THE PEOPLE

AMUSEMENTS

Holidays and religious festivals are great occasions for entertainment. Various types of dancing activities generally of the nature of the folk dances are current among the people, the occasion for them usually being the various religious festivals occurring mainly in the months of Sravana, Bhadrapada and Phalguna. On the dark night of Sravana, (eighth day) and the clay following are celebrated the festivals of Gokulastami and Dahikala 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, the occasion of the Mangalagauripuja affords an occasion to young women to dance a variety of folk dances known as phugdis, even elderly women joining in them with enthusiasm and abandon. On the bright fourth of Bhadrapada and after, come the Ganes and Gauri festivals. In towns, at the public Ganapati celebrations are held mela performances, but in the villages the agricultural classes observe the Bharadi Gauri festival with sinking, dancing and merry-making. In the same month when the Sun is in the thirteenth constellation of the Zodiac called Hasta or the Elephant, girls unmarried or newly-married give a typical semi-dance performance known as Hadga or Bhondla and sing specially composed songs. Holi or Simga festival declaring the advent of spring is spent in boisterous activities by the young males which include the performance of tamasa troupe.

Some dances arc connected with religious ecstasy and fervour and not for giving expression to any aesthetic feeling. The dindi dance which devotees or bhajanis of the Varkari cult. engage in while going to a temple of Vithoba or taking part in a religious procession belongs to this kind. Another dance of this ecstatic kind is the Mahalaksmi dance better known as ghagar phunkne, perhaps exclusively practised by the women of the Brahman Community at the time of the worship of Maha-laksmi in the bright half of Asvina.

Gond Dancing.

Dancing and singing to the dance constitutes the social recreation of the Gonds who are known to he passionately fond of it. The principal dance is the karma dance in celebration of bringing the leafy branch of a tree from the forest in the rains. Men and women form two long lines opposite each other with the musicians in the centre, advance and retreat alternately bringing one foot forward and the other up behind it with a similar movement in retiring. At a mixed dance, all the time they are dancing, they also sine in unison, the men sometimes singing one line and the women the next or both together. The songs are generally erotic.

Folk Songs.

In the rural areas, there arise a number of occasions for the cultivating classes to entertain themselves with folk songs, to he sung individually or in groups. Of these lavni and pavada songs, replete as they are with wit and humour and common sense form a popular source of entertainment of the village people. There are professional exponents of the art and a contest between male lavni singers at. a jatra (fair) attracts many, but it is the lavni of the female dancer-cuw-smger that, really delights audiences. Folk songs known as bhaleri are sometimes sung to encourage reapers working in the field but at the harvesting time, farmers sing special songs to enthuse, as it were, the bullocks to tread the jovar ears. In the repertory of folk songs of the villagers may he included songs set in the ovi metre which are often sung by women early in the morning while grinding corn: auspicious songs such as suvasinis sing at the halad and ghana ceremonies at the marriage; palne or lullabies and cradle songs which are soothing songs sung to put a child to sleep; propitiatory songs sung to appease the wrath of deities like small-pox. plague etc: aratya or songs in praise of gods and goddesses and ukhane which are riddles set in rhymes and also ditties composed for the use of women to titter the husband's name in an involved and circumlocutory way.

Bhajan, Bharud, Gondhal Kirtan, Lalit, Tumbdi singing and Tamasa are the other forms of community entertainment based on folk-songs found current in the district. Of these bhajan-singing, which aims at a religious communion to be achieved by chanting devotional songs in chorus, is widely popular. Occasionally bhajan saptahas, non-stop sessions of bhajan-singing for seven days are held in well-known temples. The traditional topic of the spiritual uplift of man is delienated in songs in bharuds delightfully spiced with humour. Gondhal is a semi-musical performance given by a professional! Gondhali and his troupe in praise of gods and goddesses such as Malhari, Bhavani, Rama and other legendary heroes. A kirtan is a musical discourse given by a kirtankar in which God and religion are expatiated upon in prose and poetry. There is a tendency now-a-days to use the kirtan institution as a vehicle for spreading cultural and social ideas instead of purely religious ones. Lalita as the probable precursor of Marathi drama is a form of crude theatrical which has for its plot an incident from the Puranas. Tumbdis are musical satires on social problems. Tamasa, which is perhaps the most popular and alluring recreational activity in the rural areas, consists of a ban of five to seven artists of histrionic talent and musical skill. The nacya (dancer) in an amateur Tamasa troupe is generally a boy dressed as a girl: in a professional tamasa, a female dancer and singer is the centre of attraction. Gana, Gavlan and vag are the principal components of a tamasa and the ruling sentiment maintained throughout by means of dialogues and lavnis is usually crude and sensuous humour leaning on the erotic side.

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