Chhattisgarh Plains · Central Highlands & Forest Belt
A single improvised couplet, thrown by one side and answered by the other, usually between men and women. Love, teasing, complaint and local incident. It is the region's most common song and the least recorded, because it is composed and discarded in the same minute.
Sung at: Work, walks and fairs.
Women sing to a clay parrot in a basket about husbands, in-laws and marriage. The parrot is the addressee, and that framing is what allows the songs to say publicly what could not otherwise be said.
Sung at: Diwali to Dev Uthni Ekadashi.
The rains, the tree and the young. Short cycles built to repeat for a whole night.
Sung at: Bhadon, around the karma branch.
Sung to sprouted wheat or barley seedlings raised in baskets in a dark room for nine days and then carried in procession to water. The songs address the sprouts as a young girl being sent away.
Sung at: Bhadon.
Nirgun verse on the formless divine and on Guru Ghasidas's Satnam teaching, sung to an accelerating drum while the dance is danced to it.
Sung at: Guru Ghasidas Jayanti and Magh Purnima.
The Mahabharata told from the Pandavas' side, with Bhima as the hero rather than Arjuna — a shift that tells you a great deal about who the audience is.
Sung at: Village nights, fairs and now concert stages.
Praise of the Devi, sung all night in call and response so that no single singer has to carry it.
Sung at: Navratri.
The rivers of the plain, named in order. Written by Narendra Dev Verma, it is now the official state song and one of the few modern Chhattisgarhi compositions that everyone can sing.
Sung at: Public occasions.
The folk songs of Chhattisgarh Plains — what they are about, who sings them and when. (8)