Band Baja Barat in Kumaon

Martial music creates a unique bridge where music and annihilation meet . Men's wars it seems, are not complete without music adding to the excitement.
Before the British came, our native kings and princes also went to war routinely accompanied by a posse of royal drummers and trumpet players . As empires became bigger and so also the wars and what they won for the winning side, dancing girls and singers were also added to the music producing groups. The British, as they raised native armies in India, frowned on the debatable inclusion of courtesans and hermaphrodites in the Queen's army . So a large number of musicians and dancing girls were sent packing .
Almora in Kumaon still has a village Naikyana where some of the Nayikas ( courtesans) are said to have settled after the Moghul and Rajput armies were defeated and fled to the countryside. The women in Niakyana as I was growing up looked different from the local women with their tall and lissome bodies, their acquiline noses . They drank and smoked and the young men in the surrounding areas were frequently seen loitering around Naikyana .
The British in post 1857 India built churches, started schools and introduced brass bands and bagpipers that played British martial tunes as they marched with the regiments on all ceremonial occasions, resplendent in red and gold briaded gear. Almost a hundred years ago (by 1918 to be precise), all units of the Indian Army, including the ones in Kumaon,  had acquired their own brass bands .
The British regime not only disbanded the musicians, but also the makers of arms patronised for centuries by the native rulers . Most of them were Muslims and sought refuge in the northern areas close to Delhi and the foothills of the Himalayan region where Rohilla Pathans had vast tracts of land. Then they set about reinventing themselves by using their considerable metallurgical skills to manufacture finished goods items for civilians . These ranged from scissors and padlocks to  brass band components. Slowly, as their militaristic displays became fewer and further between, the brass bands began to offer their services for a price, for joyous occasions like weddings, the birth of a son and last but not the least, funerals of centenarians who had enjoyed a full life.
On the eve of India's Independence, one Sagir Ahmed of Nagla village in Bijnaur in the Terai region happened to marry a girl from the Pithoragarh district in the Kumaon hills . He was a trained clarinet player and when he moved to Haldwani to enable his wife to visit her family more easily, he formed a brass band group and named it after their first born Altaf . Thus the famous Altaf band of Kumaon, without which no wedding procession was considered elitist enough.
Till Altaf band was born the well to do families in the hills were in the habit of hiring the local trumpet players , drummers and players of a version of bagpipes known as Mashaq Been .Marching with wedding processions in the hills was much more stressful than marching in the plains with an army . The usual rates for the bands ranged from Rs 2 to Rs 25 per person . But when invited to play with wedding processions in the hills, the rates were hiked considerably as processions moved on foot on unpaved roads and had to climb up steep hills to reach their destination . It was during one such event that Altaf Master is said to have collapsed with a massive heart attack .
After Altaf his younger brother Talib Husein created the Azad Band . The members of this group met in the orchards facing  the local Zenana hospital to practice new ditties, mostly from Hindi films that were becoming a rage. My brothers and I rolled on floors when we heard the band playing a rather unsuitable film song when accompanying a new bride going to her father in law's house with her groom : Hum aaj apni maut ka samaan le chaley ! ( Today we carry that which shall destroy us !).
By the late 70s, the police and army bands were much sought after by government officials to celebrate family weddings. I remember being awed by the sight of the tall band master from the police lines twirling his baton on 15th August in the Raj Bhawan premises . Master Ram Singh, from the Ranikhet Paltan and his pet ram that accompanied him to Nainital each summer to play before the tourists under a gazebo, became a household name. As the gifted Ram Singh got his team to play popular songs along with age old Kumaoni hits like 'Bedu Pako Baraomasa Kaafal pako Chaita meri Chhaila !' ( The Bedu fruits ripen all year long my love, but the delicate Kaafal berries can be picked only in spring time )  his ram danced and sent us in raptures . It ended always in dizzying rounds of applause.
It was Ram Singh who introduced the Kumaoni folk ditties in the permanent repertoire of India's army bands . During Beating the Retreat ceremonial each January, one is moved to tears to hear the band play Master Ram Singh's creations as the lights come up on the Presidential palace and the surrounding buildings and army bands retreat gently back to their barracks .