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'The songs of my ancestors'

Shilpa Mudbi Kothakota is performing songs taught to her by her grandmother, Gundamma, who she lost to Covid last year

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Sometimes good fortune and tragedy befall you on the same day, as was the case for Shilpa Mudbi Kothakota who lost her grandmother and found out she was pregnant on the same day.

About a year since her grandmother passed and having delivered the baby, she is choosing to honour her grandmother by singing songs that she always remembered her grandmother singing throughout her life. This set comprises songs in Bidari (a dialect of Kannada with influences of Dakhani and Marathi) from north Karnataka, which are sung at important junctures in life, especially in the lives of women.  

“Coming from an agrarian space, you sing songs for everything whether it is working in the fields or putting a baby to sleep. My grandmother sang because she had nothing else to do, having moved to the city for a life of leisure whereas her sisters back home worked till the day they died. I felt by singing her songs, I’d be sharing her life and the landscape she came from,” says Shilpa Mudbi, who has performed 70-80 shows of Yellamanata across the country as part of the Urban Folk Project.

“It is my attempt at closure through these songs about birth and death, work and stress, the mundane and miracles, celebrations and togetherness, ”Shilpa said, adding that she will be making booklets of these songs so that they can live on, having been preserved only in oral traditions until now.

She will be performing three shows of ‘Songs of my Ancestors’ starting at Swastika School of Dance and Music in Jakkur on Jan 7th, Bangalore Creative Circus (BCC) on Jan 14 and Courtyard Koota, Kengeri on Jan 29. “At BCC, we will be performing on Makar Sankranti which marks the end of winter and the atmosphere will be very festive,” Shilpa concluded.