With documentary filmmaker
Surabhi Sharma’s Bidesia in Bambai creating a stir, Kanika Sharma catches up
with its director and prominent feature of the film — the anomaly of an
Assamese- Bhojpuri woman singer. She finds out how these two remarkable women have
tested the mic in their own way.
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| Movie stills from Bidesia in Bambai |
They are everywhere — driving you
around and even protecting you but when it comes to the question of bhaiyas,
they are lost to the shadows.
Raking in the debate, Surabhi
Sharma recently screened Bidesia in Bambai investigating the Bhojpuri music
industry and its tryst with Mumbai.
“ The word Bidesia comes from
Bhikhari Thakur’s play — who was regarded as the Shakespeare of Bhojpuri; it
was a famous play in the 1940s about a figure who migrates from a village to
the city,” informs Sharma. She further reflects, “ I was working on a film in
2008 in Jamaica and Trinidad with an academic. My film contained a song; after
the screening, I heard an old woman in the audience humming different lyrics to
it.” Interjecting the anecdote, she informs, “ Trinidad’s population is 40%
Bhojpuri immigrants, also referred to as girmitiyas or slaves who were sent to
countries like Mauritius.” Kalpana Patowary, the 38- year- old Assamese singer
who is at the helm of the Bhojpuri music industry, admits, “ I have been
inspired by Bhupen Hazarika and his Marxist beliefs. He could pinpoint the
disparity between rich and poor by looking at the space in between.” Patowary
was drawn towards Bhikhari Thakur, whom she found as an equivalent to Bhupen Hazarika.
Legacy of Bhikhari Thakur is a project that was released by Mauritius’ Prime
Minister Navin Ramgoolam and its Art and Culture Minister Mukteshwar Chunni,
himself a fourth- generation girmitiya.
Patowary recounts, “ Bhojpuri
music has songs for every occasion.” Echoing her words, Sharma adds, “ Bhojpuri
music is seeped with stories of migration and has an entire spectrum ranging
from lyrical to raunchy to Folk and Pop that can’t be categorised. As Patowary
mentions that Bhikhari Thakur was a barber, Sharma journeys to the current
times where the majority of security personnel in the city are Bhojpuri and
double up as music directors and producers. “ According to BMC records, one in
four workers is a Bhojpuri.” Patowary divulges that there have been people who
have perceived the industry as down- market.
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| Kalpana Patowary, a well known Bhojpuri singer. |
As a rebuttal, she recounts
Mandakini’s scene from Ram Teri Ganga Maili where the scene of a woman bathing
under a waterfall is rendered real when shot by Raj Kapoor but can be
considered vulgar when produced on a low budget.
Rounding up on the infamous image
the songs seemed to have earned due to their ‘ lewdness’, Sharma opines, “ A
lot of Bhojpuri Folk has a sexual edge such as the Holi songs. For instance,
Krishna– Rukmani’s romance is laced with sexual innuendos that are reworked
from Folk to mainstream. Be it mobile phones, Fevicol and Zandu Balm allusions
— talk about the sexual has always existed. Bhojpuri music is much more than
that. It was from Bhojpuri that Thumri percolated elsewhere.
The tradition of nirguna
bhakti songs talk about longing for a person after his death.” Patowary
asserts, “ Twelve years ago, there were illicit woman such as Bijli Rani
singing sexual numbers or homely women crooning devotional songs but now with
an in- between space, girls from good families can aspire to become singers,
making me feel that I have achieved something.”
Source@ Kanika Sharma@ Mid-day,Mumbai.
Related Pages#
The
Sunday Guardian@ From Bhojpur to Bambai, in song & spirit
http://www.sunday-guardian.com/artbeat/from-bhojpur-to-bambai-in-song-a-spirit
DNA@ Mumbai's underground Bhojpuri music scene.
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/1860828/report-mumbai-s-underground-bhojpuri-music-scene
Mumbai Boss@ Musical
Movement
http://mumbaiboss.com/2013/07/19/musical-movement/
Live Mint@ Bidesia in
Bambai: Indirect access.
A new
documentary tunes into the music of Bhojpuri-speaking migrants in Mumbai
http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/jswLcRBkaj3VKAdTg1quoL/Bidesia-in-Bambai-Indirect-access.html
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