The resident songwriter of Lupungpat

Every writer wonders, “who do I trust with my words?”

Before the world reads, there’s always that one person who hears it first. For Shraddhanand Asur that person has not changed in 18 years.

“I read it to Athnas,” he says. “The first song I ever wrote in my life – a Yeshu geet, was for him.” He glances at his closest friend, also his first listener. A few seconds later they burst into laughter.

Shraddhanand and Athnas are both from Lupungpat village in Jharkhand. As young children they would walk together to school every day. One day, on their way to the Roman Catholic Primary School, Shraddhanand observed that Athnas was really stressed. “It was Athnas’ turn to recite a song,” he recalls. The recitation would be marked for the yearly assessments.

The boys belonged to the Asur community, listed as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) in Jharkhand. Athnas was born with an underdeveloped left hand. Shraddhanand’s smile drops quickly when he remembers how “everyone would call him lula [crippled] or thutha [impaired].”

The thought of reciting a song alone terrified Athnas. Shraddhanand was in the second grade but he knew he had to help his best friend in first grade, “Maine dimaag lagaaya [I put my mind to it] and quickly wrote a Yeshu geet in Sadri [language] for him.” Athnas swiftly memorised it and the next day stood up confidently and recited the song.

In his song, Shraddhanand asked Yeshu (Jesus) to help Athnas overcome his physical challenges.

After listening to Athnas sing, the children laughed. The teacher silenced them and turned to Athnas, asking where he had learned the song. When he narrated the story behind it, she smiled and patted him on the back.

“After that incident,” Shraddhanand recalls, “teachers would ask me to recite a new song every day. And I did! Maybe because of that wherever I am today, I can never go without composing a song.”

The journey began with a composition for a friend and moved far beyond: “I didn’t know I could dream of becoming a songwriter one day,” says the 24-year-old. His mother tongue, Asur (also sometimes referred as Asuri), is an Austroasiatic language spoken by less than 10,000 speakers. The UNESCO’s Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger has classified it as ‘definitely endangered’ mother tongue.

But Asur was not the first language Shraddhanand composed songs in. He chose Sadri – a link language that Adivasi communities use to bridge their mother tongue with the dominant regional languages. “In school and college, we had to speak in Sadri,” he says, and Hindi, too, since it was the medium of instruction.

In the last few decades, as more Asur speakers shift to dominant languages like Sadri and Hindi, he is deeply aware of the growing threat to his mother tongue. “I now compose in Asur,” says the songwriter.

His fears are upheld by a report by the Indian Language Census that highlights how children are not learning Asur from their parents anymore. With Sadri taking over in schools and daily life, many in his now multilingual community are consciously choosing to speak in the dominant languages.

In and around Shraddhanand’s village, Lupungpat in Gumla district, a haze of red dust rises up from the bauxite mines, settling on leaves, rooftops, and faces along the rocky roads.

When PARI visited the village in 2024, someone mentioned Shraddhanand but no one knew where to find him. Finally he was spotted with his friend, helping him load bauxite stones onto a mining truck.

Most children from Lupungpat eventually move to Ranchi for higher studies. Shraddhanand did too. After clearing his Class 12 exams he joined a college in the city at his family’s insistence. But he dropped out in the first year. “I only want to write songs,” he says firmly. “When I was in Ranchi, I would often come running back to the village.”

As he returns to the village, humming a new composition, he stops by his paternal uncle’s house for a quick lunch. “I am not interested in studies anymore,” he says. Many in the village, including his family, call him malang – a carefree wanderer.

His family, now in Ormanjhi block in Ranchi, are not happy with his decision. His father, Rubentus Asur, works as a block-level worker; his siblings are in college. “Earlier they would scold me,” he says. “Now, even that has stopped.”

It wasn’t that Shraddhanand never thought of getting a job. In early 2023, he moved to Kerala to work as a domestic worker and started earning Rs. 12,000 a month. But, “I started missing my people, I would miss the mountains,” By the end of the year, even though his pay was increased to Rs. 15,000, he took the decision to quit and came back to Lupungpat.

“In Kerala, life felt easy. Everything was there – roads, light, water. And here, we have nothing.” He points to the ground, dry and cracked. “The electricity line was laid in 2015. Our village still doesn’t have power. It's 2024. That should tell you everything.”

Read: Lupungpat's gram sabha saves the day

According to the Census 2011, Lupungpat's population is 600. The community relies heavily on farming and forest produce for survival. Shraddhanand too works on his family land and cultivates paddy and maize that is sufficient for the family. “When there is an urgent need for money, we sell our produce to survive”.

But farming isn’t enough. Many from the village take up labour work in the bauxite mines. Trucks pass through the narrow village roads day and night, and sometimes cause accidents. “I want to create awareness about these issues through my songs.” One of his songs talks about the road accidents caused by the constant movement of mining trucks.

After lunch, as he walks through the farm, Shraddhanand pulls out his notebook. Sitting under the shade of a tree, he flips through the pages and tells PARI: “I would just memorise my compositions, and recite them over.” But with time, “I began to forget a few lines,” so now, he has started writing his compositions down.

“Geeton ke bol mere dimaag mai chalte rahte hein [The words keep playing in my head on loop],” he says. Even on days “when I don’t feel like writing.” Ask him about his process of composing songs, and pat comes his response, “I write what I see, especially about my village,” He explains that he does not need any special creative ritual or solitude to write. He writes when words come to him – as soon as he wakes up or walking down the road, “Geet likhna hi meri qismat mein hai. [Writing songs is in my destiny],” he says.

Composing poetry may come easily to him now, but Shraddhanand is fully aware of the responsibility that goes with it. He is one of the few in his community who has started writing songs in his mother tongue. He chooses his themes based on research, “I talk to the elders in the village,” and he also recalls stories his grandmother told him in childhood.

He shares his songs with the younger children of his community for them to recite. The resident songwriter has now started recording his songs and poetries in a small studio in Chainpur block, “taaki geet surakshit rakhe jaa sakein [so that the songs remain safe].” He also has plans to make videos on his songs in the future: “At least this much I can do for my mother tongue.”

His friends too have been supportive of him lately. “Earlier they would make fun of me and tell me how bad my songs were,” he laughs. But gradually they started appreciating his work and today are the first audience for his songs. “Now they tell me that I should become a professional songwriter.”

Athnas, who has been sitting quietly next to his friend for a long time, quickly interrupts, “Main toh ise kahte rahta hun, kyun gaon mai pade rahkar apna talent kharab kar rahe ho, [I keep telling him that he is wasting his talent by staying in the village],” says the 23-year-old. “He should go to a big city.”

Hearing this, Shraddhanand laughs, “Jaise wahaan log mera intezaar kar rahe hon! [As if people are waiting for me there!]. I am not leaving my village and going anywhere.

My village is so beautiful and so is our language and culture. If I don't write about it, who will?”

The reporter would like to thank Adivasi poet Vandana Tete, and Barnabas Toppo for their help with the story.

The songs originally composed in Asur and Sadri by Shraddhanand have been translated into Hindi by Devesh, and into English by Pratishtha Pandya.

PARI’s Endangered Languages Project (ELP), is part of an initiative supported by Azim Premji University. It aims to document the vulnerable languages of India through the voices and lived experiences of people who speak them.

This story was originally reported in Hindi.