A high­ly sought af­ter mu­si­cian lives in the hum­ble vicin­i­ty of Rochard Road, Bar­rack­pore. Why is he in such high de­mand? Well, he is mul­ti-tal­ent­ed and still man­ages to por­tray hu­mil­i­ty and sim­plic­i­ty. Twen­ty-four-year-old Yovin­dra Bridglal plays the har­mo­ni­um, gui­tar, man­dolin, ac­cor­dion and bul­bul tarang.

Ac­cord­ing to https://chan­drakan­tha.com “the Bul­bul tarang, al­so known as the “ban­jo”, is a com­mon in­stru­ment in In­dia. The name bul­bul tarang lit­er­al­ly trans­lates to “waves of nightin­gales”. It is made of a num­ber of strings pass­ing over what re­sem­bles a fin­ger board (fret board)…It is an In­di­an ver­sion of the Japan­ese taisho ko­to.”

While Bridglal comes from a mu­si­cal fam­i­ly, he jok­ing­ly de­scribes him­self as “a late bloomer” when it comes to his mu­si­cal de­vel­op­ment.

“I grew up at­tend­ing Ra­mayans and yag­nas (most­ly host­ed at Blue Birds Com­mu­ni­ty Com­plex) and I used to ob­serve my fa­ther and my un­cles as they played these tra­di­tion­al in­stru­ments. Mu­sic has al­ways been a part of who I am,” re­lat­ed the young mu­si­cian.

“I was al­ways fas­ci­nat­ed by the in­stru­ments and I learnt from what I saw my fa­ther and un­cles do­ing. Al­though I ac­tu­al­ly start­ed play­ing them lat­er on, I picked up quick­ly and my love for the in­stru­ments grew tremen­dous­ly. I now play them all and I am pure­ly dri­ven by my pas­sion for the tra­di­tion­al in­stru­ments. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, my par­ents have al­ways en­cour­aged and sup­port­ed me in this field.”

Hav­ing re­cent­ly com­plet­ed his Bach­e­lors de­gree in Civ­il En­gi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), Bridglal, while on the job hunt, can now spread his wings and delve fur­ther in­to mas­ter­ing these in­stru­ments.

But back to the ques­tion—why is he in such high de­mand? Sim­ply put, Bridglal is one of the very few young per­sons who have held on to these unique in­stru­ments which have paved the way for lo­cal tra­di­tion­al In­di­an mu­sic. In­stru­ments such as the bul­bul tarang, the ac­cor­dion and the man­dolin were first used in the In­di­an or­ches­tras, lo­cal In­di­an clas­si­cal groups, Ra­mayan groups and the like be­fore the ad­vent of syn­the­sis­ers and oth­er elec­tron­ic in­stru­ments which have now tak­en the fore­front.

Thus far, Bridglal has ap­peared on renowned In­di­an cul­tur­al and in­ter­na­tion­al stages such as NCIC Di­vali Na­gar and the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (North and South). Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he has played for pop­u­lar artistes such as Dubraj Per­sad, the Gun­ga Gana Man, Rooplal Gild­harie and Kries Ramkhelawan of Suri­name. He is most­ly known in the clas­si­cal are­na as the cur­rent, sole man­dolin play­er and has played that in­stru­ment and the bul­bul tarang in a Qasee­da al­bum done by Zaid Ho­sein. Cur­rent­ly, he plays for the band Nithya.

His jobs are many but Bridglal does not get car­ried away by be­ing in such high de­mand. His hu­mil­i­ty al­ways man­ages to shine through. He told REC, “Mu­sic is my way to serve and to make peo­ple hap­py and it ac­tu­al­ly helped me to cope with study­ing while I was at UWI.”

Maybe this is the rea­son why he is cur­rent­ly men­tor­ing his younger broth­er, Yovesh, in per­cus­sions. As for what his fu­ture plans are, Bridglal said, “I plan to work as hard as I can to be at the top of the game and to pre­serve our cul­ture. I hope to en­cour­age oth­ers to pre­serve the art­form that was prac­ticed by our fore­fa­thers.”

Bav­ina Sookdeo