Rajee Sawhney is supported in her wheelchair by cushions. She wears a shawl over her nightgown, her feet are in thick socks. Her skin is all fine wrinkles, her head sags a little, her arms are thin, hands and fingers stiff. She seems at first sight to be not quite there.
Look a little closer, and you see her eyes following the lines in a songbook a young woman is holding between them; her lips move, almost imperceptibly, as do her hands, to the beat. When the other senior citizens, arrayed in a crescent at one tip of which she sits, raise their arms in response to the conductor’s directions, her arms rise slowly, and then drop in response to the next instruction.
Aunty Rajee, as the staff call her, is in her 70s, and a part of The Choir of the Loaves and Fish at Holy Spirit Home in Bannerghatta.
In the airy dining hall where they are rehearsing on this nippy morning, the singers range in age from 65 to 95. Some sing strongly (and some confidently off-key), others murmur the lyrics, but their eyes are keen, darting between songbook and conductor. They are just a few days away from their Christmas concert.
Pervin Varma, the choir conductor, is 52, but aside from the streaks of white in her hair, shows no other concessions to time. She has decades in the development sector behind her — she is a former CEO of CRY, and serves on its board, and is also associated with several non-profits — with most of her work having something to do with children. Senior citizen welfare was not one of her many worlds, though.
That changed when a beloved uncle and aunt moved into this home. Being part of a musical family, and a singer in choirs and bands herself, the natural thing to do was to go visit them and sing with them. This expanded to regular singsongs with the residents, which segued into what at that time seemed to be an audacious dream: What if they formed a choir; one that would sing for others, in other venues, and who knows, maybe even at St. Mark’s Cathedral?
And so the choir learned a set of carols and hymns, and with several of Pervin’s musician friends joining in to accompany them, performed their first Christmas concert in December 2012.
A few days later, one of the most enthusiastic members, an aunt of a close friend of Pervin’s, passed away. She learnt then that despite the lady’s infectious vitality, she had been seriously ill; it seemed like she had held on just for that concert, like it had given her a reason to fight, to live. Pervin decided then that the choir would be a regular thing, with weekly practices; and, rather than wait until the next Christmas, they decided to do a second concert on Independence Day with a secular song list.
Dreams and a future
Pervin remembers one member saying that dreams and a future were for the young, and how she is delighted to see how now the members look forward to the weekly practise sessions and the concerts. Since then, aside from what have now become their two regular concerts, the choir has also performed at a conference, at another senior citizens’ facility, and in a church. Transport was a logistics nightmare, but as she says, the choir thoroughly enjoyed the adulation: “They were all such divas!”
One saddening element — “I should have known, but didn’t foresee it” — was that inevitably, members would die. She points to the credits in the souvenir songbook: “Their names now outnumber the choir,” she says, misty-eyed. But death is not mentioned much in their sessions, she says. “They don’t need reminders of their mortality; they need reminders of how precious life is, how special they are.”
Does she see herself doing this for a long time? She laughs. “I remember telling my uncle [now deceased] to bequeath his room to the family and we would all come here one by one.” More seriously, she adds, “What I hope is that this inspires other people to do things like this in their communities. That is, not just visit and entertain the old — though that is valuable too — but also do things that involve them participating, that kindle hopes and possibilities.”
Who knows, maybe even a performance at St. Mark’s?
Follow the choir at facebook.com/ChoirOfTheLoavesAndFish
