Tulip in full bloom: AI Generated
‘Mandar dafa bajna /Abir gul lala kum kum/ Keshor charato karawato/Kutuhal has e/Mandar dafa bajna.’ (Mandolins are being played/colored powders getting sprinkled/ Tulip unfurling her petals/Women have curious smiles on their lips). (Hindustani Dhamar on the spring festival) …It was the year of 1989. Me and my immediate elder sister used to attend a Hindustani classical music class (as many other middle-class Bengali girls attend in their childhood or adolescence days and later most of them cannot continue for studies, work or etc. etc.) where our teacher used to train us in ‘Dhrupad’ and ‘Dhamar’- two unique forms of Hindustani classical music besides the too commonly practiced ‘Kheyal.’ Sometimes we used to ask the teacher meaning of all these Hindustani lyrics and he tried to explain at his best. The aforementioned lyrics of Dhamar was composed by any of the classical lyricists of the sub-continent (or to be more accurate, by the lyricists from Persia or Afghanistan up to
the Indian sub-continent) to welcome the advent of spring and the word ‘gul lala’ means Tulip in Urdu and this Tulip is opening her petals in the spring (Keshar charato karawato). We know how much our Hindustani classical music has been enriched by the composers from Persia like Ameer Khasru and others. In fact, the word ‘Dafa’ means ‘Mandolin’, a particular type of musical instrument which used to be played in any festival in Persia and the adjoining regions and still it is played across a long route from Persia or central Asia to the Pakistan-North Indian territories. Although reputed Bengali musicians like Kabeer Suman are now-a-days advocating for writing Bengali Kheyals for better comprehension of the Bengali learners (as language often seems to be a barrier in understanding the North Indian classical music and learning Hindustani classical is a pre-requisite for achieving minimum skills in music of this region), but can we ever deny that how the ancient and…
