KIRTANKAR Junior Michael Chand Mahabir is one of the upcoming kirtan artists on the local scene with his back to back award winning albums.
The 21-year-old who is a true Nasinu kid at heart, first broke onto the scene with his debut album in 2012.
Mahabir’s prowess as a kirtankar was easily recognised by Hindi radio station Radio Sargam when he was named at the Best Newcomer following the release of his debut album.
Last year he released his second album called Nav Ratri Shub Ayi, and again Sargam named the album as the Best Tamil Kirtan.
However, Tamil is not Mahabir’s native tongue but it is one in which he sings and actually sounds fluent enough in to make people think it’s his first language.
The Tamil language is spoken in Southern India, Sri Lanka and even in the predominantly Asian countries of Singapore and Malaysia.
“I only sing Tamil I don’t speak it a lot. I just learnt the language from my brother and my grandfather,” he said.
Kirtan is a traditional form of Indian music that was brought to Fiji by the indentured labourers and has survived ever since.
It has a call-and-response chant lyrical expression usually accompanied by instruments like harmonium, tabla, the two-headed drums or pakawaj and hand cymbals or karatala.
Lyric for this type of music usually covers religious, mythological and social subjects and modern day kirtankar usually do battles, using the traditional call and response chat expression.
Mahabir’s journey to become one of Fiji’s best upcoming kirtan talent began six years ago when his uncle and namesake was one of the top kirtankar.
“He is my guru,” Mahabir proudly said. “I used to follow him around when I was little whenever he goes to sing. I was just 13 years old and I just love to sing. Singing is my hobby,” Mahabir said.
In fact he took up the name Junior as part of his stage name as a tribute to his guru.
In his novice years he used to learn a lot from his uncle and brother, Vishan Singh Veer, who is also a kirtankar.
“In fact I would like to thank my big brother for helping me with my music and all the members of my group who support me well,” Mahabir said.
He plays the harmonium and is the lead vocal for his group, something he has been practising since he was that 13-year-old following his uncle and guru around.
His Kirtan band consists of Roneel and Shivneel Prasad, Henry and Wilson Chand and Sanjay Mani. The six have entered into kirtan battles with other kirtankar in Fiji.
Mahabir still remembers his first competition where he had to battle the seasoned Jaynesh Sewak but soon got over his rookie jitters to do battles with other kirtankar like Salen Pinky and Nitin Nilesh among others.
“It is something that you can do, where nobody wins anything. Its, it’s just for entertainment to make the public enjoy the performance put up by the artists,” Mahabir said.
He follows the music of other kirtanka from India as inspiration and has gone a step further by drawing inspiration from contemporary Hindi songs and playback artists in order to make his own tunes for his songs.
“It is just a matter of learning and plenty of practice for me when it comes to perfecting my tunes or whenever I get the band together,” Mahabir said.
He is now working at Procera Music where he immerses himself with music of all genres, especially the local genre of iTaukei music as well as English tunes.
He has no plans so far to do another recording but is really happy with Radio for Radio Sargam for recognising his talent.
“Because of t hem we’re going up on the radio, not only me but every artist is getting famous because of Radio Sargam,” Mahabir said.
