Introduction - Folklore Instruments

Whoever said that Punjab had no culture but only agriculture spoke from ignorance Punjab's folklore and traditions of music and dance are rich and varied. Poetic imagery and melody are written into the Punjabi genetic code, drawn from an extremely broad gene pool From time immemorial, invaders from the northwest have swept across the Khyber Pass and down into India crossing the plains of Punjab as they did so. Arabian and Persian currents swirled up through Sindh, resulting in a vigorous hybrid.

The persisting influences of tribes and armies which have swept into Punjab through the centuries are easily discerned if one knows what to look for Start with clothing the traditional costume of the common man and woman of, let us say, Karnataka or Orissa, is one or two lengths of unstitched cloth draped around the body; the Punjabi's traditional dress is stitched- a gift of the mighty Kushans who established their empire in Indian in the first century AD. Phulkari and bagh as the embroideries which typically ornament Punjabi garment shave their roots in Central Asia and came in with the armies of Timur and Babur in the Middle Ages. Innumerable such cultural markets can be cited-but it must also be recognized that the Punjabis retained a core that was uniquely their own and nowhere is this more evident than in the State's folk music.

The folk instruments used to accompany Punjabi folk music reflect a cultural contiguity extending right across the length and breadth of Asia, material proof of influences from as far away as Greece and China. Research, indicates that out of 87 instruments used by Punjab's folk musicians during the past century, 55 are still intact, 13 can be described as vanishing and 19 are long since gone. With the advent of synthesisers, they are all on the endangered list. Some of these instruments survive in the folk orchestras maintained by organisations such as the Punjab Police and other institutions where talented personnel are brought into cultural troupes and trained to compete at the regional and state levels and perform as part of national and international programmes. Others have been adapted to the needs of the times. For example, the dhol is only surviving, because of the patronage from school and college teams, weddings and social events. Even the been sapera has so few practitioners that they can be counted in single digits, making it even more vital to have records of these rich traditions, which are on the verge of vanishing altogether.

Some instruments like the taus are very beautiful but, with few players, are relegated to museums. Bhai Amrik Singh Zakhmi was an avid player of the taus but with increasing age, he found it too cumbersome to carry to performances and donated it to the music college at the Javaddi Kalan Gurdwara in the hope that someone might come along one day and learn to play it.

As Gurdial Singh, one of Punjab's well-known instrumentmakers remarked: "Many of the rare instruments like the sarinda, rabab and taus are almost vanishing from the range of actively played instruments. If there are any orders for them at all, I suspect it is not because they are to be played but because someone wants to display them. The deras, headquarters of a spiritual order, like to keep them. At some of the deras, like Bhaeni Sahib and Javaddi Kalan, students are trained to play traditional instruments. Some voluntary service organisations are also providing training, although usually they don't have teachers for rare instruments."

Development and modernisation were (and are) changing Punjab past recognition, with inevitable consequences for the folk performer. The artistes have been hungry for a long time now-hungry enough to look for more lucrative livelihoods. Some of the best have turned to daily wage labour, and many of them prefer to see their children collect garbage rather than learn traditional musical skills. In fact the children of these folk artistes themselves opt out of the family vocation. In the course of the last decade and a half many of the sounds and melodies of traditional instruments have become a rarity.

As if rapid technological, economic and social change weren't disruptive enough, upto 1992, political turmoil swept over Punjab. The stifling hand of terrorism loomed over the State for more than a decade. The killing of Varinder, a popular Punjabi actor, who was deeply involved in reviving Punjab's traditional art and culture, proved to be a great set- back to the folk community of Punjab. Two other popular folk artistes, Maggar Singh Diwana and Jaimal Singh Padda, were also shot while performing.

For 10 years, except for militant vaar singing, folk performances suffered a great setback. Traditional fairs and festivals were cancelled, as were cultural symposia, conferences and concerts. No folk performer emerged during this period-this was a frozen decade when nothing at all happened. The entire state machinery was involved in curbing militancy in Punjab and as State patronage remains an essential component, this was a modern Dark Ages.

In particular, the absence of university or college youth festivals meant that promising young artistes had no means of demonstrating their talent and the troupes of bhangra and giddha virtually ceased to exist. Certainly they were not seen in the youth exchange programmes between the Indian states. Meanwhile, bereft of patronage and invitations to perform, traditional communities of folk artistes began looking for alternative means of livelihood and did all they could to see that their children did not follow in their footsteps.

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