Selected Performance

Arathi (4'34") and bhajan (5'26") performed by a group of middle-class women in Vadodara, Gujarat in on March 8th, 1982, the day before the spring festival of Holi. The women accompany themselves on mañjira (hand-held cup-shaped cymbals) and daf (tambourine). (Thompson 82 AC 46)

Communal performances of bhajan generally take place in the home and are attended by neighbors and relatives. Since in India, neighborhoods tend historically to be caste-defined, domestic bhajanmandals tend to be caste-defined.

In this performance the women of a suburban apartment complex have gathered on the day before the spring festival of Holï, a festival holy to the god, Krishna. Because of the special nature of this festival and bhajan performance, all the bhajans performed on this particular date are devoted to and describe Krishna and his actitities. The festival of Holī (or Holākī) historically has been related to fertility, as is preserved in the suggestive songs associated with Holï and the red-colored water that is thrown on one and all.

All communal bhajan performances begin with an invocation to god, asking to make the ritual auspicious and successful. The music and invocation are called arathi. An image of the god is placed before the singers and a plate with a flame (from an oil lamp generally) is passed around the room. Each devotee passes their outstretched hands over the flame and then touches their closed eyes in a symbolic gesture that denotes the idea that the light of god is in their eyes, that they will see the world in a more god-like fashion, and that perhaps they will - in the proceedings - see God in their midst. The rhythmic organization of the arathi is a cyclic pattern of 25 beats:

3 + 2 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 2 + 3 + 3

After the completion of the arathi the singers begin with their first bhajan which starts with the words "Avo, Avo ne Nandaji na Lal" ["Come hither, Krishna"].

The melodies or dhals of bhajans (see above) tend to be standardized and serve as vehicles for several different texts. However, dhals are often referred to by the title of the bhajan by which they are most popularly known. As in many of the other examples we have heard, the structural sections are defined largely by register.