Feasting on folk

​What would you call a sound engineer, a videographer, a vehicle full of sound recording equipment and a generator?

Sangeetcar, perhaps? That's precisely what Ayesha Vasdev has named the endeavour she embarked on about a year ago: to document folk music traditions in the practising community's backyard. Perhaps, given how folk arts are fading in this age of online entertainment, it's obvious why she chose to document folk music. But what explains the reason to do this in a musician's backyard?

“Topography is critical to folk music, it's what determines the music's ingredients — the notes, the pitch,” says Vasdev, who studied sound engineering at London's Alchemea College and interned with Abbey Road Studios before returning to India in 2015. “In a desert landscape, the music need not be loud or high-pitched to travel far whereas in the mountains, the notes would have to be louder to naviagte the terrain.”

Even within a given landscape, folk music changes based on the community or sub-sect that engages in it. For instance, the Manganiyar community's music doesn't have a uniform sound or melody. “Each sect within the Manganiyars has a different repertoire of songs, such as those who solely have songs about birth, or about weddings, or about festivals, or death, and who play specific instruments,” explains Vasdev. “Did you know that there are Manganiyars outside Rajasthan? They are in Gujarat's Kutch region, and their music is distinct.”

Hitting the road

Vasdev would know. While in London, a friend mentioned to the 28-year-old that puppetry as an art form was dying. This stayed with her, making her reminsce about India's diverse folk traditions that were awaiting a similar fate. So she decided to return to India to see if she could build a patronage for Rajasthan's folk musicians. When she attended the Rajasthan International Folk Festival (RIFF), she realised that the platform insufficiently represented the various folk music traditions that exist. “Given that there are just 10-12 Manganiyar performers in the spotlight, we only end up being exposed to one-tenth of their repertoire,” says Vasdev. “Now, consider the fact that this is one of the most well-documented music communities, and it is easy to imagine the gems we’ve never even heard before.”

Vasdev started to educate herself, making trips to Jaisalmer from where she'd visit small towns, villages and dhanis (settlements) to meet and interact with the hundreds of nameless and faceless singers, kamaicha players, sarangi players, dholwalas, morchang and matki players, etc. Every musician she met, told her one thing: the lack of patronage meant the next generation was straying from thousands of years of family tradition. “I've encountered Manganiyar families where sons are clueless about their legacy but play bagpipes in the army or ply autorickshaws in the city!”

It was a race against time, and imperative that the oral tradition of folk music be documented lest it be lost in the grains of time. Fortunately for Vasdev, her family, the descendants of Maharaja Sir Brijnath Singh Ji Deo, the founder of the Maihar gharana of music, has been supportive. Instead of insisting that she pursue a master's degree in ethnomusicology at the University of Idaho, for which she'd secured admission, they insisted that she do a thorough job of documenting as many of India's folk musicians as possible. They forked out nearly $25,000 to procure the best equipment, including a 24-channel mixer, microphones, a couple of cameras, tripods, flight cases, etc. This, the Delhi resident, put in a rented SUV, roped in documentary filmmaker Shariq Haider Naqvi as her videographer and another member, Nadeem Haider, and set off on the desert track in October 2016.

Setting up base in Jaisalmer for 20-30 days, the duo would find themselves in search of musicians and singers, whom they’d often find in remote, off-the-map places. “It’d take 2-3 days to break the ice, convince them about our initiative and coax them to perform for us,” says Vasdev. “We’d then set up at a scenic spot in the village - close to a water body or a dune - or simply in their backyard and record their performance, document their songs and understand the nuances of their musical instruments.”

Off-road adventures

During their first trip, they met between 3,000-5,000 musicians and their families, and have since recorded 10 Manganiyar artists, who Vasdev describes as “the seniormost, the hoarders of the culture”.

The filming for each came with its own challenges. There’ve been middlemen demanding money to allow them to shoot; the caravan has engine breakdowns in isolated areas with no help for miles; one musician had his own men handle Sangeetcar’s recording equipment. “And once, Shariq spent nearly two hours hanging upside down from a terrace, with four people holding him, just because he wanted an aerial shot,” recalls Vasdev.

Besides, the two didn’t realise the pitfalls of trying to document music in the absence of any previous research or reliable notes. “There's no record of the oral tradition. We took on face value the information that each musician gave us about their repertoire, kind of songs, and so on only to realise much later that we had a lot of conflicting information,” says Vasdev. “We learnt that we couldn’t rely on individual testimonies. Arriving at a conclusion entails a fine balance of relying on accounts of senior musicians - those over 60 years old - and having about 5-6 consistent testimonies from such people.”

Building an archive

Each sojourn costs Rs 6-10 lakh, which Vasdev’s family has been footing the bill for. They eventually want to create an archive of Indian folk music traditions. It’s a long journey and the last few months have been baby steps in that direction. Sangeetcar’s team ­- Vasdev, 32-year-old Naqvi and Mohammad Nawazish - will head to Jodhpur next. Later this year, their caravan will head to the mountains in Himachal’s Kangra district to record the Garli folk artists; by October, they hope to cover the Manganiyars in Kutch before driving to Maharashtra to meet the Lavani artists.

“The one thing I’ve experienced in the Jaisalmer-Jodhpur region is the hospitality of the people of Marwar… I’ve never felt unsafe even in the remotest village where am a rank outsider,” says Vasdev. “The people are great to work with and there’s never a dull moment. They can light lamps with the warmth of their hearts.”

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