Desh · Deccan Inland Plateau
Direct address to Vitthal of Pandharpur — complaint, longing, argument and household detail rather than liturgy. The corpus runs from Dnyaneshwar in the thirteenth century to Tukaram in the seventeenth and is sung, not recited.
Sung at: The wari, daily bhajan, Ekadashi. Sung to taal cymbals and mridang in a call-and-response that lets several hundred walking people hold the same line for hours.
Composed and sung by women at the hand quern in a two-and-a-half-line metre — about brothers, mothers, marital households and the labour itself. Thousands were recorded from Pune-district villages in the twentieth century, and the corpus is one of the largest bodies of women's oral poetry documented anywhere in India.
Sung at: Grinding grain, before dawn.
Battle narrative, sung at speed by a shahir with a daf. The seventeenth-century povadas on Afzal Khan and on Tanaji at Sinhagad are near-contemporary sources as well as performances.
Sung at: Fairs, political gatherings, Shivjayanti.
A comic or domestic scene — a quarrel, a drunkard, a bride — carrying a devotional argument underneath. The audience is expected to hear both.
Sung at: Kirtan, night performances.
Invocation, deity genealogy and the naming of the household commissioning the performance, sung through the night to sambal and tuntune.
Sung at: Weddings and vows to Renuka, Bhavani and Khandoba.
Erotic and satirical verse in a fast metre, often written by male shahirs and performed by women. The eighteenth-century Peshwa-era lavani of Honaji Bala and Ram Joshi is still the core repertoire.
Sung at: Tamasha, jatra.
Girls circle a chalked elephant drawn on the floor and sing a fixed cycle of songs while a covered dish of food is guessed at. The songs are teasing and domestic, and the sequence is memorised, not improvised.
Sung at: Ashwin, around Navratri.
Cradle songs sung by women of the household as the child is placed in the palna for the first time.
Sung at: Naming ceremonies and cradle rites.
The folk songs of Desh — what they are about, who sings them and when. (8)