Author: Rahul Singha
Abstract: Historians appraise songs as more or less elementary “reflections” of the society and culture in which they are fabricated as songs are always an eminent part of the fabric of human life and culture. Women in Rajbanshi society, even now, are trapped in a strange whereabouts between the fast changing world on one hand and the traditional way of living on the other. Hard work and labour to support their male counterparts makes their lives even harsher. A woman has an eminent role to play in any culture or society, she is the first teacher of the culture, the traditions, and the core values which are needed to move the same from generation to generations. The rajbanshi women through ages were immune to the deprivations, suppression and sometimes agony that they had to bear and endured them as a way of life. Songs has an important role to play, serving as a medium to express what ponders deep within the heart and serve as a way to release emotional strain. The hammer of time only molded them in the set norms of the society without any realization of pain or harrow. Exploring the miscellanea of thoughts used in these songs of rajbanshi women gives a certain maxim about the lost and suppressed feelings and cravings of these women by the medium of its fairness.‘Bhawaiya’ as a genre has inculcated and contained within it these songs ‘of women, by women and for women’. The songs starting with those sung in the times of remorse and despair bringing out the moods of desire and deprivation to the songs of joyous moods sung during marriages including the songs that talks about the yearnings of a woman waiting eagerly for her love to return. Sometimes escaping from the world of reality and longing for the illusions to be real and again returning to the present situations with a wish to cope up with the harsh concreteness of life. Here an attempt will be made to identify and understand the importance of those very songs which bespeaks of the footing, longing and identity of those positions of women through the medium of their songs and to suggest some directions for the future courses of action.
Keywords: Rajbanshi Society, Rajbonshi Women, Traditions, Bhawaiya, Songs.
Page No: 79-86