Folk Music, Dance and Theatre of Bihar: Forms and Regions

Bihar keeps one of the richest bodies of folk performance in north India, because three language regions meet inside the state: Bhojpuri in the west, Magahi in the south and Maithili and Angika in the north and east. Every stage of village life, from the birth of a child to the sowing of paddy and the fast of Chhath, has its own song, and the same regions gave the stage the Bidesia of Bhikhari Thakur and the Kirtaniya plays of Mithila. For an examination the chapter must be learnt as four lists: songs by occasion, dances by region, theatre forms with their creators, and the classical gharanas and instrumentalists of the state.

Folk songs by season and ceremony

Folk song in Bihar is tied to the calendar and to the family, and it is almost always sung by women in chorus without written notation. Chhath songs are the most widely known today, sung at the river ghats in Kartik for Surya and Chhathi Maiya; Sharda Sinha, called the Bihar Kokila, is the singer identified with them and also with wedding and Sohar songs.

The region also preserves long sung ballads, the gathas: Lorikayan on the Ahir hero Lorik in Bhojpuri, Salhesh and Dina-Bhadri in the Koshi and Mithila tract, and Reshma-Chuharmal in the Magahi belt. Purbi, the style of light classical folk song built on separation, is the creation of Mahendar Misir of Misrauliya in Saran, who is called the emperor of Purbi.

Folk dances and their regions

Folk theatre and Bhikhari Thakur

Bhikhari Thakur, born in 1887 at Kutubpur Diyara in Saran district, is the central figure of Bhojpuri theatre and is called the Shakespeare of Bhojpuri. His play Bidesia shows a wife left behind when her husband migrates to Calcutta for work, and the name Bidesia came to be used for the whole style of naach that he built, with its own songs, its launda dancers and its social message. His other plays are Beti-Bechwa, against the sale of daughters, Gabarghichor, Bhai-Birodh and Vidhwa Vilap. In Mithila the older tradition is Kirtaniya theatre, which grew out of the songs of the Maithili poet Vidyapati and is also performed as Bidapat Naach; Bhakuli-Banka and Dina-Bhadri are played in the same tract. The Magahi region has Reshma-Chuharmal, the dramatised ballad of Chuharmal, a hero revered by the Dusadh community, while Nautanki and Ramlila are performed in the Bhojpuri districts. Patna has the modern stage: the Kalidas Rangalaya and the Premchand Rangshala for plays and the Bharatiya Nritya Kala Mandir for training in music and dance.

Classical traditions and instruments

Bihar is not only a land of folk forms. Darbhanga and Bettiah each carry a gharana of Dhrupad, the oldest surviving form of Hindustani classical singing; the Mallick family of Darbhanga, with singers such as Pandit Ram Chatur Mallick and Pandit Siyaram Tiwari, kept the Darbhanga tradition alive, and Gaya is known for its tappa and thumri. The greatest name of all is Ustad Bismillah Khan, born in 1916 at Dumraon in Buxar district, who made the shehnai a solo concert instrument, played at the Red Fort on 15 August 1947 and was given the Bharat Ratna in 2001. The instruments of folk performance are the dholak and nagara for rhythm, the mridang and jhal in kirtan, and the bansuri, sarangi and shehnai for melody.

What a student should fix in memory

Four pairs are asked again and again: Bidesia with Bhikhari Thakur, Purbi with Mahendar Misir, Kirtaniya with Vidyapati and the shehnai with Bismillah Khan of Dumraon. Add to them the region of each dance, because a paper will give Jhijhiya or Jat-Jatin and ask whether it belongs to Mithila, Magadh or the Bhojpuri tract, and the occasion of each song, because Sohar, Jatsar and Sama-Chakeva are distinguished only by the moment at which they are sung.