Idyllic Kalimpong and its musical tryst with Scottish bagpipes

Mela ground, a public venue for sports in Kalimpong, echoed with roar of applause when the bagpipe band of Kumudini Homes School marched during the 76th independence Day celebration on the ground.

Besides its temperate weather and spectacular landscape, the Bengal hill station is famous for its colourful Independence Day celebrations.

Kumudini band played the tune of Laurhey ko relli mai a classic Nepali song. It was one of the songs that the school band played in Basel Tattoo in Switzerland, where they performed last month.

“We were all excited and wanted to play our best for our friends and families in our home town after the recognition we received from the Tattoo,” said 17-year-old Subham Chettri. A student of class 12, Chettri and his 21-member pipe band team were invited to participate in the Swiss military extravaganza in 2019 but the pandemic was a killjoy. With the international ban on travel, they had to wait for more than two years.

Finally, their wait got over this year in July when they performed in the prestigious event and created history by becoming the only student band and also the only Indian band to participate.

The event which is inspired on the lines of Edinburgh Tattoo in Scotland was a 10-day long festival where global elite military bands participate. This year, the Basel Tattoo hosted about a thousand participants from four continents, including the US Airforce, Band of Her Majesty’s Welsh Guards.

Kumudini band along with the 22 European military bands performed in this year’s anniversary edition.

“Kumudini Home’s Pipe and Drums band was founded in the 1950s but was inactive for many decades, till I joined the school in 2010 and revived it,” said Priyadarshi Lama, assistant teacher of commerce who took the initiative to lead the school team in Basel.

“This quaint hill station has many government and private schools and most educational institutes have their bagpipes and drum band. Unlike Kumudini which is an all-boys government school, there are many all-girls pipe bands too. Students of these bagpipe bands practised throughout the year to participate in the interschool band competition held on 16 August at the ground,” says Sanjay Diyali, owner of Kodak Studio.

The iconic photo studio of Kalimpong has visually captured the town’s history in black and white in the past and now in colour prints. The studio has been covering the Independence Day parades since 1947.

So how did the people of this tiny district of Bengal fall in love with the national instrument of Scotland?

Kalimpong saw its first Scot in William Mac Farlen who was sent by the Church of Scotland for evangelical work in 1873. A few years later with the help of the church, a missionary association of four Scottish Universities was formed to help him set up schools in the Darjeeling Hills. In 1886, he established the Scottish Universities Mission Institution (SUMI) in Kalimpong, a school which is one of the oldest all-boys schools in the town. A few meters away from the campus lies the beautiful neo-gothic-styled Macfarlane Church built in memory of the reverend.

The church towers loom high in Kalimpong and are one of the most distinctive features of its skyline. It is a major tourist attraction, it’s Insta-worthy architecture with the backdrop of the hills is a visual delight. These days, it has also become the town’s favourite destination for pre-wedding photography.

“We established our bagpipe and drums band in 1999,” said Sanjay Rai, teacher and the man behind the formation of SUMI’s pipe band. Further speaking on the town’s bagpipe band history, Rai said, “Dr Graham’s Homes was the first to start a bagpipe band in the 1900s followed by Kumudini Homes in the 1950s.” He added, “Mary Scott Home and School for blind also started their pipe band in the 50s. Though the pipe bands of these schools started very early, they all remained limited to their school functions. It was SUMI to bring out the bagpipe and drums band where students wore kilts, the traditional Scottish dress in the Independence Day celebration of 1999.”

The hill station also became home to two Scots John Anderson Graham and his wife Katherine Graham who started St Andrew’s Colonial Homes in 1900 a school which later came to be known as Dr Graham’s Homes. One of the biggest schools in the town, it was started to provide education and shelter to abandoned children largely born of European fathers and Indian mothers. The beautiful school campus with students’ hostels called Cottages still draw students from many Southeast Asian countries.

Kalimpong’s bagpiping history will not be complete if Richard Sprigg’s love for the instrument is not mentioned.

On many occasions, the Scotsman was heard playing his bagpipes in the evenings from his house near the Dr Graham Homes campus and from the Himalayan hotel, where he stayed for a long time. Besides his love for the instrument, Sripggs was considered to be a walking encyclopedia of the town’s culture. A polyglot, and a former professor of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

“With our success in Basel many young students from the school are showing interest to join the band,” Lama said.  Scottish Society of Kalimpong is a club which Lama started in 2019 to promote the piping culture in the hills where anyone can learn the instrument and jam together irrespective of school or age. With only 11 members now, I’m hopeful it will grow gradually, He added.

The sound of the bagpipes will continue to echo in this pleasantly old-fashioned town.

Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,
India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.