What does music mean to you?
An excerpt from an interview with Ranjit Kaur, who runs various groups for older Sikh women in Leeds
“Music makes you happy. It’s natural that if you’re happy then happy songs will come from your mouth again and again. If you’re miserable or upset by something then you’ll notice that a Boli or song will never enter your mind or come from your lips. If you’re happy then naturally you will sing. It’s a sign of happiness.”
Do you think the new generation should learn gidha and boliyan the way the previous generations did?
“Definitely. Even if it isn’t the new generation, even people from my generation, people up to the age of 50 or 50+. For example even I cannot dance, because when I was a child my father didn’t allow us. I can’t properly do Gidha. I can join in and stay in the background, but if you were to ask me to start dancing Gidha properly to the Boliyan then I wouldn’t be able to. So I really love the idea to teach my generation and the younger generations how to do this, so the tradition carries on. Otherwise everything is finishing. Now we just put on disco songs. One arm up then one arm down, this isn’t good because when you participate in the traditional Punjabi Boliyan, they have meaning. These days the dance doesn’t have the same meaning, they just move for the sake of it.“