The Search Result for - Jari:
Sushoma Mashima, a Keeper of Songs
I went with the disembodied voice of the seamen, plucked from the sound archive, to the one who keeps songs in her body. Sushoma Das was 90 when I went to her in 2018. She could hear what we can’t.
Imam Bux Boyati of Mymensingh at Gurusaday Dutt’s Suri Mela
Imam Bux Boyati and his team, jarigan singers from Atharobari, Mymensingh, were recorded on 23 February 1932 at the Suri Mela, Suri, district headquarters of Birbhum. They were recorded twice, on film in 1931 and then on wax cylinders, Bake India II/112-17 the next year. It was Gurusaday Dutt, the district magistrate who organised the festival.
Listening through Haresuzzaman Hares
Haresuzzaman Hares of Kishoreganj, whose father Mohammed Saidur was a famous folk song and art collector, an dwho is also a collector with deep knowledge of place and sound, is someone I also asked about Keramat Ali’s puthi-path. We spoke, in Dhaka, and over the phone. He has promised to take me to listen to puthi and other narrative songs of his region.
Helim Boyati and the Art of Melodic Reading
We went to Helim Boyati of Rajibpur, Netrokona, to ask about jarigan and puthi-path. A living master of these forms, he talked about how things were in the past and how they are changing and sang and recited songs and stories for us. This was in 2019.
Sadhushongo
The reasons for calling this sub-chapter Sadhushongo (in the company of the sadhu or the wise one) are many. Firstly, it takes off from a letter Bake wrote to his old teacher and friend, the wise Kshitimohan Sen, in 1955. Kshitimohan had inspired a love for baulgan in Arnold Bake, a musical practice where ‘shadhushongo’ is way of teaching and learning the song. Secondly, I went with the letter to meet my own old and wise teacher, Kshitimohan’s grandson Shibaditya Sen, and he gave me some recordings of Khoda Baksh Sai and others.
Moving with the Song: Loss and Longing in the Migrations of Bengal
‘Moving with the Song: Loss and Longing in the Migrations of Bengal’ is a paper Moushumi presented at a Sound and Anthropology conference in St. Andrews University in 2006, convened by anthropologist Stephanie Bunn and sound scholar and artist Cathy Lane. This was one of our earliest attempts to talk about our field recordings.
Chobi Mela Biennale, 2019
Borders and Freedoms/Borders of Freedom An 8-channel soundtrack, interspersed with video Languages: Bangla, English, Urdu, Khasi সীমান্ত ও স্বাধীনতা/স্বাধীনতার সীমান্তরেখা। This 41 min 20 sec soundtrack, which played in a loop in the long rectangular space of the gallery, every 10 minutes, was created as a meditation on the relation between borders and our […]
Life of Rivers, 2011
In 2011 we were commissioned to make a piece of work by the National Maritime Museum in London, using footage from their film archives, as part of a series of programmes titled ‘Traders Unpacked’ which they had organised to mark the opening of a new gallery in the museum, on Britain’s trade with Asia. The […]
Of the Record
SALAMOT KHAN: THE MAN WHO MADE PICKLE
Salamot Khan, who was Salamotbhai to us and was our friend and teacher, lived and died a ‘local man’ in Faridpur, in western Bangladesh in August 2015. Since his death, Faridpur, the place which gave to us some of the best of our songs–Ibrahim Boyati and Habib, Laila and Nuru Pagla, Jainuddin’s jari and Sadek […]
On River Padma, Faridpur, Bangladesh. 21 October 2011. Fakir Ajmal Shah and Emtaj
Once again we were in Faridpur. We keep going back to this small town in the West of Bangladesh, ‘closer’ to us than most of the other places where we go. We feel drawn to it; in Bangla we would put it like this: জায়গাটার কী যেন একটা টান আছে। Perhaps because we have very […]
Ambikapur, Faridpur, Bangladesh. 31 March 2008. Jainuddin Boyati and team
We had this session in the courtyard of our late friend, Sadek Ali’s house in Ambikapur bazar, Faridpur. The evening before we had had another session inside his house. Like his mentor, the poet Jasimuddin, Sadek Ali bhai was a true lover of music, which is why he could open his doors to anyone who […]
Film, Art or Illustration?
We have also brought to this page our own attempts to more creatively engage with our field recordings, connecting with the works of others before and after us. In Film, Art or Illustration?, we are searching for a lineage, a place to belong. Is what we are doing also not part of something larger; are […]
Notice Board
Moushumi will present at a workshop on THE ARCHIVE AS A KNOWLEDGE SITE: THE EXPERIENCE OF EUROPE AND INDIA, Organised by SCTR, JU in association with CNRS, France and IRN-AITIA.