Drumming up excitement comes naturally for the brass band of the Kerala police. They provide the beat for parades and all ceremonial functions of the Kerala Police. For the last one week, the city brass band of the Kerala Police has been stepping it up and practising diligently, marching to the beats of the drum played by Benedict Wilson of the band. Today, along with the brass band from Adoor, 19 of them will proudly play the National Anthem for the Independence Day parade at Central Stadium led by band masters S Sivakumar and Biju, sub-inspectors in the Kerala Police. The pipes band from the Special Armed Police will also be participating in the pageantry.
The city brass band of the Kerala Police has been around for more than a century. An unpretentious white board in the no-frills office of the Mounted Police on Kuthiralayam road at Kannettumukku proclaims that the first band master of the brass band was K Chellappan Pillai who served from 1918 to 1937 .
Royal connection
“However, those were the days of the Raj and royalty. The police band as we know it came into being in 1975, the first in Kerala. The Malabar Special Police band was formed later. Twenty-seven of us used to take part in ceremonial functions and passing out parades. However, at present, there are only nine of us in the police brass band in the city,” says Sivakumar, who joined the band in 1987.
Of the eight police bands in Kerala, five are brass bands while three are pipe bands playing the bagpipes. Seven are with the seven battalions of the Armed Police and one is with the AR Camp of the capital city.
“Earlier, we used to play for private functions but now we only perform for official functions of the police and ceremonial functions,” says Sivakumar.
- During the two Arattu processions of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple and the Navaratri procession, when idols from temples in Kanyakumari district travel to Thiruvananthapuram, the brass band accompany the procession and perform at certain pre-decided places. They travel to Suchindram and return along with the procession bearing the idols, stopping and performing at places where the procession halts.
Showing the instruments, all in mint condition and stored in individual boxes, Sivakumar says the band comprises the trumpet, bass drums, kettle drums, euphonium, slide trombones, saxophone, clarinet, marching bass drums and so on. The trumpet is the lead instrument and the musician playing the trumpet cannot afford to be breathless while playing the National Anthem, for instance.
Forty-seven-year-old A Biju, assistant sub-inspector who has been playing the trumpet for the last two decades, says that it has been an honour to be the lead musician. Augustine Y plays the euphonium, which he learnt to play as part of a band near his home town in Kattakkada. “But, we learn to read the notation and play in a band after we join the police. There are specific parts where an instrument is played and so reading the notation becomes important. Once, we join the band, we are taught the marching songs, the general salute and so on,” explains the veteran of 22 years.
A Biju has been playing the trumpet, the lead instrument, for the last two decades
However, 17 vacancies in the city band have not been filled and there are posts vacant in almost all the bands in the Kerala Police. With most of the members in their forties and fifties in the city brass band, soon the band might just be a melodious memory in the history of the city if there are no fresh appointments.
