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THE PEOPLE
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AMUSEMENTS
Holidays and festivals are great occasions for social entertainment. Various types of dancing activities generally of the nature of folk-dances are current among the people, the occasion for which usually being various religious festivals occurring in the months of Shravana, Bhadrapada and Phalguna. On the dark night of Shravana, are celebrated the festivals of Gokulashtami and Dahikata which are occasions for the display of the spectacular goph and tipri and the boisterous kala and Govinda dances. In the same month, among Brahmans and other advanced classes, on the occasion of the Mangalagaur puja, young women dance a variety of dances known as phugadis. On the bright Bhadrapada and after come Ganesh and Gauri festivals, when the mela parties sing songs and hold theatrical performances during the ten days.
Some dances are performed more out of religious ecstacy and fervour than to give expression to aesthetic feelings. The dindi dancing of varkaris and devotees engage in while going to the temple of Vithoba at Pandharpur belongs to this kind. Another dance of the ecstatic kind is the Mahalakshmi dance better known as ghagar phunkne, perhaps exclusively practised by women of the Chitpavan Brahman community at the time of Mahalakshmi worship in the bright half of Ashvina.
In the rural areas, there are a number of occasions for the cultivating classes to entertain themselves with folk songs to be sung individually or in a group. Of these, lavni and powada songs, replete as they are with humour and common sense, form a source of popular entertainment among the village folk. These are professional exponents of the art and a contest between lavni singers arranged at a jatra or fair attract many but it is the lavni that a female danseuse-cum-songstress at a tamasha that really delights the rustic audience.
In the repertory of folk songs of the villager may be included songs set in the ovi metre which are usually sung by women while grinding corn. Auspicious songs such as sung by suvasinis at the halad and ghana ceremonies in a marriage, palne or lullabies and cradle songs which are quite soothing are sung to put a child to sleep. Artya sung in praise of deities and avatars and ukhane which are riddles in rhyme and also ditties composed for the use of women to utter their husbands' names in an involved way are all entertaining, versical and musical material.
Bhajan, Bharud, Gondhal, Kirtan, Lalit, Tumbdi singing and Tamasha are the other forms of community entertainments based on folk songs current in the district. The religious-minded Hindu particularly if he has taken to saguna upasana (idol worship) attached great religious merit to the uttering and hearing of and meditating upon the name of god or that of his favourite deity and attending different kinds of expositions known as puranas, pravachanas, hari katha or kirtan and bhajana delivered by professionals in a technique of their own.
The professional readers and reciters of sacred books known as puranikas are engaged sometimes by a rich householder or by a temple management to read purana. These readings take place in the afternoon or at night from eight to twelve o'clock. They read usually from the Ramayana, Bhagawata and the Mahabharata in Sanskrit and expound it in Marathi. Pravachanas are learned religious discourses delivered by shastris well-versed in the knowledge of Hindu scriptures.
A kirtana is a musical discourse in which religious and moral themes are described and expounded in poetry and prose. A kirtankar is also known as harldas. Of the nine stages of bhakti (devotion) kirtana is the second stage and a kirtankar expresses his devotion to God by singing his praise and at the same time lead the listeners to a life of faith, poetry and charity.
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