Moushumi Bhoumik’s Journey to our Roots

Over the last six years, Moushumi Bhoumik, along with sound recordist Shukanta Majumdar, has been collecting Bangla folk music. In pursuit of their goal, she and Shukanta have travelled to numerous regions of Bangladesh and West Bengal of India. They started their work formally in 2003 but Bhoumik pointed out that her fondness for the work began years earlier. Her initial privilege was to research on the topic “Tragedy in Bangla Folk Music” subsequently, however, she went into researching the folk music.

“If you want to know the history of Bengal then you will find that this region has been divided in different times and in different regions, but the tradition of folk music remains undivided and it goes beyond the concept of borders,” said Bhoumik.

According to Bhoumik, folk music is the unparallel door to one’s national identity. “To opt out of colonial influences and establish Bengali nationality, Rabindranath frequently used folk music in his work,” said Bhoumik.

To bolster her topic, Bhoumik also pointed out different examples, like the use of folk elements in urban music.

“In Kolkata, pioneering band Moheener Ghoraguli used folk elements such as form, melody and idiom to establish the new genre like ‘rock music’ in the early 1970s. On the other hand, when you listen to the urban composition of a ‘dhamail’ song like “Bhramar koiyo giya,” you will definitely be able to make a difference when you listen to the original one composed by Radha Raman.”

Bhoumik also referred to the use of folk music in Writwik Ghatak films throughout her lecture. She said, “In Ghatak’s films, the use of folk music is omnipotent. They come in a way that is very much obvious with the sequence. In ‘Titash Ekti Nodir Naam’ or in ‘Subarnarekha’ he frequently used folk music.”

The use of folk music from a political point of view is also Bhoumik’s concern. In this regard she referred to the recent movement on protecting the baul sculpture, where activists randomly arranged programmes featuring folk songs.

She emphasised the collection and preservation of folk music as she thinks with the passage of time folk music may lose its essence. So to keep the authentic one as well as the true history, we should preserve folk music. In this regard she pointed to the work of ethno-musicologist Alan Lomax (1915-2002). Lomax is regard as one of the eminent field collectors of American folk music; he collected the original blues from the working class of the United States.

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