We’ve all heard stories of racial discrimination in the 1940s and 50s across America, where black people weren’t allowed to eat in certain restaurants, enter certain public spaces, and use public transport. Perhaps worst of all, there was a truly unequal opportunity when it came to working, with a clear demarcation existing between what people of colour could and couldn’t do. For example, the job of an entertainer was strictly reserved for white people. Of course, there are multiple inspiring stories of people overcoming such struggles across all odds. They mostly make for Oscar-winners now, which many assume has something to do with discomfort of white apologists who tend to make up the score-keepers of such decision-making, but that is a story for another time. And not nearly as fascinating as the story of Korla Pandit--a turban-wearing sex symbol of 1950s daytime television if you will. And a truly talented man who used ‘Indianness’ as a protective shield.
Adventures in music, and a hypnotic gaze that even won over Tim Burton
Beginning in February 1949, a captivating show called Korla Pandit’s Adventures In Music, America’s first all-music show, was broadcast out of KTLA in Los Angeles. In 1948, only 10 percent of Americans had ever seen a television program, so you can imagine how relatively new this medium was. And this 15-minute show that ran 5 times a week was one of the most treasured of the time. It featured a young man in a turban adorned with a jewel, sitting behind an organ playing beautiful melodies. While his music was unique in its blend of ‘music of the exotic east’ and waltzes, tangos, cha-cha-chas and other tunes of the 40s and 50s, with an occasional tinge of classical piano, he was known for something else as well. All of his 900 episodes featured him staring dead-centre into the camera, without talking at all, with a mesmerising look on his face, and eyes that lured your sight and made it linger in enchantment. This famous gaze hooked the hearts of several of America’s women, and Korla Pandit’s unique sound and performance brought him huge fame.
Watch Korla Pandit’s Adventures In Music here.
The Hammond piano under Korla Pandit’s hands had a life of its own, that Korla bent to the will of his palms. Mastering the instrument in ways that had never been heard of before, he coaxed unusual sounds from the organ. From snake-charmer music heard in films of the tropical East, to table and conga drums, he introduced the American audience to new sounds blended with older ones. And the result, combined with his hypnotic gaze, was surreal, making him the organist legend of his time. After about a decade of fame and fortune, various live performances, records and vinyl releases as well as interviews, his flame died down. Still, it was revived towards the final years of his life at which point Korla played gigs everywhere to savour the final tastes of his career, from drive-in theatres to the House of Blues. He even had a cameo role in Tim Burton’s film ‘Ed Wood.’
He gave his last performance in 1998 in a vintage lounge named Bimbo’s, San Francisco. This lounge represented the theatricality of Korla’s style with paintings of clowns adorning the walls, a mermaid swimming in a large aquarium over the bar, and the ethereal sounds of this pianist’s Hammond. As his career breathed its final breaths, and there was a new kid on the block. Liberace, known for his extravagance, daring costumes, showmanship and theatrical performances, stole his spotlight, and as Korla claimed in an interview once, his style and soul as well.
The New Delhi Indian from Missouri, USA
Through Korla Pandit’s life, in various interviews and shows, he maintained that he was born to a French opera singer mother, and an Indian Brahmin father from New Delhi who, as Korla claimed, was a government bureaucrat and a friend of Gandhi’s. He asserted that he started playing the piano at the age of two, and by five, he was a prodigy. Born in New Delhi, he studied in Europe, and moved to the U.S. at the age of 12 to attend the University of Chicago, after which he pursued a professional career as a musician. As believable as this story sounds, it turns out, it’s all just a work of fiction.
Korla Pandit was born as John Roland Redd to parents of African-American origin in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. He was one of the very first blacks to have his own TV show, and the first in Los Angeles. While his true identity was revealed eventually, it only emerged after his death, and he kept up the facade so well, that even his two sons never learnt the truth in Korla’s lifetime. And as his birth certificate confirmed his real origin, his death certificate still wrote ‘White’ under the ‘race’ column, proving he kept up his charade till the very end.
Blurring racial lines
A documentary made by filmmakers John Turner and Eric Christiansen named Korla explores the mysterious life of this man, and with it reveals certain realities of his time. In this film, a childhood friend of Korla remarks, “He wasn’t the first person to pass as a white man in order to get ahead, he just passed as an Indian man wearing a turban.” And Indian wasn’t even his first adopted persona. According to R. J. Smith of the Los Angeles Magazine, June 2001 edition, when John Roland Redd arrived in L.A., he was a fully developed jazz pianist, well-versed with the sounds of blues, barrelhouse and swing. Initially, he turned his name into ‘Juan Rolondo’ and played ‘Latin’ songs between San Diego and L.A., feeding the Latin craze flooding 1940s America. This persona worked for him for some time, and Juan Rolondo even released a few records, until the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots where white sailors and police beat up Mexican Americans in the streets, drawing another racial line to Juan’s dismay.
While his Latinized personality was short-lived, his Indian one stuck through the rest of his life. Turner shares about wanting to screen his documentary in India, “to give Indians an idea of the racial and cultural ignorance of the majority of Americans during that time. Much has changed since then and more Americans have been exposed to India and Indian culture, to Ravi Shankar, Indian films and real Indian food.” It’s interesting to note the acceptance of Korla as an Indian, which was believable since he told such a stereotypical tale of India. As Christiansen notes in an interview, “In hindsight, he said he was Hindu but Hindus don’t wear turbans. Sikhs do, but they don’t wear jewels on their turban.”
Watch the trailer of John Turner and Eric Christiansen’s documentary Korla here.
From the 1920s onwards, the racial demarcation extended to various facets of social life. Public institutions were segregated, the Ku Klux Klan’s second flourish was gaining traction, and the white supremacy practiced in public domains forced John Redd to abandon his authentic identity. As the godfather of exotic music, his sonic legacy lives on. But, the other legacy he leaves behind is a mirror that reflects the nature of racial discrimination, an alternate path to revolutionaries. Korla Pandit played into the night with a roaring audience in jazz bars and clubs under an invented moniker and background but only to escape the only other fate that would surely have caught up with him. One where black people weren’t even allowed to enter the halls of his dreams, unless it was from the back with a mop and bucket in hand.