Why a Welsh choir learnt a Hindi song from the students of a Mumbai municipal school

On the afternoon of January 13, the rooftop terrace of Shindewadi Municipal School in Mumbai rang with melodies from an unusual singing lesson. The teachers were a group of 20 secondary school girls, and their students, a band of nine professional Welsh singers, were trying to memorise the lyrics of the Hindi song Yaaron, Dosti from the 1999 film Rockford.

After 15 minutes of dedicated practice, the nine members of Only Men Aloud, an acclaimed men’s choir from Wales, grouped around the girls for an informal joint performance, following by a burst of cheers and laughter. For the Shindewadi girls, this cultural and musical exchange was the first day of a week of singing workshops with Only Men Aloud.

“We learnt a Welsh song earlier in the day, and even though it is a very different language, they way they taught us made it very easy,” said Mitali Sakaria, a 14-year-old Class 9 student from the Shindewadi school, which is run by the educational non-profit Akanksha.

Sakaria is now looking forward to performing with Only Men Aloud on the evening of January 20, at a special collaborative concert that will be staged in the grounds outside the school.

Bringing music to the marginalised

Sakaria and her teammates, all from classes five to nine, are a part of a unique children’s choir run by Songbound, a British non-profit that teaches music to marginalised children in India. Most of the students of Shindewadi school, for instance, are children of sanitation workers in central Mumbai.

Since it was founded in 2012, Songbound has collaborated with municipal schools and NGOs in Mumbai and Bengaluru to set up 18 choirs, where children are given weekly singing lessons in a variety of musical genres and languages.

For the students, signing up for extra-curricular Songbound classes is optional but free.

“We work with children from difficult socio-economic backgrounds, including children of migrant workers and sex workers,” said Maureen Pereira, the operations manager of Songbound Mumbai. “Since many of the children don’t speak English, our syllabus includes a mix of songs in Hindi, English, African, Caribbean and other world languages.”

At least twice a year, Songbound brings international musicians from different countries to visit India and conduct workshops with their choirs. “In my four years with the Songbound choir, we have had many bands from the UK and one from Greece,” said Sakaria, who has grown to love singing, music and the exposure she gets to foreign cultures. “This is the first time I learnt about Wales.”

Transformative power

While this is also the first time that Only Men Aloud have visited India, the Welsh choir is familiar with Songbound’s model of bringing the transformative power of music to the lives of marginalised children.

“Back in Wales, we have set up 14 amateur choirs, called Only Boys Aloud, for 13- to 19-year-old boys from diverse backgrounds,” said Tim Rhys Evans, the choir leader who founded Only Men Aloud in 2000 to reinvent the Welsh tradition of choir music. “Around 250 boys are members of these junior choirs and since many of them come from difficult homes, we use singing to inspire them to feel good about themselves.”

In the past 16 years, Only Men Aloud has been singing everything from Welsh folksongs and a-cappella to opera, pop and multi-lingual world music. The choir has sold more than 300,000 records internationally, and in 2012, performed at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.

On January 20, the nine members of Only Men Aloud will stage their first performance in India, with the girls of Shindewadi’s Songbound choir. For the concert, both choirs will sing a new song specially composed for the occasion.

For children like Sakaria, learning music through Songbound has led to a boost in self-confidence and ambition. “They find this to be a happy space where they can leave their other problems behind and have fun,” said Pereira.