Bhim GeetMarathi
Ambedkar, the Buddha, the conversion, and the ordinary life of the communities that made it. A modern folk repertoire with a datable origin and tens of thousands of songs, sustained by shahirs and jalsa troupes rather than by any institution.
Sung at: Dhamma Chakra Pravartan Din, Ambedkar Jayanti, weddings and vihara gatherings. Wamandada Kardak is the shahir most closely associated with the form; his songs are still sung by people who do not know he wrote them, which is the usual test.
Jatyavarchi oviMarathi (Varhadi)
Improvised couplets on brothers, in-laws, the village and the work, in a metre set by the turning of the stone.
Sung at: At the grindstone, before dawn.
RelaGondi
Call-and-response songs sung while dancing in a linked circle, with the leader setting a line and the circle answering it.
Sung at: Weddings and seasonal festivals.
Dandar songsGondi and Marathi
Narrative and comic songs performed by travelling male troupes over several nights, moving from village to village.
Sung at: The Diwali fortnight.
Zadipatti stage songsZadi Boli
Songs written into the all-night plays, released and circulated separately, and often better known than the plays they came from.
Sung at: The winter theatre season.
Rice transplanting songsMarathi (Zadi) and Halbi
Sung by women working bent over in flooded fields, with a metre timed to the planting stroke. The work is the metronome.
Sung at: The monsoon, in the eastern tank districts.
LengiGor Boli (Lambani)
Sowing, marriage and the road, in the vocabulary of a caravan economy that ended long ago.
Sung at: Teej, Holi and the Pohradevi gathering.
PalnaMarathi (Varhadi)
Cradle songs sung to a child by the name being conferred on it.
Sung at: The naming ceremony.