The poem is inspired by the incident of disrobing Dharupadi in the Indian Epic Mahabharat amidst a court filled with elders, which stands as a metaphor for societal shame.
Disrobing Dhraupadi – Guler- 1740, Located V& A Museum
Disrobed, she circled, hair flying, Balancing the Dhatura flower in her hand,
Datura (Devil’s snare, Devil’s trumpet) plant. Each part is poisonous and is an aggressive, invasive weed, but the bloom is also called – Moonflower.
Winds of laughter from those who disrobed dried her tears,
Sprays of the chilled winds of laughter carried the flower outside the one window
Now, only one drop of dew remained
The dew caught the light of the sun
Freezing a timeless vision
An eye saw the bleeding breasts and more
The flower sailed
Nothing Changed
The poison of the trumpet flower blew with winds of chilled laughter
13th July is Padma Bhushan Kesarbai Kerkar’s 131st birth anniversary. Little did the Kalajeevee Tawaif know that her voice, featured in salons and gramophone records, would reign supreme in galaxies. In 1977 aboard Voyager 1 was a 12‐inch, gold-plated copper disc titled ‘ ‘Story of Sounds of the Earth’ had diverse sounds and music renditions presenting global diversity of the intangible heritage of sounds and music, and one was the voice of Kesarbai Kekar among other famous musical voices of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart.
The Lyrics of the song:
जा’त कहाँ हो अकेली गोरी, जाने न पैय्यों केसर रंग के माठ भये होय, होरी खेलत कान्हा रे
Jaat Kaan Ho – Raga Bhairvi
O! Damsel, you wander alone to a place where even your feet do not know where they are going.
The Damsel answers that Krishna beckons her to dissolve into the unknown—the words in the song point to the state of detachment. The maiden follows the call of Krishna to play Holi, where she will dissolve in the symbolic saffron colour.
American astronomer and cosmologist Carl Sagan headed a NASA committee that selected 115 images, sounds such as rain, thunder, birds, animals, ET and various greetings in different human languages.
The first artificial object entered interstellar space and carried recordings from the Earth. An aluminium jacket, needle and cartridge protected the record. The modality incorporated symbolic language, sounds and greetings.
Surashri Kesarbai Kerkar, who passed away in 1977, was one of the leading Indian classical vocalists of the Jaipur-Atrauli Gharana. She studied with the great Abdul Karim Khan and Ustad Alladiya Khan, the founder of the Jaipur-Atrauli Gharana.
She was originally from Goa, and as she rose to great glory, Kesarbai was among the chosen success stories of kalajeevee tawaifs who sang on the 78 rpm recordings of labels such as HMV. Other successful ladies included Gohar Jaan from Calcutta, Janaki Bai Allahabadi, Badi Moti, and Husna Bai from Banaras Kesar Bai.
Timothy Ferris, a producer of the Voyager record, wrote, “One of my favourite musical transitions on the Voyager record comes when ‘Flowing Stream’ ends, and we are transported, quick as a curtsy, across the Himalayas to the north of India and from the sound of one musical genius, Kuan Ping-hu to another, Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. This raga is formally designated for morning performance, but its popularity has led to its use as a closing number, a kind of encore, for concerts day and night.”
( An excerpt from a book in the publication based on 2-decade field research on Tawaifs in the various cities and towns of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi from 1991 as part of the doctoral work by the author )
TRAVEL, DANCE, ART, CULTURAL HERITAGE OF INDIA - DR NAVINA JAFA 