and grow. Sing and sow. Sing and sew. Singing, have you noticed is always part of you, when you’re happy doing something? In the shower, gardening, making art, doodling, driving, travelling. You hum, if you don’t know the words. So much comes to mind when it comes to how I simply cannot sing, and yet love it. How I appreciate all those who have the gift of singing, making music.

Singing while working, is a culture by itself : seen on the paddy fields here -Transplanting of paddy is finally happening in the fields in front of my parents’ home in Cherplassery now, and Omana and I were lucky to meet the few women there, singing and planting. So what did that bring to mind? Indeed. The Solitary Reaper by William Wordsworth (LINK)

I’ve re-versified the poem, sending gratitude and humble apologies to the Master Poet! 😀

THE CHALAVARA SINGER-PLANTERS

Behold them, singing in the field,
Yon Chalavara songster women!
Sowing, and singing for us!
Stop here, or gently pass!
As they pick and sort the paddy,
And sing a *naadan strain;
O listen! for the air
Is overflowing with the sound.

*No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.*

*Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?*

Whate’er the theme, the women sang, for us
As if their song could give joy with no ending;
I saw them singing at their work,
And o’er the paddy bending;—
We listened, Omana and I, encouraging, overjoyed..
And, as we walked back the **varambu
The music and video in my phone I bore,
Long after it was heard no more!

The poet’s original lines are between the *and *
* native song
** path between fields

No videos here, sadly. Shall add them to my instagram and facebook shares. 🙂

18 September, 2023, Day#18 of #SeptemberMusings