“In this tiny village almost 400 miles southwest of New Delhi, where women wash dishes in the sand to conserve water, and electricity is scarce,†Nida Najar wrote in The New York Time of Raneri village in Rajasthan, musician Lakha Khan sat on the floor of a stone hut, coaxing “a bright, high-pitched, dizzyingly fast melody from his violinlike sarangi.â€
Mr. Khan, 66, “is one of the few remaining Sindhi sarangi players among the Manganiyars, a caste of hereditary Muslim musicians,†who live in the desert state, Ms. Najar wrote.
“He plays for hours - until black beetles falling from the ceiling indicate nighttime - usually with no more company than a couple of passing goats,†she wrote. “But on a recent afternoon he had an audience of two: Ashutosh Sharma and Ankur Malhotra, who were crouching over their gear, including a five-channel mixer and two analog recorders.â€< /p>
“There's an exuberance or just kind of a lack of inhibition when they're performing at home,†Mr. Malhotra said of the Manganiyars, whose music is a mix of traditional melodies and arresting vocals. “Here these performances are genuine and real and filled with emotion.â€
Mr. Sharma and Mr. Malhotra, both 37, said they want to preserve the music of the Manganiyars, whose songs - devotionals as well as stories of births, deaths and love, often about the Hindu families that are their patrons - have no written record. The two men said they were inspired by Alan Lomax, the musicologist who more than half a century ago traveled the American South recording previously unknown blues musicians.
And like Lomax they hope to preserve the music and to bring it to a wider audience through a small, independent record label they began with two friends, called Amarrass Records. Yet they realize that trying to popularize Manganiyar music is a daunting task in India, where most young people would rather download Bollywood ringtones than listen to an ancient folk music.
Read the full article. View a slide show of a recent performance.
