Barmer (Rajasthan): In their desperate longing for the rains, the Manganiyar singers of the Thar are back to serenading the clouds once again with the melody of Malhar.
Ironically, last year at this time flash floods had wreaked havoc across the Thar Desert; villages were marooned, hundreds of lives lost and the rare instruments of the Sufi singers swept away.
But now the barren fields of Barmer are parched again and the people believe that these songs will please the Rain Gods into showering at least some rain in the last few days of the monsoon.
“We pray to God in our song to shower rains on us so that the farmers are prosperous, we are prosperous and everyone's prosperous. We pray that before the monsoons go it rains a little bit more,” said a Manganiyar singer from Barmer, Mangu Khan Sheikh.
Last year's deluge had only just stopped short of silencing the music of the desert. Until only a few months back people here thought they had seen enough rain to last them a lifetime.
But a poor monsoon has forced them to pray for rain, again.
“If it rains it will help otherwise the condition of our cattle is getting bad to worse. We hope it rains so we have crops for us and fodder for the cattle,” said a farmer in Barmer, Manglaram.
The flash floods in the desert district of Barmer came like the mother of all ironies last year.
Now just a year later the longing for rains for people of Barmer is as strong as the one they have grown up with.
(With inputs from Dinesh Bohra)
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