Preserving songs of the soil
MOHAMED NAZEER
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`Vayalkili,' an audiocassette with 10 numbers, draws on the songs that once reverberated in the paddy fields of Kerala.
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FOLK SONGS: `Vayalkili.'
Art as a medium for extension is hardly a novel experiment. What makes the Kannur Krishi Vigyan Kendra's (KVK) initiative to disseminate agricultural information through entertainment different is that they seek to preserve Kerala's vanishing folk song tradition in the agrarian culture.
In an attempt to preserve this rural song tradition, the KVK has brought out an audio cassette with 10 songs that draws on the folk songs that used to reverberate in the paddy fields in the State.
Folk songs
The tunes of these songs have been used to tune the songs in the cassette entitled `Vayalkili.'
"We are losing our cultural heritage and our folk songs, which are the pulse of our rural culture," says K. Raghavan Master, veteran music director, in his introduction to the songs.
The KVK's objective is to popularise the songs among farmers in the region and to introduce the indigenous cultural legacy to the new generation, says KVK chief and KAU Associate Professor Abdul Kareem.
The farmers' response to the songs vindicates the initiative, he says. Collecting the traditional agrarian songs is a difficult task, but worth doing, he says adding that this is the first such initiative in the State.
M.P. Giridharan, Associate Professor at Regional Agricultural Research Station at Pilikode in Kasaragod, has written the lyrics of two songs in the cassette.
The songs have been set to tune by KVK employee and singer M.P. Jayasree, who along with M.A. Rajivkumar, has sung the songs.
The success of the initiative has encouraged the KVK to plan such programmes for agricultural extension. It has now conceived and produced a tele-cine-drama `Thengukalude Nilavili' to disseminate awareness among coconut growers on coconut mite. The central character in it is an aged coconut grower who treats coconut palms in his homestead as his children. Thanks to the intervention of an agricultural officer, he realises that he should treat all coconut palms in his area as his children and not just the ones in his homestead.
Dr. Kareem says that the tele-cine-drama has been conceived in the backdrop of the compact area group approach against coconut mite in Kannur. He says that the KVK seeks to satisfy the farmers' entertainment needs in its communication for development. Information in the forms of songs and tele-cine-drama and their dissemination through cassettes and CDs will make an impact, he adds.
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