Seminar on rural and urban folk songs

City-based folk band Dohar completed 20 years of their musical journey on August 7 this year. To carry on with the celebration, they organised a seminar, Kalikaprasad Smarok Boktrita, on Friday at the Paschimbanga Bangla Academy. Kalika Prasad Bhattacharya, who was the frontman of Dohar, died in a car accident on March 7, 2017. However, the members of his band feel that though Kalikada is not with them physically, his
legacy will live on.
At the first edition of the Kalikaprasad Smarok Boktrita, singer-songwriter Kabir Suman was invited to speak on ‘Pollir Gaan – Nogor Loker Gaan’. Before Suman started reading out his writings at the do, he said, “Jeta ghotche ekhane, seta ulto ghotche. Kalikar thakar kotha, amar jawar kotha, amar theke boyeshe onek chhoto. (What’s happening here should have been the other way round. Kalika should
be present and not me, he was very much younger to me).”

Suman went on to talk about different technicalities of rural and urban folk songs. He spoke about why yodelling was not invented in the plains, and how one used to converse through yodelling when a person is standing on a hilltop and the other on the opposite side. He also mentioned that in Bangla bhawaiya gaan not all the verses of the songs are sung using yodelling. Suman even shared anecdotes about how certain folk songs from Chittagong were composed.
The event saw all the band members of Dohar in attendance, apart from Kalika Prasad’s wife, Ritacheta Goswami.