The Folklore of Buxar

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

India has rightly been called a folklorists' paradise. But books dealing with different facets of Indian folklore are surprisingly few. This work presents and analyses folksongs, folktales, beliefs, folk theater and other aspects of the folklore of the Buxa people, one of the five scheduled tribes of Uttar Pradesh who live in the turbulent Tarai.

The Buxas are a simple, shy, straightforward people with a hoary past who are still at a pre- literate stage but who in view of the increasing facilities of education and opening up of their habitat since independence, are undergoing tremendous socio- economic changes.

This book is the result of painstaking field studies spread over a period of more than seven years and it describes the Buxas, their habitat, beliefs, tales, songs, dance and drama, riddles, games and graphic arts, with deep understanding. There are 17 full- page illustrations including photographs. There is also a useful bibliography at the end.

Here is a book that should be compulsory reading for folklorists, scholars, government officials and others engaged in development work among these people.

Amir Hasan, dedicated his life to the welfare of tribals. His interest was ignited when he was working as a research scholar of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research at the Central Fuel Institute, Jealgora, Dhanbad (Bihar) in 1953- 1954. This led to a long association with the tribals. Later, as a civil servant, he maintained a dedicated and productive association with the tribals and their welfare. His large collection of authored books is a result of his intensive live research.

Our earliest memories of our father, Dr. Amir Hasan (1929- 92) are of an author at work. Every morning, we would find him diligently working on some article, paper or book chapter. An early riser, his writing work would be taken up after a walk and a spot of gardening .He would be surrounded by reference books, loose sheets of paper and a tea tray precariously balanced in the midst of it all. One by one, we would wake up and troop to where our parents were having their morning tea. He welcomed us with a smile and read out parts of what he was working on. We were treated to beautifully worded narratives of Awadh, his experiences with the tribals of Tarai and on some rare occasions tribal folklore and also Awadhi shayari. All this was delivered in his deep mesmerizing voice which overrode the early morning chirping of birds and the whisper of breeze in the trees. The scents of the earth rose in the background from the plants he had watered when the rest were still asleep. We were given small proof-reading tasks in the summer vacations. We got to work after breakfast and competed with each other to complete our tasks. We were amateurs and perhaps our work yielded no real results but we learnt camaraderie, team work and we learnt to be proud of our ink-stained fingers. This was the nourishment we grew up on and this was the exposure that enriched our childhood and furnished us with a legacy for life. Our father did not teach us how to become authors. Through sharing his interests with us, he taught us a way of life. His writing was his hobby. He was a civil servant dedicated to the nation and his profession. By sharing his interests with us, he shared values, wisdom and notions of nobility.

Notwithstanding the fact that India with its ancient civilization and diverse culture, is a folklorists' paradise, a scientific and systematic study of rich Indian folklore, has not made much headway. But it cannot be ascribed to lack of interest on the part of scholars for there exists a mass of literature on folk songs, folktales and the like collected and edited by literary scholars, anthropologists and British Civil Servants of pre-Independence days. Since Independence, a large number of publications on different aspects of Indian folklore, have come out in Hindi and regional languages but they have been mainly written with a literary angle without laying of much emphasis on a scientific treatment of the collected matter. This situation has arisen because there is dearth of trained folklorists to undertake a scientific study of Indian folklore. There is, therefore, an urgent need to start study of this subject as a separate discipline in our Universities.