Rhythmic Waterscapes: Folk Music of Bengal across Times

Folk culture is a product of “ a comparatively stable, traditional social order, in which social differences are not conflictual, and… is therefore characterized by social consensus rather than social conflict(Fiske 2010: 134)”. In this regard it is very different from popular culture that mainly thrives on forming templates of resistances against hegemonic authoritarian structures. Of the myriad articulations of folk life, it is perhaps music that is most distinct.

The spectrum of folk songs of Bengal, like in any other old civilization, has traditionally been wide, accommodating and diverse. A striking and perhaps most singular aspect of the tradition of folk music in Bengal is that historically it has never been ‘owned’ by or confined to any particular culture group but to a culture area where it has been traditionally practiced and embraced by people of different ethno-religious calling. Accordingly, across time there have been region-specific traditions of folk songs such as Bhatiyali in erstwhile East Bengal and present Bangladesh, Bhawaiya of north Bengal and adjacent districts of Assam, Gambhira of Malda and Rajshahi districts, Jhumur of the western districts of Bengal namely Burdwan, Bankura, Purulia, Midnapore and Birbhum and Baul songs from certain East Bengal districts and Birbhum district of West Bengal.

Other than being accompaniments of leisure, such music also arguably fulfill socio-economic and religious functions of those lives that it embraces. Thus certain anthropologists identify five principal needs of folk songs in a society namely (i) magico-religious, (ii) instruction and moral, (iii) athletic oriented competition, (iv) aid to work, and (v)aesthetics. In such a classificatory scheme, Sari songs fall in the category of athletic-oriented competitive folk songs and it was once common for the spectators to experience open vistas and multiple rivers and rivulets of erstwhile eastern Bengal reverberate with the rhythmic Nouka Baich-er gān during the traditional boat racing competition or Nouka Baich. Interestingly, despite pulling their individual ways in terms of melody, lyrics, philosophy or function, these seemingly disparate music traditions of Bengal shared a common parentage. They belonged to an age-old oral tradition that was folk in essence and lineage. Thus when a majhee(boatman) used to break into a love song or participate with his fellow rowers in a sari song, he merely embodied, replicated and carried forward an age old oral legacy.

None of the songs were available in written form before the consumerist society intervened though the market renditions hardly articulate the ‘folkness’ of the compositions. Estranged from the cultural and natural environment that produced them as also the people, these ended up being poor imitations of the original sari or bhatiyali. In bygone times, memory was their sole repository as the popular tunes travelled down generations, albeit with omissions and revisions thus acts of forgetting and remembering equally helping to sustain and recreate folk music. It has been observed that as the tunes of folk songs are traditional, common people do not need to be particular about singing it ‘right’. So, the folk composers hardly bother about the various grammatical and musicological characters relating to metre, pitch, lexicography, etc. A dominant opinion is that because they are so close to the soil and nature and are nurtured by the open wide environmental conditions, such compositions are marked by simplicity and liveliness and that is the principal reason for their sustenance through the ages.

Such oral renditions were however not uniform in their syntax, tune or rendition. Based on the differences in style as also purpose, fishermen or boatmen’s songs of East Bengal came to constitute two distinct musical genres. Known as Bhatiyali and Sari respectively, these continue to hold their sway in the folk heritage of Bengal till date. At one point of time, these two geńres of music were a way of life with the water populace of Bengal. Of all the village songs (polli-sangeet) of Bengal, there are certain songs which are sung in the open or on river, alone. Bhatiyali is usually considered to be a supreme representation of the latter group of village songs as it is known to mirror the pain, angst and love of a waterman’s heart. In its literal sense, it signifies “…the particular type of folk-tune recited by a boatman during his up-journey across down streams of the riverine districts of Bangladesh” (Ray 1988:109).

Folklorists usually believe that the physiognomy of a region has a great bearing upon the tonal qualities of a majhee’s voice. Thus music connoisseurs are aware that the people of western and eastern Bengal apparently have different singing capacities due to the dissimilar geographical attributes of the two regions. Unlike west Bengal, the ecology of eastern Bengal has always been riverine and it is apparently the expansive river lands and waterfronts of the latter that inspire the full-throated rendition of folk songs especially bhatiyali. Sari on the other hand implies a song accompanying baich or the traditional boat race popular in the eastern and southern sectors of Bengal. Unlike bhatiyali which are essentially love songs sung in solitude by a boatman, sari is a work-song that is sung in unison with the rhythm of the oars hitting the water. Bhatiyali argueably expresses a philosophic encounter or dialogue of a lone boatman with nature encapsulating yearnings and pain in lyrical medium. It is also understood to have a deep spiritual component. Nouka-baicher gaan could not have had the same philosophic dimension as it was sung to accelerate the pace of boats in a competition; its focus and purpose were more goal-oriented.

The essence of folk culture and music of Bengal in both colonial and post colonial times was its syncretic nature as a certain religious equanimity prevailed over the composition of the lyrics and in the underlying philosophy behind such songs. Nurtured in the socio-cultural soil of pre-Partition Bengal, this geńre of music embraced all communities with similar intensity and was pluralistic in tenor. In Bengal for instance, it was fairly commonplace for Muslim majhees or boatmen to participate in Hindu rituals like khetra-bràto, singing songs as ‘sinni debo pir er dargae’. Argueably, such acts of offering of sinni(It is a variant of custard made with flour, and a ritual offering made to God by Bengali Hindus) to the mausoleum of a pir by a Muslim majhee, carried synergistic resonances thus replicating models of harmonious, everyday co-existence and reinforcing the principal ethos of folk living.

1947 drew indelible faith-lines and indelible fault-lines across such shared synergistic heritage. Partition of a unified Bengal, separation of people, homes, hearts; countless experiences of trauma across the borders did not spare her pristine folk world either. Tumultuous waters, communalization of symbols, lyrics, feelings, places, harsh realities, coarse withdrawn lives haunted the simple worlds encapsulated in the folk songs. Still folk traditions of Bengal refused to die as legendary practitioners like Abbasuddin Ahmad, Nirmalendu Chaudhuri churned out poignant gems that kept folk melody alive even in times of acute strife and hunger. In present situations of occasional dystopia too such folk melody continues to give hope and reassert the ways of life shared in common in the ‘culture region’ on both sides of Bengal thus defying the geo-political realities of ‘bordered’ lives and existence.

Somdatta Chakraborty

Senior Adjunct Researcher, AGA

06.01.2018

References:

1. Deb, Chittaranjan, Polligeeti O Purbabanga, Kathakatha publishers, Calcutta, 1953.
2. Fiske, John, Understanding Popular Culture, 2^nd edition, Routledge, USA,2010.
3. Ray, Sukumar, Folk-Music of Eastern India with special reference to Bengal, Indian Institute of Advance Studies, Naya Prakash, Calcutta, 1988.