{"id":4151,"date":"2019-06-14T15:34:52","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T10:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=4151"},"modified":"2019-06-14T15:34:55","modified_gmt":"2019-06-14T10:04:55","slug":"songsters-of-our-childhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/songsters-of-our-childhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Songsters of our Childhood"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>\n

Nostalgia  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Hawkers And Their Songs <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZGM <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Songs and songsters were part of our childhood. \u00a0It was not only troubadours playing dexterously on a score of small rings on an iron rod and producing musical notes that greeted us with satirical quatrains on sullen mornings and brought laughter in our life. It was not only Abdul Ahad alias Shoda <\/em>the great songster, with profusely oiled tufts of curly hair, walking like a woodpecker on a tree trunk with measured steps in lanes and by lanes and stopping at regular intervals, for singing a stanza or two in his melodious voice through a tin megaphone. That made us follow him like children in\u00a0 Robert Browning\u2019s the Pied Piper of Hamelin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lots of hawkers vending goodies for children also\nsang melodious songs for attracting children.\nThe candy floss seller with glass tin\nfilled with purple fluffy spun sugar balls by continuously striking the clipper\ninside his brass hand-bell and producing magical lilting tunes lured all\nchildren like butterflies to flowers.  He\nalso had songs like Wah! Wah!  phumbi\nmithai ha<\/em>.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those days, when there were no stores stuffed\nwith top line imported chocolates, delicious ice cream parlours, and grand pizza huts, it was\nthe small-time hawkers with willow vats on their\ncontaining assortment of eatables for children and songs on their lips that\nattracted our attention. Some sold boiled red beans spruced with yellow, cooked\nwheat seeds and some roasted maize, peas and soya beans.  During hot summers some hawkers from outlying\nvillages arrived into the city with willow vats of fresh snow from mountain\ntops covered with thick layers of pine\nleaves. Every one of them had his song to\nsing, and children often followed them\nand sang in chorus with them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was years later that I learned their songs were not just in praise of\nthe goodies they carried for children but also exuded with resistance against the\nhegemonic ruling class. Some of the lines from these songs still live in my\nmemory.   One roasted Mishri-Makay\n(<\/em>sweet corn) <\/em>seller had a honeyed voice and lots of songs to sing. Decades\nafter Some lines   still resounds in my\nmind:  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mishri<\/em>-Makay Ha Mishri\nMakya Ha, Bebbuj\nShaharich Makay Ha, Moulan Droth Tah\nPaat\u2019 run Sag Ha,  Bebbuj\nShaharich Makay Ha, Mishri-Makay Ha Mishri Makya\nHa\u2026 <\/em>   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

( Enjoy sweet corn, Enjoy sweet corn, Here is\nsweet corn from a lawless city, In this town\n roots are chopped  leaves watered,  Here is sweet corn from lawless City). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would have\nno idea if the sweet corn seller were\nreferring to the misgovernment of Bakshi or harsh rule of Abdullah, but there was\nresistance in the songs of these hawkers.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The snow-seller with his willow basket filled\nwith crystals of fresh snow from high peaks in the\nZabarwan range   and covered with heaps of pine and Chinar\nleaves also had his songs like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ka\u2019mi Bala Woul\u2019makh Ya\u2019khoo, G0uri Gouri Karyu Ya\u2019khoo, Sona\nDour Jaray Yakhoo, Daadi\u2019mat Dil Shihlow Too Yakhoo, Ka\u2019mi Bala Woul\u2019makh\nYa\u2019khoo,    (Oh,  Snow\nI got you from high peaks, let me cradle you like child\u2019, let me adorn you like\na bride with gold trinkets, oh, do solace the burning hearts)<\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May and June, the mulberry sellers from the\noutskirts of the city and nearby villages arrived in the City with a variety of Tuell <\/em>mulberry fruit in their willow baskets- usually, there were three varieties, white, black, purple also\ncalled Shah-Tuell<\/em>. Of the three, we generally\nenjoyed the Shah-Tuell. <\/em>The handful\nof  mulberry fruit  <\/em>was wrapped in   Chinar\nleaves. And a leaf-full of  Shah-Tuell<\/em> cost us one Anna. The\nmulberry fruit seller also had his songs like that of roasted sweet corn\nseller. From our home to school, or to Makdoom grounds playfield there were\nmany mulberry trees, but we dared not to go up the tree for plucking the black\nfruit. There were lots of mythical stories attached to the mulberry trees. That\nenraged jinni living in the huge mulberry trees had pushed down a woodcutter, a\nwasherman\u2019s son, a gardener’s son from the tree, all of them died. There were\nalso stories that fairies inside the trees seduced many handsome boys. Most of\nus believed these stories as gospel truth, and none of us could understand that\nthey had been invented to protect the precious mulberry trees- main feed for\nsilkworms. Silk Industry was our primary industry till 1947. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nostalgia  <\/p>\n

 Hawkers And Their Songs <\/p>\n

ZGM <\/p>\n

Songs and songsters were part of our childhood. \u00a0It was not only troubadours playing dexterously on a score of small rings on an iron rod and producing musical notes that greeted us with satirical quatrains on sullen mornings and brought laughter in our life. It was not only Abdul Ahad alias Shoda the great songster, with profusely oiled tufts of curly hair, walking like a woodpecker on a tree trunk with measured steps in lanes and by lanes and stopping at regular intervals, for singing a stanza or two in his melodious voice through a tin megaphone. That made us follow him like children in\u00a0 Robert Browning\u2019s the Pied Piper of Hamelin. <\/p>\n

Lots of hawkers vending goodies for children also
\nsang melodious songs for attracting children.
\nThe candy floss seller with glass tin
\nfilled with purple fluffy spun sugar balls by continuously striking the clipper
\ninside his brass …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,5,319],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-take","category-kashmir-talk","category-memeiors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4151"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4153,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4151\/revisions\/4153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}