps while
an instructor taps out a rhythm with a wooden stick.

In another room, a young man sits cross-legged on a carpet,
his hands a blur as he extracts an intricate beat from a
pakhawaj, or double-headed drum. His instructor keeps rhythm by
slapping his knee and reciting the melodic scales of Indian
classical music.

Stacey Tan, director for Arts Capability Development at
Singapore's government-funded National Arts Council, said the
organization of the Indian arts scene sets it apart from other
ethnic groups, putting children into training at a young age with
structured tests and diplomas.

"To them it's a very big part of their culture and traditions
to take instruction in an art form at an early age, and in that
aspect they are bit stronger than you would see in some of the
other cultures here," Tan said.

Nawaz Mirajkar left India in 1996 to play and teach the tabla
in Singapore, carrying on a craft mastered by his father and
grandfather.

He said young musicians in Singapore are adapting the ancient
forms of music to attract a more contemporary audience.

Nawaz, who at one time held the world record for longest
continuous drumming -- 27 hours and 45 minutes -- has combined
Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Malay percussion in performances.

"By maintaining our Indian tastes, and using that in a kind of
fusion, we can introduce some new rhythms and then draw them into
classical music," he said.