Baba Betar at Chobi Mela Shunyo 2021

Songs Grow Out of the Land

This is a 66 minute audio essay on The Travelling Archive, an archive of field recordings from Bengal, written and presented by singer and writer Moushumi Bhowmik. The essay was written for presentation on Baba Betar, an internet radio, that partnered Chobi Mela International Festival of Photography 2021 and was hosted by Arfun Ahmed. The theme of the festival was Shunyo, which could mean both zero, emptiness or the point from which to start all over again.

In this essay, Moushumi remembers people and places by listening to voices from past and continuing journeys within and around Bengal. Bengal is both a physical space and a space of the mind in this story. Wistfully told, it draws the listener into a very personal field of listening by weaving song with sound and sound with silence. Moushumi sits in her room in Kolkata, and as she talks, recording herself, the night moves towards dawn. Dogs bark, the last trains pass through the station, a plane goes swimming in the sky, people call out, they open and shut doors and windows, while slowly in the dark a map unfurls.

This soundtrack has been mixed by Sabyasachi Pal.

The voices we hear come in the following sequence:

Chobi MelaX team, hawa mithai sellers and others at the Dhanmondi Lake tea stall area. Recorded by Moushumi Bhowmik on a Redmi phone in February 2019

Aseer Arman’s song playing through speakers during The Travelling Archive installation at  Abdur Razzaq Biddapeeth, Dhanmondi. Recorded by Moushumi Bhowmik on a Redmi phone in February 2019

Barindra Das recorded at Shankar Hotel, Silchar on a PD150 camera by Sudheer Palsane in August 2005.

Naseema recorded in Dhaka on a Sony minidisc recorder by Moushumi Bhowmik in December 2004.

Binoy Roy recording from cassette Pranto Prantarer Lokgaan Volume 8 of series Shikorer Sandhane, produced by Bhromora, Kolkata in 1993.

Putul Sarkar recorded in Gouripur, Assam by Sudheer Palsane on a PD150 camera in August 2005.

Deben Bhattacharya voice from interview with Aly Zaker for Ekushey TV, Dhaka in February 2001. You can watch the entire video on our Tribute page.

Muhammad Safi recorded by Deben Bhattacharya in 1971, released on album Echoes of Bangladesh. (Fremeaux, 2008) You can listen to the whole song on Youtube

Munda women of Munshigonj, Sundarban, Bangladesh in conversation with Moushumi Bhowmik recorded by Sukanta Majumdar on a Sound Device 633 recorder with a Sennheiser 418 mic in January 2018. We recorded in the Sundarban region to trace the place of songs and rituals in the lives of people faced with the dangers of an ongoing industrialisation of the forests and rivers. You can listen to Manasar Gaan by the Munda women of Munshigonj on this session

Abdul Hamid Jalali and others recorded in his home in Sylhet by Moushumi Bhowmik on a Sony minidisc recorder by Moushumi in December 2004. You can read about the session here.

Ranjit recorded in Rajghat Tea Garden, Srimangal, Bangladesh by Moushumi Bhowmik on a Sony minidisc recorder in December 2004. You can read about that recording session and listen to the full song here.

Naren Hansda and Chapalabala recorded in Jahajpur, Purulia on a Sony minidisc recorder by Sukanta Majumdar in February 2007. You can read about that session here and listen to some more music too.

Sultana and Jadab Sarkar recorded in Sonai, Cachar, Assam on a PD150 camera by Sudheer Palsane in August 2005. They also sang a sample of a maljoragaan, which otherwise, are song sessions which run for hours.

Nityagopal Das Baul song from album Inner Knowledge released by Real World Records in 1997. Listen to the song on youtube.

Chintamoni recorded by Soumya Chakravarti on a Sony TC D5M cassette recorder in Santiniketan in 1984. We are keeping here not just the song used in the Baba Betar soundtrack, but three more songs recorded by Soumyada.

Hajera Bibi recorded in Faridpur on a Sony minidisc recorder by Sukanta Majumdar in April 2006.

Bhaktadas recorded by Sukanta Majumdar at home on a computer in Kolkata in 2010 (mistakenly remembered as 2009 in the essay).