Bhopal: Men Welcome Girl Child With Songs To Break Patriarchal Mindset

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Men in the city presented sohar songs to welcome girl child, which captivated the audience at Gandhi Bhawan on Wednesday. The songs included ‘Dholak baje manjira baje, papa nache sari raat...’ Lado ka meri janam hua hai…, and ‘Badra jhoom ke aa gaye re, Bitiya gaye re aa hamare angana…’ Audience including men, women and children, couldn’t stop themselves from dancing as Vimal Bhandari and Sunil Kumar Gupta presented the songs.

It was for the first time in the country that the fathers presented Sohar songs to break the patriarchal mindset that has been prevalent for centuries. These sohar songs have been especially prepared for girl children.

Sarokar Group organised the event to mark the International day of Girl Child. The tradition of singing Sohar folk songs on the birth of a child has been going on for centuries, but all the songs prevalent till now are for sons. There were no separate songs to celebrate the birth of a girl child, the ones that exist are negative. They do not express joy but sadness at the birth of a daughter. The social initiative has been taken by the group, who for the first time has composed Sohar Geet for the girl. The songs were launched on social media.

“The story of making Sohar started 24 years ago when my daughter was born. At that time there were no such songs for girls. The desire of making Sohar for the birth of a daughter arose in my mind and from the time my daughter went to school till she went to college, we made many Sohars, on birth of daughter,” Kumud said adding that “ a collection of 30 Sohar songs has been prepared, which are available in various Indian languages including Hindi.”

Former CMHO Dr Veena Sinha gave tips to the daughters of the deprived community to stay healthy. She also answered the questions of the girls regarding menstrual hygiene. Teenage girls from the Bedia community who came with Sister Dorathy from Vidisha participated in the event.