JOIN USSounds of migration and a desire to live
The soundscape of Rahul Giri’s upcoming work Jiune Rahara — The desire to live is stark but beautiful, grating but meditative, and short but lingering. You hear what could be the sweet sound of wind chimes, cacophony of factories, and reverberations of a gong.
The music producer and DJ says the work is a reflection of the aspirations of Nepali migrant workers and their tough life. Over 6,500 migrant workers from the Indian subcontinent died in Qatar in the run-up to FIFA World Cup 2022. As a Nepali now living in Bengaluru, this inspired him to create this collection of tracks.
In their plight, Rahul saw similarities with men going to war — leaving behind their families, well aware they may not return alive. The Gandharvas of Nepal have for centuries captured this dichotomy in their songs.
A Dalit nomadic musician caste, the Gandharvas served as poets, historians and journalists before the advent of radio. They travelled around the Himalayan state, playing sarangi, their primary instrument, and singing about everything from socio-political issues to current affairs, mythology and the seasons.
They also chronicled the wars the Gorkha Kingdom was waging with neighbouring states through the 18th and 19th centuries. ‘He Barai’ by Jhalakman Gandharva is a popular song about the Lahures (men who enlisted in the British East India company, the British Army, and later the Indian army.)
The song, Jiune Rahara, spoke to Rahul as it describes the desire to live and the fear of death. ‘Find the auspicious hour, brother, [for us to leave]. We have as blessings the curd and the banana’ begins the translated verse and ends with ‘Will you ever come home again?’. Like with all oral traditions, the history of the song is unclear. It is thought to be 200 years old or at least has references to that time.
“It was finally recorded by British ethnomusicologist, Carol Tingey, in 1992 in the voice of Lurey Gandharva in Tarkughat village,” shares Rahul aka _RHL.
Traditionally called Gaines, many have adopted “the more dignified” Gandharva name to escape untouchability, Rahul talks about the decline of their tradition of roaming and singing for a living. The new generation is venturing outside of Nepal for jobs, or staying back and making and selling sarangis.
“They were omnipresent once,” Rahul says, recalling a fond memory when the Gandharvas turned up outside his home in Kathmandu to sing and dance. He was in Class 3 or 4 then.
In his new work, he has reimagined the melancholy and vulnerability in the sarangi recordings of the Gandharva musicians and also the grit and scrappiness that crept into them when tuning their instruments, which he describes in his blog.
The plan is to put out these works, which is part of ongoing research, under Resonations, an artist residency led by The British Library, in audio-visual format in the second half of 2023, Rahul signs off.