Book Publication (Ethnomusicology of Son Koli Tribe)

01 Jul Book Publication (Ethnomusicology of Son Koli Tribe)

आई माझी कोनाला पावली?’ (Oh mother!! whom so ever have you blessed?) is a series book publication, a part of ‘Estuaries of Waning Sounds’/ ‘आमचं त सगलंच गेलं’ our recent Cycle-2 Pop-up museum at Vitawa Koliwada and Chendani Koliwada, Thane, which was concluded 15th-21st February 2020. We are publishing hand written ballads, hymns and poems of each folk bards of our Fishing community, books consist of fifteen songs and poems from handwritten documents of the individual folk bards of our community.

The past year we published the first book of Late Shahir Ramesh Nakhawa, he was an important & very well-known Son Koli (Fishermen) folk bard, his contribution to Mumbai’s Koli folk tradition is immense. The book consists of his most popular fifteen folk songs. Currently, we are working on the book of Shahir Damodar Shibu Koli, which will be published in June 2021.

We are in the process of publishing books on the history of each fishing village, TFA is empowering folks from the community, several youngsters are writing and researching on their ownership and privilege, TFA is training and educating these youngsters to write their own narratives, We at TFA think these youths from our community are custodians of our cultural heritage and Indigenous wisdom.

Damodar Shibu Koli
Damodar Shibu Koli started his career with Indian classical Music, he is Son Koli lyricist, Music Director and Drama director, Sir. Govind Powle was his music teacher, he was one of the best partner of Late Shahir Damodar Vitavkar. Vitavkar had been observing the aptitude of Damodar Koli and his love for music, and he invited Koli to engage with his cultural group.

Damodar Koli was basically fond of Bhajans (Hindu devotional songs), it was Vitavkar who pushed Koli to write in Son Koli language so that Vitavkar could vocalize his ballads. Koli has a really good sense of the sound of words, you can experience that in Late Damodar Vitavkar’s songs, Form of his lyrics are mostly inspired by ‘Dhavlarine’s’ (traditional folk songstress of Son Koli tribe), but his study of classical music did helped him to develop good sounds in his HMV/ Saregama career, where he wrote more than fourty songs many other folk bards of Son Koli tribe. He still lives with his passion at age of Eighty-Six.