world's only manganiyar lady singer rukma baai скачать в хорошем качестве

world's only manganiyar lady singer rukma baai

Ramsar village, Barmer, Rajasthan. "Desert dreams sting as sharply as the desert sun," Rukma Bai warns. At five in the morning, you can already feel against your skin, the sun sucking the chill out of the desert dawn. Memories of Rukma Bai piercing the night with her powerful rendition of Kesariya balam, give way to the sounds of a morning raga. We clamber out of our sleeping bags to the words of a playful bhajan, about a young Krishna talking to birds. The 'nandlal' in the bhajan is clearly her grandchild, who plays by her side as she makes bajre ki roti with lehsan ki chutney. Our breakfast. Rukma Bai lost both her legs to polio. She drags herself on the stubs of her knees, burnt repeatedly by the scorching earth. It's painful, she says, but less so than some episodes in her life. Her husband left her, ran away with her sister. She had to bring up three children. Recurrent drought killed all her cattle. With no legs to walk on, she could not go, like others, to work at drought-relief sites. Hunger threatened her children, which is when Komal Kothari, ethnomusicologist and unrivalled expert in desert music, suggested she sing in concerts, in public, for money. "When a Manganiyar baby cries, it is in the tune of a raga." "If I cut you, blood will flow. If you cut me, there will be blood, but with it sand and music will flow too." Rukma Bai's idiom is full of the metaphors of her music and of her dhaura dharti—her desert land. In Ramsar village, there are 40 Manganiyar families. By sunset, the entire basti reverberates with the sounds of the khadtal, the sarangi, the khamaicha—blending with voices of the young and the old. Rukma Bai's stunning voice stands out. Manganiyars, a professional caste of musicians, are Muslims, and their patrons or jajmans are Hindus. In old feudal structures, a Manganiyar family would have been part of the extended retinue of a Rajput household. They would sing family histories, and sing at festivals, weddings, funerals, and of the colours of the land. But as change rapidly reached even the most remote villages in Barmer, feudal structures loosened. The jajmans had less money to pay. Their weddings shrank from 12 days to two. Their desire, knowledge and even appreciation of their own music declined sharply. In the late 1970s, Kothari realised that poverty for Manganiyars, like other castes of musicians, threatened their lives, and also endangered the music. In 1976, he first sent a group of Langas and Manganiyars to perform in France. That was a turning point, a revival both stunning and complex. Today, these singers are a familiar sight at several festivals in India and around the world. But their repertoire is sadly changing to suit audience tastes. They claim their songs are often stolen by music directors and converted into hit film songs—for instance, Nimbuda in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam.