Saturday, December 29, 2007

A display of tribal musical instruments of Madhya Pradesh


It was an exhibition for music lovers and a learning experience for others like me wherein about ninety tribal instruments used by various tribes in the state of Madhya Pradesh were on display. Many of them may be at verge of extinction in today’s world of electrophone instruments. The exhibition titled as ‘Adirag’ was held at Bharat Bhawan from December 27 – 29, 2007 which was organized by Tribal Department of the State of Madhya Pradesh. Musical instruments from the districts of Balaghat, Chindwara, Dindori, Hoshangabad, Dhar, Dindori, Betul, Mandla and Khargone were on display. In addition to instruments photographs of various tribal musical instruments could also be seen. Instruments like Chikara, a string instrument, which has three strings (two horse hair & one steel) and is used by Gond tribes was on display from Dindori district. Instrument like Turra used by Baiga tribes, Tutuna, which has a unique sound effect produced by pressing and releasing the cane after plucking the string, Gudum used by Gond, Baiga and Dholia tribes, Ghunguroo and Mandar were on display. In addition to it various forms of Dhol, Dholki and Dholaks used by tribes like Bhils, Gond were simply fascinating. Nagara which has two pieces, the smaller one the female placed on the right & the bigger one the male placed on the left, played by Baiga and Gond tribes placed at the entrance of the exhibition attracted attention of many who were visiting the exhibition. In this display one thing which was missing and could be looked at was a small info- leaflet on the instruments probably could have contributed in spreading and retaining information about them before they fade away to few lines in the books of tribal history. But an effort of the department, well appreciated by the visitors, media and needs to be replicated.



Contributed by Anil Gulati

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