Assamese Ballads

BY PRAFULLADATTA GOSWAMI, Gauhati

When we come to study the folk-lore of a people we show a desire to replenish our urban culture from the source of primal nature. We have been steeped so much in our urban surroundings and have been jaded so much in our urban culture that we have become fed up and are casting about for some fresh and naive source of delight and edification.

This seems to be the intellectual attitude of our study of song ballads, beliefs and superstitions and other phenomena connected with the life of people living in touch with the earth.

The present age has given to the life of the ordinary man a new valuation and a new significance. Many issues have cropped up and we are trying to feel a natural kinship with the people of the soil. Because this, as also from a nationalist attitude, the doings and thinkings of the man in the village have become interesting tous. On the whole, our mind has been so worked up that we have come to folk-lore as a key to understand of and sympathy with the folk around us. When, therefore, we hear the old woman crooning to her grandchild–

O lady of my heart, Kamala,
How much is the water?
O lord of my heart,
To my ankle is the water.

our attention is arrested as by something fresh from nature and expressing some experience of peculiar significance. Apparently the question is very poetic, but when we come to know it in its proper setting and poetic symbol of a simple and sincere-hearted people, we are delighted and satisfied emotionally.

The legend of Kamala konuri goes thus: Once upon a time there was a sever drought; the fields were parched; the people and the cattle were drying of thirst. So the king of the land had a large tank constructed but no water oozed from the tank-bed. The digging went on for days together only to disappoint the expectant people. At last the king had a dream that if he sacrificed his charming queen Kamala to the Nagini Devi, or water goddess, water would well up. The desperate king had to sacrifice his wife.

The queen, much beloved of the people, stepped into the tank with out demur. The people waited in suspense. Then the king cried out to the victim below:

O lady of my heart, Kamala,
How much is the water?
O lord of my heart,
To my ankle is the water.

The water rose up higher and higher and again the king asked in a similar manner, and once more Queen Kamala replied that the water was up to her knee, up to her waist, and so on, till she disappeared in the rising surge of water. In this tale, which might have originated in a superstitious age out of some actual fact, the self-effacement of the queen appeals to the imagination with all its pathos and poetry……

In this essay only a running survey of Assamese ballads will be attempted. The oldest ballads so far discovered are those of Manikonwar and Phulkonwar. They are rather long and almost like novels, with plots, characterisation and a few historical allusions. The description of social customs are of an old and simple society. The language shows traces of early Assamese, but words of later times, as also touches of a later social ground, are to be found. This is because, as everywhere in the world, they have lived orally till very recent times.

Manikonwar, or Prince Mani, is the son of Sankaladiv who is said to be the founder of Gaur, that remained the capital of Bengal for more than two thousand years till it was destroyed in the time of the Mughal Empire, and who seems to have ruled Kamrup about 700 B.C. Sankaladiv gets a son, Manikonwar, as a born from the Water God. Manikonwar grows up and marries Kachanmala. It is interesting how Kachanmala’s father replies to Manyabati, the Prince’s mother, when she goes asking for a bride–

She burns large quantities of fuel
She doesn’t know how to weave or how to spin,
But goes loitering about others’ looms……

Here mention is made of some Assamese fruits for the sake of rhyme. Then–

If you want her and won’t disdain,
She shall be given to you.……

Just after the marriage the River God takes the sixteen-year old Prince down into the water. There is great sorrow in the royal family and the young wife’s loss is described thus:

With one spurn she broke the lovely spinning wheel.
She broke also the reel;
Much she bewailed, the spotless Kachan,
At the news of her Prince.
As she bewailed, the spotless Kachan,
The hair of her head loosened,
"Come and let me see you, O my Prince,
Together let us go.
The Lohit has forsaken one of his longest currents,
The Dihing has abandoned his bank,
My parents gave me away in sanctified marriage,
Still on me is the stain of turmeric;
In Chaitra did cry the bird of Chaitra,
In Baisakh cried the frog,
I could not enjoy when I could,
Who was he that divined with the leg of the fowl? *

The King then sends an expert fisherman down into the Dikhow (N.E.Assam) to fish for the lost Prince. The expert attached to a long chain goes down and finds the Prince sitting on a sofa. The latter sends some presents but does not return. The King at last has to send the sorrowing daughter-in-law to her father. Phulkonwar, the hero of the second ballad, is Manikonwar’s posthumous son.

There are some ballad stanzas interspersed in folk-tales, the first example being one. Apart from these there is a body of historical ballad. Some twenty years ago was recovered a fairly long ballad dealing with the Burmese invasion of Assam. From 1787 to 1827 was a very unhappy period for the Assamese people. The Kings had degenerated and dissensions had sprung up among the nobility. Finally, about 1824 Badan Borphukon, the Governor of Lower Assam, had the Burmese invited into Assam in order to spite the talented Burha Gohain (i.e., Prime Minister) Purnananda. This was followed by indescribable ravages and atrocities over the people. As is well known, in 1826 Assam passed into British hands. This period was a severe blow to the uninterrupted development of Assam’s cultural and political life. The events–with a few inaccuracies–bearing on the Burmese invasion and the loss of Assam’s independence have been sung in the Barphukonar Geet or Ballad of Barphukon. The traitor has also been commemorated in snatches of Songs. The illiterate minstrel describes how Purnananda became Burha-Gohain and tried to systematise the administration of the land–

In the land of Assam, O sire, there is no Minister–
Then is incarnated the Burha Gohain;
The Burha Gohain looks toward the four quarters.
He finds no enemy toward the east;
"But then what to do?–
In the West is my foe, the Barphukon;
The subjects are suffering,
The Barphukon alone is oppressing them.
In whom shall I confide?–
Could I put him in a cage of iron!"
You may decapitate me, but indeed,
He causes the Parbatia Phukon to be called in;
"Will he escape?
Bring the Barphukon from the West,
Encircle him, leave him not–
Take no bribe.
There’s the sarai for taking betel-nut,
Bring him in a cage of iron.
I shall be pleased with you,
And should you succeed, yourself shall be the Barphukon.
Have only betel-nut and quick you go.
Go Cautiously in a boat;
Be wary lest my daughter-in-law get Wind"...

The Burha Gohain’s daughter-in-law is the daughter of the Barphukon. It is to be noted that he manages to know of the conspiracy and sends word to her father who escapes and finally goes to Burma. It is interesting how the Barphukon comes upon the Burmese Queen who is really an Assamese Princess:

The Assamese princess, Queen of the Burmese King,
Having taken her bath,
She was looking on–
The Barphukon accosted the Queen of the Burmese King.
"You are in a queer dress,
O lady, whose land may it be?"
You have come along the river bank,
My Son, it is known as the land of the Burmese."
"Whom shall I call my aunt.
Who will present me to the Burmese King?
The moon is in the sky,
Who are you that ask me who I am?
I have come by the water,
The Ghinai Barphukon of Assam
O lady, me they call"……

The balladist goes on to describe how at last the British come and occupy Assam and give the people peace and security. There are touches of artlessness which make us laugh, as when the Sahibs are described as taking delightfully first-class sticky curd of baffalo milk…….

Events, which appeal to or shock the people’s imagination serve as the inspiration of songs and ballads. Jaymati, a Princess who was tortured to death publicly by an oppressive King because she did not let out news of her husband, has been bewailed by the people in ballads and songs. Her son, the powerful Rudra Singha (1695–1714), constructed, a temple and a big tank to commemorate his self-sacrificing mother. In 1858 was executed perhaps the most versatile Assamese of the early British period as having complicity in the Sepoy Mutiny. He was Maniram Dewan, Minister of the last Assamese King, an economic expert under the British, a pioneer in the field of discovering and planting tea and mining coal in Assam. He also planned to mine iron in the land. When this great man was executed on the instigation of some jealous British officials and the treachery of an Assamese police inspector, the people gave vent to their shock and helplessness thus:

You smoked upon a gold hookah, O Maniram,
You smoked upon a silver hookah;
What reason did you commit to the Royalty
That you got a rope round your neck!
How could they catch you, O Maniram,
How could they catch,
Jorhat this side, Golaghat on that,
Through a letter did they catch.
Secretly did they arrest you, O Maniram,
Secretly did they take you;
Holryed Sahib on the Tokolai bank
Had you secretly hanged.
The stubble of Bara paddy, O Maniram,
The stubble of Barapaddy,
Hardly four days passed his death
And meteors flashed in the sky...

The following quatrain expresses the hatred of the people towards two rebels of lower Assam (1796):

Where are you now, O Hardatta, where are you, O Beerdatta?
Where have gone–the rapacious bullies?
The curse of the people was on them–
And extinct are their families.

These historical ballads and fragments perhaps point to the instinct of the Assamese people.

The present is the age of written literature, but side by side with the multitude of printed and sophisticated books we find in the village natural poets who still compose songs and ballads to remember even or persons of great significance. It is to be noted that these are composed in particular areas, whence afterwards they spread to neighbouring places. The earthquake which caused terrible havoc in some parts of Assam in 1897 inspired a ballad whose idiom is reminiscent of the religious scriptures of Assam. In 1921 Mahatma Gandhi’s visit to Assam was the inspiration of some songs–not ballads, properly speaking. Below is given one that I can remember just now–

Weeps Tarun, weeps Nabin,
Weep the Ali brothers,
Gandhi weeps in Gujerat,
Because Swaraj they can’t get.

(Tarun and Nabin were two Assamese national leaders)

Even the year 1942 has seen many songs of this nature being created in some places of Assam and Bengal. These depict the fear for and effect of Japanese raids.

So it is seen that the inspiration of Assamese ballads has not ebbed. So long as the village is not urbanised the ballads will live. "It is lore and, belongs to the illiterate," as Henry Sidgwick has observed somewhere.

Let me conclude with a few general comments. Assamese ballads are built up of quatrains, some of them having more intricate, perhaps irregular, patterns and sometimes inner rhymes. A quatrain, as the one that follows, recurs with slight variations in several ballads–

Sorrow on sorrow, O people,
Sorrow on sorrow,
The dogs bite, the children throw stones,
Happiness nowhere do you find.

It may also be mentioned that the custom of reciting adaptations of Hindu mythological tales was once, and even now is, very popular. And because of this the snatches of the verses which have stuck in the memory are resung, often distorted and extemporized. The following quartain is from the lips of a child:

The heroes Nal and Nil dam the ocean,
In one leap Nanumant goes across,
The Nal and Nil dam the ocean,
Shri Hari goes with his train in great joy.

In all these examples simplicity, often crudity, of expression concrete imagery and dramatic forthrightness are the main features. They were once sung to the accompaniment of stringed instruments and the singers were frequently to be met with in popular gatherings. But as everywhere in India, these minstrels are becoming rarer in the same proportion as the life in the village is getting less joyous and more disintegrated.

* Spinning and weaving was and is practised by the Assamese irrespective of castes.

Lohit –The Brahmaputra.

Dihing,–a tributary to the Brahmaputra.

Turmeric is rubbed on the bride in marriage.

Soothsaying with fowls is a later Ahom custom.