Tamil Songs of Mourning: Understanding the Reflection of Times in Oppari Songs.

Oppari-the folksong of Tamil Nadu and North-Eastern parts of Sri Lanka, is known as the Tamil song of mourning. The practice of women singing oppari is prevalent in the suburban and rural spaces of Tamil Nadu. They form a circle, weep, beat their chest, wail and jump on the beats of Parai (single-sided drum) music on the death of a member of a family as reported by Srinivas (Oppari: An art of Weeping, Wailing and Lamenting, 2019). The women in the region express their grief over the death of their beloved with the lyrics of oppari songs. Of late, professional oppari singers, including both female and male, have been invited to rural and urban Tamil Nadu on the death of a member in the well-off families to mourn for the deceased person. This distinctively South Indian genre of weeping songs has evolved with time. The lyrics of the oppari songs have been blended with the essence of the periodical changes. The content, context, and presentation of the oppari songs have been playing important roles to reflect the makeovers of times. This study attempts to understand the reflection of times in the lyrics of oppari songs by assiduously employing semiotic analysis. The analysis of the words of the content, context indicated and presentation of subject, period, and expression in lyrics of the oppari songs has been made in the paper. The analysis of three oppari songs gives some significant ideas about the different times of history.

Tribal Folklore to Aesthetic and Religious Painting: Transition of Oral Narratives to Visual Art.

Gond painting, an integral part of the Gond cultural identity of central India, has emerged as highly appreciated and recognised tribal art form worldwide in the recent times. These traditional paintings are believed to have started with the transformation of Gond oral folklores. The Pradhan Gond, a subgroup of the Gonds, who were traditionally assigned to sing songs of the glorification of the gods, goddesses and nature with a Bana, a traditional single-stringed musical instrument, was assumed to initiate the paintings of Gond folktales. They narrated the collective beliefs, values and legends of the Gond tribe on the origin, relationship and divine powers in the form of paintings. The traditions of performing the assigned responsibilities of Pradhan Gond were believed to have lost during the Mughal era and British rule. This research paper focuses on the study of the reflections of three popular Gond folk stories, i.e. Basin Kanya, Mahua tree and Bada Dev, in the contemporary Gond paintings of Madhya Pradesh. The paintings of Jangarh Singh Shyam and Durga Bai have been chosen for the study.