Malwa Plateau · Central Highlands & Forest Belt
Kabir's verses on the formless — the body as a rented house, the swan leaving at dawn, the futility of ritual. Malwa sings them in its own dialect and its own tunes, not in the textual Hindi of the printed editions.
Sung at: Night singing sessions, death anniversaries, satsang. A living tradition across Dewas, Ujjain, Dhar and Indore districts, carried by village singing parties rather than by professionals, and the source Kumar Gandharva drew on.
Girls address Sanjha — a figure they build in cow dung and flowers on a courtyard wall, changing her form each evening — and sing her through courtship, marriage and departure before immersing her on the last night.
Sung at: The sixteen days of Pitru Paksha.
Gauri's marriage and her return to her mother's house, sung by women carrying the images to water.
Sung at: Chaitra, the eighteen days after Holi.
Krishna and the gopis, and a licensed obscenity that appears only in this season.
Sung at: Phalgun, from Basant Panchami to Holi.
Praise of the bridegroom, teasing of his party, and the bride's departure — the last of these sung in a form that expects the household to weep.
Sung at: Weddings.
Swing songs of the monsoon month, sung by women in courtyards and under the plateau's big trees.
Sung at: Sawan.
The sung verse units that carry a Maach play's narrative. A rangat is both a tune and a metrical form, and a Maach guru is judged on how many he holds.
Sung at: Maach performances, through the dry season.
The folk songs of Malwa Plateau — what they are about, who sings them and when. (7)