| Dhalo
This song-cum-dance is also an all women affair like the 'foogddi'.
The language of the song is Konkani with a slight admixture of Marathi.
Dhalo are played (khellttat) rather than danced (nachtat). They are played
out on the moonlit winter nights in the courtyard of the house. They are
slower in tempo, songs prevailing predominantly over the movements. The
front yard of the house, where normally the newly harvested corn (paddy)
is processed, is dug and paved carefully and later plastered with cow
dung almost to a cement like finish. After the rice grains are winnowed,
dried and stored, this paved place serves as a venue for all the socio-cultural
activities of the village. There is a specific spot close to the door
step called a Mandd or station. Here every activity is initiated with
a puja and a lamp lit. This spot is considered sacred and represents the
spirit of the occasion. The courtyard is later covered with a canopy of
woven coconut-tree leaves, supported by a framework of betel-nut-tree
poles. This covering over the Mandd is called Mattov in konkani.
Participants start gathering in the courtyard by 9 PM
on the moonlit night of the Pausha month, according to the Hindu calendar.
As many as 24 women take part in each session of this dance-cum-song affair.
They split up into two parallel rows of 12 each, facing each other and
form a close-knit unit by linking themselves with arm-around the back
arrangement, singing in unison. They sway, bend, move forward and backwards,
singing songs of religious and social importance, unhappy and sad things
of old, which are locally composed from memory and revised extempore with
addition or change of words and lines here and there to suit the occasion.
The liveliest fun of a Dhalo session, occurs on the
concluding day. The week which can be called women's lib week concludes
with a sense of freedom. Therein women put on, all sorts of dresses
of a fancy variety including those of various male roles, those of animals
and birds and act out their respective parts and fantasies meticulously
and with great dramatic gusto.
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