Sarubai: 5000 songs and still singing

Sarubai Kadu of Dapodi village in Pune district is the most prolific singer in the grindmill songs database. In this first part of a two-part story, she sings ten ovi about sons who drift away, daughters who are fleetingly pampered, and wayward husbands

“I cannot remember anything now, and I can’t sing at all,”  Sarubai Kadu said. Grimacing, over 70, she sat on the floor cross-legged, rested her back against the verandah wall and pressed her aching knees with her fingers. We felt disappointed, but hoped that some pleading might help change her mind.

We were in Daund taluka , about 80 kilometres from Pune city, where we had travelled in July looking for the singer who gave the grindmill songs database over 5,000 couplets. That is the highest number by a single performer – the second highest is about half that much. The bulk of these songs were composed by Sarubai herself.

The team that started the Grindmill Songs Project had written down by hand the 5,000-plus songs that Sarubai sang over several meetings in different villages in Mulshi taluka and in Pune from 1996 to 2009. These became a part of the database of over 110,000 ovi . The project is now hosted on PARI, and revisiting the villages to meet the singers, take photographs and record videos is a part of the continuing effort. This July, about 20 years after the grindmill team’s visits, we recorded some of Sarubai’s songs on audio as well as video.

The singer was a member of the Garib Dongri Sanghatana, an organisation working for the rural poor in the hilly regions of Mulshi taluka. Though uneducated, Sarubai participated in self-learning literacy workshops as a volunteer for the organisation.

Sarubai is from Wadavali village in Mulshi taluka , which was submerged when the Warasgaon dam was built over the Mose river in 1994. The dam – a popular picnic spot – is one of the sources of water for Pune city,  about 50 kilometres away. People from several villages in the Warasgaon dam area were resettled in Daund taluka , around 120 kilometres from Mulshi.

When we reach Dapodi village, we see a woman sitting outside a dilapidated mud and brick hut at the start of a narrow lane. Jitendra Maid, a member of the original Grindmill Songs Project team, who is travelling with the team from PARI, tells us that the woman is Sarubai Kadu.  She leads us down the lane to another house, with a gate and an open verandah. "This is where I live." We ask her why she was sitting outside the hut. "Oh, it is somebody else's house, I was guarding it, because the woman who lives there has gone out." Her explanation seems a bit odd and we are not convinced.

We remind her about the songs, more than 5,000 of them. But she is emphatic that she cannot remember any ovi. Moreover, the left side of Sarubai’s face was affected by mild paralysis some months ago, and though she has recovered, it makes singing difficult.

Just then, a neighbour, Tarabai Margale is passing by, and Sarubai calls out to her to join us. Her presence seems to help and we record 10 songs, a few of which Sarubai improvises into nearly new compositions.

Sarubai sings an ovi about a son who goes away, asking him not to become a stranger. This is followed by four couplets about a daughter, that say: “Don’t make us too attached to you, for one day you will be married and go to live with your in-laws.” The beloved daughter asks her father for gifts. The girl’s mother says, “Pampering you is in our hands, you may add pearls to your ear tops.” In the next song, the daughter holds her father’s hand and demands a silver bracelet. 

This is followed by three songs about the infidelity of men. We are foolish women, we fight for water, while the husband behaves like a rooster, mad with desire outside another woman’s door. Even though a wife gives succour and is tender like a freshly bakedpoli (chapati) on an iron girdle, the foolish husband hides a blouse for another woman in his pocket – which speaks of his desire for a secret liaison with another woman. The wife may quench his thirst like the water from a large pot, and yet the foolish man makes a pitiable face, for he desires another woman.

The last two songs are about the wedding of a son and the haldi ceremony before the event. The son bathes in water that has neem leaves for cleansing, and as the paste of turmeric that was applied to him washes off, the yellow haldi water flows out in a stream outside the wedding pavilion. The mother says to her son that her fingers and fists are yellow with turmeric and blesses him with a long life.

After the singing, Tarabai wants to leave, she must go weeding on a farm. We talk some more. Though Tarabai is not one of the singers from the Grindmill Songs Project, her presence that day helped Sarubai overcome her reluctance to sing. The lives of both these women are personified in the songs they sing. The affection for children, the infidelity of husbands, the blessings given to sons even though the women do not get the support they need in their old age. Tarabai is separated from her husband who has a second wife. Sarubai’s husband died about two years ago. She had four sons, two still living.

We are interrupted by Sarubai’s son Dilip, who has come home after hearing of visitors. He tells us that the land they got from the government was less than what they owned in Wadavali. It was fallow, and the family spent a lot of effort and money to cultivate it. Dilip also works as a mason and runs a grocery shop along with his wife. “We have to do many things to make ends meet,” he says.

After Dilip leaves, Sarubhai finally tells us: just a few weeks ago, there was a conflict at home and now she is not allowed to live in her son’s house. She lives in the hut where we first saw her at the entrance to the village. She will sing many more songs in that hut, her home. Those couplets will be published in part two of this edition of the Grindmill Songs Project.

You’ve gone to another village, my son, don’t go away from me 
Don’t reveal to others, what is lacking in your life

Darling daughter, don’t make us shower too much of affection on you 
You will go to your in-laws’ family, don’t make me too attached to you

My darling daughter tells her father to fulfil her wish 
I tell you, O woman, she asks for a hair clip

My darling daughter, my mynah, to pamper you is in my hands 
Now, dear daughter, you may add pearls to your ear-tops

My darling daughter, my mynah, holds her father’s finger 
I tell you, O woman, she asks for silver to make a bracelet

We are foolish women, we are women who fight for water 
For another woman, he [husband] is like a mad rooster at her door

Though his own wife is [tender] like a [steaming] chapati on the iron girdle 
For another woman, the fool [husband] puts a blouse in his pocket

Though his own wife is [perfect] like a round water vessel 
For another woman, he [husband] makes a pitiable face

At the entrance of the marriage pandal, a stream of haldi water flowed 
My son, the bridegroom, had a bath with water with neem leaves

At the entrance of the marriage pandal, my fists are yellow with haldi 
I tell you my son, [the bridegroom], may you have a long life