Notes from the desert

The Mehrangarh Fort is a mammoth, almost unwieldy structure that rises as if organically from a rocky outcrop overlooking Jodhpur, a city where the medieval and the contemporary coexist effortlessly in a state of chaos. Here, traffic in the alleys often comes to a standstill when an auto rickshaw crosses the path of a meandering cow.

Over the last weekend, the fort and its premises played host to the ninth edition of the much-acclaimed Rajasthan International Folk Festival, or the Jodhpur RIFF. After an evening of curtain-raisers under the iconic ‘ghanta ghar’ in the historic Sardar Market square, the festival began in earnest on October 24 with a dawn concert at Jaswant Thada, a cenotaph for kings that offered an impressive view of the rising sun. As the day progressed, the palaces and courtyards within the fort, which now functions as a museum, came alive with performances by groups of artists from various Rajasthani ‘folk’ traditions — the kalbeliyas, the gair dancers, a group of elderly male dol thaali dancers performing a tribute to the snake deity Gogaji. It was a remarkable reimagining of a space that is now read largely as a relic and a stoic custodian of the past. As dancers twirled in zenana courtyards and songs and drum beats filtered in through jaalis it was easy to imagine historic spaces as they were once used, as vibrant centres of patronage, connoisseurship, devotion and mirth.

The evenings featured a stream of sold-out performances, starting with ‘Living Legends’, a section dedicated to master musicians from the Langa and Manganiyar communities of Rajasthan.

The Langa and Manganiyar traditionally perform the role of musicians and genealogists within a system of patronage that binds them to a jajman or patron caste. While both Manganiyar and Langa practise Islam, the Manganiyar’s jajman are Hindu Rajputs in their villages while the Langa traditionally rely on the Sindhi Sipahis, who are Muslim pastoralists and agriculturists.

The musicians play at major events at their patrons’ homes — weddings, births, festivals and rituals — and are, in turn, assured hereditary patronage. Both communities also perform a vital function as repositories of the patrons’ genealogical information. These genealogies have been kept alive for generations in the form of oral histories that are passed on from father to son and which are recited for the patron at important family events.

Even though the Langa and Manganiyar families have left native villages in districts such as Barmer for cities such as Jodhpur, the ties to their jajman remain. As Hayat Khan, a veteran Langa musician explained, the musicians promptly return to the village whenever they hear of an upcoming event at the jajman ’s household that requires their services.

While Manganiyar and Langa women are known to be superb singers and musicians in their own right, the concerts featured all-male groups, as custom prohibits women from performing publicly. But on the evening of the third day, as audiences reclined on gaddis on a terrace atop the fort, a group of four Manganiyar women led by Akla Bai and Dariya Bai took to the stage for a spirited, soulful performance that unfolded against a rising moon.

The two women had for the first time performed for an audience other than family members or other women at the encouragement of eminent folklorist Komal Kothari, who played a crucial role in bringing the Manganiyars’ music out from the villages onto national and international platforms. Since then, Akla and Dariya have performed across India and the world. “The families were against women doing programmes (performances). I first sang accompanying the late Rukma Bai (a legendary Manganiyar performer, believed to be the first woman from the community to break the taboo against public performance),” says Akla Bai, who also plays the ‘dhol’ as she sings. “If they say no, we would still go,” says Dariya Bai. The youngest of the group was Mumtaz, a 30-year-old mother of five who had travelled to Jodhpur with her infant daughter Jassu.

The headlining acts at this year’s festival included performances by South African flautist Wouter Kellerman and West Indian-Israeli bassist Yossi Fine, both of whom presented collaborations with Langa and Manganiyar musicians playing dholak, morchang, kamaicha and khartaal. Onstage on the third day, Fine’s mastery of the bass guitar was matched by the performative prowess of Kheta Khan Langa on the khartaal.

What was a largely underwhelming last evening saw an energetic performance by the Delhi-based band The Ska Vengers, followed by a moonlit jam session with several RIFF 2015 artists led by Yossi Fine.

Nandini Thilakis a former journalist who is now based in Jodhpur

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