BoliyanPunjabi
One-verse rhymed couplets called out and answered, on marriage, in-laws, longing, money and village reputation. Improvised on a fixed frame, and the sharpest of them are anonymous by design.
Sung at: Giddha and bhangra.
Punjab Doabs · Upper Indus–Gangetic Plain
Folk songs
TappePunjabi
A very short two-line form sung to a set melody, traded between singers. The metre is so tight that a good tappa is closer to an epigram than to a song.
Sung at: Any gathering, and at weddings in particular.
Suhag and ghorianPunjabi
Suhag are sung by the bride's household as she prepares to leave; ghorian by the groom's as his mare is readied. The two sets face each other across the wedding and are never sung by the wrong side.
Sung at: Weddings.
SithniyanPunjabi
Ritual insult songs directed by the bride's women at the groom's family, obscene by convention and protected by it.
Sung at: Weddings, when the groom's party arrives.
Lohri songsPunjabi
Children go door to door singing for gur, sesame and money, in verses that centre on the figure of Dulla Bhatti, a sixteenth-century Punjabi outlaw remembered for rescuing girls from being sold and arranging their marriages.
Sung at: Lohri, mid-January.
Mahiya and dholaPunjabi
Short love couplets addressed to an absent beloved, with the first line usually a piece of scene-setting that only rhymes with the second. The form carries across the border unchanged.
Sung at: Any time, and at fairs.
HeerPunjabi
Waris Shah's verse romance of Heer and Ranjha, sung to its own recognisable tune. Read as a love story, as a Sufi allegory and as an attack on the social order, depending on who is singing it.
Sung at: Gatherings, shrine festivals, radio.
VarPunjabi
Heroic ballad, chiefly of battle and martyrdom in Sikh history, delivered in alternating sung and spoken passages to dhadd and sarangi.
Sung at: Dhadi performance.
AlahunianPunjabi
Women's laments sung after a death, in a form old enough to be referred to in the Sikh scripture itself.
Sung at: Death.
Jugni and chhallaPunjabi
Two travelling refrain-forms — jugni as a wandering spirit who reports what she sees, chhalla as an address to a ring and to an absent traveller. Both are open frames into which any singer inserts new verses, which is why they never date.
Sung at: Fairs, and later the recording industry.
The folk songs of Punjab Doabs — what they are about, who sings them and when. (10)