LoreKeepers, a digital archive, preserves folklore traditions in Kerala

Lorekeepers is an initiative of ARPO, which aims to create a digital archive for folklore traditions in Kerala

“You don’t visit in the evening, you dont talk to me or carry the kidsIf you don’t need me, take back to my home.But mind you, If I go home, You won’t get a drop of water....”

As 89-year-old Madhavi sings this ancient ditty, her grandson records it on his mobile phone. She smiles as she sings of a young woman complaining to her husband who has not returned home. The woman climbs up a hill and sings loudly, so that her husband may hear her and return home. 

Madhavi is from Kavumthara in Kozhikode district and her local dialect-laced song is from her generation. The primarily forgotten traditional folk song will now be preserved in a digital archive. 

LoreKeepers, a new initiative of the Archival and Research Project (ARPO), has embarked on a mission to collect and preserve folk songs and stories from across Kerala. The idea is to create an online folklore archive. 

ARPO, a Kerala-based not-for-profit organisation founded in 2021, works towards discovering, preserving, promoting and sharing lesser-known aspects of the State’s cultural heritage, through digital archiving, multimedia storytelling, research, community engagement and interventions.

“For LoreKeepers, we are looking at a combination of offline and online campaigns to rope in school and college students to shoot footage of songs and stories from the elders in their families, on their mobile phones. It will be an online repository of oral traditions that would otherwise be lost to the coming generations,” says Sruthin Lal, co-founder of ARPO.

So far, the LoreKeepers has already documented over 200 folk songs/stories from the Malabar region including  Kasaragod, Kannur, Kozhikode, Malappuram and Palakkad. “The idea is to develop a model involving the local communities so that we are aware of the importance of our oral traditions,” adds Sruthin.