Datta Patil's Kalgitura revives 700-year-old musical tradition from Maharashtra

The feud is as old as time itself It merely acquires different terms This weekend the audience at a SoBo venue will spend an evening with songs that trace their origins back to traditions that saw philosophy literature religion and social awareness discussed in song Having opened at the National Centre for Performing Arts in 2023 Datta Patilrsquos awardwinning play directed by Sachin Shinde returns to the venue on September 28 this time armed with English subtitles for a new audienceA traditional Marathi speaker would recognise the word as a term often used for conflicts or spat ldquoIt actually is the combination of two words Kalgi refers to the Goddess Parvati and Tura refers to the God Shiva It is a folk tradition prevalent in the little hamlets around Vidarbha Konkan Marathwada and Khandesh regions It is performed across the many dialects of the Marathi languagerdquo explains Patil who would witness these performances growing up in the village of Umrane 80 kms from NashikThe performance would involve farmers ironsmiths bakers and all the villagers divided into two groups of Kalgi or Tura mdash worshippers of Shakti the feminine soul or Shiva the masculine time ldquoThey would recite songs and playfully raise questions that were not just religious but social in contextrdquo the playwright explains Tracing back to the era of the Bhakti poets and saints like Jnaneshwar Sant Tukaram and others the tradition also flows into the lok shahiri tradition of the state It is not limited to religion either The playwright points to the shahir duo of NathuMohammed who would write shahirs or poems for many such kalgituras ldquoEven for funerals people would sing these songs almost as a therapy for the grieving familyrdquo he explainsDatta PatilldquoIt changed with globalisation The villages changed The generation that sung and composed these rhythms was slowly fading awayrdquo he adds When the villagers bonded to rediscover and restart the tradition in 2010 Patil turned to it as the seed for his play For the playwright credited for productions like Handabhar Chandanya and To Rajhans Ek this was a moment of cultural revival ldquoIts revival though small was a spark that interested merdquoIt took Patil 13 almost years to research and craft a play that raised questions where the personal and social intermingled into a unified experience ldquoWe have included 19 songs from a single line to dohas couplets to long stanzas Some were traditional and sourced while I wrote a few in the same meters to capture the traditionrdquo he addsHaving swept multiple awards and travelled extensively the play returns to Mumbai This time it is armed with language ldquoThe dialects in the play are many and often different even to the native Marathi speaker in Mumbai There are nuances in a language that can only be conveyed in some dialectsrdquo laughs Patil Hence audiences at the show will be able to witness and read along a translated English version on the teleprompterldquoIt is necessary since curiosity about the play its cultural context and relevance has to be conveyed It is not just about a tradition but the nature of art and its involvement in social life past and presentrdquo Patil concludesON September 28 7 pmAT NCPA Nariman PointLOG ON TO ncpamumbaicomCOST Rs 450 onwards