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She walked with her usual resolute step to the podium where the President of India Droupadi Murmu stood to affix a medal on her gold and maroon bordered sari and hand over a scroll. She walked just as purposefully as she would have to the podium to conduct the Paranjoti Academy Chorus (PAC), which the 89-year-old has been doing for the past 56 years. Her lifelong contribution to music and the choir earned Coomi Wadia a Padma Shri which she collected at the investiture ceremony on April 5, 2023 at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.
Wadia felt proud and elated at this honor — though late in coming, as her son Sorab said. He attended the ceremony with choir members Roshan Dastoor and Vispy Unwala who had accompanied Wadia from Bombay. The investiture ceremony was followed by a vegetarian dinner hosted by the Minister of Home Affairs at the Sushma Swaraj Bhavan. Wadia is still absorbing the distinction inferred upon her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No one who has attended the Christmas concerts of the PAC performed in churches and cathedrals across Bombay free of charge during the festive season will ever forget the experience. As the lights are dimmed a hush falls over the sacred space as Wadia makes her dramatic entrance, her stride confident, her back ramrod straight, followed by the singers in pairs, holding lit candles/oil lamps in their hands and singing softly. They march down the aisle to the stage area, and occupy their designated places, clad uniformly in saris with black band galas (Indian jackets) for the males. The concerts, in the PAC’s signature a cappella (without accompaniment) style, include church music, Christmas carols, folk tunes and spirituals, the pure voices rising to the vaulted interiors enthralling the listeners with wave after wave of delight.
The then President of India Pratibha Patil flew the choir to New Delhi to sing at the festival of Christmas Carols in 2009 and in 2011 in the Ashoka Hall at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Just last year PAC sang in New Delhi again at the diamond jubilee of the India International Centre.
In selecting Wadia, for the Padma Shri the Government of India (GoI) has acknowledged a rarity — a woman western music conductor. Wadia became an internationally recognized maestro five decades ago when there were few women conductors, especially in a third world country.
Wadia stepped into the shoes of Dr Victor Paranjoti "who was driven to a hospital from the conductor’s podium at the end of the performance of his opera, Champak and the Lily. A few days later he succumbed to his second cardiac arrest,” Homai Dandiwala recalls. She and Freny Peddar are the only ones from the PAC who sang under Paranjoti’s baton, and continued later for decades with Wadia. Paranjoti breathed his last in February 1967, the same year in which Wadia conducted her first concert in May, her mentor’s baton literally passing into her hands.
Both Paranjoti and Wadia took the choir on several tours across India and abroad, earning accolades wherever they performed. Wadia’s first foray abroad was in 1974, when she took PAC to Germany, Denmark and Switzerland.
Wadia is modest about her achievements but her band of singers is more than forthcoming about her. The conductor was honored internationally for her musicianship as early as 1981. In the finale of the Sister Singers’ Festival, Stuttgart, Germany, called Partner Singen, she conducted all the 14 participating choirs from around the globe. With her elegant hands making minimal gestures, she brought all 200 voices on stage under her spell. India stood tall as the welcome speech and announcements were made by sari clad choir members in English, German and French.
There are restraints and taboos if you sing with this strict and disciplined musician. Formerly Wadia would exhort, "How many times do I tell you not to have iced drinks, or eat pickle or pickled stuff?” which, tenor Rusy Shroff tells us, is "a rather difficult diktat for 30 plus singers to follow.” Wadia then got wise and now explains that you must respond to your body and refrain from what adversely affects you. However, her unshakable ‘no-nos’ are smoking and throat irritants — in whatever form for each individual. Also, while on tour, singing is restricted to only concert performances.
With full support from her husband Nariman, and the managing committee, the PAC organized a "world tour” of Japan, Europe and the USA. The performers stayed with host families in each city, to reduce the burden on both the inviting associations as well as the choir. Former choristers often helped out; the USA sector was overseen by Silloo Tarapore, once a PAC soprano. Similarly, a Salzburg concert was arranged by Dilshad Khambatta who was studying at the Mozarteum University Salzburg at the time. As with many art forms, finance is always an issue. Not only has Coomi worked gratis for 56 years, but she always stays in the same hotels, hostels and sometimes dormitories as the choir, her only recompense being the applause at the end of a concert. Nor do the choristers receive any fees. In Japan, on a fallow day when there was no performance, the choir remained at a Buddhist monastery with its spartan lifestyle. No complaints. No whining.
The prolific founder "Paranjoti, whose legacy is carried on by the choir, wrote several songs for his group. Traditionally at least two or three of his compositions are sung at every concert, anywhere in the world,” singer Yasna Mistree adds.
Soprano Cynthia Thyle, who has been with the choir since 1969, narrates, "We won two second prizes in Polyphony and Classical and also for Folk Songs, Choral Competition Festival, Tolosa, Spain, 1977 another second prize (Silver). In Torrevieja, Spain, PAC bagged a prize for Polyphony, in 2001. That was also the world première of Jaisalmer by Vanraj Bhatia,” an eight-part choral work, celebrating the Rajasthani fort.
A proud Indian, Wadia inspired Indian composers to write for her choir. The late Bhatia composed Six Seasons for the choir, based on ragas (Indian scales), including Basanti for the spring season. He also wrote an atonal poem called Rudranam for PAC and Jaisalmer mentioned earlier. "He was a personal friend (of the Wadias) and had great knowledge of both Indian and Western classical music. He could write ragas for eight voices in the western medium,” which is precisely why she urged him to write for a choir. Musician composer Meher Madon has written a piece incorporating Zoroastrian prayers. Coomi, a devout Zoroastrian, performed the primary Zoroastrian prayer Ashem Vohu at the 10th World Zoroastrian Congress in Bombay in 2013.
Wadia says she loves going to Udvada and sitting in the Iranshah in the night, in the glow of the divas. Every concert commences with a cosmopolitan prayer.
Nariman, who had cajoled his wife to take on the directorship of the choir on Paranjoti’s passing, encouraged her with every experiment she wanted to try. He sang under his wife’s baton for several years till his health would no longer permit it.
With Coomi as role model, singers have given back unstintingly — not only in time and energy but also in using their network of contacts. So many dedicated past choristers have made their mark, as have current members Shroff, Unwala and Dastoor.
One of the most prestigious invitations Coomi received was from the Dalai Lama in 2000 for The World Festival of Sacred Music in Bangalore. Gracing the occasion, the spiritual  leader, always happy to perform for a cause, joined the choir in song for an initiative towards cancer care for Voices for Hospices in Bombay.