indian folklife volume 3 issue 3 serial no. 1 6 ...3 indian folklife volume 3 issue 3 serial no. 1 6...

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INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 3 ISSUE 3 SERIAL NO. 1 6 JULY 2004

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h t t p : / / w w w . i n d i a n f o l k l o r e . o r g

C O N T E N T S

Letter from Kuldeep Kothari............................. 3

Tributes .......................................................... 4

Remembering Folklorist Komal Kothari............. 5

Copyright of folk and indigenous art forms....... 6

On Komal Kothari........................................... 8

Life and works of Shri Komal Kothari............... 11

On Folk Narratives ......................................... 14

Here to Eternity, on a magic Jharu.................... 21

Review Books ................................................. 23

Our Publications............................................. 24

National Folklore Support Centre (NFSC) is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation, registered in Chennaidedicated to the promotion of Indian folklore research, education,training, networking and publications. The aim of the centre isto integrate scholarship with activism, aesthetic appreciation withcommunity development, comparative folklore studies withcultural diversities and identities, dissemination of informationwith multi-disciplinary dialogues, folklore fieldwork withdevelopmental issues and folklore advocacy with publicprogramming events. Folklore is a tradition based on any expressivebehaviour that brings a group together, creates a convention andcommits it to cultural memory. NFSC aims to achieve its goalsthrough cooperative and experimental activities at various levels.NFSC is supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation.

S T A F F

Assistant DirectorT.R. SivasubramaniamAdministration

Programme Officer(Publications)C. Kodhandaraman

LibrarianR. Murugan

Programme Assistant(Public Programmes)V. Hari Saravanan

Archival AssistantB. Jishamol

Support StaffY. Pavit raP.T. DevanP. SivasakthivelV. ThennarasuC. Kannan

C H A I R P E R S O N

Jyotindra JainProfessor and Dean, School of Arts and Aesthetics,Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

T R U S T E E S

Ajay S. MehtaExecutive Director, National Foundation for India, India Habitat Centre,Zone 4-A, UG Floor, Lodhi Road, New Delhi

Ashoke ChatterjeeB-1002, Rushin Tower, Behind Someshwar 2, Satellite Road,Ahmedabad

N. Bhakthavathsala ReddyDean, School of Folk and Tribal Lore, Warangal

Dadi D. PudumjeeManaging Trustee, The Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust,B2/2211 Vasant Kunj, New Delhi

Deborah ThiagarajanPresident, Madras Craft Foundation, Chennai

Molly KaushalAssociate Professor, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts,C.V. Mess, Janpath, New Delhi

Munira SenExecutive Director, Madhyam, Bangalore

K. RamadasDeputy Director, Regional Resources Centre for Folk PerformingArts, Udupi

P. SubramaniyamDirector, Centre for Development Research and Training, Chennai

Y. A. Sudhakar ReddyReader, Centre for Folk Culture Studies, S. N. School, Hyderabad

Veenapani ChawlaDirector, Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Research, Pondicherry

E X E C U T I V E T R U S T E E A N D D I R E C T O R

M.D. Muthukumaraswamy

R E G I O N A L R E S O U R C EP E R S O N SV. JayarajanKuldeep KothariMoji RibaK.V.S.L. NarasamambaNima S. GadhiaParag M. SarmaSanat Kumar MitraSatyabrata GhoshShikha JhinganSusmita PoddarM.N. Venkatesha

I N D I A N F O L K L I F EE D I T O R I A L T E A M

M.D. MuthukumaraswamyEditor

C. KodhandaramanAssociate Editor

P. SivasakthivelPage Layout & Design

C O V E R P A G EShri Komal Kothari receiving Sangeeth Natak AcademyFellowship Award from the Hon’ble president of India,Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

T H I S I S S U EThe focus of this issue of Indian Folklife is on Life and Worksof Shri Komal Kothari.

N E X T I S S U EGenre, Community, and Eventfor announcement see page.20.

All communications should be addressed to:The Editor, Indian Folklife, National Folklore Support Centre,7, 5th Cross Street, Rajalakshmi Nagar, Velachery,Chennai - 600 042 (India), Tele/Fax: 91-44-22448589 / 22450553,email: [email protected], [email protected]

B O A R D O F T R U S T E E S

NNAATITI ONALONAL F FOOLKLOLKLO RERE S SUPPOUPPORRTT C CENTREENTRE

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Dear Friends,

It is a rather difficult task to talk about a person like Kaka(Komalji, my father) in the past tense. After a month, itstill seems so unreal to all of us at Jodhpur - indeed, itmust be so, to a lot you too. All of us do so very much,miss his overpowering but reassuring presence. One stillfeels he’s out for a visit and will be back soon.

Many of you have visited our home at Jodhpur. Today,as you come into the driveway, you come face to facewith a large pile of stones; Stones from the demolitionof part of our old house. The ground opens up into anempty space where Kaka planned to build a hostel ofsome sort. The space is there, but the house which wasfor many years my grandparents’ home is gone - Youcan feel the vacuum. Aptly, this also seems to be aphysical manifestation of what has happened.Painstakingly, one will have to go about building thehouse again.

Last month, when I got a mail from David/Carol tellingme about this program1 I intended to try and attend itand meet all of you who have worked or dealt with myfather at some point in time. While I share a close personalrapport with many of you, I would have liked thisopportunity of meeting so many others who knew him.

All of us, especially my mother Indiraji, would like tothank you for this gesture and also for the numerousthoughtful messages of condolence that we received.

Komalji, as most of you refer to him was quite a repositoryof indigenous knowledge. He was one of the pioneers inthe documentation of performing arts in India and a vocalexponent of the oral traditions of history. He did extensivework on Rajasthan’s folk music and culture. Instrumentalin making archival recordings of folk musicians ofRajasthan, he exposed them and their art internationally.How did he achieve this? Certainly not alone - he builton his own experience and knowledge through thenumerous discussion that he had with colleagues likeyou. He was able to make the lateral connections that hewas so famous for, by interacting with people of differentdisciplines and absorbing their know-how. It was suchinteractions that brought the familiar twinkle to his eyes.

Let me dwell briefly on the last few months of Kaka’slife. It was in the summer of 2002 that Kaka discoveredthat his old tryst with cancer wasn’t over. The disease

was back and there really wasn’t much that could be doneabout it. At this point in time he was working on a freshidea - that of setting up an ethnographic museum. Hetried some chemotherapy and also a course of radiationwhich helped ease his pain a bit. He even tried somenon-conventional remedies and was in and out ofhospital a number of times. He really wanted to go along way further. The museum had become his passionand he wanted to see his dream come true. Sometimelast year, after following up with the Government foralmost a year, we were allotted a piece of land to set upthis museum. It is a very picturesque locale at the edgeof a stony plateau with a small enclosed valley. Kakawas thrilled with the location. Every visitor who cameto see him would be told about his plans for the museumand taken to the site. Without saying so, he was buildingup on his ideas for the project. He would sit late intothe night jotting down points related to some aspect orthe other of the project and be woe betied if anyonedelayed anything related to it.

The museum of his dream aims at to have objects ofdaily use rather than curios. It will relate the story of thecreative ingenuity of the common folk by tracing thehistory of tangible cultural objects and the role theyplay in their daily life. Kaka thought out a lot of whathe wanted to achieve and uncharacteristically,documented it.

Kaka also in the last few months worked for creating astructure for the organization - Rupayan. He knew thatit would be very difficult to take his plans to fruition inthe absence of an organisation. In furtherance of thisobjective he created a new executive council of Rupayancomprising of some young energetic people. All of usnow have a common objective to strive towards - thecompletion of his museum. We also realize that what weare trying to achieve is difficult because our effort lacksthe benefit of the continuity of Kaka’s intellectualoutput - but that is what makes it so much more of achallenge. We also intend to draw on the sameresource base which helped hone his knowledge - all ofyou. To this end, we shall be circulating a brief conceptnote on the museum. We would like to inviteexpressions of interest towards involvement with theproject. We would also like you to freely provide us, asfeedback, your thoughts on the issue. q1 Memorial conference at Columbia University. For reportsee page. 5.

Letter from KULDEEP KOTHARI,Secretary, Rupayan Sansthan, Rajsathani Institute of FolkloreEmail: [email protected]

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Rustom BharuchaI remember Komalda talking to me with matter-of-factcalm about his father’s death rites and ceremonies, whichhe had observed with meticulous rigour. Acknowledgingthe family as a vital site for his research, he punctuatedhis observations with intimate details—for instance, ifthree people travelling by train are taking the ashes of adead person to Hardwar, then they will always buy fourcups of tea. One cup of tea for the dead person. However,when the relatives of the dead return back home, theywill buy only three cups of tea. Measuring his words,Komalda said, ‘If you are capable of treating a deadperson as a living being immediately after his or herdeath, then he or she can live for eternity. The dead canbe with you forever.’

These words resonate for me as I begin, with difficulty,to reflect on Komalda’s death—a death that, on the onehand, was anticipated, but which has yet to sink in. Theloss is immeasurable. In this context, how can onecommemorate him today? No shubraj or panegyric verses,I can hear him mutter. Just get on with the work.

If we listen carefully, Komalda is still talking to us. Heis urging us not to lose sight of ground realities as wetheorize our respective disciplines. Above all, he is tellingus to be serious but not to lose our sense of humour orthe human dimensions of scholarly research. In ourinternalisation of his many hours of conversation,punctuated with his inimitable digressions andtransitions, intuitive leaps and starting logic, I do believethat he is still with us. Like an oral epic, with no fixedbeginning or end, Komalda will live forever.

John SmithThis was not how the trip was planned. I had been dueto spend some time with Komal in the Easter vacation,but had to cancel the visit when my wife fell ill; insteadI managed to steal time for a week in Jodhpur in themiddle of the teaching term. Komal was keen to see me:he was busy planning his latest project, a newethnographic museum just outside Jodhpur, and hewanted my suggestions on the permanent Pabujiexhibition that he had decided on. We both knew timewas short, but I hoped that I would be able to say myfarewells to a remarkable man whom I have knownalmost all my adult life—and I hoped, too, to be able tocontribute to his ideas on the museum, for I knew hewould never allow the mere inconvenience of a terminalillness to prevent him from pursuing that goal with allhis characteristic lively enthusiasm. After all, the lasttime I had spoken to him by phone, as he lay in ahospital bed in Jaipur the day after his final kidneysurgery, his talk had all been of the museum: how manysquare metres would be allocated here, what themeswould be emphasised there. He knew he would neversee it; that only added to his urgency.But, uncharacteristically, Komal has died.None of us will sit again in Paota, watching him preparethe vegetables for the day’s meal while he talks ofmigration patterns among Rebari herdsmen, or Hindu

songs that only Muslims may sing, or the method oftuning the Sindhi Sarangi. None of us will see him fillyet another notebook with observations while he sitscross-legged, interviewing epic bards or puppeteers.None of us will travel with him to remote village whereespecially interesting types of performances may beheard; none of us will hear him distinguish between allthe different types of desert we pass through on the way.None of us will meet him briefly in western citiesthrough which he is passing with a touring troupe ofLangas or Manganiyars. None of us will share a paan ora joke with him again.

His profession was his own invention: a folklorist whowas based not in a university department but in the verysociety he studied. He immersed himself in the cultureof people who at the time were still regarded withcontempt by most educated folk; he won their respectand their trust, and as times changed he suggested howthey might manage their traditions to their own bestadvantage. Remarkably, he also slowly won over theeducated folk, so that now - unlike, say, thirty years ago- it is perfectly respectable to appreciate the traditionalskills of the rural poor. To visiting students and scholarshe was unfailingly, amazingly generous with his timeand his knowledge. I know that without his help myown work on Rajasthan and Rajasthani would never haveadvanced as far as it did, and I am sure that many, manyothers would say the same.

Jasleen DhamijaIt was in the late 50’s that I met Komal da with KamaladeviChattopadhaya when he was Secretary, Rajasthan SangeetNatak Akademi. He showed us his collection of FolkMusical instruments. We were both beginning our workexperiences. For the first time, we heard the Langas andit was an unforgettable experience. Over years we metoften, and each meeting was so enriching. He revealednew perceptions and deep insights in the study of folkculture.

He generously shared his deep knowledge with everyoneand his rich insights helped many a scholar to discoverthemselves.

Kishore SaintOur last two meetings were this year at times of severebodily stress for him. On both occasions as soon as heemerged from intensive treatment and saw familiar facesof friends and family, his eyes lit up and each one of ushe took up shared concerns with precision and withoutthe least hint of being constrained. As he put it ‘Mybody is with the doctors but my mind and my speechare mine for conversing with my friends’.Komalda’s body has rejoined the ‘panchmahabhoot’ butthe strains of music and the traditions, tales and artefactsof folk life in Rajasthan will continue to inspire andchallenge us in our search for patterns of living inharmony with nature. n

Tributes received from Rupayan Sansthan and publishedwith permission from Kuldeep Kothari.

Tributes

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(NEW YORK, June 17, 2004) The Area StudiesDivision of the Columbia University Libraries andcolleagues in South Asian Studies organized andhosted a conference in the South Asian StudiesGraduate Reading Room, Butler Library, on May20, 2004, dedicated to the memory of Komal Kothari.Kothari, who died April 20, 2004, distinguishedhimself as a folklorist not only in India butthroughout the world.

During his long career, he researched anddocumented the performing arts of Rajasthan. Hemade notable contributions to the study of folkloreand in particular to the study of musicalinstruments, regional oral traditions, and puppetry.A pioneer in folklore, Kothari founded the RupayanSansthan in the 1960s and served as a consultant toseveral institutions and research scholars fromaround the globe. He received several national andinternational awards including Padmashri andPadma Bhushan, the highest civil award bestowedby the President of India.

The conference drew a large group of students,scholars, and researchers who gathered to honorKothari. Maxine Weisgrau, a visiting professor inthe Department of Anthropology at BarnardCollege, welcomed the attendees to the conference.Speakers at the conference included: Frances Taft,

President, Rajasthan Studies Group, CarolHenderson of Rutgers University, Christi Merrill,University of Michigan, Nandita Sahai, HinduCollege, University of Delhi, and David Magier,Director of Area Studies at Columbia Libraries.Magier, who has a Ph.D. in South Asian linguistics,conducted his Fulbright dissertation fieldwork inRajasthan in 1980 under the close guidance ofKothari.

Ann Grodzins Gold, a member of the Religionfaculty at Syracuse University delivered the keynoteaddress “Komalda, Goddess Shrines, BreathingSpace.” In tribute to Kothari, Manish Kothari spokeabout family remembrances.

A post-conference reception was held at theSouthern Asian Institute at the International AffairsBuilding on the Columbia campus. Magier gave aslide presentation documenting his fieldwork inrural Rajasthan. A 1979 documentary film onKothari’s ethnomusicology work was shown, alongwith another, entitled Komal Da, on the life andworks of Kothari, which was produced in April,2004, in his memory. Both films have been donatedto Columbia Libraries for archiving. z

Courtesy: www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/news/ libraries/2004/2004-06-17.kothari.html

Remembering Folklorist Komal Kothari:

A Conference on IntellectualContributions to Scholarshipon Rajasthan

Komal Kothari with Vijay Dan Detha, founders of Rupayan Sansthan, Rajasthani Institute of Folklore.

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It is high time serious thought was given to the legalproblems of copyright in the field of folk performing

arts and creation of folk artefacts by indigenous crafts’persons.

The practitioners in these fields mostly come fromilliterate as well as socially backward groups oroccupational communities. They will lose their right tovarious traditional creations before they even becomeaware of the new realities.

The present situation has arisen due to a mushroomingof new electronic media like cassettes, CDs, film, videos,albums, multimedia programmes, digital photography,television, radio, and many other replicable scientificgadgets. All these are linked to the global market.

Unscrupulous businessmen who are able to cheaply orillegally acquire and replicate original creations, are doingso and are thus depriving creative people of their justdue. Millions of cassettes on folk music are beingproduced, and thousands of audio recording shopsoperate from practically every big city and town in thecountry. Such cassettes are produced and sold at lowcost on very bad quality tapes with bad recording. Suchreproductions do not represent the best quality of theperformers, and also display folk culture in its crudestform. New commercial organizations have been set upin the guise of promoting handicraft and indigenousdesigns, and traditional artefacts. Most of the time suchcreations have their own social, religion and philosophiccontext and significance.

In the name of entertainment, folk music of regionalcultures has become a source of piracy without any regardfor legal, ethical or moral responsibility. The powerfulfilm industry is exploiting the field either by lifting themelody (independent of text) or tune. Sometimes, thelyrics are also copied.

Who owns folk music? The answer is that it belongs todifferent cultural regions, cultural groups, and smallethnic identities; to the people who know it well, whereit comes from and who has composed it. It is true thatno individual can have legal right to such cultural

expressions but the given group or region has its ownright. If India, as a nation, can claim neem, haldi andbasmati as its right, why can’t the smaller regional culturesdemand the same right.

Recently, a song from Rajasthan was adopted in a filmand became popular the world over. This song ‘Nimbuda’was composed and set to tune by Gazi Khan Manganiarof Haduwa village, and is now sung by many Langa andManganiar singers. It became popular in hundreds ofschools in Rajasthan. This movement of folk songs is anatural and normal course. But it is a very differentsituation when a film, supported by the music industry,picks up a melody and some text, puts in additionallines, adds orchestration and start claiming the credit ofcomposition as well as legal rights over the song. Herethe lyricist and music director do not even have thecourtesy to acknowledge the source. In the case of‘Nimbuda’ it is not only the source but the whole materialthat has been lifted. The so-called pop music, popularmusic of today, holds no bar to ‘pirate picking’!

All great classical musicians respectfully refer to theirguru or ustad at a performance. There is a sense of ethicsand humility involved in acknowledging reality. But,the situation is quite the opposite in the field of folkmusic where the adaptation of a folksong renders it anew creative composition with the appropriation of allthe benefits that come with it.

Copyright of folk andindigenous art formsNeed for accountabilityKOMAL KOTHARI

Shri Komal Kothari interacting with Rajasthani folk musicians.

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Traditionally, Indian folk music was always treated as‘anonymous’ as far as composition was concerned. Buton close scrutiny, we do find that there has been a regulartradition of individuals creating new songs. For the oldsongs, we have no reference, but in our times we cancarefully identify creative individuals. The importantpoint is that the songs should be accepted as theexpression of a given cultural region. Until a song doesnot get the stamp of society it cannot be designated afolksong.

Once, such a folksong is lifted by a big commercialventure, a new situation arises. It is then owned by afake composer and a wealthy director of the industry,and they acquire copyright and legal ownership.Rendering of the same melody publicly will be, or canbe, treated as infringement by law. The poor folk singerwould be abused by experts in the field as renderingfilm songs. This has happened to hundreds of folk songsin the long history of recorded music. The wholequestion of compensating the creativity of ordinary people

may be a very small question but stealing the melodyand assigning it as one’s own composition is a travestyof truth.

This situation is receiving attention at the internationallegal level. The issue is being raised by developingcountries as their micro-level cultures are being exploitedby the developed world through its superior technologyof informatics. There is a huge risk to the cultural heritageof small countries to be wiped out on the one hand andlose the opportunity to strengthen their own artisticendeavours due to paucity of funds and poverty on theother. It is now recognized that the cultural material ofany community, tribe, group, ethnic, region or nationshould be respected and legally protected. They shouldhave the ‘right’ to be recognized, acknowledged andcompensated or share the profits earned through royalty.The financial gain should go to the different institutionalorganizations who are devoted to the subject concerned.This type of cognisance is now known as ‘class action’.

An option is that any commercial venture undertaken,based on a specific traditions like the Ramayan orMahabharata, should deposit specific royalty from theprofits to cultural organizations who receive the lastpriority from government funding.

A populist commercial view is that, by patronizingtraditional forms of arts and crafts, they are obliging thesociety through the mass media. The society demandsthat a proper commercial share should come to it inconcrete form. The present proliferation of TV (satelliteor DTH), cable lines, FM and AM radio stations,flourishing industry of audio-video recording, web andinternet, need to be answerable to traditional cultures ofthe people. v

First published in Sutradhar (Unima India), a newsletter ofBharatiya Putli Sangh, Numbers 10 & 11 March 2000.

At NFSC workshop in Jaisalmer.

Shri Komal Kothari Memorial Endowment Fund

The board of trustees of National Folklore Support Centre has created Shri KomalKothari Memorial Endowment fund for making Awards in his nameto deserving creative folk artists of India. The goal of the endowment fund is tohonour folk artists, encourage and present those artists’ creative expression to awider public.

We request donors to contribute to Shri Komal Kothari Memorial EndowmentFund. Donations can be paid by cheque or DD in the name of National FolkloreSupport Centre payable at Chennai. For further details please contact:

M.D. Muthukumaraswamy, Director, NFSC, # 7, Fifth Cross Street, RajalakshmiNagar, Velachery, Chennai - 600 042. Ph: 044-22448589 Telefax: 044-22450553, 22448589Email: [email protected], [email protected] www.indianfolklore.org

All donations to National Folklore Support Centre are exempt from income taxunder section 80(G) of Income Tax Act.

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In each human life there are fortuitous encounters withpersons who turn out to shape one’s life, its purpose

and destiny. Komal Kothari was one such person notonly for me but also for many others.

I had met him as a school and college going girl in Jaipur,but my first real encounter with him was in 1983 at aMela of Folk Performers from all over Rajasthan in Ajmerorganised by the Social Work and Research Centre,Tilonia. We were living in Ajmer that year and I watchedhim with his recorder, interviewing,talking to and listening intently tomusicians who performed throughthe day. What could be so interestingabout these ordinary village-basedmusicians?

Komalda-as he was universallycalled- had by then established hispartnership with Vijay Dan Detha,the writer, social commentator andcollector of folktales from Rajasthan.The partnership had resulted in theestablishment of Rupayan Sansthan,an Institute of Folklore. It functionednot from Jaipur or Jodhpur or anyother urban centre, as is the case withmost folklore institutes, but from thevillage of Borunda, in the heart ofMarwar, the Marusthal, and the Thar.The location was more than symbolicas it allowed them to remain rootedin the cultures that watered theirwork and writing, as it were.

An interest in musical instrumentshad launched a lifetime’s work. Questions relating tothe instruments took him to their materiality and ecology-the wood, the trees, the crops, water-and thereon tosociology, the complex world of castes, their cultures,politics and practices. The Indira Gandhi National Centrefor the Arts that was quick then to recognise talent hadinvolved him in a project on bajra, millet around whichso much of desert culture revolves.

In a couple of years my own biography intersected withhis leading to what were for me dramatic transitions. Ihad interrupted, somewhat scandalously for my parents,a promising academic career, leaving an M.Phil thesison the Marxist theorist, Nicos Poulantzas and his Theoryof the State unfinished as also immediate plans for aPh.D. All this and a lecturer’s job had been abandonedfor marriage and domesticity. By the mid80s, however,

On Komal KothariShail Mayaram, Senior Fellow, Centre for the Study ofDeveloping Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054.(Revised version of an article first published as “Komal Kothari: Rootedin the oral tradition,” Sunday Magazine, The Hindu, June 20, 2004. I amtruly grateful for the enormous response this piece generated. I believethey are symptomatic of a response to Komalda’s own life and work).

the constraint of being a District Collector’s wife wasbeginning to tell on me. Inhibited by the colonial cultureof the civil services and insulated from the lived world,spouses entertained themselves by the twin games ofrummy and housie typical of that great sub continentalinstitution, the officers’ wives ladies club. This was, afterall, how many English memsahibs had bided their time!

Our children were now crawling and walking but mymind was restless. A chance meeting with Komalda and

I was involved in his project onFolk Epics (funded by the FordFoundation). He had already spenta month or so in Lacchmangarh inAlwar District recording a MewatiMahabharata from MusalmanYogis. I still have buried in mynotes sheets of Komalda’shandwritten comments detailingthe culture and music of a series ofcastes in and around that little areaof Lacchmangarh. My standardurban, middle class disparagementof rural life changed. The ordinary,illiterate village musician I now sawwas often the bearer of anextraordinary literary and musicaltradition as also capable of constantimprovisation, change andcreativity. This became for me thebeginning of what has been morethan a decade long attempt tounderstand the complex universesof Indian Islam and of Hindu-Muslim interaction. The world of

the Indian Muslim clearly was far from the monolithimplicit when one speaks the word, “Muslim” or“Musalman.”

I learnt more from the short trips I made with Komaldathan from regional ethnographies. I still recollect amemorable trip to Tijara when we spoke to the last fewperformers of the Ali Baksh khyals. Ali Baksh had been aMuslim who lived in Behror and authored a series ofkhyals (best translated as a folk equivalent of opera)including Nal Damayanti, Radha-Krishna. The khyals meantan extensive knowledge of both Indian mythology andclassical music. I still have buried in my papers the textsof several Ali Baksh khyals. But up to partition they wereperformed extensively in the Braj language region. Theseperformances would often continue through the nightwith the raga-ragini changing as the night unfolded.

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This was the period of a new interest in what was called“ethnomusicology”-a coded downgrading premised onthe idea that the west has music and the rest have only“ethno music” “ethno food,” “ethno geography,” andethno whatever. Nonetheless, people’s and subalternknowledges were being taken seriously andpostmodernism was coming into its own. It was thereigning moment of what the anthropologist MarshallSahlins with his usual panache calls “postmodernism,post structuralism and other variants of `afterologicalstudies’”!

Undeterred and uninspired by academic fashions,Komalda carved out his own universe andunderstanding. By now both western and Indian scholarsrecognised his quite encyclopaedic grasp of lived cultureand many conducted fieldwork interspersed withconversations with him. He was, to my knowledge, oneof the persons with the deepest comprehension of thelives and ritual practices of Indian Muslim and Hinducastes.

The 1980s was also the era of the state sponsorship ofculture. The cultural bonanza called the Festivals of Indiaand the setting up of Regional Cultural Centres marketedIndian Cultures, Crafts and “Heritage” domestically andthe world over. Komalda himself had moved into decisionmaking circuits at both the national and state levels, theAcademies of Sangeet Natak and Sahitya. But I recall hispronounced scepticism of the state sponsorship ofculture. I first heard it at a talk he gave at a small Workshopof scholars and Mirasis and Musalman Yogi Performersthat I had put together at Alwar on the Oral Tradition ofMewat. Only the community could sustain living oraltraditions, he argued. For a state to patronise them wouldbe to museumise and ossify them, sap them of theirvitality and capacity for critique. I had myself beencontending with the question of the retreat of community’spatronage for oral traditions, the marginality andimpoverishment of performers in the face of newer modesof electronic entertainment. After I heard Komalda Iforever abandoned the idea that the state could be orought to be a possible alternative patron of the arts, visualor performing. Komalda received the state awards ofPadmashri and Padmabhushan but characteristicallypreferred to ignore the honorific.

Komalda himself remained of and rooted in the oraltradition. Conversations with him resonate in theresearch of many persons on subjects ranging frommethods of indigenous water harvesting to Hinduism.Historian Rashmi Patni worked with him onrepublishing one of the earliest ethnographies publishedin Hindi called the Mardumashumari Raj Marwar in threevolumes (Jodhpur: Vidyapeeth, 1895). It has beenreprinted in English translation with an introduction byKomal Kothari. It is from this work that I learnt a gooddeal about funerary and other practices of castes that aretoday referred to as dalit; of the closeness of dalit andMuslim ritual life; that the Muslim section of Bhatia andChauhan Rajputs came to be known as Sindhi Sipahisand Kayamkhanis after their conversion.

Komalda wrote several essays in Hindi but there is littlethat the English reader can access. It is to RustomBharucha that we owe the trouble of actually sitting with,recording, transcribing and publishing detailedinterviews with Komal Kothari in the book, Rajasthan:an oral history (Delhi: Penguin, 2003).

Komalda battled cancer for several years before finallysuccumbing to it. I met him intermittently during thisperiod always promising myself to go back and spendmore time with him. Once when I was visiting his homein Jodhpur I found some eighty Langas and Manganiyarscollected. Malika Sarabhai had got him to organise aperformance at his home. This was to help Vikram Oberoiselect the cream of musical talent for his new hotel inJaipur called Rajvilas (advertised today as the place whereBill Clinton stayed!). Through the evening they sang andplayed, singly, in groups and in chorus. This wasnothing less than an ocean of sound and it left mecompletely drenched after the performance Komalda andI sat and went through a range of subjects. These feastswere followed an actual dinner cooked with non-hybridindigenous millet and vegetables grown withoutpesticide and fertilizer (that the west now markets as“organic”). But there was more to come to make that dayso memorable. Komalda’s house includes a huge hallwhere musicians are always welcome to stay and sleep.I sat up with these desert musicians through the night.There was no audience then. For them this opportunitywhere so many of them were together was rare and theysang and sang and sang...till it was time for breakfastand the bus homewards. There were little Manganiyarboys ranging from four years of age through earlyadolescence with the purist of voices as also the moremature voices of their fathers that demolish anydichotomisation of the folk and the classical. Theperformers’ enormous repertoire included songsassociated with Kabir, Mira, Shah Abdul Latif and LalShahbaz Qalandar and relating to Radha and Krishna,Ali and the Prophet Muhammad, heroes, saints andsatis....

There were other times that I met Komalda in Jaipur.Once when we discussed the phenomenon of thepossession of spirit, he held forth on non SanskritMahabharata. Strange, how he had already travelledintensively in areas that I had just begun to journey. Onone of my last meetings with him he said he hadrecovered substantially. I had become interested in the

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mythic and musical connections between northwestIndia, Afghanistan and Iran. As we waited for ShubhaMudgal to sing at a performance at the City Palace,Komalda shared with me some extraordinary insightsinto the exchanges across this frontier and right up toTibet and Nepal. Little wonder that when I hear thePersian singer, Sima Bina, I recall Shubh Mathur tellingme, “This music sounds so much like ours.” Hisexplanation reverberates as I listen to the score of theIranian film directed by Samira Makhmalbaf At five inthe afternoon (2004) that has been filmed in Afghanistan.

When I was in Jaipur last I learnt that Komalda was inthe Intensive Care Unit at the hospital. The cancer hadspread. I knew I had to see him for it might be a lasttime. An advance copy of my book had just arrived andI took it along to show him. It was the culmination forme of a pilgrimage begun a decade ago with the projecton oral epics.

I could not see him, I was told. Doctor’s instructions.For just one minute? I promise not to let him talk.Ok.The face with its silver white fair was familiar, if drawn.The solid girth of his body became frail.He looked at me and his eyes lit up at a familiar face. Igrasped his hands.

Bahut thak gaya hun, said that man of untiring energy.I held up my book.I like the title, he said, his eyes glinting, giving a fleetingglimpse of the sparkle and ready laughter that had beenso characteristic of him.

Little wonder, I thought. For the title is, Against history,against state: counter perspectives from the margins. Thosefamiliar with Bijji’s (Vijay Dan Detha’s) stories-that everyeducated Indian should read-and Komalda’s ideas willrecall that “the folk” for them is not the GermanRomanticist idea of the volk that potentially constitutesthe national culture. For them the folk is the idea of lokathat has to do with community, but that which can alsobe potentially subversive of power, of the patriarchal andpat lineal authority of family, caste, clan, kingdom, and

modern state. I have a hazy recall of a story Komaldaonce told at the launch of the National Campaign of theRight to Information meeting at Beawar, Rajasthan. It isof the tiger that began to be called sher because hedevoured the patwari, the much maligned land revenuerecord keeper and the bane of poor villagers! Aruna Roywrites that at the Tilonia meeting when someonecommented on the importance of the right hand inHinduism, Komalda explained that in the potter’s art andin the work of the artisan and performer, in general, it isthe left hand that is the more important hand, while theright is merely used for the gesture of denial (Ujala chari,10 May 2004).

At Syracuse later that month I broke the news to NancyMartin who had perhaps been one of the scholars closestto him over the later years. Nancy had been helping himto systematise and consolidate the Rupayan Sansthanarchive drawing from what is perhaps the best collectionof Mira songs for her own book. We both knew that hedid not have long. The end for him came when I wasburied in the 1820s records in the British Library. I learntof it only when I returned a month later. I could do littlethen, but dedicated a piece I penned for a forthcomingvolume on Muslim portraits that is titled, “Poor,Untouchable, Muslim and Mirasi: Abdul, the storyteller”to Komal Kothari (1929-2004) “the storyteller of the

storytellers.”

Far away at Columbia University in May 2004 hisAmerican “family” met to pay tribute to him. AnnGold, anthropologist, folklorist and religionistrecalls that Komalda was the reason for her makingRajasthan her fieldwork base. This was at a timewhen most American scholars would be headedtowards either Uttar Pradesh or Tamil Nadu. Annhad met him at Chicago where his conversationbeckoned her into possible worlds.

In Hindu cremation ritual the ashes of the bodysans atma are scattered allowing them to mix withthe elements that enable the regeneration of life,water and earth. In the case of Komalda hispresence continues in so much of our reflectionand writing, contributing to the constantregeneration of the world of ideas. qShri Komal Kothari with mucisians.

Komal Kothari with Vijay Dan Detha

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Komal Kothari(March 4, 1929 -

April 20, 2004) isaffectionately knownto many as Komalda.He was an authorityon Rajasthani folktraditions. KomalKothari had multi-disciplinary academicinterests, ranging fromfolk music toRajasthani cuisine.

Komal Kothari’sacademic training and early work was in Hindi literature,but soon he developed his interest in folk forms of poetryand narratives. He became the secretary of the RajasthanAcademy of Dance, Drama, and Music. It was here hebegan his study and collection of folk musicalinstruments. In1960, Komalda with the help of his friendVijay Dan Detha founded Rupayan Sansthan in Borundavillage, Western Rajasthan.

The aim of their first academic venture relating to folktraditions in Rajasthan, was to explore all aspects of folklife in Borunda village. For the first time in folkloreresearch, Komal Kothari and Vijay Dan Detha set out todevelop a holistic understanding of people’s lives. Theyexamined not only narratives, epics, songs, riddles,music, drama, and crafts but also religious beliefs andpractices, caste compositions, economics, governmentinteractions, village power structures, community desiresfor development, agricultural practices, land and wateruse, and much more. Some of their findings werepublished in the journal Lok Samskrti, co-edited by KomalKothari and Vijay Dan Detha for many years.

Since 1962, a beeline of researchers started camping inBorunda village seeking the assistance and expertise ofRupayan Sansthan. Only in 1971 foreign scholars andresearchers from Europe, America, Asia and Australia,equipped with much needed resources encouragedRupayan Sansthan to expand across Rajasthan.

Komal Kothari meticulously pursued his study on folkmusic and instruments, oral epics, and folk gods andgoddesses. He moved beyond the boundary of hisresearch to explore into the traditional ways ofunderstanding the world.

More importantly Komal Kothari was interested in theprocess by which oral knowledge is learned, rememberedand passed from generation to generation, which isoutside formal education systems. Komal Kothari hadparticularly been interested in documentation,preservation and development of folk music, workingwith traditional musicians. In order to create awareness

among the new generation and cultivate interest in theirnative folk tradition, he organised a number of campsand helped them to develop their inherent musicalpotential.

He also created opportunities for the folk musicians,singers and dancers to perform abroad which indeeddrew the attention of the world. This was encouragedby ethnomusicologists, working with Rupayan Sansthan.Their interests were initially academic, which soontranscended to public arena, providing additional formsof patronage for traditional musicians in this‘consumerist’ world. This outside exposure has generateda number of collaborative commercial recording and filmsreleased in Europe, Japan and India.

Life and works of Shri Komal Kothari~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“All said and done, my work now isrelated to ethno-mind i.e. how agiven society derives generationalknowledge without any structural

format through practice andexperience. This covers all aspects ofhuman life from religion to socialorganisation, family to society,agriculture to craft and so on.

Folklore is a window through whichI try to visualise the complexities ofhuman existence based on wisdom

and practical life”.

Awards:- Nehru Fellowship (1977-79)- Padmashri (April 2, 1983), National Award by

President of India- Fellow of National Academy of Dance, Drama and

Music; New Delhi.- Hakim Khan Suri Award (1989), Mewar Foundation,

Udaipur.- Fie Foundation Award (1990), Ichalkaranji.- Shrthi Mandal (1992), Jaipur.- Seropaw (1995), by His Highness of Jodhpur.- Nahar Samman Puraskar (1996), Rajasthan Welfare

Association, Mumbai.- Padma Bhushan (2004), New Delhi.

Publications:- 1972. Monograph on Langas: a folk musician caste of

Rajasthan. Borunda: Rupayan Press.- 1977. Folk Musical Instruments of Rajasthan: a folio.

Borunda: Rupayan Press.

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- 1982. The shrine: an expression of social needs. InGods of byways: wayside shrines of Rajasthan, MadhyaPradesh and Gujarat. Eds. Julia Elliott and David Elliot,5–31. Oxford: Museum of Modern Art.

- 1989. Performers, gods, and heroes in the oral epicsof Rajasthan. In Oral epics in India, eds. Stuart H.Blackburn, Peter J. Claus, Joyce B. Flueckiger, andSusan S. Wadley, 102-117. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press.

- 1994. Musicians for the people: the Manganiyars ofwestern Rajasthan. In The Idea of Rajasthan: explorationsin regional identity. Vol. 1, eds. Karine Schomer, JoanL. Erdman, Deryck O. Lodrick, and Lloyd I. Rudolph,205–237. Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Publications.

- 1995. Patronage and performance. In Folk, faith, andfeudalism: Rajasthan studies, eds. N.K. Singhi andRajendra Joshi, 55–66. Jaipur: Rawat publications.

- 1954-55. Editor – Prerna, Hindi monthly.- 1958-60. Rupam Quarterly (4 issues), Research Journal.- 1960-72. Vain / Lok Samskriti, Journal on Folk literature.

Memberships:- National Academy of Literature, New Delhi (Member

Executive)- National Academy of Dance, Drama and Music, New

Delhi (Member Executive)- Rajasthan Sangheet Natak Academy, Jodhpur

(Chairman)- Lok Jumbish, Jaipur (Member), Primary Education- National Folklore Support Centre, Chennai (Chairman)- Indian Institute of Crafts and Design, Jaipur (Member)- Key person in Rajasthan Study Group – A cross-

cultural and Interdisciplinary research association.- International Seminars Teaching and Tutoring:- Folk music: Durham University, UK- International Music Council, Berkeley, USA- International Seminar on Oral-epics, Madison, USA- Commonwealth Institute’s Music Village, London- Exhibition and Lectures on Gods and Goddesses at

Museum of Modern art Oxford (1982)- Folklore of Gulf countries, Doha, Qatar- SAARC Seminar on documentation, Islamabad,

Pakistan (1987)

- 1400th Anniversary of Borbad, Dushambe, Tajikistan- International Puppetry conference, by ICCR and SNA,

New Delhi- International Seminar of Flautist (ICCR and SNA), New

Delhi- South-East Asian seminar on audio-video

documentation, Japan Foundation, New Delhi (2000)- Two of Rajasthani (Jaipur) study group-1992 and 1995.

Tutoring numerous scholars and students in Ph.Dlevel – visiting from in and outside India.

Folk music performances/concerts:- Holland Festival, Amsterdam with Puppeteers and

Epic Singers- Musee Guimet, Paris with folk musicians- Edinburgh Festival, UK with folk musicians (Twice)- International Puppet Festival, Washington, USA- Soviet Russia (USSR) with folk musicians and dancers

(4 times)- Art Worldwide, UK with folk musicians- Asian Music Circuit, UK more than 6 times- Ethnomusicology Dept. of University, UCLA, USA- Royal Institute of Music, Dublin & Cork, University,

Cork, Ireland- India Festival held in UK, France, USA, USSR and

Japan with folk-musicians and dancers etc.- Music of Royal Courts, BBC, London with musicians,

Live performance- Folk Festival, Islamabad, Pakistan (1989)- National Centre for Performing Arts, Bombay (1989)- Asian Music Festival, Hongkong (1990)- France: Practically every year from 1997-2000- Participated for three years with ZINGARO, Equestrian Show directed by Bartabas- UK, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Brazil, Switzerland, Holland etc. from 1999-2000.- Participated in Yehudi Menuhin

foundation program in Belgium with Pandit Ravi Shankarji, 1998- Visited nearly 30 countries abroad and performed in more than 200 towns abroad

Shri Komal Kothari demonstrating Rajasthani Puppetryat Kheratrambhat’s house.

Shri Komal Kothari in the International Workshop on“Documenting Creative Processes of Folklore” Jaisalmer.

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Academic visits:- Taught a semester- University of California, Berkeley,

USA on oral literature.- Consultant for committee of folklore for Gulf

countries, Doha, Qatar.- Rajasthan study group, Chicago, USA and Jaipur.- Music and Costume work for production of

Mahabharata by Peter Brook, Paris, France.- Musical instruments collected by Metropolitan

Museum, New York- “Craftsmen Instruments and Masters of Music”

(Embassy of France & Craft Museum, Delhi 1-6December 2000)

- Bruhaddesi (Festival of Regional music and Seminar-jointly organised by Sangeet Natak Academy andBhimsen Joshi Chair, Lalit Kala Kandra, Universityof Pune and Kalachhaya, Pune; 26-30 November 2000)

Represented India as folklorist in foreign countries:- Bulgaria, Poland, France, Hungary and

Checkoslavakia – 1973.- Greece – 1978 (ICCR)- China (official delegation of music academician) – 1984- Pakistan: Workshop on preservation on oral traditional

SAARC countries (1987)- USSR: International Symposium in Memory of Borbad

– 1990

Workshops and Seminars organised by RupayanSansthan:- Professional caste musicians children camp (100

children + 15 young people + 10 senior musicians) in

the year 1987 under the auspicious of CCRT, NewDelhi)

- Children Camp – Dec 1999 (60 child musicians + 15seniors)

- Sarangi and Kamaicha meet with 208 folkinstrumentalists in Borunda under the auspicious ofNZCC Patiala – 1989

- Bajara Zone Life style Seminar under the auspiciousof IGNCA, New Delhi – 1989

Documentaries:- Pabu Story (Walter Story for BBC)- Oral Epic (George Luneau, France)- Pabu (Nazrath for BBC)- LATCHO DORM (Tony Gatlif – Paris)

Collaborations:- Four long play gramophone records with Musee de

‘la homme, Paris.- Two Compact discs with Navras, UK- Two compact discs with Kings Record, Japan

Discography and Cassettes, CD’s:- Langa Musicians with monograph (6 records)- Manganiar musicians (6 records)- BANAA Traditional Wedding songs by Langa- BANAA Traditional Wedding songs by Manganiar- Tunes and Dunes Vol.I (String Instruments)- Tunes and Dunes Vol.II (Aero phones)- Mystic Love (Composition of Meera) Vol.I- Meera (Composition by Meera) Vol.II v

Shri Komal Kothari with his family.

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A study of folk narratives can have many, manydifferent directions. One could study the problem

of folk motives, or study tale types to internationally putup the narrative into a particular socket – one shouldchoose one direction to work. One works in the field offolk narratives to gather interesting stories, to write andpublish them; another decides folktales are very interestinglessons in our jobs as teachers; yet another wants to collectstories and see who tells the story, why, and for whom,as well as the type of social significance or social messageit contains. So, there are hundred of ways in which folknarratives can be studied, there is no one fixed way. Somepeople do not work with folk narratives as a distinctdiscipline. Rather, they collect whatever folk narrativesthey find interesting and integrate them in their work.

I believe that whatever one studies, one should try to getthe whole out of the whole and from what remains, whichis also a whole. This is apparent in folk narratives whereeven after studying it any number of ways, what willremain is a total whole. There would still be things to betold about it. What I shall talk about folk narratives hereis the sum of my experiences after entering the world offolk narratives. The first important factor for me is: whois the narrator? Who is the teller of the tale? I shall listout people of different types of folk narratives with whomwe worked in Rajasthan and collected stories. I beginwith professional storytellers. They expect someremuneration, some fee, and are professionally engagedin the job of storytelling. Shifting from this description,we have an entire class of people known as bhat, thegenealogists. The role of these people is to keep track ofyour family line, specifically the male line. There are twotypes of bhats – mukhavancha bhat and pothibancha bhat.The mukhavancha bhat maintain genealogy records orally,not in writing. The pothibancha bhat keep a bahi or recordin which they write down names.

Each family has to pay the pothibancha bhat for the writingof their names, without which their names will not beentered into his bahi or into the bhat’s memory. Thepractice in Rajasthan is that the bhats visit families everythree years and record in the bahi the names of childrenborn, if any, in the families in the interim years. Peoplethink that this kind of record of family history is keptonly for kings and jagirdars and such, but that is nottrue. Any group in Rajasthan that claims a caste statushas to have a genealogist. Today, this institution ofrecording genealogy is strong in the so-called low castegroups. Most of the art forms, too, are alive today becauseof this system which somehow or the other, has keptmany traditions alive for us.

During their visit, the bhats stay for two or three dayswith a family or in the village and go from house to house.In the evenings, they tell stories. This is actually a fullperformance – they sit at a designated place, there is anaudience comprising men and women, and they usehighly ornate speech. There are also various formulae inthe storytelling – for example, when they talk about aking, there is a lot of material about the king’s appearance,the way he sat on his horse, about what happened tohim, the ornaments that he wore. When they talk about a

queen or a heroine, they use many formulae to describeher beauty. There are also ornamented descriptions ofhorses, camels, of drinking and of the elements.

The mukhavancha bhats are only available with in the lowcaste groups. They are generally nats or acrobats. All theacrobats that we see on the streets are oral genealogists ofother caste groups in Rajasthan. In their practice ofgenealogy, these bhats start with stories about how thebirth of the Sun, the Moon and the Trees, how the variousactivities in society came into existence and how naturalphenomena occur. We have recordings of somemukhavancha bhats and one can see a relation to theorganisation of the puranas. Puranas have five chaptersand the oral genealogists follow exactly the same formatwhile narrating stories. As no society or group willsurvive without their own mythology, these stories areabout low caste people.

Our problem while working was finding the mythologyof the low caste people in society. Can their mythologybe the same as classical mythology? They too survive ontheir mythology. Our general reaction was that it wouldbe difficult for them to survive on classical mythology,so what do they have with them? This led us to theinstitution of the mukhavancha bhats. These mukhavancha

On Folk NarrativesKomal Kothari

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bhats have hundreds of stories to tell in the course oftelling the genealogy of people. I shall tell you one abouta tribe known as the rauts, a small group in the Mewadregion. We heard the story inadvertently while passingthrough the area. There was this acrobatic group recitingthe genealogy of the rauts. There was a crowd of aboutfive hundred men and women. The story went thus: therewas a person named Punia. At that time, nobody knewagriculture. For the first time, Punia sowed the seeds ofcorn and it turned out to be a success. When he was toharvest his crop, the Sun and the Moon came and said,Punia, you have grown something and it has turned out well.But would you have been able to do it without us? Punia says,No, I would not have been able to. So they asked for theirshare in the yield. Punia told them that the whole fieldwas theirs. They moved through the field and saw thebeautiful flowers at the top of the corn plant. They alsohad not seen agriculture; they said they shall take theupper part and the lower part shall belong to Punia. Sothe sun and the moon got nothing and Punia got the fullcrop as the corn grows on the middle part of the plants.

Next year, Punia sowed sorghum or jowar. Again, theSun and the Moon came by. They said this time theywould take the middle part and Punia can take the upperpart. Punia again got all the grain and the Sun and theMoon got none. At this part of the story, the storytellerbeat his drum very vigorously and asked if anybody couldtell him who is Surya (the Sun) and Chandra (the Moon)?The audience answered in one voice that they wereChandravanshi and Suryavanshi. These were the rulersof that place. In the twelve hours of recording that wehave(at Rupayan Sansthan), there are many such tales –if the high caste people listen to them, they will be angryand unhappy. So, one way or the other, a type of a bignarrative lore of very important life aspect of lot of peopleis available at this point. We consider both types of bhatsas professional storytellers – they prepare themselves forthe job, the particular way of storytelling is transmittedto them, they learn it, and narrate it. So, bhats form onegroup of storytellers. The second group is made up ofthe known professional storytellers. But we found in

Rajasthan that these people mostly work at night – theyhave to work for the entire night and they have a lot offree time in between. When the people gather before them,they tell stories to pass the time. Not everybody can tellthese stories, there are a few people in the village whospecialise in narrating them. And they are always long –the stories last for an hour or two. Similarly, when peoplein the villages are sitting and doing nothing, waiting forsomething or the other, they will ask the storyteller fromthat place to narrate a story and he would do so. Theseare very compact stories. Again, these storytellers alsouse heightened speech as well as theatricality, a sort oforganised performing situation.

The third situation is when we ask any person to tell astory, he says that he does not know. Have you listenedto something? He says no, I have not. But the sameperson, if some occasion happens, would tell a story toestablish his point. Out of many stories that came to mind,I tell you this story.

Somebody has taken a loan from another person and hewas unable to repay. In Indian situations, when a persontakes a private loan, it is repaid even in fourteengenerations or twenty generations; they do not feel totallyfree until they repay the loan. The loan, indigenouslygiven, is on exorbitant interest. I might have taken a loanof Rs. 200 and I might have paid Rs. 2,000 or Rs. 20,000on interest but yet another Rs. 2,000 might be left to repay.This is the situation today, I do not know about any otherparts of India, but it is so in Rajasthan. So, people feelthat if we have taken a loan from you, we would repayby washing in the milk, and this would be the expressionthey use.

So, this is the situation for the person who has taken theloan. And then, somebody would come up with a story.The story would be: a person who took a loan died andthe person who gave the loan also died. The person whotook the loan was reborn as an elephant and the personwho gave the loan was reborn as a bull. Both of them arein the same kingdom. It so happened that one day, theelephant became mad and started killing people andrummaging through the kingdom. So, the king offeredhalf of the kingdom to any person who would be able totame this elephant. Everybody was afraid of the madelephant but the bull told the peasant who owned him,Let me go. I shall go and defeat him. The peasant was scepticalbut allowed the bull to try. As soon as the elephant sawthe person who had given him the loan in the form of abull, he ran away. A number of stories are told in this

Every child hears stories. As far asrural Rajasthan is concerned, nochild grows up without stories.

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way to establish some point or the other. But these storieswill never come to us if you ask them to tell a story. Mostof our collections are from my friend who works, writesand publishes folktales – he has published fourteenvolumes of folktales collected from various places. Most

stories actually come from situations where thestorytellers try to make a point. When we were livingwith them in the village, such situations would arise.We see a lot of proverbs used in similar situations. Mostof the proverbs actually have stories behind them – wecall them proverbial tales. Let me tell you a story thatcomes to mind: there is a proverb in Rajasthani thattranslates to, I am the person who can say no, who are you tosay no. This is used in a number of situations. Proverbs,like words, don’t have a single meaning, and they areused according to the context and give meaning to thatparticular situation and the context is never the same.The story in this case is that of an old woman who hadgone to the jungle to collect firewood. As she was cominghome with a heavy load on her head, a sadhu passingthat way saw her and said, you are an old lady and you arecarrying so much weight. Give me the load; I shall carry it toyour home. She appreciated his gesture and said, carry itfor me, and when we reach home, I shall give you something forit. When they reached her place, she went inside anddid not come out because then she would have to givehim something for helping her bring the wood.Meanwhile, the old woman’s daughter-in-law came outand the sadhu asked her for something. She said, No, we

would not give you anything. Then the angry mother-in-law came out and asked, what right did you have to say no?Only I have the right to say no. Hence the above-mentionedproverb.There is another proverb, Even when a doomani weeps, thereis some melody in it. (A doomani is a woman from themusician community). But the proverb is not restrictedto women and musicians. For example, somebody meetsme and I immediately start talking about folklore, andeven if he or she talks about something else, I bring theconversation back to folklore. The person might recountthat whenever you meet Komal, he talks about one thingonly. And then the person might quote this proverb. Thenthere are the jokes that are prevalent in hundreds of waysin the villages. Some are honourable; some can’t be talkedabout freely. These again fall into the category of narrative.And then we have the women’s narratives of stories. Thewomen tell stories to their children. In this way, we worka little more in detail. Again the problem that comes upis about who is the bearer of the tradition, as wasdiscussed in our first lecture by Henry Glassie. In mychildhood, too, I heard stories – if I stress my memory, Imight be able to remember a few, may be in a skeletalform. Every child hears stories. As far as rural Rajasthanis concerned, no child grows up without stories. It is asimportant as mother’s milk. But a child who never retellsthese stories is not the bearer of the tale. The otherimportant thing to remember is that when women tellstories to their children, it is an adult addressing a child.The format of the story is adult format, not children’sformat. Therefore, the child would never be able to expresshimself or herself through that story. Up to the age ofseven, we found that children never tell stories to otherchildren or to anybody else, so they never become thebearers of the stories.

What I tell you now is absolutely personal. Whenever Itry to work in any particular field, whether it is folknarratives, or songs or gods and goddesses, the first thingI do is to do it in my family and try to see the situationthere and try to ascertain because I can ask them hundredsof questions in hundreds of ways and I would get somekind of reply or no reply at all. I started trying to rememberstories I’d heard in my childhood. I was brought up inmy maternal family. I mostly grew there and it was inthe Mewad and Udaipur region.

Only one story comes to mind, and my maternal aunttold me that one. I remember we were a lot of boys of thesame age in my group and we would ask her to tell thestory again and again and therefore it might have remainedin my memory. The story was simple and short. Therewas a pair of birds. They decided to put up a swing on awell. The birds used to swing on it. But it was made ofvery thin thread and the thin thread broke. She neversaid anything more than that. But we always felt sorryfor this pair of birds. After a very long time, when I wasworking on folktales, this story came back to me. By thistime I was about fifty-five years old. When I retold the

Most of the time when I am in myvillage, I do not wear a watch. I donot even know the date or the day.It is not needed there. But when Icome to Jodhpur, date does matter.

Shri Komal Kothari showing bowed instrument to his friendMr. Yassar Numan, folklorist and ethnomusicologist from Islamabad.

17


story to myself, I realised that the birds did not fall in thewell but they flew away. As soon as I realised that thebirds flew, it was as if a great burden had been taken offmy heart.

I enquired why people who tell the story do notimmediately tell the moral of the story. This puts up avery different attitude to the women’s storytelling. Theywould never, never tell the moral of story to the child –they will leave it to the child to grow and understand notonly one moral but different shades of meaning out of astory. This is what was happening in the traditionalsociety. But when we tried to bring these stories to theschools, we found that we begin with the moral of thestory, and then tell the story. Or after telling the story,we try to explain the moral. Not only that, the childrennever retold the stories they had been told. The formatwas such that it was not possible for the child to comeout with the story; like the lullaby that is sung to thechild by an adult and cannot be sung by a child to anotherchild. Nowadays, we tell a child a story in the night beforesleeping and in the morning, at breakfast, we ask thechild what the lion did and what the fox did. If the childis able to answer, we feel very happy that the child haslearnt the story. But this was not the purpose in traditionalsociety – to examine whether the child knows the storyor not. Now, we learned that no child under the age ofeight or nine ever gets a story that has to do with religion.It may appear in some families – may be in Brahminfamilies. But, in general, only after the child is sevendoes religion appear in stories. The child never retellsthe story. So, again, who is the bearer of the tale? In thecase of the professional and other storytellers, they havea particular type of recruitment for particular types oftradition. They learn the stories from those sources. Butthese stories that women narrate, how do they move on?

We found that mothers in rural areas are never storytellers.We also found that the grandmother does not tell storiesif the grandfather is alive. Then we looked into the wayof life in which the mother is engaged for the evening –prepare food, wash things, ready the beds, do the thingsnecessary for the next morning and so on. This is thetime when children would sleep and she had no time toattend to the child. So, she never told stories. Most adults,when asked to remember bedtime stories they’d heardin their childhood, would say, who will tell us stories?Mother would give us a good slap and ask us to go to sleep. Butthis is not true. They were told stories. They need to begoaded again and again to remember something.

In such a situation in rural areas, we found that if therewas a widow in the family, she is the one who tells thestories. She is usually the one who looks after the childrenin the family after the husband’s death. She is in contactwith the children all the time. Any family we visit, welearn about the family members. If there is a widow, weask her to tell us stories. She is able to tell us many,

many tales. So, here is the bearer of a very different generictype of a story. We ask these widows the source of thesestories. They say they heard the stories from their families.But they had also collected stories later on. When askedif she told the stories when her husband was alive, theanswer is no. Another thing becomes important: when aprofessional storyteller talks to other people, he isprofessionally prepared and tells the story to many people.But it is different in stories narrated in houses. Forexample, if a mother tells a story to her five children –say, three daughters and two sons– all five may not comeand listen to the story. They may be of different ages.And even if all of them are present, only one or twomight be listening. And it is a personal, conversationalmode of storytelling. A different type of language is used– the theme, the way of talking, how the story beginsand ends. This is the type of stories children hear fromwomen in the family.

Then there is another genre of stories narrated by women.These are the vrat kathas. There are certain fasting days ina year, certain time cycles, in which they eat only once aday or not eat throughout the day. They have to observe

certain rituals, such as they’d eat only after the moonrises. The vrat stories are told on these occasions. Thesame story is narrated every year for that particular vrat,but there are variations according to the region. This typeof storytelling led us to another type of problem. How is

Unfortunately, in Indian folklorestudies, we do not see the properunderstanding of the ballad type.

People only talk about the epic typewhere there is a long narration and

the canvas is bigger.

Shri Komal Kothari discussing with senior Langaand Manganiar folk musicians.

18


time divided in a given society or group? My wife and Iuse different calendars. In her calendar, it does not holdthat one has to get the salary on the first day of the monthor that Sundays or second Saturdays are holidays. She isalways working and there are no holidays for her. Shelives according to the Indian calendar, which is the tithi.She has to have a calendar of her own in which she seesthe eighth, ninth days of the fortnight or that the eleventhis cut off, only twelfth day is there and on thesecalculations, the vrat day is determined.

The format of vrat stories is that a situation arises in whicha family gets into difficulty because somebody in the familywas not observing this vrat. They have to face a lot oftragedies, but finally the gods would come when thisparticular vrat is observed, and everything would bealright. So the vrat is something to please the deity. Thefactor that became important for us in the study of thevrats is the time divided among the women’s groups ofIndian society? They might have a weekly vrat, a Mondayvrat or a Saturday vrat – it will appear every week. Somevrats are done, say, on the eleventh of every fortnight, so

there would be two vrats in a month. Others are observedon amavasya or the night of no moon. Then, the vrat wouldbe once a month. Then we have vrats that move in two-monthly, three-monthly, four-monthly, six-monthly oryearly cycle. Finally, we found that the vrat is the absoluteclue to the working timeframe for the women. It is thisthat keeps them aware of what we call date. Most of thetime when I am in my village, I do not wear a watch. I donot even know the date or the day. It is not needed there.But when I come to Jodhpur, date does matter. So, thevrat stories are to be looked into in conjunction with thetithis. There are also many folktales that refer to this typeof time division in people’s lives.

So far, the narratives I have been talking about are theprose narratives and normal speech. There are sungnarratives, as well. There are ballads. Unfortunately, inIndian folklore studies, we do not see the properunderstanding of the ballad type. People only talk aboutthe epic type where there is a long narration and thecanvas is bigger. But, ballads receive the least possiblecognisance. Among the women’s songs are hundreds ofballads. In one of the studies we are conducting nowabout women’s songs, we came across a particularceremony called night-wake (ratijaga) done in families atchildbirth, marriage and death, in which these songs aresung. Some of the songs are lyrical, but some are totalnarratives. These songs contain a story line, but there isno mention of the name of the place, or names ofcharacters and there is no time prescribed in the story.

One of the most popular songs is the panihari. Anywherein Rajasthan, if you request, he or she would sing thissong. Panihari is a narrative song. The story line issomething like this: A man riding a camel came to awater hole, nadi as we call it, where anyone could comeand drink water. A girl is also drinking water there, andthe camel rider asks her some questions and praises herbeauty. The girl gets angry that a stranger should talk toher in this manner and goes home ruffled. The manfollows her. Reaching home, she complains to her motherthat the man has been harassing her. Her mother comesout, sees the man and finally says that this is the man towhom the girl has been betrothed. This is the story – noplace is mentioned, no names of the persons.

We asked the people what other songs they sing about inthe night-wake (ratijaga) ceremony, and they said they singabout gods and goddesses. We came across sixteen songsabout gods and goddesses. We didn’t get into these godsand goddesses, but we went into the details of the whole-night sessions. We found that right up to midnight, peoplewould sing songs related to gods and goddesses. Afterthat, they would sing singaru songs, or songs of romance.One story comes in here: A girl is being married off. Herfather wants to give her dahej (dowry). He tells her to takegold, take cattle, take buffaloes, take ornaments or takemoney. All the time, the girl says she would not take anyof these, that she wants only one thing. When the fatherasks her what it is, she asks for her beautiful maidservantwho works for the family, with whom the father had gotinvolved. So, to save her mother and to give her mothera good life, the girl asks for the maidservant. The fathersays okay but warns her that she has to be careful. Thegirl insists, and so she takes the maidservant along withher. The new bride prescribed a lot of rules for themaidservant; the maid was not allowed to take a batheveryday, she could not wear good clothes or ornamentsnor could she wear any makeup. And she kept a strictwatch on the maid to see that the maid followed all this.But one day she was invited to attend a night-wake (ratijaga)ceremony that she could not avoid. Before going, sheagain instructed the maid not to do anything that would

Most of the time, I feel that what isour world but a narrative. Can we

survive without stories?

19


make her look beautiful. At the ceremony at aroundmidnight when she looked at her palace she saw lightsin the part of the palace where she slept. She rushedback immediately and found her husband involved withthe maidservant.

These types of stories come in the nature of a ballad.Why are they sung? What is their message? This isdifficult for me to discuss now.

In another situation, another story is about a girl whogets married and goes to her in-laws’ house. The nextmorning she goes to a small lake near her house to fetchwater and she sees a peacock. When she tries to fill herpot, the peacock comes and puts its feathers at that spotand does not allow her to fill water, and says, you are abeautiful bride. Why don’t you come with me? I, too, ambeautiful. The bride decides to elope with the peacock.But her younger sister-in-law, who has come with thebride, goes back and tells everyone that the bride haseloped with the peacock. The people pursue her, kill thepeacock, and bring the new bride back home. In theevening, she is served food. After she finishes eating,they inform her that she has eaten the peacock’s meat.This is another night-wake (ratijaga) song. We now havemore than forty songs in our archive. As far as thenarrative part is concerned, these ballad types have notbeen studied generically in any part of India.

We have hundreds and hundreds of ballads. In ourcollection, we would have five hundred. Otherwise, mostof the time, these stories rarely get into folk songs andthey fall into categories other than merely folk songs.The narrative element starts guiding them in a different way.

Let’s come to oral epics, again narrative. There are differenttypes of oral epics. We have oral epics where there is along scroll, nearly two hundred episodes of the epicpainted on it – a man and woman sing before theparticular scroll and tells the story of Pabu. The musicalinstrument played along with it is the Ravanhatha. Thenthere is another scroll that goes by the name of Bagdawator Dev Narayan, and the instrument played with it is thejantar. These stories are very long. In our recordings, wehave about five, six versions of the Pabu story. None ofthem moves for less than twenty to thirty two hours.The Bagdawat moves from thirty to forty eight hours.

There is this particular epic of Heer and Ranjha, sung inthe eastern parts of Rajasthan like Alwar and Bharatpur.It is also found in Haryana, in Agra and in Manipur. Assoon as I say Heer Ranjha, everybody thinks of a romantictale. A Sufi poet Wajid Ali Shah took this story and wroteit in the Sufi mould. That is the Heer-Ranjha story thatbecame famous from Punjab. It is sung for not spreadingthe cattle epidemic. There is a particular disease that affectscattle, buffaloes and horses, in which the foot splits intotwo. It is contagious and moves quickly like an epidemicand affects thousands of animals. In this region, the peoplewould say that when such an epidemic occurs, we dothe patha of Heer-Ranjha. Now this patha is very peculiar.

Usually it is the patha of Ramayan or the patha ofMahabharat or the patha of Geeta – only religious treatisesare known as paths. But here, they talk about the patha ofHeer Ranjha. This story is sung for this purpose byprofessional musicians of a particular caste of that regionas well as by peasants. An important group of this kindis the jogi. This leads to another problem. The area that Iam talking about is Mathura, Brindavan, Bharatpur andAlwar. This is the area of the cows, the area of Krishna.But for curing the cows today, Krishna is not the effectivegod. So, who can cure a cow or a buffalo today? It isRanjha. Ranjha was Mahiwal, which means mahish paal,the buffalo-keeper. He became the saviour of cows andbuffaloes. He is also a flute player like Krishna. Thenthere is another situation. Which are the societies thatconsume the milk of buffaloes. If you go to Manipur,Meghalaya, China or Tibet, the people there do notconsume buffalo milk. Here, the buffalo is mainly asacrificial animal. Gradually, we found that we can divideeven the peasant groups depending on whether they rearcows or buffaloes. Now, we have started talking aboutbuffalo culture and cow culture. So, this Heer-Ranjha issung in a particular way and this version is not wellknown. It is very different from the Wajid Ali Shah’sversion.

In the same category comes the tradition of Dewal orPandav or Mahabharat stories. But except for the namesand characters, the stories have nothing to do with theMahabharat. All stories of Dewal or Garath or Pandavactually begin after the end of Mahabharat. A new situationturns up, a new story unfolds, while the characters remainthe same. These type of stories are called Pandavon kiKatha, Pandavon ki Phaliyan and Pandun ke Kade. They runabsolutely parallel to Mahabharat situations.

One story is known as the Draupad Puran. The Great Waris finished. The Pandavas are in one camp and theKauravas in the other, and everything is fine. In thePandava camp, Draupadi arrives. As soon as she enters,Yudhistra gets up and touches her feet. Bheema gets angryand says that whatever Draupadi is, Yudhistra is herhusband. Why does he touch her feet? Yudhistra tries tocalm him down. But Bheema wants an explanation.Knowing Bheema’s anger, Yudhistra does not want to getinto an argument. Instead, he asks Bhima if he has heardthat in a particular forest there is a demon that comesevery night and destroys the people there. Bheemaimmediately gets interested and wants to know wherethe demon is. Yudhistra tells him where the forest is andtells him that the demon would come at midnight andthat Bheema was to destroy it. Bheema goes to the forest,climbs a tall, thick tree and waits for the demon. But atmidnight, he sees a big group of people who clean aspot, spread beautiful, costly carpets and arrange chairsmade of gold, silver and precious stones. All the godsand goddesses start coming and they take their respectiveplaces. Bheema, who is watching from the tree, sees thata lady arrives and occupies the main chair. The lady isnone other than Draupadi.

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The theme of October 2004 issue of Indian Folklife isGenre, Community, and Event

GUEST EDITOR — Dr. ROMA CHATTERJIDepartment of Sociology,

Delhi University, Delhi - 110 007.Email: [email protected]

Since Bhaktin wrote his classic essay ‘genre’, it has become one of the key concepts in the analysis ofculture (Bakhtin 1986). Thus Flueckiger (1996) shows that how gendered claims over particular musical

genres may create alternate forms of community defined on the basis of their per formative traditions. Ina somewhat different vein Raheja and Gold (1994) problematize the notion of domestic community througha study of women’s songs that subvert patriarchal relationships within the kinship domain. Expressivegenres offer particular perspectives on the world – not only in terms of the content of the utterance butalso in the style in which it is enunciated. The concept of genre allows us to problematize the view thatculture emerges within a consensual community that demands obedience to a set of norms and procedures.By using the concept of genre in his analysis of language Bakhtin emphasizes the active role of speakersas agents in the selection, use and institutionalization of language. Genres, therefore, are self-consciousinstitutions mediating between individual intention and collective tradition. Also, since different expressivegenres embody specific ideological positions and reach out to a virtual public, performers, through theirchoice of genre, stake their claims to membership in particular communities.

However, the enactment of a genre – the event of performance – also functions as a counterpoint tocommunity, breaking its boundaries, reversing stable relationships of tradition and power. The intentionthat motivates the choice of a particular genre often functions as an ‘originary event’ creating new possibilitiesfor community formation by appropriating the voice and vocabulary of those who claim to speak onbehalf of tradition and community and turning it against them.

By juxtaposing the terms from different discursive contexts - genre, community and event – we maybe able to reveal unexpected dimensions of social life and culture. Culture not as a given but as a makingin which we all participate, whether as scholars or as members of society.

(Articles for October 2004, Indian Folklife, are most welcome, which can be sent to Dr. Roma Chatterji,Guest Editor and copied to the Editor: [email protected] / [email protected])

As soon as Draupadi takes her seat, the gods startcomplaining that she had taken birth in the world todestroy the Pandavas. But the Mahabharat is over andthe Pandavas are still alive. She had taken a vow in Vaikuntto eliminate the Pandavas. Draupadi admits this fact andsays that she could not do it because whenever she saidanything, the five brothers accepted it like a law. So, shedid not get a chance to be angry with them or do anythingto them. But she asks the gods and goddesses not toworry and says that only that morning, Bheema tried toquestion Yudhistra for the first time. Now the time hascome for her to destroy them. The story goes on – it’s along story. But it adds a whole frame of such a story tothe Pandava tale that moves on a very different line. Thenarratives that I describe are what I could remember atthis moment. There are many other ways in which

narratives are told. Most of the time, I feel that what isour world but a narrative. Can we survive without stories?

To conclude, let me tell you a story. There was a king andhe wanted to be told a story that would tire him of sayingyes, what we call the hoonkara. He promised half of hiskingdom to any storyteller who could do this to him.One storyteller approached. He started by saying that apeasant had a big house and grain was stored in onepart. The king said yes. Then a bird came and took oneseed and went off. The king said yes. Then he said thebird came and took another seed, and then another. Theking said alright the bird came and took away all theseeds. The storyteller said the bird came and took awayall the grain in the granary and I shall proceed with thestory. So, I end here – the story would never end. q

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I met Komal Kothari in a conference in Delhionly in 2000. But thisbrief meeting was to befollowed soon by a much

more intense interaction during a fifteen day workshopin Jaisalmer on Documenting Creative Processes of Folkloreorganized by the National Folklore Support Centre.Though the workshop was being conducted by wellknown academics in the discipline of folklore, KomalDa, a non-academic stood tall amongst them. Armedwith his phenomenal knowledge of Rajasthan and itsoral traditions, Komal Da would often intersperse hissessions with folk tales, personal memoirs and anecdotes.The breadth of his knowledge ranged from oral epics,folk instruments, puppeteers, folk gods and goddessesto women’s songs, water harvesting and culturalgeography of Rajasthan.

At that time, I was working on a film on the Mirasans ofPunjab, women of the Mirasi community who singsongs on life cycle rituals for their patrons. I was carryinga rough cut of my documentary film ‘Born to Sing’ andwas looking for an opportunity to show it to him. WhenI mentioned this to Komal Da on the second last day ofthe workshop he insisted that he would like to see itthat night. I was quite sure that he would have forgottenall about it but when I went to his room that night, theVCR had been hooked up and he was waiting for me.Komal Da loved the songs sung by the Mirasans. Wecould see the similarities in the tradition of the Mirasisand the Manganiar caste musicians. Both were Muslimcommunities and while the patrons of Mirasis wereSikhs, that of the Manganiars were Hindus. I had workedon my film with perhaps the last of the Mirasans whocould sing professionally. In Rajasthan too there was aretreat of professional women caste musicians from thepublic sphere.

I told him that what amazed me is the fact that none ofthe Mirasans are trained musicians and some of themoften go besura yet their music is so rich and sounds so

Here to Eternity, on a magic JharuByBy Shikha Jhingan Shikha JhinganShikha Jhingan is an independent documentaryfilm maker based in Delhi. Email: [email protected]

*******************************************************

different from the music of other women. I had recordedsongs sung by many non-Mirasi women during my fieldtrips to Malwa region of Punjab. Sometimes the repertoireof the two overlapped but the Mirasans’ style wasbreathtakingly different. This was despite the fact thatSugran, the leading protagonist of my film had neverreceived formal training. ‘It is the control over theirbreathing that makes all the difference to the quality oftheir music’ said Komal Da.

Komal Da’s sustained work with the Langas andManganiars had brought them to the international festivalcircuits and he was keen to ensure the continuation ofthis tradition by organizing camps for the younger boysof the community. Interestingly, Langas and Manganiarsdid not follow any formal system of training for theyounger generation. This is unlike the gharana traditionin classical music which is based on a formal guru shishyaparampara. Despite this, the Langas and Manganiars havebeen carrying on this tradition for so many generations.‘So, the transmission occurs in a strangely nonpedagogical manner’. To illustrate this Komal Da gaveme the example of Shamsu, who had learnt to play theJadi ki Sarangi from the great Lakha Khan Manganiyar.Shamsu’s training was facilitated by a Sangeet NatakAcademy Scholarship and the young Manganiar boy wasto learn from Lakha by living with him for a year. But itwas soon felt that this training would be a complete wasteof time, for both the teacher and the pupil. Shamsu didn’treally turn out to be an ideal student andto add to his woes Lakha had no patience with him.He would often loose his cool and beat up the boy fornot following what he was trying to teach on theinstrument.

Many years later, a strange twist of events had a bigsurprise in store for Komal Da. He needed a Sarangiplayer for a program and the only person available wasShamsu. Reluctantly, Komal Da sent for him and askedhim to perform. That evening Shamsu’s Sarangi playedmagic, and too in Lakha’s inimitable style! Shamsu hadbecome Shamsu Khan Manganiyar, who would carry on

22


with the tradition of Lakha and pass on the baton tomany more Shamsu’s in the near future.

Komal Da spent years trekking villages on foot with ameager budget documenting folk songs, oral epics, storytellers, oral genealogists and professional caste musicians.Most notable amongst these are the rare recordings withdalit and tribal musicians like the Meghwals and Bhilsand the nomadic communities of Rajasthan. TheRupayan Sansthan boasts of five thousand hours ofrecordings deeply embedded in the cultural memory ofthese diverse communities. Through this rigorousprocess of documentation Komal Da was able to recoverthe narrative lore of the lower caste communities’ oftencarrying expressions of biting satire and irreverencetowards the powerful ruling castes of Rajasthan, in alive per formative context.

Komal Da had spread the word that if anyone came acrossgood musicians/performers in their region they shouldbring them to Rupayan with their instruments. But oneof the instruments that Komal Da disliked immenselywas the harmonium. For him the harmonium symbolizedthe demise of the traditional instruments heralding theonset of standardized, uniform musical expression. Thiswas at a time when folk instruments like the Kamaicha,Jadi Ki Sarangi and Sindhi Sarangi were slowly gettingeclipsed, only to be found in folklore museums andantique collectors. Those that were available were in astate of disrepair and skilled craftsmen who made theseinstruments were no longer available. He realized thathis work with the younger Langa and Manganiar boyswould hold no meaning without the revival of theseinstruments. This became a major concern and finallyKomal Da was instrumental in getting together a groupof skilled carpenters, musicians and musicologists tosuccessfully devise the construction of these instruments.

Komal Da’s multi layered work in the field of folklore,ethnomusicology and social history was based on hisdeep understanding of people’s knowledge systems. Ioften noticed a certain anxiety he had for pedagogicallearning. Even though he never spoke against the needfor formal schooling or education, his experience led himto believe that formal education leads to a deep loss of acertain kind of knowledge based on cultural andecological diversity. “You go to a village, ask a youngschool going lad to name the variety of grasses that onecan find in his village. At the most, he will be able toname two or three. But in the same village, you ask a

boy who has never been to school and he will be able toname at least nine or ten. My grand mother could identifyabout ninety-five colours while today we can hardlyname about twenty with the seven primaries remainingas the core.” Perhaps these concerns led him toconceptualise the setting up of a unique ethnographicmuseum in Jodhpur.

In his last days, Komal Da was intensely involved in thesetting up of this museum of his dream that aims tohave objects of daily use rather than those of historic orexotic significance. The museum has been designed torelate stories of the creative ingenuity of the commonfolk by tracing the history of tangible cultural objectsand the role they played in their daily life. The first objectthat is being explored in this unique effort is the jharu orbroom stick. Komal Da’s eyes were smiling when heexplained the concept behind this museum once againdrawing connections between land, water, agriculture,objects, social hierarchies and forms of expression. Hespoke at length about the different varieties of grass thatthe brooms are made of. What is the caste identity ofpeople who make these jharus? What about the women?Who collects the grass and who makes the jharus in thefamily? What about the brooms that are used by themunicipality sweepers? What are the tools that are usedto tame the wild grass and mould it to the form of ajharu? Where are these jharus sold? How much time isrequired to make each jharu? Each question brought usto the social, cultural and economic fabric of Rajasthan.A simple jharu had created a fascinating labyrinth inKomal Da’s mind!

In January 2004, I heard that Komal Da was not keepingtoo well and wanted to see me. As his health keptdeteriorating, he was shifted to a hospital in Jaipur. Idecided to take the morning Shatabdi and visit him. Hishospital suite had been turned into a virtual office. Icould see that a DVD player had been hooked up to thetelevision. There were six acrobat groups in Rajasthanand he was keen that the Rupayan Sansthan should makefilms on each of them exploring issues of patronage,transmission and performance in a public sphere. Hewanted me to steer the project and showed me the videodocumentation of two of them that afternoon. “I do nothave so much time, we should finish this by September,”said Komal Da. But September was too far. On April 20Komal Da breathed his last. v

First Published in Tehelka, June 5, 2004

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Religion and SubalternAgencyby G PatrickChennai: Department ofChristian Studies,University of Madras2003, Pages xiii + 223

Studies in Indian FolkCulture (Journal)Editors M.L.K. MurtyY.A. Sudhakar ReddyHyderabad:Centre for Folk CultureStudies, School of SocialSciences, University ofHyderabad, 2004

Oorthaiva VazhilpadumVizhiakaloom (Worship andFestivals of Village Deities)(Collection of Research Papers)Editors Sheela Asirvathamand A. PapaMadurai: Project on Gender- Folklore and TribalsKatie Wilcox EducationalAssociation, Lady DoakCollege Campus,Page 183 + 9

Tamilazha Natupura KaivinaiKalaigal(Folk Crafts of Tamilnadu)(Collection of Research Papers)Editors Sheela Asirvatham andA. PapaMadurai: Centafore Publication,Madurai Kamaraj UniversityPage 143 + 17

Proverbs and Folklore ofKumaun and GarhwalEdited byPandit Ganga Datt UpretiNew Delhi: IGNCA,Concept PublishingCompany2003, Pages xxviii + 400ISBN 81-7022-894-8

Traditional Health Practices ofKumaoni WomenContinuity and Changesby Anjali CapilaNew Delhi: IGNCA,Concept PublishingCompany2003, Pages xxiii + 362ISBN 81-8069-146-2

Tribal Health and MedicinesEdited byA.K. Kalla and P.C. JoshiNew Delhi: ConceptPublishing Company2004, Pages xxi + 447ISBN 81-8069-139-X

Dictionary of MythologyCompiled by Manish Bhatia& Geeta SaxenaEdited by S.K. BhatiaNew Delhi:Gita Enterprises,2002, Pages 182ISBN 81-87877-02-2

India’s Dances: Their History,Technique & Repertoireby Reginald MasseyNew Delhi:Abhinav Publications2004, Pages 316ISBN 81-7017-434-1

Encyclopaedia of IndianCultureEdited byDr. P.N. Chopra andDr. Prabha ChopraNew Delhi: ReliancePublishing House,2003, Pages xx + 398ISBN 81-7510-157-1

Shringar—The Ras Raj(A Classical Indian View)by Ved BhatnagarNew Delhi: AbhinavPublication2004, Pages 119ISBN 81-70174-25-2

PaÝÝžlé PaúaméKodava Culture-Folksongsand TraditionsCompiled by NadikeriandaChinnappaTranslated by BoveriandaNanjamma and ChinnappaNew Delhi: Rupa & Co2003, Pages xxxviii + 718ISBN 81-291-0240-4

R E V I E W B O O K S

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Published by M.D. Muthukumaraswamy for National Folklore Support Centre, No.7, Fifth Cross Street, Rajalakshmi Nagar,Velachery, Chennai - 600 042 (India), and printed by M.S. Raju Seshadrinathan at Nagaraj and Company Pvt. Ltd., # 4/262, OldMahabalipuram Road, Kandanchavady, Chennai 600 096, INDIA. Ph:+91-44-24482645 (For free private circulation only.)

Khasi Jaintia Folklore(Context, Discourse and History)

by Soumen Sen

Folklore, Public Sphere andCivil Society

Edited by M.D. Muthukumaraswamyand Molly Kaushal

NFSCFolk Festival 2002

Indian Ocean Folktales:Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius,

Reunion, Seychelles- Lee Haring

Folklore and Historiography:Some Theoretical Implications in the Context of

Medieval and Modern History of North-East IndiaBirendranath Datta

Voicing Folklore: Careers,Concerns and Issues:

Interviewed and Edited byM.D.Muthukumaraswamy

Volume 1, Issue 1, December 2001Contributors: Soumen Sen,

Susan S. Wadley, Nita Mathur,Pravina Shukla, Ileana Citaristi,Desmond L. Kharmawphlang,

V. Bharathi Harishankar, Lee Haring,Guy Poitevin, Aarti Kawlra,

Ludwig PeschISSN 0972-6462

INDIAN FOLKLORE RESEARCH JOURNAL (IFRJ)

Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2002

Contributors:Betsy Taylor,

D.K. Bora, Heda Jason,Paul D. Greene, Balvant Jani,

Guy Poitevin, Sabita Radhakrishna,Anita Cherian, S.Theodore Baskaran

ISSN 0972-6462

Volume 1, Issue 3, December 2003Contributors:

Hanne M. de Bruin, MathewVarghese, Bindu Ramachandran,

Manjunatha Bevinakatti, GuyPoitevin, Harald Tambs-Lyche,

Kailash Kumar MishraISSN 0972-6462

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N F S C P U B L I C AT I O N S Indian Folklife Regd. No. R.N. TNENG / 2001 / 5251ISSN 0972-6470

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