Pratidhwani (reverberant)
By Supreet Sethi
27 Apr 2008
I do not believe in God, because I believe in man. These words will find reverberant echo from the group called 'Pratidhwani'. Pratidhwani is a band of performers, who sing and perform to raise awareness, to protest, to entertain.
They do this without any use of technology, in the belief that it alienates rather than helping connect with people. It is a barrier which does not allow intimacy. Hence the songs are passionately sung with the beat of rhythmical claps by members of the group. Sometimes it goes out of tune in practice sessions, which happens in lawns of a club, bringing unstoppable smiles to each ones faces.
Small song booklet which is carried by everyone in the group has songs from various languages including Assamese, Bengali, Oriya, Hindi, Punjabi. There are many songs which are adaption of revolutionary songs from world over especially from civil rights movement.
Regular practice session on weekly basis is the preparation before long tours to various pockets of rural India. No buildings, no address, no writing of long winding articles with an intellectual disconnect. Intimate tours where they meet, sing and dance with people, stay at there homes, eat their food.
When asked what made them gravitate towards this group? Everyone had different opinions with single undertone 'Revolution'. Revolution which is fluent and dynamic and brings social change.
