Shillong: Almost a year after the Ksan coal mining tragedy shook the nation, popular blues-rock band Soulmate dedicated a song to the accident in which 15 miners were trapped inside a rat-hole mine in Meghalaya’s Jaintia Hills district.
The operation to rescue the miners, which was held from December 13, 2018 the day of the accident, to March 2, 2019, was one of the longest efforts to rescue miners in India.
Soulmate played at Cloud9 in Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, as part of the ‘100 Pipers Play for a Cause’ initiative that brought 100 musicians together on a single day to perform live across 27 cities for #100Pipers100Gigs, a first of its kind musical event, on November 29.
Championing the cause of ‘Save Our Hills’, the band played ‘Hole in Your Soul’, an upcoming song from one of its new albums. The song has been inspired by the Ksan coal mining tragedy and Soulmate took the initiative to spread the message of love.
Soulmate member Rudy Wallang said, “The special thing about this is that it is for a cause, different cause in different cities and our cause in Shillong is saving our hills. So as you’re aware there are a lot of things that have been happening, talk about mining, talk about deforestation in this beautiful state of ours. So we’d like everyone to be aware of this and to each and everyone in their own way to make this place a better place to live in for future generations.”
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“Such initiatives do have an impact, though this is the first time in Shillong. But I’m glad now it’s reached here and it’s being held all across the cities. So, I believe it will have a huge impact,” Wallang added.
Expressing his concern over the coal mining tragedy, Wallang said that Hole in your soul, talks about the greed for money, the greed for power that a lot of businesses and politicians are investing their time and energy in, instead of helping Indians and our environment to become a better place.
“But they are only thinking about themselves. Because of that selfishness, greed for power, they feel that they have that solid emptiness inside them which they need to fill up by doing all this. So we want to tell them that there are other good things that they can fill their souls with and not with destruction but with creativity The objective behind the mega event was to draw the attention and empathy of people towards 15 different social and environmental causes, from saving water, oceans and the hills to saving dying arts, educating the girl child and fighting hunger,” said organisers.
