Singing Death, Living Pain: Women’s Songs from the Himalayan Foothills

Have you heard or read a song about a woman being killed, murdered, or being walled-up alive; or beaten to death by a fickle husband; or hacked by a suspicious husband or father-in-law; or compelled to commit suicide. Apart from Sati, songs about such incidents have scarcely received attention, hiding thus from us a grim reality that is kept alive in the songs of the singing-sisterhoods of the Kangra valley. By singing these songs, women narrate never-ending suffering: the repression, subjugation, brutalisation, scorn, and shame that they have to endure. They express the bitterness of unfulfilled lives, of emotional void, a seething protest, and self-assertion. By presenting these folk-songs, and comments by the singers, we draw attention to the neglected inner-world of women, their perspectives about life. The significance of these songs cannot be emphasised more except by observing that many a woman started singing these songs instead of narrating their personal hardships. The songs provided words and feelings to the overwhelming emotions within them that they, otherwise, found difficult to articulate. For most women, the truth is set into the songs that made them sing and transmit. It is, perhaps, because of this social function, apart from the felt need to preserve their ignored or obliterated past, that these songs survived and were contemporised in many transmissions over decades, may be centuries. It is because of the feeling of sisterhood and shared life across time, across divergent landscapes, cultures, and religions, that the themes of these songs resonate with each other and find camaraderie. In the commonalities of hardship in the quotidian lives of women across time and space, these songs connect the past to the present, alive in the singing-communities of Himalayan foothills. That such songs survived the strict patriarchal control of ideological sector, of the knowledge system, seems almost surreal, almost a dream.

These songs remain largely unknown, even though there has been a spurt of research on Himalayan foothills, including collections on folk-lore. Most prominent work on songs, so far, is that of Kirin Narayan on rituals and devotional songs—locating creativity in everyday—while Gautam Vyathit, writing in Hindi, has collected folklore from the bards; though M.S. Randhawa’s collection, in Punjabi, is the largest on the folksongs of Kangra. In the South Asian contexts, the book resonates with S.T Jassal’s, Unearthing gender—though women’s songs have not been centre-staged as has been done in this collection, particularly the songs of pain and death—a theme largely unexplored and scarcely documented, which nuances the culture of submission and obedience, shame and honour. 

In the larger context of north-Indian rural setting, these songs help us conceive not only the gendered roles and labour division, but also the constitution of households, families, kinship structures; inter-personal relations; about space, interactions, and control; notions of honour, sexualities, violence; about authority, power equations, and the gendered layers of the society and culture. Since the traditional sources do not discuss the matters of feminine lives and oppression openly, or represent the extent to which masculine attitudes affected their lives, the women-songs, therefore, provide an alternative voice. The songs in this anthology, moreover, open a broad window into the past that we know little about. They illuminate the hitherto hidden life. They articulate an altogether different perspective: a women’s perspective. 

Apart from an introduction, the book is conceived in three chapters, each with theme based sub-chapters, an ‘afterthought’, and a bibliographic note. Each of these chapters provide a context to the representative songs translated thereafter. The songs are also interspersed with commentary and quotes from the singers to illuminate their salience. Occasionally, paintings are used to provide a context, as well as to accentuate the feelings sought to be brought out by the songs. Like songs, these paintings too provide an alternative perspective. Since the book is written for general readership, academic too will find it useful, these strategies, like using paintings and quotes from singers, should help the readers better comprehend and appreciate the milieu in which these songs were sung and transmitted. 

Most of the songs are from Kangra valley, though there are songs from the larger cultural region of Himalayan foothills. The themes of the songs in this anthology have a common breeding ground in the larger Punjab province of undivided India. This may be seen as a larger geographical cultural-complex in which these songs germinated and transmitted over centuries. The themes, therefore, echo dominant patriarchal attitudes across cultures, how women were subordinated in South-Asia, perhaps even globally. The proposed collection showcases what women continue to preserve in their singing: a history of shared suffering that informs the feminine worldview and perspective. In this sense the book should find favour with global readership. 

Mahesh Sharma

Panjab University, Chandigarh

replymahesh@gmail.com

mahesh.sharma@fulbrightmail.org