Is 21st century folk music a compromise?

 India is a land of vast and varied cultures. In this country flows the confluence of myriad beliefs, tastes and traditions. India is a country that yields and gives place to each and every. And probably this is the reason why the tradition of music or to be more precise according to our discussion, the folk tradition has undergone a setback.

So what is folk music?

Folk music is any popular music culture followed by the mass of any particular place or by some race. Generally, folk is not a scripted form of music but that which has been travelling orally from generation to generation.

Being a huge country, invaded on several occasions, India has become a bed of diverse folk music traditions. In the east, particularly in Bengal, we have the baul form of music. In west we have Rajasthani folk, which to a great extent has the influence of Sufism for its geographic location. Towards the north, predominately in the Indian Himalayas, a very famous form of folk music is Garhwali which is a form of music of the people of the Garhwal Division of Uttarakhand.

Folk music is a connect. A mix of beats, rhythms and lyrics to which one cannot stop from swaying his/her feet. Thus the name, folk or the people’s music. A form to which people can relate. Music of their land, their sky, their rivers and their farmland. However, what we know as folk today is unfortunately still far away from what folk music truly is.

If globalisation is the best thing that could have happened to mankind, it came with a lot of negative impacts. Music was one such area which took a beating with the advent of globalisation. We lost our traditional taste for music and embraced the ‘popular’ pop culture which preceded rock, metal, death metal and other such cultures.

However, what came out as a product was nothing more than cacophony and far from melody. The band culture creeped in and a hybrid tradition which was in the middle of nothing took the attention of people. Mind it, these bands were not just any groups but a bunch of pseudo intellectuals with little or no sense of melody and long hair.

Anyway, so the actual sense of traditional taste of music of each region was lost. Streets, clubs, restaurants and even minds were filled with the rather easy form of music which came handy to come under the limelight for the ones who were otherwise too lazy to work up the harder way.

However, mankind, through years has learnt that a person should do what befits him. People slowly have started understanding the abovementioned words and that is what has paved way for the folk culture to come back in the musical scenario of India.

But is what we call folk music these days a compromise
with the situation?

In the words of the famous baul, Gour Khepa, who was probably the last proper baul, “what is happening today is less of music and more of idiosyncrasy. Melody has gone for a toss and in the name of melody we have stupidity.”

After people were too much under the influence of international culture, some people thought it to be imperative to get back the traditional form of music. But then cropped up a problem. The audience were already into something which was like any other product sold in an e-commerce website, those that come in an interesting packaging but ultimately is either soap or a toothbrush. Thus, a tricky solution had to be etched out. A mixture of the rock bands and the traditional folk music was hence born which is okay but is to a large extent a compromise with what we actually call traditional music.

Traditional folk music was in itself capable of creating an atmosphere. The sweet sound of a sarangi and beating of table accompanied by a kartal and khomok are enough to build an atmosphere but in order to give it an interesting packaging, instruments like drums, guitars and modern percussion had to be used. And again it was a hybrid but this time, closer to the original form.

Probably this is what will bring back the folk music back in our lives but a pertinent question is will we get the form back that our ancestors knew? Or will we compromise and settle to believe that this is the form in its true sense? Looking into the future is something we cannot do but at least we can try and preserve the attempt by some and help folk music from further denigration and help in our own ways to walk back to those days of melody and oneness.

Attempts have started like the recent Airtel advertisements of 4G and Incredible India’s advertisements and many movies on folk music too have been done. But the amount of beating the form has taken will take more and more to bring back the true sense of folk music.