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The lost songs

Nazrul Islam
***My village is not the only one in our country' that has lost its traditional characteristics. An alien culture has invaded our society, and there is no longer anyone to support the traditional culture. The villages nowadays do not produce any bards. The day is not far away when Bangladesh's villages will be culturally dead.***
RURAL Bangladesh turns emerald green during monsoons. This is not a new phenomenon, but I discovered it afresh when I visited my village last week After a dull and sultry summer, life becomes vibrant again with the monsoons in every nook and cranny of the countryside. Almost all the villages in Bangladesh, and the houses, are surrounded by different trees, grasses, shrubs and bamboo clusters.
Another thing that 1 love about
this season is the pungent odour emitted from the wet jute while it dries in the sun. The serene beauty of nature cannot be enjoyed staying in the bustle of the city, in its concrete structures. One has to go to the quiet villages if one wants the real taste of the gift of nature. I seldom miss the enjoyment of the monsoons in my village- - and I will try to narrate to you why.
Water and waterlessness
There is a beel (water body) adjacent to our house. During this time of the year, rain and floodwater generally flood the beel, but this
year, the beel is yet to be filled due to inadequate rains. The insufficient rainfall is also hampering aman cultivation. Many farmers were seen tilling their land through artificial irrigation to plant aman seedlings. This is unusual, but probably a result of global warming, which is pushing farmers into more and more hardship.
Soaring price of fertiliser
A 50-kg bag of TSP is being sold at Tk3,500 despite its retail price of Tk. 1,400. Urea is supplied through dealers at retail prices, but the quantity supplied can meet only 30 to 40% of the requirement. At least 15 kg of urea should have to be applied per bigha (33 decimal) during the time of transplanting the seedlings. Only 5 kg has been allocated per bigha of land, though there is no dearth of urea in the black market, which sells it to farmers at two or three times the normal price.
Songs of Rupban Pala
It was around 8 in the evening — I was gossiping with my brothers and cousins in our courtyard. Suddenly, sounds of tabla and dhol came from a neighbouring house, followed by melodious songs of the legendary folk drama (jatra) Rupban. Within a moment, I was
taken back to my childhood, when the Rupban Pala was very popular in rural areas. My father and some other drama enthusiasts had established an amateur group and staged Rupban and other popular folk dramas like Sagar Bhasa, Beder Meye, and Alomoti Prernkumar in our village and neighbouring ones. Of them, Rupban was the most popular, staged repeatedly throughout the '60s and '70s. At that time male actors played the role of females.
The staging of the jatra at that time was not an easy task. There was strong opposition from orthodox religious groups and elders. Interestingly, most of the members of the group, including my father, were madrasa students. They used to rehearse during the lean season of the year, when there was not as much work in the field, and staged the jatra during winter. There was a unique unity among the group members, for they would work together and resolve problems with the villagers together.
There was a person named Shamsher, who was the head of the dohar dal (the chorus). He was a day-labourer and worked mostly in our farms year-round. But I never found him in a gloomy mood. I heard him say he could live a day or two without food but he couldn't survive a single day with a heavy heart. That was the common philosophy of the villagers back then.
I followed the music to the spot and the group greeted me. I thought the Rupban Pala would be staged again and rehearsal was
going on for that purpose. I was disappointed when I heard that today's generation was not interested in jatra pala, instead finding entertainment in Hindi cinemas, ever since satellite TV reached my village. Moreover, there was strong opposition from religious groups. Most of the pioneers of the previous jatra group had died, and some have become very old. A few, who were young at that time and are still alive, occasionally sit together and sing some of the songs for their own enjoyment. One of them --Ayezuddin -- narrated the current situation of village entertainment to me.
He told me he had preserved the handwritten scripts of all the jatra palas they had staged. Of the palas, he informed me that the amateur group that first staged Rupban in the early '60s wrote the script while listening to the pala of a professional group. That handwritten script is now in his possession. I enjoyed the songs of the Rupban Pala for quite a while. The singers were not trained professionally and sometimes the lyrics and the pronunciations were wrong. But the way they presented the songs, full of compassion and warmth, was unique. Ayez uncle also invited me to hear the local folk songs called Dhua Gan, written by the bards of our own village. He informed me that my father also composed a good number of songs during the '50s and '60s. Ayez uncle has preserved all the scripts.
Bard's songs - Dhua Gan Like bhatiyal and palligiti, dhua
gan is a genre of folk song written and tuned by the village bards. In our area, the dhua gan was sung in a group while working in the field. It was also sung in leisure time. The main characteristic of dhua gan is that it is structured on questions and answers on a particular subject. One group will ask questions through the song while the other group answers. If there is only one group, it first sings the question and then the gives answer. Mostly religious issues of Muslims and Hindus, and contemporary subjects, were the contents of the dhua gan. Other times, the songs would describe special events, places or people. The words and the tunes of the songs were very melodious.
I was enthralled by the dhua gan, discovering afresh the treasure of talents of our village. Ayezuddin uncle lamented that the rural people had become much too materialistic and religiously fanatic. "Many do not see our singing in good sense. But look, everybody is watching vulgar Hindi cinemas and songs on their TVs. That does not hurt religion. It is simply ridiculous."
My village is not the only one in our country that has lost its traditional characteristics. An alien culture has invaded our society, and there is no longer anyone to support the traditional culture. The villages nowadays do not produce any bards. The day is not far away when Bangladesh's villages will be culturally dead.
Nazml Islam is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.