The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Perfect diction with flawless shruti

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Perfect diction with flawless shruti

Special Correspondent

Tribal artistes weave magic at workshop

RHYME AND RHYTHM: Tribal artistes belonging to Sidda Samudaya Kalavidaru of Mundgod in Uttara Kannada district performing at the inauguration of the two-day State-level workshop on `Challenges before the tribal communities of Karnataka' at Jnanabhara ti campus in Bangalore on Monday.

Bangalore: You should meet Santan Kistod Siddi to know what wonders the meeting of two cultures can create. The man wears dhoti and turban, has distinctly African features and speaks Kannada with Uttara Kannada accent. As he dances to the rhythm of the dhamdham and ghumat (can the names of instruments get more onomatopoeic and evocative than that?), you begin to wonder if you have been transported to another continent by magic.

The rhythm and the sway of the body is African, but the lyrics are all about a lost hen at Mundgod near Karwar.

The Siddis of Uttara Kannada, who trace their ancestry to Africa, are among the 20-odd tribal communities, which have come to participate in the two-day festival and workshop organised by Babasaheb Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Research Centre on the Bangalore University campus. The festival on tribal identity was inaugurated on Monday.

Offering a contrast to the vibrant energy of the Siddi dance is the philosophical music of Durgappa of Chennadasaru community, another participant at the two-day festival.

The 200 families are professional Tatwapada singers. But their music has, of late, got a contemporary touch and he can sing a song on Gandhiji and yet another on how hard it is for them to get a caste certificate.

Duragappa has never gone to school or learnt music formally, but his diction and shruti are flawless. The Burrakathas (oral narratives) of Eeramma from Haledaroji in Bellary district share the philosophical strain with the "Tatwapadas" of Chennadasaru. She has never gone to school, and all the long kathas she narrates (some of which take three days to complete) are in her head. While Eeramma traces her art's antiquity to a few generations, Saryappa from Sudugaadu Sidda community says his art is as old as time.

Ancient art

"We have been around ever since sudugadus (graveyards) have been around," says the man in the most eye-catching costume, with layers of colourful clothes and a headgear. They are magicians and traditional medicine men. Sudugaadu Siddas are known to be secretive and not pass on their traditional knowledge to anyone outside the community. This, in fact, is true of several traditional arts.

Waning interest

A crucial question then is if the next generation wants to learn their ancestral art, considering that entire social fabric that sustained them has been transformed completely. "No," says Saryappa. "My children go to school." But Eramma's grandson Ramanjaneya, who is studying II PUC, accompanies her as a co-singer. Shashikala Siddi, a seventh standard dropout and farm worker, offers said: "The Government has hardly done anything for us or our art. But then everybody likes to dance, isn't it? Even small children dance when the drum beats."

Kannada University Vice-Chancellor Vivek Rai, who inaugurated the workshop, addressed this tricky question: do the issues of cultural identity and development have to work contrary to one another? Social Welfare Minister Balachandra Jharkohili, who was supposed to inaugurate the workshop, did not turn up. No one was complaining.

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