Folk subaltern communities in India. What is the philosophy that drives these performances, the vision that enables as well as enslaves these communities to present what they feel, think, imagine, and want to see? Can such performances challenge social hierarchies and ensure justice in a caste- ridden society? In Cultural Labour, the author studies bhuiyan puja (land worship), bidesia (theatre of migrant labourers), Reshma-Chuharmal (Dalit ballads), dugola (singing duels) from Bihar, and the songs and performances of Gaddar, who was associated with Jana Natya Mandali, Telangana: he examines various ways in which meanings and behaviour are engendered in communities through rituals, theatre, and enactments, Focusing on various motifs of landscape, materiality, and performance, the author looks at the relationship between culture and labour in its immediate contexts.
Based on an extensive ethnography and the author's own life experience as a member of such a community, the book offers a new conceptual framework to understand the politics and aesthetics of folk performance in the light of contemporary theories of theatre and performance studies.
The effect of a cultural bomb is to annihilate a people's belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves.
-Ngugi Wa Thiong'o (1986:3)
A place I remember from my childhood is an abode of the deity on the outskirts of my village. I remember there was a huge peepal (fig) tree with an owl's nest in its cave and its branches spreading out. The tree had a terrifying effect, as we children would imagine spirits hovering over it. The memory of it still makes me shiver. As soon as I would reach that place, I would chant the name of Dihvar, the village deity, who was supposed to save us. I wished to run away but could not as I was afraid that it would wake the sleeping spirits. Of course, once they woke up, one could not run faster than them. They could have stuck to our clothes. They could have spread like smoke. They would have strong body odour. It was the scent that used to announce its presence. Only a few people possessed the power to see and smell them. It was a folk world of beliefs. It was an animated world of spirits and energies. Places had stories, the tree had spirits, and the spirits had names. The names had spirited qualities associated with them. It was a forest of signs and symbols! It was an incredibly complex network of stories. It was a terrifying world of spirits, deities, shamans and witches. Spirits were oppressed, deities were victims, witches were the weakest and shamans were the powerful healers. It was a world of deformed deities and dis- placed souls trying to find their own solace in human imagination. These beliefs were often enslaving.
On the one side the spirit world was frightening and enslaving, on the other side it was also empowering and enabling. One who believed in that world also accumulated immense power. They could see forests moving and mountains dancing. They could mobilize the symbols at will. It enables people to fight the higher enemies. It enables members to cooperate and work as a com- munity. With such animated power, Dina and Bhadri, two Dalit brothers, could fight big feudal lords in Bihar in stories and ballads. It may not be in real life but in imagination. I would make figures from terracota or clay and believe that one day they will fire at my enemy camp. I would imagine they are flying in the air and showering bows and arrows on the enemy camp. If we were not in the position to fight the powerful, we would indulge in shadow boxing. Beliefs mixed with imagination would create a reality that was more than real. It would work as an escape, it would work as a utopia, it was leaning in the past, it was a projection in the future. It was here and now with its presence. It was a livid, vivid experience of feeling and imagination. The folk world is full of such portrayals and imaginative praxis.
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