Sorathee-Birjabhar – Bihar’s folk art of storytelling

A young prince, Birjabhar, leaves his palace and family to join the Nath Sampradaya as a wandering monk following in the footsteps of Guru Gorakshnath. Many years later, Birjabhar appears at the doorstep of his old palace, having forgotten his old life and begging for alms and food grains. His encounter with the servant, his mother and finally his wife are part of legend in Bihar. The test in his spiritual journey is for him to be able to address his wife as “mother” as reluctant and vague recollections of his family life begin to come back to tempt him.

The Sorathee (सोरठी) singing tradition of Bihar, recounting the tales of Birjabhar, is brought alive by a wandering monk of the Sampradaya in these videos.

This folk art was incorporated into the traditional dance-drama storytelling format known as Naach, along with other Bhojpuri traditions to give holistic entertainment to people. These performances generally last four to five hours nowadays, but earlier they would be performed for an audience through the night, or sometimes, even over three days at a time.

The king, the queen and the head eunuch of the king’s harem (laundi/joker) became the central characters in these naach programmes, which remain a medium for entertaining and critiquing society.

In memoriam: Padmashri Sakar Khan’s legacy passes on

It was extremely sad for us hear of Padmashri Sakar Khan’s demise from respiratory ailments on August 10. The grief is magnified by the fact that we had spent such an enlightening time at his home in Hamira, learning from him all sorts of things about his world and the world that his profound talent had taken him around. His humility and grace in letting complete strangers be comfortable at his home, taking care of every small need of ours and engaging with us whenever time allowed him to were the biggest lessons one can learn about hospitality and modesty.

For a person full of warmth and affection, who spread music and brought fame to his tradition, may his soul rest in peace.

These final  video recordings from our time at Hamira are about Shri Ghevar Khan playing the Khamancha casually while an infant of the family, and later other children, are exploring the instrument. Shri Ghevar Khan doesn’t show any irritation at being disturbed. Rather, he welcomes the children’s natural inquisitiveness, letting them feel the instrument and begin to identify with it so as to grow and carry on the Manganiyar tradition into posterity.

The magic of khamancha

And finally we have been able to deliver on our promise. This is the first video that we recorded in Hamira while staying at Padmashri Sakar Khan’s house. The video shows his son Shri Ghevar Khan playing a Rajasthani folk tune on the khamancha. Listen up till the percussion on the dholak begins. We hope you enjoy this piece of Manganiyar tradition.