Chimta (musical tongs) performance

This young man, Kamal, is showing his talent playing the Punjabi percussion instrument called "chimta." Chimta is basically a set of large fire-tongs; one still sees such tongs in use all around Punjab. In fact, they are in a way one of the emblematic personal effects of "wandering" mendicants. As such, at some point, such religious mendicants also began to clack their tongs together as they sang their spiritual songs. The more "traditional" usage of simple "chimta" as accompaniment can be still seen in Pakistani Punjab today; watch this video for a similar sample of a Muslim mendicant from Gujarat, India:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2USN_O7wvks

Also check out this popular representation, in which the girl is imploring the guy to "stop playing the chimta anymore," as if to give up his monk-ish existence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyeH1zGy0u4

Another pop culture image, a bit sillier -- "In my hands, I've my lover's chimta; I'm gonna sing a love song":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1o7fqZUzr8

At some point after the 1950s, Indian Punjabis developed the chimta as an "instrument," adding the little jingles to it. These are now purchased in musical instrument shops, even though they etain the form of fire tongs.

The present performance was by an amateur student at the Panjab University zonal Heritage Festival in Chandigarh, 2004. For those unfamiliar, such festivals are a bit like inter-collegiate talent shows. The boy is accompanied by a professional dholi (drummer) whom I happen to know is called Babu Ram and comes from a Bazigar community.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• chimta
• cimta
• punjabi
• percussion
• dhol
• dholi
• tongs
• dance
• bhangra
• heritage
• festival
• chandigarh

[pjyot]

his name is kamal... n the ustaad ji on dhol is bachan ustaad ji from chandigarh.. great guys ...i have done bhangra with this guy n ustaad ji on dhol

[hultonclint]

@pjyot

Thanks, bai! Good to know Kamal's name; I added it to the description. As for the dholi, I thought his name was Babu Ram, and his son was Bachan Ram, but I may have that mixed up! He is a Bazigar from village Fainda, south of Chandigarh.

[hultonclint]

Note: Some of the weird cinematography is explained by the fact that I was studying the drum (dhol) and therefore interested in visually capturing the method and content of play -- I was not expecting to be creating a visually-pleasing video to entertain people on YouTube years later!

[XghostriderrX]

LOL! my co-worker is going to let play on his band tomorrow. how hard is it to play Chimta?

[stateandfederaltaxde]

cool! sea of emotions!

[nonprofitdebtconsoli]

makes us think