‘My mother never for a second thought it was an odd thing to do, having a half-Indian child in Ireland in the 1960s’

Working in a boarding school in Dehradun, India, in 2017, Anna Tanvir and Maninder Singh “formed a duo almost immediately” due to the “intensity” of the schedule, teaching the same time table and syllabus every day, and being required to remain on campus six days per week.

“I had concerts lined up in India, but no one to do them with, and we came together to do that,” says Tanvir, explaining how her relationship developed with her now husband, Singh.

The couple make music “connecting different cultures, music and languages”, says Singh.

Singh was born in Dehradun, a town “the foothills of the Himalayas. I lived there all my life before moving to Ireland with Anna,” he says.

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“Dehradun is a valley and it’s similar to where I live in Kilkenny now, because we live so rurally here. It’s culturally similar, too, because the ancient Irish and ancient Indian connections are so closely linked together. I only felt that when I came here.”

I was hidden away in Ireland, and in India, my father never mentioned I was born either. So I was sort of hidden there, too, for totally different reasons. It’s a long and complicated story

—  Anna Tanvir

Singh and Tanvir met in 2017 in his hometown, which Tanvir had “already been familiar with” since 2008.

“My father was a big theatre director in India and known in the western world, too,” she says. “I’d been twice before because whenever I tried to meet up with him, he was travelling with his theatre troupe and would give me a list of places he’d be in.”

Her father, Habib Tanvir, was a well-known Indian playwright, director, poet and actor throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He was best known for the play Charandas Chor, which won him an award at the Edinburgh festival in 1982.

“I met with my father in Dehradun and it was a very beautiful city, very green,” says Tanvir. “You can see the mountain range from anywhere in the town. I kept going back, and later on I made the decision to move there to work in the school, where I met Maninder.”

Tanvir was born in Ireland, to “an unmarried Irish mother, after a sporadic nine-year relationship with my father”.

Her mother was also a musician. “She never for a second thought it was an odd thing to do or to face, having a half-Indian child in Ireland in the ‘60s. Even though she could see the difficulties, she said she was thrilled to bits. She’s extraordinary, she’s incredibly unconventional without trying to be.”

When Tanvir was born, she and her mother were housed by a relative “in an annex of the house, where we had to stay out of view”.

“I was hidden away in Ireland, and in India, my father never mentioned I was born either. So I was sort of hidden there, too, for totally different reasons,” she says. “It’s a long and complicated story.”

Raising Anna on her own, her mother moved to Britain, where she was brought up for most of her life.

“We moved to the UK when I was incredibly young, and I was adopted by a Glaswegian sailor. After my mother divorced him, we had to spend time in Scotland with him because I was legally adopted,” she says.

He brought them to his mother’s home in Glasgow for holidays. “I was the only person of this colour in the area, and it was on a daily basis I was asked where I came from, and told ‘I’ll batter you’, she says, putting on a Scottish accent.

“I had to learn to do it; it was survival,” she jokes of the accent.

In her music – Tanvir sings and plays the harp – she hopes to convey a message about “this challenge in the sense of identity” and about displacement, and nature.

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Singh, a guitarist, has been performing with her for several years now, and is excited about “the many possibilities and opportunities Ireland offers to do theatre, or art, or music, and food as well”.

The couple moved to Ireland during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in summer 2020, and plan to remain here, having recently purchased a “tiny trailer” from which to sell food in Kilkenny, where they live on “a small holding” and rent a little shed.

Tanvir also sells clothes she makes from Irish linen, with Indian designs.

“It’s slow fashion,” says Singh.

Tanvir laughs: “Or just slow not-fashion. Just very, very slow.”

Singh says: “I’m a resident here now and we’ve been sort of tossing between various projects and trying to justify everything in terms of displacement. I haven’t seen my family in a couple of years, but I’m all right. I spent all my life until now in India so it’s fine.

“Being in India, you come across so many cultures that every time you want to relate to them but there is a certain rejection because there are certain majorities of religion.” Singh himself is Sikh. The Sikh population in India is estimated to be about 20 million, or 1.7 per cent of the total population.

“In India, you are exposed to many cultures without travelling much; you’re able to travel in your mind. Coming to Ireland has been fantastic for this too,” he says.

“Just before moving here, we had a whole concert tour with the Irish Embassy in India but we did just one concert before the rest were cancelled because of the pandemic. It’s only this year we’re coming back to music properly.

“We were part of a festival in Carlow. What fun, you know? It was just class. If I was little again and I knew I would end up in Ireland at this stage of my life I wouldn’t have worried so much.”

We walked in and they said ‘there’s two Indians. Here, come and sing with us’. It was just amazing to be so included like that

Indian is one of the fastest-growing communities in Ireland, which Singh says is both “very surprising, but maybe not, too, because Ireland is the place. It’s so accepting and it’s great in many ways, though I’m sure it’s very painful for people trying to find somewhere to live here.”

Tanvir says: “Yes, we’re very lucky we have somewhere to live because we had connections arriving here.”

Singh says he and Tanvir often travel to France together, where Tanvir has “a small wooden home which I built myself years ago”.

Tanvir spent some time living in France before she met Singh, where she “set out to perform only in the most remote places”.

“I felt I had a legacy from my father in some way or other to do something about people living in remote areas. You can’t find tribal people in France but I thought: What can I do that will still link rural remote hidden away pockets of the world with people who are part of a mainstream world?” she says.

“I did sing at big festivals but I didn’t aim for it. I wanted to play at tiny chapels in little villages. And that’s what we want to do in Ireland, too.”

Ireland is a “special” place for artists of all backgrounds, she says, recalling one gig: “We walked in and they said ‘there’s two Indians. Here, come and sing with us’. It was just amazing to be so included like that.”

The couple soon found their home in Kilkenny, and married last September in Killarney, ‘with two witnesses we didn’t know’

Tanvir had been “keen for a long time” to live in Ireland but waited for her kids to be grown up enough to make the move.

They first lived in Carlow in 2020, where they were “completely housed and fed by a cousin”. They had “no income because of lockdown, except for online concerts”.

The couple soon found their home in Kilkenny, and married last September in Killarney, “with two witnesses we didn’t know”, she laughs.

They are looking forward to their next gigs, as part of a project about climate action that is making its way across Ireland’s inland waterways this summer, on a solar-powered boat.

The couple make vegan treats and chai tea for everyone before performing songs in Irish, English, French, Swahili, Hindi and Malagasy at stops the Eco Showboat makes around the country.

One of the Eco Showboat’s stops will be at Windmill Lane, Dublin, in September, which they “are very excited about”, says Tanvir.

We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com or tweet @newtotheparish