There is a singer who performs and sings continuously all through the night!
Without missing a single line and without referring to notes!
What is more surprising and amazing is that he does not know how to read a single letter!
William Dalrymple’s seventh book is about the lives of nine Indians, a Buddhist monk, a Jain nun, a lady from a middle-class family in Calcutta, a prison warden from Kerala and a devadasi among others, as seen during his Indian travels.
If you chance upon the audible version narrated by the author himself you can feel the passion and intent! You can understand how he is completely in awe of the culture and traditions! It is like a person roaming in the desert all his life and then given a taste of the best drink in the whole universe! Water!
You of course have to ignore his pretty abysmal pronounciation of Indian words and his really poor understanding of many things which are happening! Even some basic stories he gets so wrong but the point here is not the fact but the message!
I have always stated this that in the quest of correctness, do not miss the intent behind the message!
Another puzzling thing is how in spite of his limited knowledge of language or culture he knows so many things with pride while we run away from tradition!
He talks about the Bhopas!
The Bhopa people are the priest-singers of the folk deities in the state of Rajasthan. They perform in front of a scroll, known as phad (par in the Rajasthani language) that depicts the episodes of the narrative of the folk deity and functions as a portable temple.
William Dalrymple narrates in his book about the most famous Bhopa artist called Mohan Bhopa who used to perform continuously and even over night!
He used to remember his lines when in fact he was illiterate!
You would think why he had to be illiterate! But sometimes the mind has to be empty before you fill it!
So being illiterate is apparently a requisite since then you would just repeat what you heard without your own ‘literate’ mind! Of course the talent is natural and made better with practice! The song and the words has already been written and perfected and those who have to carry on the tradition must be expected to do so without any ‘remixes’ or new thoughts and modifications which may hamper the sanctity of the original!
Of course many may not accept this ‘condition’ which is why there are only a few singers and maybe even some of the last ones.
There are also very few actors of the calibre of
Manoj Kumar! Even now the scene where he played Bhagat Singh is forever frozen in our memories.
He literally invented the hand over face style! Can’t sketch him without that!
You will be missed
Jai Hind…
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