June 29, 1998

A group of housewives use cooking appliances to create elemental music.

By Stephen David

If you saw a band of women pounding 'n' roasting, grating 'n' grinding and sieving 'n' saut ing, you'd certainly think a grand feast was under way. Well, you are right and wrong. It is a feast all right, but a musical one. And if you thought kitchen chores were just too noisy, then listen to this group of enterprising housewives from Bangalore who have discovered music in the mundane process of cooking.

It all started in November 1984 when Sowbhagya Eswariah, chief librarian in the state's Education Department, took part in a unique musical show using kitchenware to produce musical notes. She decided to popularise this innovative music and formed a band called Duditha Miditha, which in Kannada means "toiling and grinding". Since then the 10-member band has been rendering Kannada folk songs using kitchen implements to highly appreciative audiences in India and abroad.

A typical Duditha Miditha concert has instruments ranging from vannake (pounder), manthu (the churn), thuriyudu (grater), kerodu (winnowing fan), kuttani (pestle), jalasu (sieve) and bisodu (grinding stone). An open stove is also used on the stage and the sounds of frying, toasting and roasting are harmoniously blended with the folk songs sung by the singers, most of them artistes and trained musicians with the All India Radio.

The all-female orchestra keeps in mind the event in which it is taking part and churns out thematic numbers accordingly. For example, at the inaugural function of the National Games in Bangalore last year, through their winnowing fans, grinding stones, the pounder and the pestles, they grated and sauteed the theme of national integration and the festival of games. When they staged a performance to mark World Population Day, they fine-tuned their message and songs to highlight the need for population control.

Interestingly, all the women are from the state's Lingayat community and wear saris in their native fashion. The turning point came when they successfully performed at the Karnataka Utsav in Delhi in the presence of the then prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda and then Union human resource development minister S.R. Bommai. Bommai immediately told Eswariah and Leeladevi Prasad, group member and state minister for Kannada and culture, to register with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and helped them with their foreign tours.

The audiences, not surprisingly, have taken to Duditha Miditha's kitchen music in a big way. The reason, says Eswariah, is that "in this age of synthetic music and electronic melodies, audiences seem to identify strongly with the soothing, natural music of wheat being pounded, dal being pushed around a pan, butter being churned, and so on". Says 19-year-old college student Ravi Nagaraj: "I have seen my mother using these appliances, but this is the first time I have heard them being used to make music. I especially like the pounding music,it has good beat." Sandhya Manoharan, 17, an avid Bon Jovi fan, finds the music "delicious". "It's the ultimate in improvisation."

Duditha Miditha's aim is not only to create unique music, but also to put Indian housework in the proper perspective. As Uma Rajulu, a band member, aptly puts it: "A housewife plays so many roles, not just cooking food or looking after the house. She also spreads melody and harmony in an otherwise drab life." Says Prasad: "As part of the troupe you are only trying to project the honourable role that a housewife plays and ought to play. I am a housewife first and only then a minister." In fact, the group prefaces its concert with the Sanskrit verse, Yatra naryaya pujyanthe,tatra ramanthe devathaha (wherever women are worshipped, the gods are present).

In an age of zippy synthesisers and high-decibel drums, it's the ordinary kitchen tools that produce music closer to the soul. So next time, while in the kitchen, how about cooking some music for a change?

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