<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914114/636ba5b39c7e80680e0736dcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="714"/><figcaption>Anna Marie Stirr has completely immersed herself into the world of Nepali dohori folk duets, not just doing a PhD on the subject and publishing a book, but also performing the song routines.</figcaption></figure>Anna Marie Stirr was intrigued and thoroughly captivated the first time that she listened to a dohori traditional duet in Nepal twenty years ago. Was it a song or a long playful banter between musicians?She was a student of ethnomusicology at New York’s Columbia University at the time, and the dohori genre stood out not only for its unique vocal tone and style, but because it blurred the lines between music and drama, delivering a performance that was unlike anything she had ever witnessed before.Stirr began to delve into the world of Nepali folk music, learnt the language and spent two decades traveling within Nepal, studying and analysing minutely the spontaneous lyrics, the rules governing the musical back-and-forth, and what made dohori such an essence of Nepali culture.On one of her many trips in 2005, cheered on by members of a local mothers’ group in Lamjung Stirr was urged to join in the singing. She came up with her own dohori compilation: “Aye ma ta yo gaun ma khuruka, sab bhujna sukha ra dukha, mirmireko gham…” (I have come to this village to understand both happiness and pain, the twinkling sun…)The mothers were delighted by her fluent and mellifluous Nepali, and the way she had grasped the soul of the songs. Ever since, Stirr has been obsessed with dohori. She is now Associate Professor at the University of Hawaii and her 2017 book based on her PhD research, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/singing-across-divides-9780190631987?lang=en&amp;cc=us">Singing across Divides: Music and Intimate Politics in Nepal</a>, was awarded the <a href="https://www.asianstudies.org/grants-awards/book-prizes/cohn-prize/">Bernard S Cohn Book Prize</a> last year.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UauGVtwbC9s&amp;feature=emb_logo“Dohori is a truly challenging and complex musical practice,” explains Stirr, who has studied the variations of dohori by singers like Sharmila Gurung and Devi Gharti Magar, whose voices feature impeccable skill and precision when carrying out the complicated kharki voice modulation in their songs. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/songs-of-rebellion,3249">Komal Oli’s</a> steady and controlled voice has now become characteristic of her personal style and flair.“Dohori singers must be poets at heart,” says Stirr, who defines the singing in her book as ‘dialogic, conversational sung poetry’ that uses improvisation, wit, playfulness, and ingenuity all at the same time. Dohori is not just entertainment, it tackles societal issues like gender, class and caste discrimination, and the songs challenge rulers.During the Panchayat, dohori was a medium for democratic activism, and today with the failure of governance that is driving hundreds of thousands of young Nepali women and women abroad in search of work, it is an outlet for the popular dissatisfaction as well as expressions of longing and separation.During the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/parodying-patriarchy-at-tij/">Tij festival</a> dohori has now moved beyond playful teasing between men and women headlong into <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-folk-songs-move-beyond-love-and-loss/">tackling Nepal’s patriarchal mores.</a> During the conflict as people migrated to the cities for safety, the Rodhi Ghar became a place of refuge and urban-rural interaction where the songs served to cement Nepal’s ethnicities.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-folk-songs-move-beyond-love-and-loss/">Nepali folk songs move beyond love and loss</a>, Reeti K.C.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vYfyFbeC8Q&amp;feature=emb_logoStirr also researched Nepal’s progressive and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/still-singing-and-dancing/">revolutionary folk music</a>, producing a documentary in collaboration with Bhakla Syangtan of Radio Namobudhha that profiles folk musician-turned-MP Khusi Ram Pakhrin.“Hajarau ko balidan le kalo yuga dhaleko cha,” (The dark age has ended through the sacrifice of thousands of people) goes one of Pakhrin’s song. And there is hope for a better future in this one:  “Srijana ra sambriddhi ko bato khulna thaleko cha” (The path of creativity and prosperity is beginning to open up).Stirr writes in her book: ‘Mediating technologies, narratives of national feeling, and new feelings engendered in changing surroundings continue to shape modern ideas of “village voices” (folk music), at the intersection of development, nostalgia, exploration and evolving ideas of belonging.’Stirr has spent nearly ten years studying and enjoying Nepali folk music in Nepal, she taught at the music department of Kathmandu University in 2004, fostering connections with folk musicians like Tulsi Parajuli and Satyakala Rai, and frequenting live performances of dohori songs in the Nirmaya Rodhi Club alongside folk singer Sheila Ale.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914114/636ba5b59c7e80680e0736ddjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="980"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914114/636ba5b89c7e80680e0736dejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="980">Preforming in traditional attire with near-perfect Nepali inflection, Anna Stirr is as much Nepali as she is American. She considers Nepal as her second home, and even though she is 13,000km away in Hawaii she keeps her connections alive through dohori and preparing Nepali food of which her favourites are local kukhura ko masu and alu ko achar.Stirr says she would still like to visit many more places in Nepal, exploring and studying different regions and their <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18795#.XzNmBYoza71">folk music</a>, and she would have been in Nepal now if it had not been for the COVID-19 crisis.She told <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15058#.XzNU64oza70">Nepali Times in an interview</a> in 2008: "I can make people laugh when I sing a dohori, but I haven't yet been able to make them cry."Read also:<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18795#.XzK0DSgzbb0">Songs of our past</a>, Amar Gurung<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/norway-nepal-lockdown-concert-on-the-internet/">Norway-Nepal lockdown concert on the internet</a>, Nepali Times <img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914114/636ba5bb9c7e80680e0736dfjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427">Singing Across Divides: Music and Intimate Politics in NepalBy Anna Marie Stirr <a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/singing-across-divides-9780190631970?cc=us&amp;lang=en&amp;">Oxford University Press, 2017</a>312 Pages $105 ISBN: 9780190631970<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/singing-across-divides-9780190631987?lang=en&amp;cc=us">Paperback</a> <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190631970.001.0001/oso-9780190631970">Oxford Scholarship Online</a>Ebook<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914114/636ba5bf9c7e80680e0736e0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="166" height="250">

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An American-Nepali duet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F323tUAS99w&amp;feature=youtu.beInside buses on their daily commute Nepalis are used to listening to familiar-sounding songs that feature alternating female and male voices, responding to one another, often cheekily.Called lok dohori (people’s duet) this genre originated with the Gurung community and its tradition of the rodi ghar dance halls. After a hard day of harvests on the terrace farms, young men and women challenged each other with duets in which the musical repartee had to come within 30 seconds.“The rodi tradition had gone by the time we grew up in Gorkha, but our elders still sang the duets and we learnt it from them. We sang about love, happiness and sadness,” recalls noted folk singer Harimaya Gurung. “But the songs have changed a lot. These days it is not as emotional as before.”Cultural historians agree that the commercialisation of the entertainment industry and the advent of YouTube and Facebook have cost Nepali folk songs their cultural value. Still, every Tij festival folk singers come up with new numbers in which the lyrics delve into contemporary issues like migration, patriarchy or even corruption in government.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/on-a-high-note/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tibetan music in Nepal’s sacred valley</a>, Sewa Bhattarai“We must change as the trend develops,” notes folk singer Chandra Sharma of the National Folk and Duet Song Academy. “They may be commercial hits, but they have mostly added to the continued appeal of the lok dohori genre.”However, there are complaints about folk songs being too explicit or provocative, even obscene. Sharma admits there are some extreme examples, but his Academy has set standards and criteria for song lyrics.The folk songs are changing in other ways, too. The popular and controversial song by Pashupati Sharma, Lutna sake lut (Loot all you can) was a satirical critique of rampant corruption, and became an anthem for frustrated Nepalis, especially when it was censored after the singer received threats from ruling party youth.“These voices have brought positive changes. There are many songs about corruption, freedom for women, against caste discrimination and songs about the state of the country. That means folk duets are relevant and playing a constructive role in society,” hit folk singer Badri Pangeni told Nepali Times.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/eastern-melodies-in-kathmandu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Eastern melodies in Kathmandu</a>, Sewa Bhattarai<h2>Message or entertainment?</h2><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110814114/636a54259c7e80680e052390jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="667"/>New generation lok dohori singers who want to send a message sometimes find themselves up against traditional expectations. “I have sung songs with social content, but when I sing on stage I focus on romantic songs, because that is what people want to hear,” says Kala Lamsal, a contemporary folk duet singer who recently released her Tij song, Patali.Singer Mina Lama tries to find a balance. “It depends on the place and time,” she says. “I prefer to sing songs that give a message as well as entertaining songs to sing with friends and family.”Generally, fans who attend a stage performance want fast-moving entertainment, says Lama. “People today want to dance and have fun. While there are people who listen to the lyrics, the crowd during festivals and mela (fairs) include more young people, who enjoy dancing.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/fire-in-the-belly-2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Still dancing and singing for Nepal revolution,</a> Sewa Bhattarai<h2>Changing Tij tunes</h2><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110814114/636a54289c7e80680e052391jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="667"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Tij is traditionally celebrated by women all over Nepal either for the long lives of their husbands, or so they can find good husbands. Dressed in red saris, red and green bangles, and other colourful ornaments, they sing and dance on the streets while thronging Pashupati and other temples to pray to Shiva and Parbati, the celestial couple.Although some activists boycotted Tij because of its patriarchal overtones, today the festival's songs carry a message of gender empowerment and poke fun at the patriarchy, while at the same time promoting solidarity. However, as women get more educated, even that is changing. Many women just want to have fun with their female relatives and friends and do not want to sing only depressing songs about victimhood.“People asked me why women were only singing about suffering because not all women suffer. This made me change my mind,” says folk duet singer Chandra Sharma. “It seemed that women just want to let their hair down and make Tij their festival of sisterhood.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/parodying-patriarchy-at-tij/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Parodying patriarchy at Tij,</a> Sewa Bhattarai<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110814114/636a542a9c7e80680e052392jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1173"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>It’s not only the content that is changing, male singers are also performing Tij songs, which would have been rare 20 years ago. For example, the 2018 Tij song, Motiram ra Jamuna by Badri Pangeni delivered the positive message about husband Motiram supporting his wife Jamuna when she gets elected in local elections. Because of her busy schedule, the husband begins doing all the household work:“Barsaudekhi nariharu le gare chulochaukaMahila le ni paunu parcha desh banaune mauka”“For years women worked in the kitchen station,Now, she need the chance to build the nation.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdGQaphxrxMSays folk singer Harimaya Gurung: “Tij is a festival of women but men also sing Tij songs. I think this is a good trend because it means they are supporting us women.”Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16252#.XV5_LuMzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Re-inventing Tij</a>, Mallika Aryal

Nepali folk songs move beyond love and loss

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