Jodhpur:
After 20 days of hectic campaigning for the Rajasthan elections, the past few days have been a time for rest for Chidiya Bai. She's not a political worker for either the BJP or Congress - Rajasthan's two dominant political parties - but her voice brings life to all political rallies in her hometown Jodhpur, in Western Rajasthan. We spot her leading a political procession and follow her home.
Chidiya Bai is from one of the mirasin families who live in Dhandi Mohalla in Jodhpur. Their traditional caste occupation was to sing and play the dholki for their 'jajmans' or patrons, at their family events like weddings or during religious festivals. "I learnt to sing from my mother, she from hers. We are musicians from Barmer. Before the advent of audio cassettes we were asked to sing for every occasion. My mother named me Chidiya as she was very fond of a bird that sang on a tree outside our house. Birds sing so do I," Chidiya Bai tells us with an elan that suggests it's a story she loves to recount.
As social equations changed, mirasins like Chidiya Bai found fewer occasions to sing. Where once, their patrons would have month-long weddings, with ritual singing each day, today even the most elaborate marriages don't extend beyond three to five days. Chidiya Bai tells us that even some of the jajmans now prefer a band or a DJ over traditional singing. "I knew I had to re-invent myself. That's when Kuldeepji advised us to get into performance, to take our art to a wider audience," she says. Kuldeep is the son of the famous ethnomusicologist, the late Komal Kothari, who was renowned for his work with the music communities of Rajasthan, especially the Langas and the Manganiyars.
Chidiya Bai took the advice seriously and with the help of Mr Kothari, started performing on stage. She then started getting invitations from people who were not her traditional patrons, which at times meant travelling outside Rajasthan. "I have just been called to sing for a wedding of a family in Benares. Everyone loves Rajasthani songs these days. I have never been to Benares," she tells us with great excitement. She'll travel with four others from her neighbourhood, all singers and dholki players.
Social change has also meant a change in the traditional singing repertoire. Chidiya Bai, along with her group, has now begun to write their own songs. She sings us a famous bhajan she has playfully re-invented with these words:
Rahupati Raghav Raja Ram
Give me a husband who wakes up at 5
Makes my tea then says to me
Please have your tea, my jaan
When a local NGO requested Chidiya Bai to sing for a campaign to educate girls, she responded by writing her own song with her daughter Pooja, who sings us a few lines of it. It's a song about a young college student, who begs her father not to marry her to a man who cannot read.
Even their political songs are their own compositions. The simplest one exhorts women to vote - '
chal ra sakhi, vote devela' (come my friends we must vote). Depending on whether they are singing in Congress rally or a BJP one, they simply change the last line from 'vote for the
phool' (the lotus, the symbol of the BJP) to 'vote for the hand' (the Congress symbol).
Chidiya Bai's personal favourite is a song she's written called 'Nehru ki beti Indira' (Nehru's daughter Indira). "I like the fact that a woman became so powerful. If the Congress wants to do better, they might consider fielding Indira's granddaughter Priyanka," she says. This is the closest Chidiya Bai comes to political talk. When I ask her who she voted for, given that she was such an active part of campaigning, her 80-year-old aunt interrupts and answers, "Why should I tell you who I will vote for? That is my secret."
Chidiya Bai's response is a more diplomatic one, as she recites Kabir's famous
doha (couplet):
Kabira khara bazaar mein
Mangee sab ki khair
Na kahu se dosti, na kahu se bair(Kabir stands in the marketplace, wishing all well. No one is a friend, with none enmity)
She adds, "We are artists, both parties pay us money to sing. That is our livelihood, so we cannot give allegiance to one over the other. We wish both parties well. Of course, like you, we are curious to know whether Gehlot will win or Vasundhara."
As we wrap up the interview and are about to leave, Chidiya Bai stops us and insists we listen to her 'real songs'. Her group then leads into a 'kurjan'. The kurjan is the Rajasthani name for a migratory crane. The composition, a famous one, sung across the state tells the story of a woman who separated from her lover, entreats the kurjan to deliver her message of love to him.
As the sun sets over the Dhandhi Mohalla, Chidiya Bai's desert voice rises above the urban squalour of her neighbourhood and cuts through the distant sounds of another political rally.