Documentation project to work on three dying folk music forms

Three dying folk music traditions of West Bengal will now get a new lease of life with a documentation project which will also help provide livelihood opportunities to rural artistes.
As part of the US Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP), city-based social enterprise Banglanatak.Com will work on Bhawaiya songs of north Bengal, Bhatiali songs of Sundarbans and Bangla Qawali of Kolkata, Nadia and Murshidabad.
Following field recordings with artists, they will bring out CDs with 150 of these songs which are fast losing ground on the point of near extinction to other modern forms of entertainment.
"These songs are a part of our intangible cultural heritage. By promoting their art we will develop these folk traditions as a means of livelihood in rural areas," Amitabh Bhattacharya, Banglanatak.Com's founder director, told PTI.

Under the USD 40,000 project funded by US state department, the recordings will begin soon and the CDs will be out within a year.
Around 200 artists altogether would be a part of the preservation work, he said.

Heard in areas of north Bengal like Coochbehar and Alipurduar, Bhawaiya is a musical form which has a song for every aspect of human life.
Bangla Qawali, popular 150 years ago, is now limited to Nadia, Murshidabad and 'darghas' of Kolkata and Hooghly.
For Qawali they will also bring out a song book for textual documentation work.
More popular across the border in Bangladesh, Bhatiali is a traditional boat song sung by boatmen while going down streams of the river. The lyrics are about boating, fishing and river.

Bhattacharya said there are only a handful of singers of this Bhatiali folk tradition in Sundarbans.