A city choir is celebrating its 30th anniversary

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

At first impression, it seems to be a regular adda of close friends. Some people are casually chatting under the courtyard tree. Some are hanging around the chai table. Some are daintily manoeuvring the garma-garam bread pakoras brought by Nisha and Pallav—this being the couple’s turn to get the snacks. On the other hand, the generous Tanisha didn’t have to but she anyway got homemade brownies for everyone. While Vinita’s bindaas red bag is striking a perfect jugalbandi with her snow-white hair. And in the courtyard’s far-flung corner, away from chai and bread pakodas, Nathalie is quietly playing the flute.

These all are singers of The Capital City Minstrels. The Delhi choir’s customary pre-rehearsal chai party is in full swing this Saturday evening in an empty school compound on Humayun Road. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the 70-member group is preparing for two anniversary concerts scheduled for month-end at the Kamani Auditorium (29th, 30th November).

The singers gradually tiptoe into a hall crammed with plastic chairs, and with a piano, a cello, a violin, a cajon and an octapad. The softly murmuring voices in the hall represent a diversity of professions. They include a Supreme Court advocate, a psychotherapist, a businessman, a photographer, an architect, an eye surgeon, a heritage educator… plus a few venerable personages long retired from active professions. At 87, Ashok is the choir’s eldest member (word is that he has a handsome house on posh Amrita Shergil Marg). At 16, school student Sana is the youngest.

The choir’s pioneering trinity is made of Usha, Gita and Jyotsna. The grand ladies have been with the choir since the day it was founded in 1994 by the dearly departed music teacher Zohra Shaw. In fact, the choir’s pre-rehearsal chai party tradition traces its origins to that fateful evening for which “Mrs Shaw asked (the aforementioned) Usha if the latter could have tea going for 10 people at her place in GK-I, she herself declaring that ‘I’ll bring the biscuits!’”—says choir member Reem.

Now, conductor Nise hops on to the hall’s little stage, addressing the singers with the confidence of a veteran emcee: “Shoulders back, ribcage open!” Suddenly, a truant mobile phone tune escapes from inside a handbag. Unbothered, the conductor starts to sing–Aa aaa aaaa aaa. Everyone joins the “vocal warm up.” This abrupt secession from utmost silence is electrifying.

As the choir switches to a calmly Bach chorale, Nise’s arms sway up and down, his figure bending forward and backward.

Meanwhile, the darkened schoolyard outside is utterly deserted. The quietude being assaulted by the brittle rush-hour symphony of the Humayun Road traffic.

Thirty years’ music

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