Kishna & Babaori
Udaipur, India
The train was hot, dusty and full as we pulled out of Delhi Nizzamudin Station towards Rajasthan. All through the night people got on and off the train and I would wake to find a new set of eyes peering up at me, intrigued by my presence in sleeper class. We were making our way west to Udaipur, a place where I was returning after two and a half years in the hope of finding Kishna and Babaori, a family of musicians and jewellery sellers from one of the ‘gypsy’ castes in India. They filled me with light on my first journey to this magical city.
I sat bolt upright as the sound of the chai-wallah approached, ‘chai, chaiiiia’ and moved down from my middle bunk to watch the sunrise over the desert-like fields. At Udaipur station we were greeted by the usual hustle of tuktuk and taxi drivers. A non-functioning pre-paid taxi counter taunted us as we negotiated our fare. The streets were familiar. We sped past temples with bells ringing, people doing their morning puja and up through the market streets to the Jagdish temple sitting high atop its steep marble steps.
It was only spring but the sun was oppressive, beating down on us at 43 degrees suffocating the life out of everyone. We approached Gangaur Ghat where I had first met Kishna & Babaori. There they were, exactly as the last time I saw them with their two youngest sons, Ganput and Ganesh at their sides. As I approached Kishna recognition passed over his face and he greeted me taking both my hands into his. Babaori came over and hugged me awkwardly. For the next two days we came back with our violins to learn from Kishna. There was something different about them this time; instead of light and joyful spontaneity, Kishna seemed to carry the weight that marked the beginning of a long hot summer and the end of the tourist season, their main form of income. There were moments when the light came back into his eyes but I often observed him staring off into the distance as he lit his beedie and then regather himself before anyone noticed that he had gone briefly to another place.
Kishna comes from a small village out of Jaipur and is from a family of wandering storytellers. For generations his people have travelled from village to village with their ravanhatta, singing great epics that would often last right through the night. The ravanhatta is an ancient instrument (potentially the first form of violin); mainly played on just one string there are 15 strings underneath that resonate giving it a sound full and rich. Kishna grew up moving through the villages of Rajasthan where his father and grandfather would bring music and stories to the people. The locals would feed them and host them in their houses for the duration of their stay.
Kishna talked about how this had all changed in the space of just one generation. Now, no one comes to greet the storytellers when they arrive in the villages and they don’t pay them or feed or host them anymore. He lamented that the overwhelming dominance of cellphones and the internet brought with it a cultural shift away from traditional forms of music. People now just wanted to listen to dance music and Hindi pop songs. The lifestyle of a wandering storyteller is no longer possible and many of the people from these Rajasthani ‘gypsy’ castes now live a very poor lifestyle on the fringes of the main tourist cities and the majority of the stories have been lost.
In response to the changing times, Kishna had moved away from the lifestyle of a wandering storyteller. Although the making and playing of the ravanhatta is still his trade, they now have a house in a small village on the outskirts of Udaipur and they come into the city every day to play music by the lake and sell their instruments and jewellery. They rely almost entirely on tourists to earn a living — a seasonal and unreliable income stream, but one that at least offers enough to sustain their family. Although his lifestyle may have changed from that of his ancestors, the craftsmanship and artistry continue to live. The music that he plays is beautiful and the instrument sings in his hands with the ease of an old friend that you’ve known since birth.
Story and photographs by Hannah Mackintosh. If you enjoyed this, you can find more here: https://medium.com/for-all-i-see
