Thiruvananthapuram: What business does a ‘dhol’ have in a Malayali wedding reception? Some time ago, Jatinder Nath, a ‘dhol’ player from Amritsar, would not have been able to answer that. But now, the 25-year-old is quite used to working up a crescendo, at the entrance of wedding halls in Kerala.
A ‘dhol’ player at a Punjabi restaurant in Thiruvananthapuram, now he has been as far as Palakkad to play his 'dhol' at wedding parties. He does it even if there is little inspiration around. For instance, neither the ‘mundu’ nor silk saris are cut out for a Bhangra. Then there are old ladies who frown at the ‘noise’.
Rarely, there are encouraging situations. “But at a wedding in Aluva, everyone broke out into a dance,” he says. He came to the capital city two years ago with eleven other Punjabi friends carrying his ‘dhol’, to be part of this restaurant project. That was in November. Some months later, many returned to their home towns, as they found it difficult to cope with the rising temperatures.
But Jatinder has been coping with homesickness. Despite working in a Punjabi restaurant, he gets to eat only idlis and dosas. To drive away the blues, he watches Punjabi comedy movies on the phone. “Those are way better than the Hindi comedy movies,” he says.
Another thing that he sorely misses is the money his ‘dhol’ earns during the wedding season. “It can go anywhere from Rs 2000 to Rs 10,000 every day between the months of November and March,” he says. But here, it is only on his off days that he gets to earn some extra income. His biggest dream is to travel by flight. “I don’t know when it will come true,” he says. His restaurant owner has promised to take him to the Middle East, if they ever open an outlet there.
