Punjab is located in the North region of India, translated Punjab means the “Land of Five Rivers”, and Punjabi is the language spoken by people of Punjab. Gurdas Maan is a Punjabi singer, songwriter, choreographer, and actor. He was born to S. Gurdev Singh and Tej Kaur, in a village by the name of Giddarbaha, in distt. Faridkot in Punjab, on January 4, 1957.
Gurdas is married to Manjeet, a film producer, they have one son Gurik who after completing schooling in Yadavindra Public School, Patiala went onto study at Eton College in Eton, Berkshire.
In 1980 the song "Dil Da Mamala Hai" bought him into limelight on a national scale. Starting a career as an individual performing at college functions, today, he is a global star with fans worldwide also considered to be the heart of Punjab.
In a recent interview he states:
“I can’t exactly define how I create a number. It could be the humming of a bee, the mill siren or a rankling motor part in a vehicle — I get inspired by the rhythm and the song is born.”
The question can be raised:
How has he managed to become such a powerful vocalist without any training in music?
education. During his time here, he received a number of medals for athletic events and became a black belt holder in judo.
Like other countries, India celebrates many festivals, through events are organised by universities, schools, temples etc. Gurdas Maan would himself par take in the university events, giving him an opportunity to write plays, and then displaying them through acting, singing, and dancing. After completing his masters degree, he continued to write and act, while trying to find employment.
A Jalandhar TV station producer heard “Dil Da Mamla Hai” one of Gurdas Maan song’s and approached him with a view to record and release the song for the television station. The song went on air 31st December 1980, and was an instant hit and Gurdas Maan became a national star.
1980s
"Dil Da Mamla Hai" was seen by a producer of a Jalandhar TV station, the producer who thought the song to have potential approached Gurdas Maan with a proposition for a TV performance of the song to which Gurdas Maan agreed. When the song was aired on December 31, 1980 it gained national attention and Gurdas Maan became a national figure.
During his early career he also wrote and directed TV programs such as POP Time for the DoorDarshan Network in Delhi.
1990s and 2000s
Gurdas Maan is often credited with raising Bhangra music from a regional level mostly in the Punjab to gain international recognition. Since then he has recorded over 27 albums and written over 200 songs, from a singer, writer, he has become an actor starring in numerous films.
As an actor Gurdas Maan as starred along side Bollywood ‘A’ lister actors such as Sharuh Khan, Preity Zinta, Juhi Chawla, Om Puri, Gulshan Grover to name a few. He has also been fortunate to work with Indian music directors Laxmikant Pyarelal, Bappi Lahiri, Anu Malik, Nadeem Sharvan, Amar Haidipur, Charanjeet Ahuja, and Jaswant Bhanyra .
During his career Gurdas Maan has received numerous awards. While Gurdas Maan was performing in concert in Toronto, the writer of the track ‘Apna Panjab’ reportedly handed a copy of the song to Gurdas Maan. He performed it on the spot, much to the audiences’ delight. Following that Gurdas added a final verse to the song and released it as part of one his albums . Here in the UK, Gurdas Maan and the song 'Apna Panjab' received the 'Best Song', 'Best Album' and 'Best International Artist' at the Asian Pop and Media Awards held in Birmingham in 1998.
In India, awards have recognised his singing and acting skills. Gurdas Maan was awarded ‘Best Actor ‘ in the Punjabi film ‘Des Ho Yaa Pardes (2005)’, more recently, ‘The 54th National Film Awards 2006, awarded him ‘Best Male Playback Singer’ for the film Waris Shah.
Ask any British Indian whether they have heard of Gurdas Maan and they will tell you about the first live Gurdas Maan gig they attended in some remote Northern town (‘yeah, he wasn’t a big star way back then’). Then they will inevitably launch into an informed monologue on the relative merits of their favourite Maan track as compared to those that achieved greater commercial success. To those with Punjabi roots he is a brand, a phenomenon that has shaped their cultural identity in as fundamental a way as the Bollywood film.
Gurdas Maan embodied the quintessential traits of the Punjabi folk genre: simply attired, with very basic musical accompaniment but principally reliant on power of voice and lyric.
Back in the early Eighties Gurdas Maan wasn’t the only new desi thing: a new genre of Punjabi bands like Alaap, Heera, and Apna Sangeet appeared at about the same time. These bands introduced a modern take on Punjabi music and in essence they were the forerunners of what was later to become known as ‘Bhangra’. Retaining the beats and rhythms of the traditional Punjabi format they grafted on a little of the electronic synthesised sound of New Wave bands seen on Top of the Pops each Thursday night. Gurdas Maan, in contrast, retained his hardcore traditional folk roots. Whilst mention at home of a bhangra gig was invariably met by severe resistance (“there will be fights… drunk people… lafanghe”) a Gurdas Maan gig was different. You could take your granny.
All British Indians have a dual persona: there is the Western one that exists outside of the home, the shopkeeper, the professional, the businessman, but inside the home the traditional Indian values prevail. These values were inherited from the first migrants who arrived in Britain in three distinct phases. Following WW2 ex-servicemen were invited to fill post-war labour shortages. A second wave of economic migrants arrived from the sub-continent in the Sixties and were followed by a large influx from East Africa in the early Seventies. All of these groups bought with them highly conservative values that endured well into the Nineties. As young British Indians seeking their own identity in this country the early works of Gurdas Maan had a profound influence. Just as UB40 and the Ska
revival had given an identity and voice to disenfranchised youth in the inner cities, young British Indians seeking to find a middle way between their stifling indigenous culture and the more westernised, liberal ways of their adopted land found an unlikely ally in Gurdas Maan. Although his songs were wholly traditional and appealed to the older generation, he was also talking about change. In his album Dil Saaf Hona Chahida (1982) the title track put the boot into new westernised ways of the young Indian generation but ultimately preached tolerance: don’t worry about all these secondary things so long as they are clear of heart. Now that struck a chord. Change was taking place in India as well and our cousins in India were going through the same thing!
In his 1984 track O Ki Banu Duniya Da Gurdas Maan captured the lament of all elders, over here and in India, seeking to hold onto the old ways. His lyrics articulated their fear of the degradation of society as the profligate ways of the young took hold: Bapu phire khetan vich nakke morrh da, munda parrhe college dakka ni torrh da; a classic rebuke to the youth, clearly more interested in idling about at college than rolling up their sleeves and doing hard graft. Gurdas Maan captured this sentiment perfectly. And as the profligates over here acknowledged, the older generation indeed had an unparalleled capacity for hard work, but it was no longer the khet in which they toiled, but on the factory floor.
Gurdas Maan’s Punjabi, richly suffused with the poetry of Sufi saints, harks back to literary traditions of a bygone Punjab. It pre-dates the 1947 partitioning of the Punjab, when separate Muslim and Sikh States were created. His work has widespread appeal, not only to Indians but to Pakistani Punjabis too. He is almost unique in this respect: no other artist from that part of the world, with the exception of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, has managed to transcend boundaries of state, religion, caste and creed to the same degree. Like Bob Dylan, another enduring folk hero, he borrowed from both sides of the divide - be it civil rights, religious intolerance, caste differentiation - and demonstrated that there is a wider common influence which unites us all, in spite of the creation of self-imposed, hatred-fuelling frontiers.
Over the last 30 years, Gurdas Maan has brought philosophical insight, provided social and literary exposition of Punjabi culture, awakened long-forgotten traditions, captured and to many, defined, what it is to be a Punjabi. He has helped forge the identity of millions of Punjabis all over the world. He is a true Punjabi Icon.
Gurdas Maan single-handedly pulls in thousands of people at the above venues, in contrast to major Bollwood ‘A-Lister’ actors performing as part of a huge star cast, whom can only manage a fraction of the audience. A recent such show which took place at Wembley Arena highlighted this fact, and furthermore, subsequent UK and Europe shows were cancelled as a result of poor audience attendance.
Gurdas Maan completes his UK tour, and continues to tour the globe, performing at sell-out concerts.
Ask Gurdas Maan how he started out, he stated:
"I kept walking and the roads kept opening up”
and so he continues.
References:
Gurdas Maan Official website
Wikipedia Gurdas Maan
Geetika Sasan Bhandari and Nikita Singh “India Today”
