portofspain chutney is hot and we are not merely talking about grandmas tangy preparations here as it is also a form of music which is making waves everywhere but not all are aware of its indian rootschutney is an uptempo rhythmic song accompanied by the dholak the harmonium and the dhantal originally chutney songs made references to deities and were offensive to religious leaders in recent times the chutney has become extremely popular and new compositions are being writtenwhen indias men in blue visited trinidad and tobago they took back chutney music with them indian singers have adapted chutney music for desi audiences several chutney singers were also part of prime minister basdeo pandays entourage when he visited india in 1996chutney music uses east indian folk tunes movie tunes and even bhajans over a fast calypso or soca based beat today english words are added to the hindi and as the calypso element becomes stronger the music is moving from a melodic eastern core to a more harmonic western basetrinidad and tobago may be the home of chutney music but an important input in its evolution are the bits of bhojpuri which the forefathers of indians here brought with them as migrants from uttar pradesh and bihar when they landed here at fatel rozack on may 30 1845 the process continued with little success till the mid1960s when musicians like sundar popo anand yankaran and sonny mann who in 1995 won the first chutneysoca competition arrived on the scenenow even as the 160th anniversary marking the arrival of indians here is being celebrated by the diaspora there is no doubt that chutney has evolved into an art specifically identifiable with the denizens of this twinisland republicchutney musics roots lie in the emancipation of african slaves across the british empire resulting in huge labour shortages on the sugar plantations of the caribbean namely british guyana suriname and trinidad and tobago over 220000 of them came from eastern uttar pradesh and bihar under a programme of indentured labour says cultural activist and thinker ajeet praimsinghaccording to praimsingh the brutality of the treatment shown to them caused workers to bond together leading to an unprecedented mixing of culture between indians and the localsthe dbhuyaa saaj group recently undertook a monthlong tour to india with performances in delhi bangalore hyderabad pune chennai and kolkata led by praimsingh the initiative brought together the two cultures on issues of globalisation migration and technological changeartistes like surendra ramoutar and rakesh yankaran also performed there as part of the festival of music remembered rhythms using varied musical instruments like the dholak harmonium and steel panthe steel pan created a huge impact on patrons throughout india and this was professionally executed by ramoutar praimsingh recalls originally the instruments used to accompany chutney songsbr