Rhagu, born Mangal Persaud Rhagunandan, grabbed a pen and paper and started to write. He writes everything in complete English sentences. I first met Raghu in 2015. We shared space again at his Lusignan home on August 4, 2022. Two days prior, he had auditioned for Kevin Garbaran’s short film, Old Toy Train, which I am producing.
Rhagu becomes childlike when he beats the drum. His imagination becomes the drum. But when he knows he is being observed, the child vanishes and a formal adult appears. The formal adult is not what we want for the film. I want to capture Raghu’s passion when he is not held back by being formal.
Next door there is a vacant lot with a dead horse. Rhagu complained that it will smell soon. This interview could be like the horse next door. I breathe, lean over to him and say, “Listen, if we gonna do this interview with you writing and being formal then I can’t write this article. I need it to flow. I don’t know where the story will go, but I trying to capture something authentic.” He stopped writing and I am relieved.
He spoke about the difference between education and learning, the epic Hindu religious play, Ramilila, animosity between Hindus and Muslims on the sugar estates in his younger days and then we landed on the path that caused Rhagu to make and play drums.
“I was about five years old when I saw a man making a drum, a hand drum, [dhola] in Ogle Estate and I can remember up to today at 74 years, the structure that he used. Up to today I am using that method,” he said. Prior to this, Rhagu said, he had never seen a drum. Then he recanted, “No wait, when I was born there was a drum in the home.”
I asked, “Who was playing it?”
His response, “My mother.”
He said both of his parents played the drum and the drumming in the family has been generational. Drumming for Rhagu is like language. “He [his father] never hold me hand and show me anything, is jus’ automatic. I just looked and started to play,” he said. Because of this gift, Rhagu lives in nostalgia; it propels him to bring that nostalgia to the present.
Rhagu also spoke about his dream to see a forgotten festival return. Lowering his voice and leaning in, he smiled as he spoke of the Tadjah Festival on the sugar estates during colonial times. A celebration of the Prophet Muhammed’s grandson, Husayn, who was killed during battle, it was known for its drum revelry, consumption of alcohol and rivalry between religions.
“The rum shop men… used to sell a lot of rum, so when these men, … when they drink a lot of rum, sometimes things will go wrong with the drum,” Rhagu said. “A drum skin will burst. And sometime a Hindu or Muslim will say…you know what? Is a sabotage of my drum.” The ensuing fights would sometimes become uncontrollable and the managers banned the Tadjah festival on the sugar estates. But it had already made its way into neighbouring villages that had been bought by former slaves, which sugar estates’ managers had no control over.
“The managers were concerned that the mill keep on grinding and the whistle of the chimney keep blowing to alert the workers that they must be on duty,” he said.
However, the villages apparently could not sustain the festival and it petered out. Perhaps, the actual beating of the drums and the revelry and the location have changed. But the idea of celebrating after hard toil has not.
Rhagu’s phrase, “the mill keep on grinding,” conjured heavy toil and a burdensome existence. The festival was obviously a break from a monotonous life and a place to grind out frustration. The grinding was not directed at the employers who made sugar workers’ life hard, but at their peers. Revenge was often bloody at the Tadjah festival.
“When the fight break out. Is nah gun, is razor does use deh, and when somebody ketch yuh and kyaan beat yuh, dem always a walk with razor in them pocket and when them mek an X pun yuh back with a razor, the thing a bun seriously. The weakest man can damage yuh,” Rhagu said.
Today there are often stories in local newspapers about men in rum shops where violence breaks out and death is the result. The drums might have disappeared but the violence lingers. Some of the violence, he said, stemmed from clashes between those who saw the festival as a place for drinking and merriment and those who saw the activity as sacred. It would be interesting to explore other reasons for the violence and why it occurred at the festival. The lines between past and present are blurred. It might be nostalgia for Rhagu but it feels present.
Interestingly, Rhagu also said the death of the Tadjah festival was a result of the cost to manufacture the Tadjah drums, which were made by Africans. The Tajdah drum is made from hemp rope and goat skin. These materials were hard to procure, according to Rhagu. Today, that is still the case. Goats are not allowed to reach full maturity for their skins, but are killed earlier for their meat, he said.
The drum makers could not be properly compensated and it was not worth the investment. He said men would stay up nights toiling to make drums despite getting nothing in return. They did for love and fulfillment, but this could not sustain them. So, the artistic part of the festival which blended cultures together could not be sustained because of cost.
It is a little disheartening that these drums are not in production anymore. It feels like an entire generation of people will not understand the historical importance of beating that drum, but they surely have grasped the other aspect – alcohol and violence. Manufacturing alcohol is cheaper than making drums, and more economically viable.
Rhagu said the Tadjah was the largest social cohesion festival in Guyana. The Chinese provided the materials. The Africans made and played the drums. The East Indians played and managers from the estates (Europeans) also indulged. The festival was a place to network and meet friends. At the Tadjah festival there was “no racialism,” according to Rhagu. He said that this only came after the split between Burnham and Cheddi. He noted that the festival still occurs in Trinidad; it is called Hosay.
On YouTube, there is a video called “Together: Hosay in Trinidad, a documentary that confirms what Rhagu said. There is footage of Africans and Indians beating drums together. Professor Jerome Telucksingh shares, “… and when those drums start beating, it reminds a lot of people of the slavery days when the slaves also used drums to communicate with other slaves on the plantation.” The Tajdah drums were very similar to the drums used by slaves; it is was easy for them to build and integrate themselves into this festival because of this experience, according to Telucksingh.
It appears that looking to the past can help with our future. Sharing a unifying bond through drums between ethnicities is present, but not common in Guyana today. A merged festival where the drum has infused both cultures is rare. Rhagu believes such a festival can bring about social cohesion. I am skeptical, but there is a glimmer of hope.
A 74-year-old East Indian man still sees a Guyana where unity is possible and is yearning for such an experience. He has restored some hope in me that perhaps it is a possibility. He wants to travel to Mahaica to play with an African drummer named “Bipya.” He has played and performed with her before and recognises her as a fantastic drummer, who used to play the Tassa drum at Maticoors with other African women. Rhagu said Bipya no longer goes out much because of her age.
Rhagu wants to visit Bipya soon. “She will play the drum and I will sing,” he said smiling. Perhaps, when politics divides us and we begin to curse each other about ethnicity we can grab some drums and revel down the street; allow the political elites to squabble and let the grassroots unify through drumming.
I hope to travel with Rhagu to Mahaica and meet Bipya. I need to record their interaction to create a different legacy from the division which is part of the culture. Raghu’s dream of drum fusion for unity is more valuable than the part he will play in the film.
