Date:27/10/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/10/27/stories/2006102708440200.htm

New Delhi

Beats of India come calling

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

New Delhi: Beats of India will launch its latest album from the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh with a concert in Delhi in which two dynamic artistes, Kaluram Bamnia and Dayaram Saroliya, will sing the Nirgun songs of Kabir and the foot-tapping folk songs of Malwa.

The folk and Nirgun music from Malwa will be launched on November 2 in the Stein Auditorium of India Habitat Centre.

Beats of India has taken on the task of travelling to different corners of the country since 2000 in search of some of the most fantastic traditional music and musicians and bring them to a wider global audience.

It has released several audio albums and organised live concerts making music of traditional artists available at a one-stop resource point.

Meanwhile, one of the most interesting aspects of Nirgun singing in the region is that although Kabir never lived anywhere close to this region it seems as if this was and still is his home.

Scores of groups, better known as "mandalis", sing his words in a very melodious and dynamic style, as sudden and loud as the boom of a cannon and as slow and soft as the gentle wind.

Kaluram Bamnia is one of the finest singers of this tradition, while Dayaram Saroliya sings a wide variety of songs from Nirgun to the unique folk songs that have a combined flavour of the pungent, sweet and salty with a "tadka" of tangy chilli.