Folk Music and Instruments of Rajasthan: Facts and PYQs

Rajasthan keeps its history in song. In a desert where writing reached few villages, hereditary musician communities carried the genealogies of patrons, the epics of folk deities and the sorrows of women waiting at the well, and they did it with instruments made of gourd, bamboo, wood and hide. For the Rajasthan examinations this is a scoring chapter, because the questions are almost always a match: the instrument with its community, the instrument with its class, or the song form with its occasion.

The hereditary musician communities

The Manganiyars and the Langas of western Rajasthan, in Jaisalmer, Barmer and Jodhpur, are the best known professional musicians of the state; both are Muslim communities who sang for Rajput and Sindhi Sipahi patrons and still perform at births, weddings and festivals. The Manganiyar signature instrument is the kamayacha, a deep bowed lute, and the Manganiyars also made the khartal famous. The Langas play the sindhi sarangi and the surnai, and the Barmer Langas the surinda. The Bhopas are priest-singers of folk deities: a Bhopa of Pabuji sings the Pabuji ki Phad before a painted scroll with the ravanhatta, while a Bhopa of Devnarayan uses the jantar. The Kamad community sings for Ramdevji and performs the Terah Taali with manjiras tied to the body. The Kalbelias, once snake charmers, sing and dance to the poongi and the been, and their songs and dances were inscribed on the UNESCO list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010. The Mirasis and Dholis are genealogist-musicians, the Jogis sing on the ektara, and the Bhavai and Kathputli performers add theatre and puppetry to music.

Folk song forms and when they are sung

The four classes of folk instruments

Indian tradition divides instruments into four classes, and Rajasthan's folk instruments are taught in the same order. Tat or string instruments are plucked or bowed: the ravanhatta of the Pabuji Bhopas, the kamayacha of the Manganiyars, the sindhi sarangi and surinda of the Langas, the jantar of the Devnarayan Bhopas, the chikara, the rabab, the tandura or chautara of the Ramdevji singers and the ektara of the Nath Jogis. Sushir or wind instruments are blown: the algoza and the satara, both double flutes played with two pipes at once, the poongi and the been of the Kalbelias, the surnai, the shehnai, the bankiya, the nagfani, the mashak and the bansuri. Avanaddh instruments have a stretched skin: the dhol, the dholak, the nagara and the damama, the chang of the Shekhawati Holi, the dhamsa, the daf, the tasha, the khanjari, the mandal and the bhapang of Alwar and the Mewat tract. Ghan instruments are solid bodies struck or shaken: the khartal, the manjira, the jhanjh, the thali, the chimta, the ghungroo and the morchang.

Dance, theatre and the music that goes with them

Folk music in Rajasthan is rarely heard alone. The Ghoomar, performed in a circle with the skirt swinging, is the best known dance of the state; the Gair of Mewar and Marwar is danced by men at Holi; the Chari dance of the Kishangarh region balances a brass pot with a lighted lamp; the Kalbelia is danced to the poongi; the Terah Taali is performed seated with manjiras; the Kacchi Ghodi and the Gindad belong to Shekhawati; the Walar is a dance of the Garasia and the Gavari a month-long dance drama of the Bhils of Mewar; and the fire dance of the Jasnathi sect belongs to the Bikaner tract. In folk theatre the Khyal forms are the richest, with the Kuchamani, Shekhawati and Turra-Kalangi styles, while Rammat belongs to Bikaner and Jaisalmer, Tamasha to the Bhatt family of Jaipur and Nautanki to the Bharatpur side.

Singers, scholars and institutions

Allah Jilai Bai of Bikaner, the great voice of Maand, made Kesariya Balam Aavo Hamare Desh the signature song of Rajasthan and received the Padma Shri; Gavri Devi of Pali was another renowned Maand singer. Sadiq Khan is remembered for the khartal and Jahoor Khan Mewati for the bhapang, and Gulabo Sapera carried the Kalbelia dance to the world. The folklorist Komal Kothari recorded and published this music for half a century and founded the Rupayan Sansthan at Borunda in Jodhpur district with the writer Vijaydan Detha; the institute remains the chief archive of Rajasthani folk music. Of the classical gharanas associated with the region, the Mewati gharana of Hindustani vocal music and the Jaipur gharana of Kathak are the ones question papers name.