Profile : Urban Dholi
The dance studio was bristling with anticipation. The room filled with the sounds of the excited whispers from dancers shuffling inside and the swelling of egos as we positioned ourselves around the room in our best “athleisure” trying to prove to everyone that we were the one to watch out for in these classes. Suddenly, a bang of the dhol drum cut through the chatter in the room like a hot knife on butter. The deep, resonating boom of the instrument commanded the attention of every dancer in the room. All heads turned to the front where a woman stood against the wall dressed in Calvin Klein joggers and a BFunk sweatshirt, the thirty-pound instrument slung across her body, and a decorative dhol beater dangling from each hand. She smiled at our astonishment and swung the dhol beater in the air and slammed them on the ends of the drum once more creating another resounding boom. The DJ behind her took that as a signal and cued the song that we would be dancing to for the next ninety minutes. Once the tempo of the song kicked in, Malinder Tooray swung her dhol beaters and let out a stream of rhythmed beats that danced along with the melody. The room exploded with cheers and the tangible competitiveness began to slip away. The feeling of the dhol’s vibrations in my blood and the adrenaline it sent rippling through my body is not one that is easily forgettable.
That feeling was all I could think about while sitting down with Malinder in a cozy, dimly-lit hookah lounge a few hours later. We were sitting across from each other on soft, velvet couches as the radio’s Top 40’s wafted from the speakers. I was quiet, nervously eating pita chips with hummus and watching her pull from the wiry, ornate pipe. As she released stream of thick, scented vapor, the pipe slipped and I caught a wince as it knocked against one of the many calluses on her palms. “You’d think that after holding a dhol for almost twenty years, my hands would be used to it” she said almost to herself. Her passion for the instrument comes across so clearly on her face whenever the dhol is mentioned. “It’s a gift that someone left for me, whether they knew it or not” she says.
Reminiscing back to her thirteen year old self, Malinder recalls coming across this three-foot drum sitting in the living room of her childhood home in Los Angeles. Her uncle had brought it when his family came to visit and had mistakenly left it behind. Malinder found herself banging on the drum constantly up until her father couldn’t take being woken up by her for the third night in a row. From that moment on, Malinder began her training as dholis’ (dhol players) and embarked on a journey that would essentially change the way that Indian-American culture would be perceived in the coming years.
Taking another pull from the hookah pipe, Malinder explains that her journey into becoming a dholi was a very unconventional one. Traditionally, a dhol is considered to be a very masculine instrument, almost always played by large Punjabi men. Malinder gestures to herself and cocks her head, making sure the irony is clear. However, this cultural norm never seemed to be an issue for Malinder’s parents. Her parents are musicians so growing up listening to Bollywood and Bhangra music was the standard in Malinder’s family. “I had always heard the dhol in recordings,” she says, “but once I played live for the first time, it was like something had broken open in myself”. By the time she turned fourteen, Malinder and her siblings were already performing at local bars and clubs in the Los Angeles area and were beginning to carve out a significant reputation for themselves.
It wasn’t until a few years later that Malinder discovered which cultural norms meant more to her family than others. Coming out to her family as a queer brown woman, proved to be one of Malinder’s biggest obstacles. “I came out in the worst possible way,” she sighed through a bite of pita and hummus, “and it caused a serious rift between me and my parents for the longest time”. But she doesn’t regret the way she opened up to her parents. She claims that at the end of the day, love is love and there’s no point in hiding who you are from the people that are closest to you.
However, it’s incredibly clear that these social stigmas haven’t slowed this dholi down in her artistry or career. Malinder’s unique identity has catapulted her to the forefront of the South Asian music scene in Los Angeles. Making headlines as the first LGBTQ female-identifying dholi in North America, she is paving the way for the future of all up and coming Indian-American artists. Malinder is one example of a recent trend of Indian-American individuals embracing their dual identities in an integrated way.
These individuals refer to themselves as urban desi, a term that has rapidly gained popularity and is on its way to replace the traditional ‘Indian-American’ nomenclature. Along with other celebrities like Youtuber Lilly Singh aka Superwoman, musicians like M.I.A and Mickey Singh, and artists like Babbu the Painter, Malinder showcases a side of Indian-American artistry that is to its core so different from the conventional idea that many Indians are used to.
“I remember meeting Mickey on set of Urban Desi!” she exclaims, leaning forward to grab the smoking pipe once more. Singh’s music video, titled with this new nomenclature, was essentially a mixtape of songs by Indian-Americans and traditional Punjabi songs with video features of popular South Asian dancers, artists, and actors. Malinder raves about the sheer number of creatives that she was able to collaborate with after participating in that project. One of the collaborators that I recognized were the two founders of the famous dance organization BFunk (Bhangra/Bollywood Funk) which has gained massive recognition in the past two years as a symbol of urban desi as it combines traditional South Asian dance elements with hip-hop, contemporary, and other modern styles of dance. Malinder attends these classes frequently, not as a dancer, but with her dhol to accompany the songs that BFunk founders, Shivani Bhagwan and Chaya Kumar, teach on a biweekly basis.
Many students claim that the experience is similar to being at a live concert. BFunk dancer, Gagan Singh says, “You can physically feel the bass which drops you right into the music. There’s such a difference between the music just coming from the speaker and when the dholi is playing in the room with you”. The difference is incredibly palpable. The second that Malinder brings out the dhol, the energy in the room lifts. People begin smiling and the nervousness of being in front of a camera or dancing in front of groups of people that are unfamiliar disappear.
“I feel like I’m a doctor or some shit,” Malinder says in response to Gagan, “The minute people hear the dhol they go crazy!”. She claims that playing the dhol to songs that are relevant and more recognizable to a millenial population, the cultural significance is beginning to return to the instrument. She vehemently states that the sole purpose of the drum is to bring the energy of communities together.
Historically, the dhol regained significance post-Partition between India and Pakistan, but did so in terms of cultural entertainment and pride. Malinder explained that the dhol was used in villages to gather the people together and was frequently played to relieve community tensions. However, it was only until recently that the dhol made its way back into popular culture. Utilizing the instrument as a way to connect highly Americanized individuals to their cultural roots is exactly what being a bicultural symbol means to Malinder. It’s not about forcing the culture on anyone. It’s about introducing a lost art form back into society with music that doesn’t have to be Indian by any means.
Relaxing back into the soft, velvet couches, Malinder talks about how well urban desi has caught on as a trend. She mentions that one of her favorite BFunk classes was when they asked her to come play dhol for the viral hip-hop song ‘Mo Bamba’ earlier this year. “Who would have thought fifty years ago that Bhangra and hip-hop could co-exist,” she said, “It’s a movement. The bicultural dance workshops, the bicultural fashion styles that are emerging, the bicultural music. It’s all a big South Asian movement. And it’s about fucking time”.
It is about time. This urban desi title has given South Asians an opportunity to forgo the stereotypical norms of what it means to be an Indian-American living in America. It has opened up opportunities to take parts of South Asian and American culture and represent them in a way that feels authentic and allows for the same sense of familiarity. Malinder is just one woman opening the doors for the South Asian community but she is setting the standard for all urban desi that will follow in her footsteps.