LATHA VENKATRAMAN SAYS NOT ALL BHOJPURI MUSIC IS LEWD AND INNUENDO LADEN. IN FACT, SOME OF THE SUPER DUPER HINDI FILM HITS HAVE BEENCREATIVELY COPIED FROM BHOJPURI FOLK MUSIC.
Folk music is integral to all our lives and yet we are
so far removed from it. How often do we, residents of metros and big cities, take time off to listen to folk music? In Mumbai, almost every youngster is plugged on to music via the cell phone and most of it is to listen to the FM radio.
Bollywood music is what most people listen to and yet most are unaware that a number of songs used in films are most often absolute copies of folk songs.
Not many would know that the 2010 hit song ‘Munni Badnaam’from the film Dabaang is a copy of an original Bhojpuri folk song, ‘Launda Badnaam Hua Naseeban Tere Liye'( the boy has become notorious for you, Naseeban).
The other popular Bhojpuri folk songs that have become a part of the Hindi film music repertoire are Kajra Re, Bidi Jalaile, Inhi Logone, Do Hanson Ka Joda, Nain Lad Gai, Rang Barse Bhige, Nadi Nare Na Jao and many others.
‘The Hindi film industry has used a number of Bhojpuri folk songs in movies,’says Shailesh Srivastava, who has done research on Bhojpuri folk music and written a book in Hindi on the subject. Her book, ‘Bhojpuri Sanskar Geet aur Prasar Madhyam’looks at development of folk music in the region along the Gangetic belt.
The language Bhojpuri is spoken in the region that covers parts of east Uttar Pradesh and west Bihar. ‘Folk music was born from the need to communicate,’says Shailesh. For a new born child communication and learning commences with the mother. And this was often through folk songs. Also, the exigencies of life in villages prompted the creation of words and music, says Shailesh.
You have lullabies, folk songs sung during farm work, house work, festival songs, temple songs, wedding songs, seasonal songs, entertainment songs and dirges, she says. Bhojpuri folk songs took on many forms, some of the well- known ones being Holi, Chaiti, Kajari, Dadra, Jhoola, Baramasa among others.
According to her, what sets apart Bhojpuri folk music from other musical forms is the language used in communication.
The language most often is that what local people spoke. And Bhojpuri folk music is particularly lucid, she says. ‘Poems written by Kabir, for instance, used mostly colloquial phrases.
Folk songs were mostly reflection of daily life and yet spoke of anguish, worry, philosophy, devotion,’she says.
The difficulties of daily lives were succinctly brought out in some of these Bhojpuri folk songs. ‘Every aspect of life was recorded in folk songs. They also spoke of infidelity,’she says.
Shailesh, who has done her doctorate in Folk and Media, is originally from Balia in Uttar Pradesh. She herself is a singer of folk songs and light music not only in Bhojpuri but also in languages such as Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Avadhi, Punjabi, Himachali and Dogri among others.
‘My father encouraged me to take up light and folk music. I first trained from Pandit Kashinath Mishra,’she says.
Subsequently, she learnt from Pandit Rajan and Sajan Mishra.
But even as her father was encouraging her to take up music, her mother was opposed to the idea of her daughter taking up music lessons.
Her opposition stemmed from the fear that women who went into music would be denied social acceptance. As recent as the early part of the 20th century, the family women had no social sanction to learn music and perform as musicians.
Shailesh has been performing now for several years and is A grade artiste of All India Radio and Doordarshan. She is also one of the producer directors at Doordarshan, Mumbai. Among all folk music Bhojpuri folk songs appeal the most mainly because of its simplicity, she says. Folk music that was intertwined into the daily routine of peoples lives is now something apart. Today, the link with folk music is mainly through stage performances.
The socio
