A poet and a tambura

Noted folk singer Prahlad Tipaniya, who performs at festivals across the country, explains why he spreads the message of the 15th century mystic poet Kabir Das

At 68, the silver-haired folk singer Prahlad Tipaniya has a dedicated following among today’s urban youth. Performing at festivals across the country, he sings bhajans in Malwi folk style and plays tambura alongside, triggering a rising interest in Kabir Das, the 15th century mystic poet

His experience as a teacher in a government school in a Madhya Pradesh village finds a way to the stage. In between songs, the Padma Shri awardee’s performances are laced with subtle messages via Kabir’s sharp verses. He explains the gist of the layered couplets, after playfully telling his know-it-all urban audience, “Aap toh jante hi hain (you people already know)….”

Edited excerpts from a freewheeling conversation before a performance in Delhi:

Q / Why do you think it took time for Kabir to find space in an urban milieu?

A / I feel he was kept out because Kabir openly talked against hypocrisy and ostentation. His message could not reach as many people as it should have. There are compilations of his compositions but not many litterateurs wrote about Kabir before the 20th century. It was Hazari Prasad Dwivedi who wrote about him and his work, centuries after he lived.

Q / Then how did his songs survive?

A / Like many medieval saints from the nirgun parampara (the tradition that follows the formless god), Kabir was not formally educated. He came from the lower strata of society that had no right to education and limited access to worship. But he continued to find an audience because he talked of cherishing shared spaces in a divisive world in the language of the common man. I have not visited any college or university library for the songs of Kabir. What I have gathered is through the oral tradition by listening to local Kabir groups in villages who themselves have had no formal education. This is how his thought survived.