Cover Story

It is past 2.00 am and the goats have finally stopped bleating. As a bunch of us sit on charpais under a starry sky in a tiny village called Hameera, 25 km off Jaisalmer, Sakar Khanji asks a young lad to fetch his 250-year old kamaicha (percussion).

Over the next hour and more, we are treated to an unforgettable rendering of this ancient string instrument by its seniormost living maestro who also happens to be a Padma Shri awardee! He starts with one or two popular songs and then cajoles his kamaicha to imitate the soundscape of a train swiftly passing through the desert followed by the train’s slowing down and its eventual halt. There is no other accompaniment of voice or percussion to his rendition and yet such is his artistry that the stillness of the night is enveloped by the apparent whistle of a halted train. At a time when most of the village folk were yet to see a train, let alone ride one, they would get together to experience its arrival via Sakarji’s kamaicha!

My being left spellbound is hardly surprising. Sakarji hails from the Manganiyar community; a community that has wowed audiences all over the world with their live wire, spontaneous performances that are deeply rooted in ancient folklore and narrate the stories of Rajasthan in an inimitable, colourful manner.

Having known the most celebrated of them personally, visiting their homes and villages and understanding their music and art for over two decades, I am certain of the fact that there is much more to the Manganiyars than meets the eye.

Mesmerising the audience

What is it that makes these musicians so popular outside of their patrons—their jajmans? The reasons are manifold. Unlike Indian classical artistes, they do not undergo a formal taleem or follow a guru-shishya parampara. Their process of learning is entirely organic handed down to them generation after generation through an oral tradition. They are hereditary musicians, who, right from birth, absorb not just the songs but even the folklore and literature that their mothers sing whilst performing mundane chores such as cooking, cleaning, fetching water, tending to crops, sowing or harvesting or taking the cattle out to graze.

From a young age, Manganiyars participate in all-night singing sessions that the community holds for themselves as well as for their patrons on special occasions. The children are encouraged to sing along in groups without inhibition, try their hands at instruments such as dhol or khartal and learn to enjoy spontaneous expression. Many of the vocalists are therefore adept instrumentalists too and vice versa.

It is no wonder, then, that Manganiyars grow up to be artistes who sing full throated without the slightest tinge of stage fright—whether they are performing at the opulent Umaid Bhawan, The Rambagh Palace or august gatherings at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center or the Royal Festival Hall in London, the Paris Opera or the Kremlin in Russia. Most Manganiyars also enthral their audiences with Sufi kalaams of Baba Bulleh Shah, Mirabai, Shahbaz Qalandar and Kabir at much awaited festivals.

Glory on the global map

“Besides their God-given sense of sur, the Manganiyars also have an extraordinary sense of rhythm,” opines Kuldeep Kothari, Secretary of Rupayan Sansthan. According to him, it is because of their inborn sense of rhythm that the Manganiyars have successfully collaborated not just with other Indian folk music traditions such as Baul of Bengal or Carnatic music of Southern India but also with global sounds—be it the Flamenco of Spain or in productions like Manganiyar Seduction by Roysten Abel.

Kuldeepji should know. His father was none other than Komal Kothari, who was affectionately referred to as an encyclopaedia of Rajasthani lok sangeet by even the most learned scholars and musicians. It was all thanks to the duo of the storyteller Vijaydan Detha and the lok sangeet aficionado Komalda that Manganiyars along with musicians from other Rajasthani communities such as Kalbeliyas, Langas, Bhopas and Meghwals, first started performing on stage, outside Rajasthan, and eventually outside India. Until then, most of these artistes had never used microphones and their musical performances were limited to their own or at the most their neighbouring villages. “One of his foremost contributions to Rajasthani folk has been the colossal recording and documentation of the folk repertoire, which my father achieved by travelling to and covering about 30,000 villages of the state,” claims Kuldeep. All this was done on spools which the doyen’s son is now in the process of digitising.