DLRC gives new lease of life to almost lost Garhwali, Kumaoni gramophone records
PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE / Dehradun
The Doon Library and Research Centre (DLRC) has successfully traced 46 almost lost gramophone folk songs and digitalised them. Under a special project, a drive was launched to find and digitalise the songs. Songs of 18 artists, totalling 46 songs, were digitalised, officials said.
The work on the project is being carried out under the guidance and support of B K Joshi, chairman and N Ravi Shanker, director, DLRC.
Officials said that even the iconic song of legendary Garhwali folk singer Jeet Singh Negi ‘Tu Holi Beera’, which was released in 1949, and the famous song of Mohan Upreti ‘Bedu Pako’ from the 1970s are now in the Doon Library’s collection. The collected songs span the 1939 to 1979 period and capture the 40-year history of gramophone records in Uttarakhand, they added.
Officials said once tape recorders invaded the Indian market, the bad days of the gramophone began, and after the CD revolution, it completely disappeared from public view. It was a challenging project to find the gramophone records and convince collectors to lend them for digitalising.
The maximum number of songs found are of Jeet Singh Negi and Gopi Devi – six songs each.
Speaking about this, Chander Shekhar Tewari of DLRC said, “After digitalising the songs, we are now preparing a research report on the gramophone record history of Garhwal, Kumaon and Jaunsar. The main aim was to preserve the gramophone songs for their cultural heritage value. Last time we digitalised five rare gramophone records in the library and the wide media coverage helped us reach many other gramophone collectors who extended help in this project.”
Raju Gusain, who is associated with the project, said, “I started the search for Jeet Singh Negi’s record about 10 years ago and for this I established contact with many leading gramophone collectors in India, but failed. This time we managed to get it from Faridabad. Two different versions of the famous Kumaoni song ‘Bedu Pako’ were digitalised; each presents a different flavour.”
It is important to mention that after getting five gramophone records from Jugal Kishore Petshali for the Doon Library museum, the project received a major boost when they managed to secure five other records.
A total of 21 gramophone records, produced by leading gramophone companies, were traced and digitalised. Out of the 21 records found, seven were produced before India’s Independence and 14 after 1947.
