-Yam Bahadur Dura
Over four decades
ago, a girl was born and raised in a rural area of Duradana, Lamjung. Her
birthplace Duradanda, Lamjung, is a fertile land of folk-music. She grew up with
folk songs in social gatherings such as marriage, festivals, jastras. Cultural
rituals of the place were often marked with the melodious folk songs. Parma,
a tradition of labor exchange among the villagers, was one of main sites where
folk songs filled the air. That girl was
part of this environment, and entered the mainstream culture without knowing
much what she was doing. Her childhood was heavily pollinated with different
genres of folk songs. Eventually, she happened to find herself as someone to
reckon in the field of folk songs.
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| Graphics: The Rising Nepal |
This anecdote is of
Bima Kurmari Dura, a note folk singer. She never had a chance to go to school.
Neither did take any music or vocal classes.
However, she had a golden opportunity of entering into an informal
university of folk-music, socio-cultural environment of her time. She witnessed
a lot musical performances in the vast socio-cultural landscape of her
locality. She also saw live and lively musical performances by her senior
brothers and sisters in different gatherings in and around her birthplace. In a
way, there was nothing surrounding her but folk songs.
Bima, naturally, got
her attracted to folk songs, and started going with melodies. In the beginning,
it was just village a ritual. The socio-cultural milieu of her locality made
her sing folk songs along with her contemporaries, which unknowingly paved the
way for her future career.
Slowly, she seemed to
more than her colleagues were doing. She was spotted as a-would be singer, and
she started joining different local musical events. Her aim grew bigger and
started moving ahead towards a new direction.
She came out the winner the nation-wide folk song competition organized
by Radio Nepal in 2047 VS, and she came first. This musical event shaped her
identity as a folk singer among the wider circle of folk song lovers, and it
boosted her morale as well.
Now in her 40s, Bima
Kurmari Dura has shown her genius and gained a certain height in her career.
The wall of her meeting room at her home looks like a confluence of
appreciation letters from different organizations. Wordings of these letters
are attractive and meaningful, which depict that what kind of space she has
occupied in the hearts of thousands of folk-music lovers.
The days, she gets
invitations from different groups in and outside of the country. Her presence
makes every function special. Tens of thousands of people flock to see her from
the close distance and to witness her musical performances. She has made hundreds
of performances attracting thousand of audiences and plunging them into a
sentimental world. She has given stage performances in Hong Kong, Korea, India,
the UK, many other countries.
She reputation grew
for two major reasons – velvet voice, and sentimental songs. Her music video
Chino remained overwhelmingly among folk song lovers. 'Lamjung Turlungkot…' is
one of the most popular songs in the menu of that music video. This song tells
a story of a village girl who becomes nostalgic about her birthplace once she
leaves her family home and birthplace and steps out far away to get married
with a life-partner as a social custom. Her voice and context of the song bring
rain of tears to the eyes of audiences, especially females.
Bima Kumari Dura
claims that she has given her voice to some six thousand songs, and produced
more than 24 albums. One of her the well-received audio albums is Chhutyo
Mayajal, that literally means break-up. This album tells the story of her own
life. She had love marriage that did not last long after having a daughter, who
is in the USA to pursue higher education.
A celebrity now, Bima
has caveat for journalists: do not misinform, misquote, and misquoted and
misinterpret her, because, she says, that bothers her a lot.
[Courtesy: The Rising Nepal, Friday Supplement, October 26, 2018]
