Namita Waikar

PARI GSP Team

Samyukta Shastri

Photos and Video

P. Sainath

Editor

large_GSP-32.jpg

medium_GSP-32.jpg

small_GSP-32.jpg

thumbnail_GSP-32.jpg

GSP-32.jpg

Women from the Khadakwadi hamlet sift
through memories to sing ovi
about rain for the Grindmill Songs Project 
– the damp soil and sowing, the fading of a brother’s affection, the pilgrimage to Pandharpur

It is raining heavily, let the soil become wet Women are
going to the field with lunch baskets

So sang the
women in Khadakwadi, a hamlet of Kolavade village, when we went there on a hot April
morning in 2017. Sitabai Ubhe, one of the ovi
singers, is now over 60. She is an avid mobile phone user. More than once
she breaks away from the group to talk on the phone. I ask her for her phone
number and she brings out a small bit of paper with the number written on it in
English.

“My son wrote it
down for me,” she says. “I can’t read or write.”

Over two decades ago, the original Grindmill Songs Project (GSP) team had documented examples of this genre at this hamlet. The GSP is now <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/search/?q=Grindmill+Songs+Project&amp;type=article&amp;type=video&amp;type=audio&amp;sort-by=relevance">hosted on PARI</a> and the present team periodically visits some of the villages to meet the singers again.The women in Khadakwadi helped each other remember some of the ovi they had sung years ago. Last year, PARI published <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/seven-songs-of-summer">Seven songs of summer</a> – with a video of the singers from this village performing ovi about life under a hot summer sun. In this instalment, they render songs of rain.On our way to the village, we passed fields that farmers were preparing for cultivation by burning patches of land.When we arrived in Kolavade, Lilabai Kamble, 58, took us straight to the hall in the Ram temple premises. The tin-roofed rectangular hall has a low boundary wall leaving most of the structure open on three sides; a parapet along the wall is used for sitting. Lilabai then went from house to house to beckon the ovi singers, and six women gathered at the hall, one by one. Many on our list were away, some had died in the interim, and a few are untraceable.All the women said they still occasionally used the grindmill to make gram flour, rice flour for ghaavan (pancakes),  and to grind turmeric for the haldi ceremony at weddings.Sulochana Dhage, 45, is the youngest of the women we met in Khadakwadi. She is the daughter of Jhingabai Ubhe, who contributed over 200 songs to the GSP database. Jhingabai, who died a few years ago, spent her last days with her daughter and son-in-law.

Sulochana told us that she goes for the wari (pilgrimage) every year along with others from the village. “We don’t go all the way to Pandharpur [in Maharashtra’s Solapur district]. We walk for two days, from Alandi to Pune, with the Dnyaneshwar palkhi [a palanquin carrying symbolic silver clogs or footwear]. Or from Dehu to Pune with the Tukaram palkhi.”The wari is undertaken twice in the Hindu lunar calendar year – during the month of Ashadh (June/July) and then again in Kartik (October/November). The June/July journey is more popular because it commences after the sowing of crops. Farmers, shepherds, cowherds and others from rural Maharashtra are among the many who go on this pilgrimage.Sulochana and the others settled in a row, consulting each other, humming and whispering. They were trying to remember the tunes and verses handed down across generations  of women in their villages. They did: six songs of rain and a verse about the wari flowed from the performers.In the first ovi, the singer tells us that it is raining continuously and her son is cultivating the field, sowing rice with a drill-plough. In the second ovi, the son is sowing wheat. Let it rain, they sing in the third couplet, let the land become wet, let the women carrying lunch baskets reach the fields.The fourth song compares the downpour and the dying out of the rain with the changing attachment of a brother for his sisters. It says that when the brother has daughters, he forgets his sisters. The drill-plough, a special tool, the fifth ovi tells us, is used to both turn up the earth and level the land. The sixth of the songs says that just as the soil cannot get moisture without rain, a woman cannot find happiness without a husband.

These songs are followed by a six-line verse.  It begins with a woman telling us that her brother Pavana has arrived in the mango (summer) season. They sing about the wari. When it rains, the pathways become wet and the palkhi arrives. It contains the silver clogs of the poet-saints Dnyaneshwar and Tukaram, symbolising them in their absence. Devotees worship these sandals, which are taken on an annual journey, the wari to Pandharpur. As the palanquins pass through villages and towns, people gather around to offer turmeric and vermillion.There is a potent sense of piety and divinity in this extraordinary annual event – these lines speak of a unique atmosphere that acquires a special colour. And while the wari is in progress (with tens of thousands of people walking towards Pandharpur), Lord Vitthal, the song says, is dressed in a brocade wrap that suits him well – and is ready to welcome the devotees.

It has rained, it is raining continuously for long  In his fields, my son is sowing rice with the drill-plough
It has rained, it is raining continuously for long In my son’s fields, wheat is sown with the drill-plough
It is raining heavily, let the soil become wet Women are going to the field with lunch baskets
Summer rains came and have now stopped Now that brother has daughters, he has forgotten his own sisters
He dug with the plough, he levelled the land with the harrow The drill-plough was taken to the field as an expert tool
Without rain, the soil cannot get moisture Without a husband, a woman does not get happiness
O woman, my brother Pavana Has arrived in the mango season The path is wet, the path is wet  The crowd gathers to offer haldi kunku*  The palkhi has come  An enchanting colour, an enchanting colour  God** is wearing a brocade wrap, it suits him well
Note:*Haldi kunku (also haldi kumkum) refers to the exchange and application of turmeric and vermillion powder on the forehead amongst married women.
**God refers to Lord Vitthal in Pandharpur. ‘Enchanting colour’ alludes to the atmosphere created by the combination of all that is mentioned in the verse.<hr/>

05_Seven_songs_of_summer__Group_photo.jpg

Performers/ Singers: Sitabai Ubhe, Sindhu Ubhe, Muktabai Ubhe, Sulochana Dhage, Lakshmibai Ubhe, Nanda Ubhe
Village: Kolavade
Hamlet: Khadakwadi
Taluka: Mulshi
District: Pune
Caste: Maratha
Date: These songs (and some of the information) were first transcribed by the original GSP team on January 6, 1996. The PARI team took the photographs featured here and video recorded the songs on April 30, 2017. 
Poster: Sinchita Maji

Six songs of rain from Mulshi

मुळशीची सहा पाऊसगाणी

Khadakwadi

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Six songs of rain from Mulshi

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit