Pata Naach and Jhumur Songs-Purulia

Jhumur Song is a kind of folk song of the ancient tradition. Earlier, Jhumur was the song of indigenous communities, especially the Santals; it is still very popular among them. Jhumur dance and songs are performed in a group. The Santals perform Jhumur dance and song on the occasion of Karam festival. Because of the charm of this style, Jhumur song has become popular among the common people of this region. Baru Chandidas’s love story of Shri Krishna-kirtan is also influenced by the popular Jhumur and Dhamali songs.

History of Jhumur Song
Vaishnavism was adopted by the Malla Raj and his feudatories of Bankura, Jhargram, Midnapore and Purulia. Since then, Padavali began to spread among the tribal people and they were influenced by their ideas and musical qualities. Then they composed a new class of lyric songs in Bengalinamed Jhumur on the basis of their own music, dance and song. Soon it became a class by itself, which was folk and un-orthodox in character.

Characteristics of Jhumur Song
One of the characteristics of Jhumur song is establishing relationship between two characters and then to set up dialogues between them. Such dialogues are also in Shri Krishna-kirtan among Radha, Krishna and Bodai. Main two features of Jhumur songs are first it goes up to crescendo and then gradually descends down to diminuendo. And then it becomes stable in the lowest foot in its musical harmony. Secondly, in this singing tradition, the balance between crescendo and the base note remains unchanged. The songs were composed by the bi-lingual tribal as well as Bengali speaking local people on the eternal theme of love of Radha and Lord Krishna.

Jhumur Song as the Background of Chhau Dance
Chhau dance in its present form is associated with the introduction of Jhumur songs. Now-a-days no Chhau dance is possible without Jhumur. The people who sing Jhumur during Chhau dance are bi-lingual or they speak Bengali besides their own tribal mother-tongue. Though they cannot speak Bengali properly yet they do not sacrifice this practice of introducing each item of dance by a Jhumur. This is one of the folk elements which is attached to Chhau dance of Purulia. However it is not known whether during the period of patronage of the local feudal chiefs, music in classical style used to be sung at the background of the dance.

Jhumur is also sung in the course of a solo dance performed by a class of professional dancing girls known as nachni or Khemti. Such songs are also based on the divine love of Radha and Krishna and the sublime character of the theme is maintained.