Kissas, Raginis, Saangs, Lookgeets: A Representation of Indigenous Culture of Haryana

Name of Author : Dr Priyanka Singh

Abstract: Indigenous oral literature has an unbounded capacity to enrich the intellectual readings of cultural and socio-economic patterns of the indigene. If not, how could the rich diversity of customs, traditions, behaviours, arts forms and even religions could be seen as surviving the pangs of time. It is he medium of language that it floats and harbours on the next generation. While the notion of education and success has over the years rested upon the use of the international language English and the print technology marginalising the vernaculars has unquestionably made the fate of oral literature precarious. But this does not rule out the very existence of over 880 languages spoken in India and that literature does not exist beyond the twenty two languages made official in the country. The unheard voices are the invaluable gems that womb the history, the achievements, the fantasies and the aspirations of a particular society. The society had found its own way for entertainment and education giving way to varied patterns of performances in the form of songs, dances, theatrics etc. In Haryana too, oral folk traditions have existed in the form of ragnis (songs/lyrics), naach (dance), saang (drama/theatrics) and Kissas (singing based plots). Bhats, Dhoms and Mirasis as one calls the Bards in Haryana, have been instrumental in carrying the oral traditions and constructing familial, societal and cultural perceptions of the Haryanvi Society gave reason to the indigene, both, to laugh and sustain the vagaries of nature. Furthermore, the songs sung by women on numerous occasions, the huliyaares, the faags or kissas, have found their place not only in the centrality of popular indigenous literature but have also become a national treasure and cultural repository in which one can take honour and pride. These narrations are a perfect combination of heart and mind and are impregnate with mundane activities of simple inhabitants, their sturdy life, modest institutions, plain yet elaborate festivals and their rude pleasures. These oral folk traditions are sites where people experience and express emotions and share memories that are particular not only to a family but the entire hamlet/ community and transmute the listener to the past, to the culture left behind and find affirmations of the socio-cultural traditions that have been an integral constituent part of the present but has lost/ wined away in the way of modernisation and development. Development of all sorts has laid its hand on cultural heritage of the interiors of land. Luxuries once confined to the town appear in the villages. Idle singing by women has been replaced by house-politics driven soap operas and cheap erotic Haryanvi rock, if can call it so. The paper seeks to present the oral folk tradition of Haryana as a perceptive source of indigenous socio-cultural traditions and to bring to centre the marginalised subaltern while attempting to peep into the rural life passionately and in depth

Keywords : Oral tradition, Peasant Culture, Bards, Enculturation, Indigenous Literature

DOI :