Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 25: The biggest ever ‘Karkan Festival’ featuring six prominent groups of traditional narrative singing held today at village Marh in city outskirts.
Organized by Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Ministry of External Affairs, this was the first ever festival of traditional singing where six different groups performed in a chorus style by singing together with the accompaniment of six Sarangis, six Dhols and twelve leading singers.
This assimilation was amazing as people witnessed this large group singing together for the first time and their forceful singing backed with heavy rhythms was echoing the entire border villages of Jammu.
Earlier describing the magnificent tradition ‘Karkan’, the Regional Director of ICCR Jammu, Balwant Thakur, informed that this narrative singing tradition is over one thousand years old and there has been an era when the practioners of this great narrative tradition used to be custodians of the entire political history, cultural repository and wisdom of the times.
Today’s function was held at the historic ‘Raja Mandleek Sathaan’ of village Marh and opened with the living legend of Karkan Shiv Das’s lead narratives. This was followed by Girdhari Lal’s forceful singing of the narrative of ‘Bawa Jitto’- a tale of the supreme sacrifice of a poor farmer who fought for injustice.
The other narratives which featured in this programme which lasted for over three hours included ‘Maa Vaishno Devi’, ‘Data Ranpat, Raja Mandlik, and Kali Beer’. The folk groups which participated in this festival of Karkan singing included Shiv Dass and Party, Girdhari Lal and Party, Natha Ram and Party, Kaku Ram and Party, Harbans Lal and Party and Puran Chand and Party.
The festival was designed by Vaneeka Gupta, coordinated by Pooja Gupta and technically supported by Rajan Thakyal and Ankush Lakhnotra.
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