Description
Book SynopsisKirin Narayan's imagination was captured the very first time, as a girl visiting the region, that she heard Kangra women join their voices together in song. Returning as an anthropologist, she became fascinated by how they spoke of singing as a form of enrichment, bringing feelings of accomplishment, companionship, happiness, and even good health all benefits of the everyday creativity she explores in this book. Part ethnography, part musical discovery, part poetry, part memoir, and part unforgettable portraits of creative individuals, this unique work draws on an association across forty years, and brings the Himalayan foothill region of Kangra in North India alive in sight and sound while celebrating the incredible powers of music in our lives. With rare and captivating eloquence, Narayan portrays Kangra songs about difficulties on the lives of goddesses and female saints as a path to well-being. Like the intricate geometries of mandalu patterns drawn in courtyards or the subtle ba