Buffalo soldiers

Mona

Frenchmen Xavier Machault, Roberto Negro and Pierre Dodet are in Chandigarh with their theatre-concert. Some music, lots of songs and drama in between, these three — Xavier, a singer-author, Roberto, a pianist- composer and Pierre, actor-author, weave the music and narrative to bring out a number of themes.

“We tell fictional stories,” opens up Roberto trying to explain their act that’s been called ‘special theatre experiment, fresh and surprising’ by a popular French cultural magazine. “I disagree with him, we tell realistic stories too,” quips Xavier. However, together they introduce humour, make the trees sing and touch upon emotions like love, under the banner called ‘Buffle!’, which means ‘buffaloes’.

Why buffaloes? The cheery trio tries to explain once again. “We did research for months. In the final list Buffle! somehow figured. Surprisingly it clicked with Xavier and Pierre for it sounded good,” says Roberto. “We don’t have many buffaloes back home,” starts Xavier, adding, “We thought they are the most gracious bovine with chic hairstyle, at least the Google buffaloes do, even if not the real ones we have seen here.” Well, the name stuck! These artistes are presenting their show called “We would like to tell you everything but we might not have enough time and, there won’t have the space for that,” …yes, that’s the name in English for their Indian audience with a dose of French songs. They have adapted the show to suit the people in India but they are sure post their India gig, their show wouldn’t be the same back home.

First time in India, they are baffled by its diversity. “Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore, Chennai and now Chandigarh, each is so strikingly different from another,” offers Pierre. Their favourite? Roberto would stick to Chandigarh. And, yes, he is not partial to the city which was designed by French architect Le Corbusier.

“He was almost Swiss (he was Swiss born),” points out Xavier who fell in love with Hyderabad.

Not much tuned into Indian music, yes, they listened to Ravi Shankar back home, and here in India, Xavier was impressed with Amjad Ali Khan and his sons. Roberto, however, loved the music by ‘something’ Khan in a gypsy village in Rajasthan! “I met so many Khans, is that a surname?” he enquires.

Recent Charlie Hebdo episode has left them shaken. In fact, a day prior, Roberto was in home with Pierre, some 300 metres away from the site in Paris, “That we were shocked is an understatement,” says Roberto. “We couldn’t believe that this happened. After all they just made some drawings. Such a thing was unexpected in our country that hails a strong satire tradition,” adds Xavier. “But what followed was exemplary. People stood united no more divided by political identity. It was the biggest demonstration post war in 1945 and was totally peaceful,” puts in Pierre.

Together, these fine artistes are going to be putting up their show on Friday at Alliance Française, Chandigarh at 6:30 pm. Contrary to their doubts, they have got a rousing response to their performances in India, and aiming to achieve that in City Beautiful too!

mona@tribunemail.com