- By Dr S S Bhatti,
(Former Principal,
Chandigarh College of Architecture)
(Former Principal,
Chandigarh College of Architecture)
FOLKLORE: No field of learning is perhaps more misunderstood than folklore. The term is familiar, the public at large, and many academic persons as well, do not know that folklore is an intellectual subject with its own substantial, worldwide body of scholarship. The elusive materials of Folklore, however, can best be defined through the formal genres into which they fall. These may be divided into: Oral Literature; Custom and Festival; and Material Culture.
ORAL LITERATURE: The genres of Oral Literature cover spoken and sung expression. They may be further divided into the two large groupings of folk narrative and folk song, and such other similar genres as proverbs, riddles, and beliefs or superstitions. Folk Literature is the lore chiefly of unlettered peoples transmitted by word of mouth.
MATERIAL CULTURE: At the opposite pole from Oral Literature lies Material Culture, which embraces Folk Architecture, folk arts, and folk crafts. Under these headings can be placed the construction of houses, the design and decoration of buildings and utensils, and the performance of cottage industries, according to traditional methods and styles. The shape of fences, the manner of making cowdung cakes, the embroidery of phulkaries, the preparation of quilts all fall under Material Culture.
CUSTOM AND FESTIVAL: The middle ground between oral and physical Folklore is filled by custom, ritual, festival, children’s games, folk drama, folk dances, etc. To the verbal and tangible elements are added group behavioural traits.
FUNCTIONS OF THREE GENRES: Material Culture fills economic and aesthetic functions; Oral Literature performs didactic, recreational, and educational functions, and Custom and Festival function to provide psychic reassurance against external dangers. Rites placate gods and demons, tales and songs entertain and instruct, and makki di roti and sarson da saag fill the stomach while pleasing the eye.
Characteristics of Folk Literature: The most obvious characteristic of Folk Literature is the fact that it is oral. In spite of certain borderline cases, it normally stands in direct contrast with written literature. The latter exists in manuscripts and books, and may be presented exactly as the author or authors left it, even though this may have happened centuries or even millennia ago. Through these manuscripts and books, the thoughts and emotions and observations and even the fine nuances of style can be experienced without regard to time or distance. With Oral Literature this is not possible. It is concerned only with speaking and singing or listening, and this depends on a tradition. If any item of Folk Literature ceases to exist within the memory of man it is completely lost.
The oral speaker or singer is carrying on a tradition that he has learned from other speakers, and he delivers it to a living audience. It may well be that his listeners have heard this material many times before and that it has a vigorous life in the community, and they will see to it that he does not depart too far from the tradition as they know it. If acceptable to his listeners, the story or song or proverb or riddle will be repeated over and over again as long as it appeals to men and women, even through the ages and over long stretches of land.
Folk Music: Differences between Folk Music and other types of music, such as popular or pop music and cultivated, art, or classical music, are by no means precise. Typically, Folk Music lives in oral tradition. It is learnt through hearing rather than reading. It is functional in the sense that it is associated with other activities. Primarily rural in origin, it exists in cultures in which there is also an urban, technically more sophisticated musical tradition. Folk Music is understood by a broad segment of population, while cultivated or classical music is essentially by the art of a small social, economic, or intellectual élite. On the other hand, that widely accepted type of music, usually called popular or “pop” music, depends on the mass media—records, radio, television, CDs, videos—for dissemination, while Folk Music typically is disseminated within families and restricted social networks.
The relationship of Folk Music to classical music became a topic of interest in the late 18th century when Western intellectuals began to glorify folk and peasant life. Folk Music came to be venerated as a spontaneous creation of peoples unencumbered by artistic self-consciousness and aesthetic theories, and as an embodiment of the common experience of inhabitants of the locale. These traits make Folk Music a fructifying source for Classical Music, particularly when it is intended to express a particular nation or ethnic group.
Folk Music is the purest form of music. In it the irrepressible urge to use voice for melodious expression of the beauty and bounty of Nature solely creates the lyrics, the tune, the instrumental accompaniments, the singing, and the dance in a single breath of jubilation on the spur of the moment, without formal training or direction. Pop Music is produced by the market forces, allured by what quickly sells. Classical Music can be mastered only under a royal patronage, which takes care of the musician’s worldly needs in their entirety.
Folk Visual Arts: Although the definition of Folk Art is not yet firm, it may be considered as the art created among groups that exists within the framework of a developed society but, for geographical or cultural reasons, are largely separated from the sophisticated artistic developments of their time and that produce distinctive styles and objects for local needs and tastes. The output of such art represents a unique complex of primitive impulses and traditional survivals subjected both to sophisticated influences and to highly local developments. Aside from aesthetic considerations, the study of Folk Art, within the context of a transforming Folklore, is particularly revealing in regard to the relationship between Art and Culture.
As industry, commerce, and transportation begin to offer all people free access to the latest ideas and products, a true Folk Art tends to disappear; the integrity and tradition that formed its inherent character decline, and the heritage of home-made products is undervalued for the very qualities that made it distinctive. Though the survival of a dying Folk Art is initiated and ensured by the nostalgia of those who have settled abroad, and miss the psycho-emotional sap that their own tradition once provided, subsequent revivals, extensively by organisations, craft groups, governments, or commercial enterprises, are no longer the same thing. They revive Folk Art by destroying the socio-cultural habitat that originally created it!
Characteristic Materials and Techniques: The most easily distinguished characteristics of Folk Art as a whole relate to materials and techniques. Most commonly used were the natural substances that came readily to hand. Thus, various materials that have little or no space in sophisticated art, such as mud and straw, may figure prominently in Folk Art. Sophisticated media, such as oil painting, might be adopted if they could be manipulated, and manufactured products—notably paper, which was cheap and versatile—might be used where available. The unique forms evolved in these sophisticated media illustrate the way in which Folk Art draws upon the general culture in a limited way, while developing along original lines of its own.
CREATIVE CONTINUITY OF FOLK ELEMENTS: Punjab’s visual arts in Folk Material Culture find their apt creative continuity in Nek Chand’s Rock Garden in Chandigarh. This garden has become world-famous as a result of this writer’s articles and research work undertaken in 1973. Punjab will thus remain alive for ever in this unique creation. I will briefly describe how the Punjab villagers approach and solve various problems related to their creative activities which fall under the umbrella-title of Folklore.
Folk Methods of Construction: This section will cover the following construction types:-
i) Building
ii) Furniture
iii) Shelves
iv) Doors and Frames
i) Building: Though mud is the chief building material in the villages, the method used for walling is different from that employed for the construction of the roof.
The walls are made by ramming damp earth in-between door-shutters which act as the shuttering1. On an average, the walls are over 60cm thick, and stand on a footing of about 30cm depth. The thickness of the walls is progressively reduced towards the top.
Walls are made in alternate units so that each unit gets two to three days for drying before the next unit of walling is built above it.
Walls made of compacted earth are much more durable than those built with lumps of earth.
The roof is a trabeated structure constructed of latains, shehteers and baaleys. Latains are supported on thammies which stand fixed in the floor, immediately on the inside of the walls.
In a manner of speaking, the whole structure is an independent ‘frame’, with the mud walls acting as an ‘envelope’.
As an innovation at the village level, this structure is quite ingenious, because it stands intact even when the walls may sometimes collapse during heavy rains!
The wood used is either kikkar or sheesham or both.
Baaleys carry a network of several layers of sarkanda, tied together, and placed at right angles to one another, alternately. A thick layer of compacted earth is laid above it, and shaped into bannies at the edges.
The flat roof is given adequate slope so that rainwater may be drained off into the lane which carries an open-sewer. The parnaala is contrived from a thick bamboo cut up into two halves with its inner sides planed, or metal sheet cut from a kerosene cannister.
The walls, roof, and the floor are given a coat of mud plaster reinforced with phuska. This lapaayi is then finished with pocha which is manually applied.
Sometimes, the pocha is made only of black clayey soil dug up from the bottom of the village pond and is applied with a rag for decorative effects. Pocha thus used is the rural counterpart of whitewash or distemper used in the urban areas.
A thin band of pocha, painted on the walls at the floor level, is the ruralite’s wall-skirting.
ii) Furniture: One comes across several kinds of closets in the mud hamlets of Punjab. There are sandooks, peitees and kothies.
The sandooks and peitees are large is size but movable. They are used for storing clothing, rugs, and valuables2. Kothies are built out from the wall in various rooms of the house but usually in the living-room. Since they are mainly used for storing dry food, they are located next to the shelves for brass utensils.
Though the wooden doors are made by local craftsmen, the entire construction as well as the decoration of the kothies is done by the woman of the house.
iii) Shelves: Shelves for utensils and other household items are cantilevered from the wall. Dandas are driven deep into the wall to carry a network of sarkanda. This is tied to the dandas, covered with lapaayi and finally finished with pocha.
Frequently, these shelves are extensions of the niche-space provided in the walls during construction.
iv) Doors and Frames: As one walks through a Punjabi village, or small town, one finds doors and frames varying in their design and craftsmanship.
Some very large portals have big doors, always double, but without frames. These large doors do not hang on hinges; the doors turn on a wooden choothi. Choothi is supported by a small wooden or stone base which is secured to the ground behind the columns of the portals. The top-end of choothi is held to the walls by a metal clip.
To hold the door in place, a safety chain is attached from the door to the column, preventing burglars from lifting the door out of its place. The doors are locked together by another chain in the middle.
Comment on the Folk Methods of Construction
The key-feature of the construction methods developed and used by the villagers is improvisation3.
Nek Chand’s construction methods derive from similar constraints. Each problem is approached and tackled with certain matter-of-fact directness. The aim is to make things hold on together and work, rather than to beautify them. Thus, no material is mean nor any method crude so long as it works the way it is intended to.
Such an attitude has a kind of open freshness about it. This is what makes the whole building process so exciting and innovative. Since no drawings are involved, the tendency to postpone decision and/or action is done away with.
The process of building becomes an act of doing by thinking and deciding on one’s own feet.
Folk Architecture: In its traditional sense, ‘architecture’ is supposed to be a broad-based, comprehensive, creative activity. It is aimed at organising space, creating structure and giving form to human settlements.
For the purpose of this study, the term architecture will, however, be used to denote its primary, if somewhat intangible aspect, that is, the art of organising space. In other words, this aspect will be discussed to highlight the nature and quality of space/s more than anything else.
The Punjabi villages are examples of the unity between land and architecture. Usually, the site for a settlement is selected with great sensitivity to Nature. Sometimes, it even seems that the villages grow from the landscape itself! A certain harmony exists in the relationship between the interior and the exterior of the houses.
A change of space from narrow streets to squares, and the closing up of perspective by specially decorated houses, seems to be created to achieve different moods for the onlooker.
All the village planning is created by the villagers themselves. It has grown out of the social needs of the community in a pattern worked out through time and moulded by its own way of life. The Punjabi villages are charaterised by their organic plan, sculptured forms of architecture, and sense of environmental planning.
The sculptural character of rural hamlets comes from a very good peasant’s knowledge which developed in time from the use of simple materials with emotive quality. Thus, in spite of limitations of material and lack of resources, a rich variety of buildings have been created using great imagination, as a process of giving expression to the people’s own way of life.
The village-houses in traditional designs are made of mud or/and brick, and seem to suit very well the conditions of the climate and the extended family pattern of life. Several rooms surround or adjoin a courtyard, and the house is generally entered through a deorhi.
Part of the courtyard is used for keeping animals, part for storage and various agricultural needs. Courtyards are also used for social activities.
Sometimes, they include shaded arcades in front of the main rooms. The exterior kitchen, which is also in the courtyard, adjoins an interior kitchen. It is separated from the rest of the courtyard by a low wall. This wall is decorated with relief sculpture in clay and modelled like a patterned grill. Both the exterior and the interior kitchens have clay stoves on several levels, also decorated with ornaments and figures.
Brass and clay pots are used in the kitchens. There are also hot plates for making chapaatis.
A water pump or a small well is located in the middle of the courtyard which also contains washing facilities.
The courtyard is thus a multipurpose space in which several household activities take place throughout the day.
The flat roofs and terraces on the top of the usually one or two storey houses are used for resting and sleeping. They are often surrounded by various types of decorative pierced screens.
Comment on Punjab’s Folk Architecture: Nek Chand’s Rock Garden, like the Punjabi villages, is an apt example of the unity between landscape and architecture. The site is selected and treated with such sensitivity that the garden actually seems to grow out of the landscape.
A dramatic unfoldment of architectural experience in the Rock Garden, by a change of space from narrow lanes to wide squares, is similar to what one frequently finds in the Punjabi villages.
Use of deorhi in the Rock Garden, at strategic points, to change and/or accentuate vistas, and of screens to build up a sense of anticipation, is derived from the village-house4. Like the Punjabi villages, the Rock Garden is characterised by its organic plan, sculptured forms of architecture, and sense of environmental planning.
As in the case of the villages, the Rock Garden has an unmistakable richness and strength of character in spite of the limitations of material resources.
Folk Art: Folk art is a realisation and expression of man’s instinct for beauty in his daily life. In other words, folk art represents the people’s mind.
A man’s mind sends a spontaneous movement to his hands, and this is passed on through his tools, which are almost part of his body, to those materials which are common in his daily life, and thus they express his feelings.
Arts and Crafts practised in the Punjabi villages cover a wide spectrum of creative activity. A broad classification is as follows:-
i) Weaving and Embroidery
ii) Furniture and Furnishings
iii) Wall-Paintings and Bas-Reliefs
iv) Miscellaneous Articles.
i) Weaving and Embroidery: Spinning, weaving, and embroidery are the crafts practised by every household in the villages. The women learn at an early age the many domestic arts and crafts from the older women of the household.
Colourful woven rugs, durries, block-printed quilts, embroidered bedsheets and pillowcases, phulkari, and bagh are to be found in every household.
The last two articles of embroidery are done on dyed khaddar sheets using darn-stitch and bright coloured raw silk threads. Similarly, bedsheets are embroidered using cross-stitch dusootee on sheets of specially woven thick cotton.
Since the style of the motifs used in rugs and embroideries has a very definite local style of folk art, the people making these articles must be drawing on a long tradition. The very geometrical treatment of the motifs is typical of Punjab.
Most of the figures represented are usually birds, animals, and plants which can be found in the villages and are familiar to the people viz cats, peakcocks, parrots, rabbits, tomato plants, etc, or those which are known to them by hearsay, like lions, and tigers.
Some of them have a symbolic significance while some of them represent village activities or refer to various customs and stories.
ii) Furniture and Furnishings: A very distinct feature of the interior furnishing consists of shelves and dressers made from clay in lace-like pierced designs. Larders, grain bins, food and flour containers are also shaped from clay. All these are decorated with clay painted reliefs using certain dyes and pigments.
Sometimes, very large grain bins are made by weaving toot twigs into narrow-necked shapes. They are then finished with rice-husk mud plaster. Such containers are insect-proof.
iii) Wall Paintings and Bas-Reliefs: The front of the kothies, larders, shelves for utensils, food containers, walls, etc are tastefully embellished with wall-paintings and bas-reliefs or parge (plaster) decoration executed in clay.
In some Punjabi houses, large painted reliefs in clay embellish the walls. Painted and/or relief ornaments decorate edges of walls. The motifs commonly employed are stylisations of animals (cats, lions, tigers), birds (peacocks and parrots) and plants (tomato and corn).
Sometimes, even human figures like wrestlers and horse-riders are used.
The lace-like pierced designs for shelves and borders are strictly geometrical.
The designs of these reliefs are highly sophisticated with gentle lines and soft edges. Larders and shelves not only store commodities but also decorate.
Wall-paintings are often done with the help of index and the little finger. The former is used for thick strokes while the latter for thin lines. The entire hand is used for painting large areas.
These paintings are as fascinating as they are technically sound. According to Nek Chand, a finger is much better than brush because it gives firmer and more confident strokes.
Stylised figures of favourite deities, animals, trees, as well as geometrical designs are painted on the interior and exterior walls on the occasion of Dussehra and Diwali
The designing and painting of these figures are entirely done by the women of the household. Straight lines are marked with the help of string dipped in a paste of lampblack and water. Motifs are painted with brushes improvised with cotton tied to the end of sarkanda stick.
Such deities are also modeled as bas-reliefs done in gobar. They are stuck on the external wall of mud hamlets. They are tastefully decorated with clay medallions painted in kachcha pigments5.
Similarly, small brackets for diyas are shaped out of mud-phuska mix of dough-like consistency and stuck on to the mud walls.
iv) Miscellaneous Articles: Rag dolls, toys, papier-maché bowls and clay figurines are some of the objects covered under this category.
Rag dolls are apt stylisations made by rolling rage into rope-like lengths. The rag-roll is turned into a U-shape and tied at a suitable place so that the upper part suggests the head and the lower the body of the doll.
Another roll is stitched on from behind at the neck-line to represent the arms. The face is wrapped up in a cloth mask on which eyes, nose, and the mouth are embroidered in coloured threads. The doll is then appropriately dressed and decorated.
Rag toys are made by stitching a casement of suitable shape which is stuffed with cotton and closed up. Rag toys are usually bird-forms, parrot being the most popular.
Use of green rag for the body and red for the beak of the bird bring out the essentials of the bird-form. Small glass beads are stitched on to represent the eyes.
Papier-maché is a common method of shaping bowls and containers. Waste-paper smithereens and gaachni are kept immersed in water for a few days to be subsequently beaten up into a fine paste in an okhli. Gum and other adhesives are added to the paste which is made into a suitable consistency.
This paste is then patted into the required shape on the back of a matka and left there to dry up. Oftentimes, brass utensils are used as the form-work for Papier-maché bowls and containers. These are usually decorated with geometrical designs done in kachcha pigments.
Comment on Punjab’s Folk Art
William Morris, the creator of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the 19th century in Britain, at the height of industrialisation, said: ‘art is an expression of pleasure in labour’.
The art of the Rock Garden, as much as the art of the villages, is one evocative expression of pleasure in labour for something you deeply love to do!
In either case, art is the expression as much of a way of life as it is of a view of life. Art has been practised both in the Rock Garden and the Punjabi villages for its own sake, as a self-rewarding activity. It is both an integrated and comprehensive act done in the pursuit of personal as well as collective enrichment. Thus, even the humblest of materials, like mud, is elevated to the cult of aesthetic contemplation.
Folk Landscape: The landscape in the village is the outcome of its architecture and economy. The entire habitat is compactly built so that the hamlets grow, in check-by-jowl neighbourliness, through a process of accretion. Since the economy is based chiefly on agriculture, it can support only small populations. This fact is also responsible for the slow-paced life in the villages because here the organic laws operate. The peasant has to willy nilly wait for reaping what he sows.
These two factors of slow-paced life and compactness of the Rural Habitat are the chief determinants of the nature and magnitude of its landscape.
Narrow lanes which are well-shaded, and short distances within the Rural Habitat, render any plantation in the streets unnecessary.
Plantation is done where work and community activities are carried out. In addition, it is also used as fencing around crop fields to protect them from (stray) cattle. Thus, rural landscape serves nodes rather than movement6. The village pond forms an integral part of the rural landscape. The Rural Habitat is dominated by natural element like trees.
Extremes of climate require that trees, which give shade and are hardy, are grown. The activity areas are privately-owned Persian-wheel wells, animal-drawn wheat grinders, community wells, the village chaupals, havelis, religious buildings, and individual houses.
The private wells are usually located in a grove of mango or mulberry trees.
Chaupals are built under a borh or a pippal tree which, owing to its grand-sized crown, is appropriate for community activity. It is customary to plant fruit trees in the courtyards of the houses.
Comment on Punjab’s Folk Landscape: One irrefutable evidence of Nek Chand’s love for Punjab’s rural elements of landscape is that he has preserved a number of trees which he found on the site, namely, nim, ber, sheesham, karunda, and so forth.
A large number of toot trees planted by him in the Rock Garden also support this point because these trees have the background of Punjabi villages.
Kaner and safeda trees have been planted on the periphery of display chambers much in the manner of plantation raised for fencing the fields in the village.
Nek Chand’s manner of plantation is also typically rural. He has planted trees more for shade over areas of activities than for creating vistas as is usually done in the cities.
The trees he has chosen for this purpose are also rural namely, pippal, toot, simbal, etc. In other words, these trees are functional rather than ornamental.
It is only in the cafeteria zone that he has introduced a variety of potted plants for decorative purposes. This drift towards urbanism was motivated by the ‘formal and planned’ nature of the cafeteria structure.
Providentially, Le Corbusier, who gave Punjab its new capital, Chandigarh—the City Beautiful, was deeply touched by the Folk Visual Arts of the State. As the greatest architect of the 20th century, he paid a rich tribute to the unschooled genius of Punjabi villagers, and eternalised, in his architectural creations, such folk elements as rainwater spouts (parnaalas), niches (aaleys), and organic punctures in mud-walls (magoreys). These can be seen in his High Court and other world-famous buildings. What the Punjabi villagers had been doing in mud construction, Le Corbusier transformed into permanent designs in cement concrete.
TRANSFORMATION OF PUNJAB’S FOLKLORE
Artistic creation is the product of a people’s aesthetic appreciation of the beauty and beauty of Nature, which is God’s artistry of the great Mother Earth (maata dhart mahat). Rural Habitat is a sensitive transformation of Geography, the Architecture of Earth’s crust, by an extensive use of non-invasive construction methods. Folklore, in this sense, is the villagers’ collective creativity, expressed as Literary (poetry, song, narratives, etc), Performing (dance, drama, music, etc), and Visual (architecture, painting, sculpture, etc) Arts. This collective creativity is the product of cumulative enterprises in which everyone contributes their own genius for one or other form of art. This non-formal method of learning, continuing over centuries, was extended from generation to generation by word of mouth coupled with deft demonstration of practical skills. Though the change was there, its rate was so slow that it would go unnoticed most of the time. The slow-paced life made creativity both a vocation and an avocation. The spontaneous combination of the two modes meant a highly pleasurable involvement in the very Act of Creation. There was thus a pride, a deep sense of fulfillment, in what one created with one’s own hands. The whole process produced a lifestyle whose crowning glory was Rusticity which reflected that placid timelessness so characteristic of the Rural Habitat. Since the materials were drawn from Nature (mud, wood, straw, etc) they were bio-degradable and, therefore, easily recycled back into the bosom of Mother Earth. All work being manual provided compulsory exercise to keep the body in good shape and radiant health. Foodstuff was ‘unrefined’ and thus produced no ill effects in the digestive system.
In the case of Punjab something unique happened. Constantly exposed to the danger of foreign invasions, the Punjabis developed an invincible spirit and a lovable lust for life. From this salubrious spirit has sprung everything robust: robust aesthetics, robust lifestyle, robust humour, robust dance, robust music, robust hospitality, robust courage, and everything that constitutes ‘punjabiat’. In my view, it means ‘Pun’ (to play upon words alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning) and ‘Jab’ (a sudden thrust or stab). The Punjabi language is the Punniest (with every other word having two meanings) and when spoken unadulterated, stabs the listener’s coarseness of consciousness to directly reach his heart! The other three letters: ‘i-a-t’ stand, respectively, for: intensity, altruism/adventurousness, and truthfulness.
The single most important cause of the transformation of Folklore in Punjab, as elsewhere in the world, is the shift from agricultural economy to industrial economy. In agricultural economy, transaction is almost entirely in kind, whereas, in industrial economy, it is in cash. The former gives deferred fulfillment; the latter immediate. Receiving cash gives one a sense of personal worth readily acknowledged. Kind was given as wages for farm labour from whatever was produced at the end of the season. There was a long wait between actual labour put in and its eventual reward. This process thus taught one to be patient and perseverant. Cash, on the contrary, awakens ambition, which grows from strength to strength—until one becomes a victim of speed and stress. And before one realizes one is already in the thick of the rat race. The heady excitement of the rat race blinds you to the obvious ludicrousness of the petty outcome: That even if you win the rat race you are still a rat.
Folk Architecture has been transformed beyond recognition. The mud hamlets of the Rural Habitat have become flats in the concrete jungle of urban life. A village hut is close to ground, made of natural materials, and, therefore, in direct contact with nature. The Rural psyche is naturally environment-friendly. The materials are bio-degradable. Hence, there is no question of any pollution or flash floods because the Geography of the locale has not been meddled with, invasively. Hearth has always been the heart of the home. Folk Architecture generated a lifestyle which promoted sitting as a work posture in the kitchen. The urban hearth has transformed into a standing kitchen. Despite this radical change the folklorist element has survived in the cheek-by-jowl neighbourliness of flats in cities. It is another matter, though, that the neighbours have distanced themselves from one another by snobbery which is a typical pathology of urban life.
The oral tradition in Punjabi Folklore abounds in invectives and swear-words. The peasantry believes that to acquire fluency in the use of foul language is a sure sign of manliness. Not only does this belief survive but also is strengthened when young boys are taught by their elders the art of mastering abuses! There is something earthy about Punjabi invectives. This is what must have led the internationally-acknowledged novelist Dr Mulk Raj Anand to translate Punjabi abuses in his English writings. Nearly all of Punjabi jests and anecdotes among the menfolks are “non-vegetarian”. Ironically, though they are stories concocted with swear-words, the non-vegetarian Punjabi jokes are essentially didactic: they give lessons in sexuality, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and other respectable disciplines.
The profoundest part of Punjabi Oral Literature has transformed into the enduring works of Shiv Batalvi, Amrita Pritam, Bhai Vir Singh, and other writers and poets. Even when their outpourings are as lovely and fragile as the Taj Mahal, they yet retain the earthy intensity and unique robustness of Punjabi Folklore. Although this rich tradition is transformed beyond recognition, their keynote amiability has found its way into Hindi movies and TV programs. Words like ‘panga’, ‘nach baliye’, ‘kudiyaan’ are popular throughout the country.
Folk songs have been immortalised by Surinder Kaur, Parkash Kaur, Asa Singh Mastana, Gurdas Mann. Gurdas Mann is a complete artiste, and a pioneer of Punjabi ‘pop’ music, which is actually Folk Music rendered popular with urban colours. Daler Mehndi’s song-and-dance has taken India by storm. A Madrasi may not understand the lyrics, but he is irresistibly drawn into dancing to Daler’s tune! Bhangra, one of the world’s most vigorous dance-forms, retains its folksiness despite its popularity worldwide. ‘Dhol’, the Punjabi drum, is a subject of research abroad. In Bhangra, which is essencially a fast-beat song-dance, Tradition meets Modernity in a romantic readiness of eternal wedlock! Rabbi Shergill is the modern- day ‘dhaadi’, a wandering minstrel.
Punjabi Follklore, as a complex of lifestyle, social concerns, hospitality, enterprise, and fearlessness, has become transformed as the staple diet of many Hindi movies and Doordarshan serials.
Punjabi Folklore is primarily the product of the Punjabi language whose chief characteristic is its great absorbing power. The absorbed words are so integral a part of Punjabi that the Punjabis use them as their own. There are about 1500 words, Arabic and Persian in origin, which have enriched the Punjabi vocabulary. The succinctness of Punjabi is almost matchless. It attains a rare magnificence when its characteristic graphic suggestiveness is added to its succinctness. Punjabi was elevated to its unique spiritual glory when Guru Nanak Dev chose to record God’s Word, as revealed to him, in this language of the masses. The language’s generosity of spirit comes into focus when one realises that the key-words in Gurbani are either Arabic or Persian: hukam, raza, naam, ardaas (‘arz-i-daas), rehraas (raah-i-raast), nadar (nazar), karam, sahib, paatshah (paadshah), sahibzada, mehr, etc. Punjabi is as modern as it is traditional, thanks to Gurbani.The same cannot be said of English which has become the international language. A recent study shows that to know the English, in which Geoffery Chaucer wrote, is like learning a foreign language even for those whose mother tongue is English! Therefore, any fear of Folklore, which is grounded in Punjabi, becoming obsolete is irrational.
Punjab has made a magnificent contribution to the creation and development of Indian classical music in which one finds glimpses of Punjabi Folk Music. To restore its creativity, which it was losing due to high theoretical regimentation, masters like Bade Ghulam Ali and Kumar Gandharv injected substantial doses of Folk Music into Shastriya Sangeet. In my paper written for Guru Nanak Dev University 20 years ago I had pointed out how “Medium Switchover from English to Punjabi for Technical Education” could be effected without detriment to the advancement of professional knowledge in various fields of specialisations. Punjabi artisans, craftsmen, mechanics, overseers, draftsmen, labourers, et al, have Punjabi-ised English terminology in a remarkable way.
REVALUATION OF PUNJAB’S FOLKLORE
My revaluation of the Folklore of Punjab is based on my understanding of the application of the Theory, Practice, Research, and Pedagogy to the disciplines covered under four major fields of human endeavour; Humanities, Art, Science, and Technology, in which my own multifarious activities lie. To this I have added new knowledge gained from latest scientific findings. The most important is the discovery, made by Dr Roger Sperry who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in1981, that the human brain has two different hemispheres which perform very distinct cerebral functions. The briefest description of these functions is: the Right Brain works by Emotion and Synthesis; the Left Brain performs by Reason and Analysis. The written and spoken language belongs to the Left Brain. All art-forms are created by the Right Brain. The Right is Gyan; the left Vigyan.
The West, guided by the Left Brain, has made awesome advancements in Technology. This world, the world of objects, has been radically transformed by the West. The East, prompted by the Right Brain, has given birth to Mysticism and Creativity unmatched by the West. Since a human being is an organic whole, the East and the West dwell together in the same mind.
When we talk of the analysis, criticism, and evaluation, we are using the Left Brain. When we talk of synthesis, creation, and expression, we are exercising the Right Brain. Those who have made a balanced use of the two hemispheres were avatars, prophets, and saints. Everyone else, however exalted their genius, have been lower on this scale. For example, when Guru Nanak exhorts: akli sahib sewaiye…he is using (and appealing to) human reason, as an inseparable adjunct to his Creative Mysticism. Add to this the scientific finding that 60,000 years ago, the world population was only 2,000, and everyone was an inhabitant of the African continent. Everything else, like four varnas, and skin-colour: white, yellow, brown, and black, and umpteen philosophies, followed in the course of 600 centuries due to migrations to different parts of globe. Guru Gobind Singh draws attention to this fundamental truth when he says: maanas kee jaat sabhei eik paihchaanbo .
In the foregoing context, Revaluation must take into account one basic fact that Change is the changeless Law of Nature. That the fact of change was always there. Only the rate of change has radically accelerated. Change respects no community, caste, creed, philosophy, or territory. It is God’s divine sport (leela) through the instrumentality of Time that stages its ever-changing drama in Space. Since all forms of Art are man-made, they undergo changes because man himself changes from generation to generation. In this light, to think that Folklore can be insulated against change is childish sentimentalism. It is asking for the impossible. Just the same, the CORE truths, as principles and imperatives, survive the onslaught of change without human intervention. For example, Rusticity is India’s chief endowment. It is reflected in what we call Punjab, Punjabi, and Punjabiat. The word ‘Punjab’ we have owned, though it is not a provincial linguistic term. It is Persian. Now, if what Punjab has produced undergoes Transformation, such as someone else likes to own, we must not be upset.
Human progress is a movement from different Cultures of the peoples of the world to a higher order of Civilisation. Culture is what humans make. Civilisation is what they are. Punjabi Folklore has the robust inner strength to transform without losing its essential beauty which is participatory Informalness. It throbs with the truth of having lived life full-throttle without fear and feigning. Folk Architecture of Punjab is holistic. It creates everything in a single concept. Modernity, sprung from Technology, ruthlessly splits apart architectural design into: organisation of space, structure, construction, interior design, landscape, etc. The West is crazy about knowing more and more about less and less (Specialization→ SuperSpeciality). The East is enthusiastic about knowing more and more about more and more (Holism). When the two meet in a fitful flash of realisation the result is exalted Creativity, which lies in the realm of Mysticism. World-famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright developed a style he called ‘Organic Architecture’, and became modern world’s first environmentalist. When he designed for the hilly terrain, the house was of the hill rather than on the hill! With this glorious background, I happened to see the Punjab villages from the aeroplane. I was completely bowled over to find that the Rural Habitat of Punjab is more ‘organic’ than Wright’s Organic Architecture!
Custodians of the Folklore of Punjab must know both Punjabi and English equally well. English is the Language of Science, of materialistic advancement. Punjabi is the Language of Gurbani, and of Rustic Genius. The two must interact to make a worthwhile advance into the future.
A Reminder: Those who want to uphold purity of language must remember that, according to philologists, the Indo-Iranian Family of Languages contains these languages: Sanskrit, Persian, Pashto, Sindhi, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu, Bangla.
Folklore, devoid of change, can be a fit museum-piece, but can never be the proud heritage of a living people!
Suggestions: In deference for the sentiments of those who want Folklore preserved, I may suggest that
1. Government should be persuaded by academicians and practitioners to open colleges of art and architecture, literary, and performing arts in nodal villages rather than in cities.
2. All these branches of the Folklore of Punjab should be introduced in schools as co-curricular activities.
3. The existing villages should be documented in videos in their entirety, and regularly screened for the education of the urbanites.
4. I introduced one full-semester curriculum in Chandigarh College of Architecture for the study and documentation of Punjab’s Rural Habitat. Unfortunately, when the time came to implement the course, I retired, and my misdirected urban successor had the course promptly deleted! This should be re-introduced everywhere in courses of Architecture in Punjab.
Punjab has something truly grand to give to the whole world: its Folklore transformed into Creative Mysticism—a holistic re-making of the Built Environment.
NOTES:
1. The door shutters being pivoted, it is easy to lift them off from the frame for this purpose.
2. These closets are normally part of the dowry that parents give to their daughters at the time of their wedding.
3. The word “improvisation” is used to imply an uncanny ability to make do with whatever resources one has.
4. Use of deorhi and screens in the village house fulfils the requirement of privacy. Though privacy was, indeed, a necessity in the initial stages of the garden project, it has since been transformed into a virtue. This has become an all-important element of surprise which helps in the dramatic unfoldment of architectural experience in the Rock Garden.
5. Ranging in shape from ideographic formless images to elaborate, exquisitely decorate figures in human form, it is the goddess that is seen during the navraatras everywhere. It is she—Mother Earth—who appears also in the form of Sanjhi Devi, worshipped with devotion in parts of Punjab, much of Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh.
Walls suddenly sprout with wonderfully inventive figures of Sanjhi Devi; symbols like the sun and the moon surround her; vegetation appears all around. She is the one who has the power to grant boons.
When the components of her images will be taken down for immersion in running waters—an important part of the ritual—she will go away only for a while, for, some navraatras, she will be there again and young girls will compete with each other in making images of her once more.
6. A node is a point or centre which attracts and sustains various forms of human activity.
Note: This Paper was read by Sirdar SS Bhatti at a Seminar at Punjabi University, Patiala.
