A syncretic song rises

Divyashri Mudakavi explores the history and contemporary relevance of rivayats and how they transcend religious boundaries

Every year, 42-year-old Maulasaab and his family from Bagalkot’s Masabinal village celebrate Deepavali with the Hindu families in his neighbourhood.

The Hindu families reciprocate by taking part in Muharram celebrations. “This is the beauty of being together. We light lamps on Deepavali, and the Hindus sing rivayats all night with us during Muharram,” says Maulasaab.

Not just Masabinal, several villages in north Karnataka come together on various occasions, and in this melting pot, a syncretic folk culture is born. The rivayats are a fitting example.

Rivayats, also known as ‘Muharram Pada’ or ‘Ale Pada’, are devotional ballads sung in Kannada, describing the Battle of Karbala held in 680 AD and based on well-known figures like Imam Hassan, Imam Hussain, Imam Qasim, Fatima Kubra (Sakina).

In north Karnataka, rivayat singers also invoke Shiva, Parvati, other Hindu deities, and characters from the Ramayana and Mahabharata. They even sing about the Shiva Sharanas, Kanakadasa, and Jesus Christ. The songs deal with contemporary and social issues too. However, common themes of these songs continue to relate to death, martyrdom, commemoration, and legends.

“It is an oral tradition. We usually sing rivayats during the first 10 days of Muharram, before the alams (a flag carried in the Muharram procession marking martyrdom in the Karbala battle). We also sing during some fairs and Urs celebrations,” says Imam Valleppanavar from Navalgund, who has been singing rivayats for the last five decades.

Generally, there is a main singer who leads a group of five to six singers. “The singers are accompanied by percussion instruments like the tuntuni, tappadi, gejje and others. In recent years, the rivayat singers have been complemented by some hejje kunita dancers,” he explains.

Past and present

According to folk research scholar Arun Joladakudligi, rivayats are a great source of local history. The contemporary stories that rivayats narrate are also interesting. “For example, there is a rivayat on how farmers in parts of Kalyana Karnataka were left in the lurch after farmers from other states, who had leased land, suddenly vanished. There is another rivayat on how tragedy struck when a man who was about to start a new job was bitten by a snake,” he explains.

In recent years, rivayat singers have also taken to cinematic tunes to draw people and create awareness on social evils. Joladakudligi has documented a rivayat sung at Chikkumbi near Belagavi’s Savadatti which questions whether the chief minister will keep his promises. 

Sometimes, rivayats are sung in a question-and-answer format: One person among the group poses a question, and the others answer the question, narrating a tale in sync. Though they are primarily part of a religious tradition and symbolise cultural harmony, rivayats are also increasingly being seen as a form of artistic expression. As a result, rivayat competitions are often held. Events were held in Kolhar village in Vijayapura, Kerur and other places in the district, as well as in Bagalkot district.

Roots in the region

Chand Basha M, a Ballari-based researcher, has been tracing the roots of rivayats in the state, particularly in Kannada literature. Basha explains that though there is little scholarship to establish the entry of Karbala memory into rivayat form in Kannada, the Sufi poet Shariff of Shishunala is said to have composed the first Kannada rivayat.

Basha has conducted a research project titled ‘Karbala memory in Kannada orature: Mapping the cultural and literary trajectory of a living tradition in Ballari region’.

The Kannada word ‘rivayat’, and the phonics match the poetic style of the Persian form of  ‘Rubaiyat’, which commemorates a historic event or the demise of a well-known person.

This genre was popularised by Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat. The marsiya tradition, an elegiac poetic form in Urdu, also shares thematic association with rivayats. Rivyatas do in Kannada what marsiyas do in Urdu, Chand Basha adds.

Cultural critic Rahamat Tarikere’s ‘Karnatakada Muharram’ includes accounts of poets who rendered marsiyas in the 16th century and later during the period of the Adilshahis of Bijapur. However, he adds that contrary to the marsiya tradition, Kannada rivayats form a masculine tradition, with singers and composers mostly being men. A few women have also taken to singing rivayats but such examples are rare. 

Chand Basha adds that the involvement of the masses and interaction with different storytelling and song traditions allowed rivayat singers to incorporate different elements over the years. The absence of orthodox and traditional boundaries for cultural signifiers in their compositions cannot be ignored, the researcher emphasises.

As per Tarikere, Muharram is a day of mourning and sadness, but it has transformed into a day of celebration. The day has become about overcoming sadness and symbolising harmony. It is for this reason that rivayats are sung in a joyful manner. 

79-year-old Dose Iranna of Agasanur in Ballari district, a member of the Kuruba community, has been rendering rivayats since he was 10. He says that Muharram is a ‘village festival’ for them, and his forefathers too sang rivayats irrespective of their religion or caste. His son has also continued the tradition. Dose Iranna and others from his village performed at the Bangalore International Centre recently, introducing urbanites to the rich world of rivayats. 

More needs to be done to promote rivayats, as they are largely not documented, says Dastagir Allibhai of Hubballi, who has published a book on the subject titled ‘Muharrum Padagalu’. The writer adds that though innovation is welcome, the essence of rivayats must be retained.