Wedding Songs of Bengali Muslim Women/বাঙালি মুসলিম মেয়েদের বিয়ের গানঃ একটি খোঁজ

 

Traditional Bengali Muslim wedding songs belong to women. They have been written, composed and rendered by women. A housewife in a typical household has inherited these songs from her mother, grandmother and aunts. Improvising on the tune or words of these songs, she has often stolen the show at the weddings in the immediate family or among relatives in an exclusively female space hidden from the male gaze. Through these songs, they have expressed their hopes and little pleasures, emotions and feelings, talked about social discrimination, oppressive customs like child marriage and dowry and voiced their protest behind tongue-in-cheek humour. While the structure and rendering of these songs are in the form of entertainment, their content and performance have expressed socio-political consciousness. Within the boundaries of family and community, and in the backdrop of a social ritual, fragmentary pictures of society have been chiseled over a long time: the wedding songs of Bengali Muslim women not only depict marriage and post-marital family life, but also represent the pulse of folkways and society.

 

The beginning

 

My primary attempt at working on Muslim wedding songs was, as the saying goes, like counting chickens before they are hatched. I had done no archival work, nor had any experience of listening to these songs. All I had was an overwhelming urge to overhear the hopes and despair, the pains and happiness of a typical Muslim housewife confined within the inner chambers of home; to see the society around her through her eyes; to eavesdrop on songs giving expression in her own words to unarticulated feelings. Meanwhile, I laid my hands on Musalman Samajer Biyer Geet, a book by Prof. Shaktinath Jha published in 1996. This was precisely the point at which began this enquiry—a search for a folk tradition performed in ritual-laden, socio-religious marriage ceremonies of a certain religious community.

 

In West Bengal, the wedding songs are most widely performed in Bengali Muslim families of Bardhaman, Birbhum and Murshidabad. It seemed impossible to me to collect the fragments of this time-honoured tradition scattered across places without winning over the trust and earnestness of the performers. If I am not able to see this century-old tradition gradually sliding off from city to suburbs and from suburbs to mofussil and countryside, at close quarters, the core tune might be lost to me. I established contact with Prof. Shaktinath Jha and his words echoed my feeling. One has to step in the inner-chamber of the Bengali Muslim families in order to go into the heart of this enquiry. Without winning over the trust and assistance of these families, all one would be able to do would be to scratch the surface of a commercialised culture inflated by fame and publicity. Prof. Jha told me about Manoara Begum and Dr. Sahinur Khatun from Bardhaman, who could take me to the inner courtyard of this tradition. Both these women perform wedding songs that they inherited as a family tradition and both of them have collected and researched on Muslim wedding songs as a local folk practice. The books by Manoara Begum and Sahinur Khatun were published in 2002 and 2004 respectively. But those have been lost under the piles of books in the grand book market of Kolkata. Hence a trip to Bardhaman seemed to be the only option. The contact number of Dr Khatun was found in an old file of the Ministry of Information and Culture, Government of West Bengal. Making an appointment, I went to meet her one day.

 

The interaction and the survey

 

Dr Sahinur Khatun sings these songs herself and has collected many old songs in the course of her research. In her family, these wedding songs have been handed down to later generations as a family tradition. How were these songs composed? According to Khatun, 'The women of the family often used to compose songs in their leisure time. The conversation would start with some common saying or some proverb and then women would use their poetic imagination to add words and lines to it. Each song used to be composed in this way. And then everybody would get together to sing those songs for the wedding of a relative.'

 

Although these are wedding songs, their themes have gone beyond marriage rituals to talk about the quotidian life of women and contemporary happenings in society. Seen from this perspective, these songs contain documentary and historical value of an immense importance. But, as Sahinur has unambiguously stated, during her study she noted that the practice of composing new songs had been on the wane since 1995. Older songs were being sung in the weddings, and then the very practice of singing wedding songs has been declining. According to Sahinur, on the one hand, there is no dearth of entertainment from the various mass media, and on the other hand, this old tradition is losing its dignity with the dissemination of education and in the changed social fabric. The simple and spontaneous expression of these songs is losing acceptance in the face of the glitz of urban modernity. Sahinur observed, 'Previously the knowledge of these songs used to be considered something respectable and a mark of culture, while these days singing these songs is being looked down upon as an 'uncultured' practice.' Although some songs are still being performed for the sake of ritual, the repertoire of wedding songs rich with varied themes and lyrics is an almost un-pursued domain today.   

 

What were the song performances like? What was its position in the religious ritual-laden social ceremony of a wedding? And what are the contours of survival of these songs in a handful of districts of present-day Bangladesh and West Bengal? I visited Manoara Begum’s place with these questions, and the inner-domain of the wedding songs composed and sung by the Muslim women was awaiting me precisely there.

 

Manoara Begum was born and raised in Bardhaman. The tradition of wedding songs is a long one in her family. She herself, her elder sister Jahanara and the latter’s daughter Najmul Nahar Begum still perform songs at the weddings of neighbours and relations. They have witnessed this tradition in the company of three previous generations, but that was a more extensive and rich tradition. In the course of our conversation, the memories and experiences of these women gruadually started revealing the nature of the wedding songs of Muslim women.

 

The performance

 

As recently as two or three generations before the present time, song performances used to begin almost a month before the wedding in a Bengali Muslim family and it used to continue till the day of the wedding or the farewell ceremony of the bride. Women of the community used to sing wedding songs on the sidelines of the rituals performed around the bride or the bridegroom. As this space has always been an exclusively female one, song after song has expressed women’s own narration. Women of the family, of various ages and belonging to various generations, used to join these performances. Songs used to be performed day and night to the accompaniment of instruments like dhol, khol, etc. Women of the family used to dance to the tunes of the songs.

 

Kaap or comic performances are another part of this tradition. Two or more women would play different characters in a comical vein with song-and-dance, or there would be charges and counter-charges thrown at each other in the form of songs. The kaap performances would often talk about the everyday oppression of women at home and in the world. As nothing was a taboo subject at a performance, women would unhesitatingly express their secret sorrows through songs. The songs would talk about the torture perpetrated by husbands and mothers-in-law, the loneliness of the wife left behind by the husband, or the longing felt by the wife for the relations at her parental home. Erotic humor was common in the kaap performances. But the time for it was late at night, when children or men of the family were not around; at such times erotic jokes would be exchanged among women through songs. Apart from being a private expression of women, the wedding songs were an autonomous domain of their hopes and desires, a forbidden territory for either the rest of society or for men. Women were free and unrestricted in this domain. 

 

According to Manoara Begum, a certain kind of theatrical performances used to be enacted in this month-long wedding affair till the 1960s. The performances had different subjects and names. Women from the neighborhood or neighbouring villages would come in large groups to watch and join these theatrical performances. All-male performances like Leto and Alkaap in the outer domain of the house and women’s theatrical performances in the inner domain would start a month before the actual wedding. Apart from songs, women would infuse acting and subject-based ambience into these performances to create their own space of entertainment. There was no one to judge the acting skills and creativity of these women confined to the inner domain of home, nor did they aspire for fame or recognition. It was a rich space of folk art created by the fancy of women and free from either religious obscurantism or social domination. By means of their language and imagination, the Muslim women of Bengal could make their song performances a distinct tradition of folk art in the sphere of Bengali culture.

 

Muslim weddings and wedding songs

 

As the wedding songs of Muslim women are associated with the social-religious ceremonies of a wedding, the sequence of songs relates to that of wedding rituals. Although at one time the preparations for marriage and with it the song performances would continue over a month, the time has diminished to a considerable extent as everyday life has become much busier. Yet, following the time-honoured tradition, the songs are being performed on the day of core marriage rituals and on the two days preceding it in some districts of West Bengal. These songs were composed in keeping with the sequence of wedding rituals and they are still being performed in the same order. The thread of songs associated with ceremonies refer to such a sequence:

 

Vandana songs: The performance begins with the vandana or prayers. Like various other foms and genres of Indian art, wedding songs also begin by paying respect to Allah, Muhammad the Prophet and Islamic saints, to the family and relations and finally, to everyone in the village. This is the manner in which both the wedding rituals and the song performance begin.

 

Kheer-Khilani songs: In the case of Bengali Muslim weddings, the sequence of pre-wedding rituals starts with the ceremony of making the bride/groom eat kheer or condensed and sweetened milk. On the penultimate night before the wedding the relations of the family and neighbors make the bride/groom eat condensed and sweetened milk and various sweets. The songs describe the ceremony, how the milk and sweets were prepared, the role of the relatives of the bride/groom during the ceremony, their mental state, etc. 

 

Dhenki-Mangala songs: As the day before the wedding is the last day of bachelorhood/spinsterhood for the bride/groom, a feast is being given for him/her and there are rituals associated with this feast. The sequence of rituals on this day begins with husking rice on the husking-pedal or dhenki to cook pakan or a preparation of rice, the main dish of the feast. Auspicious songs are performed along with the husking.

 

Alamtala songs: Alamtala or the wedding platform is prepared by men, but the ceremony of alamtala begins with women’s songs. Such songs talk about the approaching hour of marriage and the possibilities of the future i.e., post-marital life.

 

Jhumur Dala songs: As the ceremonies advance one by one on the day before marriage, the wedding singers continue the sequence of songs. There are different songs for each ritual in the jhumur dala ceremony. During this ceremony such rituals as sorshe chala (straining mustard seeds), shirtel (oiling hair), halud makha (the turmeric massage ceremony), sohag mana (praying for the bride), paani khilano (water offering) etc. are performed. The songs in this ceremony describe the nature of the ritual, ingredients used, and the purpose of the ritual. There are songs on every crop used during the sorshe chala ritual, and songs conveying the blessings of the elders during the sohag mana ritual.

 

Jhumur Khela songs: After the oil and turmeric associated rituals are finished, the women of the family dance and sing funny songs surrounding the bride/groom. The songs take digs at the character and manner of speaking of those in the family or of neighbours.

 

Kaaman Kora songs: Although the space of wedding rituals and songs is an exclusively female domain, a man enters with the arrival of the barber coming to groom the bride/groom. The women hurl jokes at the barber's expense in their songs and the barber joins in by throwing similar jokes back. The influence of the barber upon the composition and performance of wedding songs by women is notable.

 

Mangal-Snan or Kalas Bhara songs: Then comes the time of fetching the water in a pitcher and bathing the bride/groom. The women of the family, sometimes along with and sometimes without the bride/groom, go to the nearby pond or river. Various songs are associated with this ceremony of fetching the water and filling the pitcher. Women go to fetch water singing these songs.

 

Mehendi songs: The wedding singers sing different songs during the ceremony of adorning the bride with henna.

 

Songs on the night of Thubra Bhaat: On the night of the feast for the still unwed bride/groom all his/her relations and neighbours arrive to make the bride/groom eat from a special plate. As a mood of festivity prevails due to the gathering of so many people on this last night before the wedding, the song performance on this night too assumes the air of a soirée and continues till late at night. The performance on this night describes various subjects ranging from the beginning of the wedding rituals to the farewell of the bride.  

 

Themes and style of the songs

 

Muslim wedding songs are not confined to the wedding rituals and marriage ceremony; they relate to a broader domain. Even the songs centering round the wedding rituals hint at social customs like child marriage and dowry. The little girl has fallen asleep while drinking the condensed and sweetened milk in a kheer-khilani song, the little bride is playing with oil and turmeric smeared on her body, or the long journey to the husband’s home would end as soon as the bride crosses the lake given as a dowry—through such images the artists painted a realistic picture of their contemporary society. Just as the songs depict the taboos and restrictions in a woman’s life, and her desires and sorrows, her dreams and wishes to transcend those boundaries, similarly they refer to the events of the society at large and the reaction of women at home to those events. And the wedding songs have depicted, among other things, love and the wife’s anguish as the husband lives abroad. The longing for the husband’s company has been obliquely referred to in these songs. And the authoresses of the songs have expressed their anguish at the negligence of the parents towards a girl child. There are songs that refer to historic events like the Second World War, the Naxalbari Movement and the electoral victory of Indira Gandhi. Such songs not only refer to the events, but also indicate the kind of political-economic impact these had created upon people of different social classes. Seen from this perspective, these wedding songs are an important document of social history. 

 

The tune, rhythm and style vary from region to region. For instance, a song received by a young woman as an old family tradition, journeys with the woman to another village, maybe to another district, after her marriage and she sets the tune in currency there to the old words. Following the way of oral tradition, these songs composed and sung verbally have undergone changes in terms of tunes or lyrics. The wedding singers have replaced older words with those more suitable to the time and set the tune and rhythm accordingly. That is how variation was introduced in the songs. While some songs are sung to the accompaniment of common instruments like a small dhol, or other instruments suited for women, other songs are sung more conventionally and without any accompaniment.

 

The performers

 

Although there is little difference between art and life-lore in any folk tradition associated with the everyday, practice and genius gradually contribute to the difference in skills, and in keeping with that, individual artistic selves come into being. Although the practice is associated with the quotidian life, some receive more kudos than others due to their creativity and presentation. Wedding songs are no exception. Although women belonging to ordinary Bengali Muslim families sing these songs, some among them become known as wedding performers. Within the sphere of wedding rituals too the harimaana dawat or a three-day long invitation for food and stay to the performers’ group has become a part of the wedding ceremony. The performers participate in the wedding rituals and also perform songs. And the excellent singers in the neighborhood are invited on the eve of pre-wedding ceremonies such as paaka dyakha (final words between two families), paan-chini (exchanging tokens of this new bonding), lagan-dhora (engagement of the bride and bridegrrom), gaaye holud (receiving turmeric from the bridegroom’s family), etc.

 

The performers are known as geet gahuni or biye gauni in Bardhaman, as geet gahiri in Birbhum, Malda and Murshidabad, and as gitali or gidali in North Bengal. Far from being professional performers, these women are regular housewives belonging to the inner domain of the family. As they sing better than their neighbours or the others in the village and can improvise instant songs to match the situation, they receive special regard in the village. These wedding performers appear in the house before the wedding day and warm the gathering up with their performances, apart from participating in the women’s rituals.  

 

The performance space

 

The practice of Muslim wedding songs has received nourishment in the inner chambers of the family. The cultivation of these songs has continued from one generation to the other as family inheritance. And the performers have appeared to sing in their own families or the families of their relations and neighbors. But another stream of these wedding songs has expanded ouside the confines of the family, in the outer world, as a folk tradition. Till the 1950s, beside the male-dominated Alkaap or Raaybneshe folk groups, Merasin bands composed of female performers used to be hired on the eve of the wedding in well-off Muslim families for the performance called Musalmani Biyer Gaan. These merasins also perform wedding songs on wedding rituals and on love and other themes. Although both sing the songs of the same genre, the merasin performers are distinct from the gitali singers or wedding singers belonging to the inner domain. The former are professional performers and they sing outside the confines of family or village, in front of a broader audience. They are regular performers both in the family weddings and on the public stage and they earn their living from these performances. The head of the household has to pay some money in order to bring them to the wedding of his family. And they also take tips from the audience present at the wedding. At one time the merasin bands were immensely popular in Bardhaman, Birbhum, Malda and Murshidabad.

 

Compared to the songs of the gitali performers belonging to the family, the songs of the merasin are more captivating, entertaining and laden with erotic references. The language of their songs is much more pompous and entertainment-oriented. As the merasin performers are free from the inhibitions common to Muslim housewives, their songs are more frank in terms of humour, irony or the expression of different emotions. Apart from this, their songs refer to various drawbacks of the wedding rituals or customs like dowry. Although the performers in such groups are essentially women, the groups usually have one male performer, and they go together to perform upon receiving an invitation. The practice of inviting merasin performers to weddings witnessed a decline, even if to not so considerable an extent, after the 1950s.

 

Thus, in today’s time the obvious debate surrounding the Muslim wedding songs would be: Does the tradition belong to the family or the stage? Is it private or public? Or, even more importantly, what should be the space and mode of performance to make this century-old tradition live longer? With time the flow of this tradition from one generation to the other has been impeded. A thousand means of entertainment seem much more attractive to the younger generation than this simple tradition. Moreover, with the spread of education and rising consciousness about earning a living among women, the forms of leisure and lifestyle of women have undergone a transformation. Instead of composing or singing new songs, doing a little singing during the wedding for the sake of ritual has become the standard practice nowadays. Consequently, the tradition of wedding songs is gradually going into oblivion due to the lack of practice and cultivation.

 

On the other hand, these songs have received some appreciation in the outer world on their artistic merits. As a result, the songs are losing the spontaneity of their form as they are being performed essentially as a form of entertainment before the audience at large. Erotic and funny themes are gaining more importance than the expression of sorrows and social reality. Being alienated from the domain of wedding rituals and the familial happiness and blessings, the songs are falling prey to commodification on the public stage. This commodification of folk cultural practices is a fact not unfamiliar to us. This contradiction between art and commodity would follow the dynamics of social needs and of the demand for entertainment. But individual efforts can still make it possible to penetrate the inner chambers of wedding songs, which is an autonomous domain of the Bengali Muslim women and the quotidian life. It is still possible to listen to the self-narration of the constrained woman etched in the songs.