A Musical Tradition…
When music fills you,
Every nerve dances to the melody,
Ecstasy fills every cell with a divine fervour,
Life comes to a standstill and
Ceases to respond to any form of stimulus,
Its only one feeling in the air,
CELEBRATION OF BEING ALIVE…
From the day Mr. Durva Bhumanna of All India Radio told me about Marsukola Kalavathi, I have dreamt of meeting her and asking her to sing for me. I rehearsed my conversation with her many times in my head so I don’t mess it up and embarrass myself when I meet her. I tried to imagine how she looked, what she wore, where she lived and what she sounded like. It was also important for me to meet her because she is one of the very few women who sings alone and is of course the lead singer in her music troupe — unlike the other Thoti singers where the husband leads and the wife follows. Her husband being not so keen on pursuing the musical tradition and she being extremely talented and also passionate about the music which was passed on to her from her father, she couldn’t have obviously let it die or snub her voice. Much to the chagrin of the people in her village and despite vehement resistance from everyone, she performed and with her head held high. She is waging a silent battle for her rights and had managed to garner the support of a few men and women in her village, with whose support she has formed her troupe and she performs. She is a feminist and a rational thinker in her own right who is spreading the message of equal rights and gender parity in her community.
And… It happened. My meeting with her actually happened. We were in Adilabad recently for our routine Kisan Mitra work and one of our friends proposed that he wants to visit Tosham village in Gudihathnoor mandal on some official work and asked if we could accompany him. I almost jumped in excitement and said an emphatic yes. Finally I was getting a chance to meet Kalavathi — see her, speak to her and maybe if my luck is shining, also hear her sing. I was having goosebumps at the very thought of meeting her.
To give a little background about Thotis — Thotis belong to Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs). They are the bards who sing for the Gonds and earn their livelihood most often food like a few kgs of Jowar etc., They are invited by the Gonds to sing about their ancestors, their cultural heritage, their lives etc., Their music troupe consists of a lead singer (usually male) and an accompanist usually his wife, a man who plays a string instrument called the Keekri, another man who plays the small Dhakki and a couple of chorus singers.
A day before Ugadi, we went to Tosham as planned. I found a few women having a casual conversation in the village and asked them if they could lead me to Kalavathi’s house. They were kind of reluctant and insisted that even they are singers and I should listen to them. Their expressions hinting to me that I shouldn’t really bother about Kalavathi. However I kept asking till I reached Kalavathi’s house and she introduced herself and took us to her house. While we waited for her team of accompanists to arrive, we got to talking with her about her life and family. She shared with us about her struggles, her paralysed bedridden mother and also the general life of a tribal in her village, the local forest foods they eat and the medicines they make from the local greens for paralysis, typhoid etc., She expressed deep anguish about the plight of the musicians in her community who are hardly able to make their ends meet and how the younger generation isn’t very keen on continuing the tradition because of the same reasons and also spoke about the ignorance of some people in her community who are not letting her perform alone and who don’t really understand her passion for the musical tradition she wants to keep alive. Her voice had a sense of calm despite all the hardships she had encountered in her life. She seemed to have made peace with her circumstances while making sure she doesn’t give up on her fight for what is right.
As we continued our conversation with her, her relative Mesram Bhim Rao who plays the Keekri with her arrived along with Pendur Sitharam who plays the Dhakki (S/O Pendur Tukaram, who also sings Kaaroon Katha along with his wife) and Mesram Venkatamma Kalavathi’s vocal accompanist. When Kalavathi told them that we have been waiting to listen to them sing, Bhim Rao was visibly disturbed thinking of all the backlash they would receive from the other villagers if they sing for us. He kept saying that the villagers will criticise them for inviting “officials” into their house and are performing in front of them. We had to do a lot of convincing that we are not officials and that they can take our phone number and call us in case they face any trouble in the village. Finally after a lot of cajoling, they started to sing.
They sang portions of two songs. One about a Goddess who was married off as a child to Nagendra (snake God), the residing deity in the Nagoba temple. Nagendra’s father always hides him inside a golden casket and this song is about this girl who comes back home after playing with her friends (Juvvaari). All of them go back to their husbands and she doesn’t know who her husband is and asks about him. Another song is about this girl who comes of age and realises that she wants to explore the world so she gets all dressed up wearing their traditional jewellery and sets out on her journey.
The moment they started tuning their musical instruments, I knew that they are going to teleport us into a different world with their music and they did exactly that. Saying that their music/songs rhapsodised me would be an understatement. They intermittently smiled at each other acknowledging the beautiful renditions, lent voices in chorus and performed with perfect understanding of each other.
I would have wanted to listen more, probably would not be tired of listening to them all day, but like all journeys, this journey also had to go on and we had to go onto our other work of meeting few farmers in Utnoor so with a lot of reluctance I had to bid her goodbye. As we started to walk out of her house, she gently asked her to wait for a minute and requested — “I don’t need any land, I don’t need any money; I haven’t studied much; All what my father managed to give me is this music, which I want to keep alive. I request you is to please support me in this journey of passing on this musical tradition to the next generations.” A request which wrenched my gut and raised many questions in my head.
Isn’t this also Indian culture?
Don’t they need to be heard and celebrated too?
Why should some of the artistes like her feel so helpless and anxious about the future of their art?
Why are some musicians earning in crores while others can’t even manage to make ends meet?
Why are we devising one shoe fits all solutions for everyone irrespective of the backgrounds they come from?
People like Marsukola Kalavathi need our patronage. Not the kind of patronage where we exhibit condescension claiming to “give” them a life by putting their children into Telugu/English medium schools/hostels, giving them rice through PDS and houses through some housing schemes. Not indoctrinating them to suit the needs of the modern definition of development we have been propagating. Their language, their music, their food, their art, their housing, their forests, their culture must not be encroached into or bulldozed upon. They deserve to be conserved, respected and celebrated.
Photos & Videos Courtesy: Harsha
