When the Keepers of Tradition Feel Left Behind

Heard, Unheard: Stories from the Roots

Gopal Singh Chouhan I gopalpostbox@gmail.com

For almost fifteen years, my conversations with Mahesharam Meghwal have followed a familiar rhythm. We speak about music, village life, festivals, the health of fellow musicians, and the changing fortunes of folk artists. Sometimes he calls. At other times he sends long voice notes, as though certain thoughts are easier spoken into a recorder than directly to another person.

Mahesharam ji is taking tea break during the recording

The last time he called, the rhythm was different. There was a sadness in his voice that I had not heard before. After a few moments of silence, he said quietly in Marwadi dialect, ‘Hame Sagla Kabir gaave padya, kai fashion chali hai. Gaave jika to theek hai, mhane hame kun bulaave.’ (Kabir has become fashionable. I am happy the songs are travelling. But sometimes it feels as though the people who carried them have been left behind.) I have been thinking about that sentence ever since.

Mahesharam ji is a senior folk singer from Chhatangarh, a small village in Rajasthan's Thar Desert near the India–Pakistan border. For decades he has carried the songs of Kabir, Meera, Raja Maan and other nirgun saints through an oral tradition inherited from his father and grandfather. His voice has travelled to festivals across India and abroad, yet his life remains rooted in the village where these songs have lived for generations.

I first met him in the summer of 2009. There was no electricity in Chhatangarh then. The road ended a few kilometres before the village, and the last stretch had to be covered on foot through the sand. It was June. Even after sunset, the desert still held the warmth of the day, while above us stretched a sky crowded with stars.

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Mahesharam ji is singing in his courtyard

We sat outside his mud house on a small earthen chowki (raised platform) outside his home, where villagers gathered every evening for Satsang. It was less a performance space than a shared place of listening, where songs were woven naturally into the rhythm of village life. Mahesharam ji rested his five-string tambura on his lap and began singing a beautiful Kabir bhajan Chalat Chalat Jug Bhaya Re, Kun Batave Dham Ji (You’ve been walking for ages. Who will show you the way?)

That night, his singing unsettled me in a way I had never experienced before. Kabir's words did not feel like songs; they felt like what the tradition calls shabd ki chot- the piercing force of a word that enters quietly and leaves you changed. I remember sitting in silence afterwards, aware that something within me had shifted, though I could not have explained what it was.

I have returned to that night in my memory many times. Perhaps that is why, when Mahesharam ji spoke to me recently, I heard not only his words but also the world from which they came. During our conversation, Mahesharam ji mentioned three bhajans that listeners today would immediately recognise- Maragiya Buharu Fulda Bichau, Vaari Jaun Re, Balihari Jaun Re, and Sanwariyo Parnay Meera Ne. He remembered singing these bhajans nearly four decades ago, long before social media, streaming platforms or the contemporary festival circuit carried them to much wider audiences.

He is tuning his Tambura at the Gadisar Talaab, Jaisalmer

As he spoke, he kept returning to another name- the late Padma Ram ji. In their younger days, the two travelled together across villages, singing these very compositions at satsangs, community gatherings and long desert nights of music. Mahesharam ji did not remember the songs as performances; he remembered them through the companionship of another singer, the rhythm of travelling together, and the countless evenings spent sharing Kabir with people for whom these bhajans were part of everyday life.

Today, Padma Ram ji is no longer with us. But the songs they once sang together have found new lives in concert halls, recordings and on social media, reaching audiences that neither of them could have imagined. Mahesharam ji spoke about this without jealousy. "The songs should travel," he said. "That is how traditions remain alive." Then he fell silent.

What saddened him was that, somewhere along the journey, the memories of people like Padma Ram ji- and of so many other tradition bearers whose voices shaped these songs-seemed to fade more quickly than the songs themselves. Listening to Mahesharam ji, I realised that his concern was not really about songs at all. Songs can always be learned. What is far more fragile is the chain of relationships through which they are passed from one generation to the next.

When we celebrate only the performance, we risk overlooking the living ecology that makes the performance possible. Mahesharam ji would probably never describe it in these terms. Yet that was precisely what he was mourning. His question was not who owns Kabir. Kabir belongs to everyone. Nor was he suggesting that only hereditary singers should perform these bhajans. Many contemporary singers like Shabnam Virmani, Kabir Cafe, Vipul Rikhi, Madhav Rathore and singers from Sounds of Isha have learned with humility, collaborated generously and introduced Kabir to audiences who might otherwise never have encountered these songs.

His concern lay elsewhere.  Perhaps we have confused carrying a song with carrying a tradition. A song can be learned in months; a tradition takes generations-through listening, repetition, memory and lived experience. When its custodians remain absent from the stages where their music is celebrated, something is lost- not the song, but the relationships that gave it life.

Acknowledgement, then, is more than courtesy. It means recognising those who have carried these traditions and ensuring that, as their songs travel, recognition and opportunity travel with them.

As our conversation ended, Mahesharam ji did not ask me for an answer. He simply wanted someone to listen. I often find myself returning to that summer night in Chhatangarh-the earthen platform outside his home, the desert sky, the quiet resonance of the tambura and the force with which Kabir's words entered my life.

Those songs have travelled farther today than either of us could have imagined. Perhaps the question before us is no longer whether the tradition will survive. It already has. The question is whether, as it continues to travel, we will remember to carry its custodians with it.