First Time in Mainadal, August 2014

Mainadal is a place in Birbhum, also spelt Moynadal. In fact, the latter is the official spelling. Yet, I am writing Mainadal, as this is how Arnold Bake wrote in his notes. And these recordings are based on Bake’s Mainadal recordings, made between 12-14 August 1933. The British Library Sound and Audiovisual Archives has shelfmarked these recordings as C52/1908-1921; Bake India II Cylinders 259-272. The Arnold Bake Collection is numbered C52 at the BLSA. If you look at the BLSA catalogue, and search for Arnold Bake or Mainadal, you will find many traces of Bake’s original notes erased, because researchers have revised the notes. This is how the first typed version list of Arnold Bake’s wax cylinders looked.

The Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv, who had loaned Arnold Bake the phonograph and cylinders to make his recordings in India between 1931 and ’34, have the same list with the same details, under the heading ‘Sammlung 46: Bake Indien II’, with the following sub-heading: ‘Dokumentation nach einer maschinenschriftlichen Originalliste. Handschriftliche hinzugefügte Passagen sind kursiv wiedergegeben. Liste unvollständig.’

Kirtan from Mainadal.    12-14/8/’33

As these lists above show, everyone recorded was a Mitra Thakur. I had not started to properly study Bake’s Mainadal recordings when I had a chance encounter with this video on Youtube, posted by Nilanjan Mitra Thakur in 2012, entitled ‘Moynadal Janmashtomi Utsav-2010’. This is the text which accompanied the film. ‘This event happens every year during Janmashtami festival at Moynadal, West Bengal. Moynadal dham is very famous place in Birbhum for Lord MAHAPRABHU. Janamashtami is the remarkable festival which has been celebrated in moynadal since 300 years. There will be kirtan followed by prayers during Janmashtami at Moynadal. In generations, Mitra Thakur families of Moynadal takes care of Mahaprabhu mandir. Their forefathers were famous for new dhara of kirtan named Manohar Shahi kirtan.’ Later, in the course of my work, I connected with Nilanjan Mitra Thakur, who lives in the USA and we have stayed in touch. I am keeping his Youtube video here with his kind permission.

It is during this Janmashtami/Nandotsav festival in 2014 that we made our first recordings in Mainadal. One of the most beautiful events of that day was Nityananda Mitra Thakur performing the ‘Purbaraag’, which I have written about in the note on that recording session . Here I am trying to look back at the experiences of that day, at what else happened on that day, and how that first experience  later helped me to listen, think and ask questions about Mainadal and Bake’s abiding interest in and engagement with this form of music.

Manikchand Mitra Thakur, who in 2014 was the patriarch of this huge and fragmented Mitra Thakur family, the senior-most singer, passed in 2019. He was 88.

In 2014, I did not have any of Bake’s Mainadal recordings with me, only the catalogue information. I had asked him about the song ‘Murali ko tan’ (Cylinder 60) and ‘Badashi’ (Cylinder 61). His younger son Ujjwal, a teacher by profession, was critically aware of the value of their art and heritage, but was also resentful of ‘self-serving and indifferent’ researchers.

Cousins Ujjwal Mitra Thakur and Milan Mitra Thakur talk about how time seems to stand still in Mainadal. They watch Bake’s silent film of kirtan and comment on it. I ask them about Mongoldihi, where Bake also recorded kirtan. Ujjwal mentions songs particular to Mainadal, such as the ‘daagi’ or precious song ‘Badashi’ (Bake Cylinder 61). Interestingly, this song is no longer identified as Badashi on the BLSA catalogue, but it has become ‘Gitagovinda by Jayadeva; Sarga 10, Gita 19 in raga Desvarali’. Nothing wrong here, except that the locals have been denied their own name for the song. Even Arnold Bake’s name for his recording has been erased. In this track, Ujjwal also asks about our intention as researchers. The above recordings were made by Sukanta Majumdar.

Manikchand Mitra Thakur joins the chorus or dohaar while his older son, Ashis Mitra Thakur leads the song. By 2014, he had passed on the role of leader to others.

This is the ritual Arnold Bake describes in his letter after experiencing Mainadal. It is the same ritual Nilanjan filmed in 2010. It is clearly the moment of music and revelry that everyone waits for throughout the year.

We also talked with Nirmalendu Mitra Thakur, the lead singer of Mainadal now, son of Kaliakanta Mitra Thakur and grandson of Haridas Mitra Thakur, both of whom were recorded by Bake (Cylinder 269). Kaliakanta was a boy of 10 or 12 in 1933. Nirmalendu Mitra Thakur told us a delightful story of tuning in to Radio Peking one day and hearing his own song with his father, possibly recorded by Masayuki Onishi, the Japanese student of Santiniketan, who was a friend of Milan Mitra Thakur, Nirmalendu’s older cousin who studied in Kala Bhavan in the late 1970s, and who had come visiting them in 1980. It was a real surprise, as he had no idea their songs could travel this far. He also talked about learning much of the art of kirtan from Nabagopal Mitra Thakur, who was recorded by Bake too (Cylinder 261).

These are two very significant recordings. One is the beautiful song ‘Sachir Nandan Nath’, in which the Mitra Thakurs pledge their loyalty to their land and their god. This is the closing song of their two-day Nandotsav (celebrating the birth of Krishna).

The other is of the Mitra Thakurs singing the names of the departed male members of the family, starting with the oldest who lived some five hundred years ago.

All of these above recordings were made by Sukanta Majumdar

Finally, an interesting notice on the temple wall—’No Photography Allowed’. Yet,  the privileged field researcher and recordist are allowed to record and shoot and offered every support possible. There was a time when the kirtaniyas of Mainadal were reluctant to let their music leave their home; now they seemed quite keen to be recorded.