Awadh’s last mirasins struggle to keep their musical heritage alive

With more people opting for film music at weddings, these women singers may be the last custodians of their community

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Umrana Niyazi hunkers down in her small verandah with her paan daan (betel leaf box) and sings Chhap tilak sab cheeni... mohse naina milaike (You have taken away my identity, my beauty, and everything that was mine... just by locking eyes with me), written and composed by Sufi poet and mystic Hazrat Amir Khusrau in braj bhasha, a western Hindi dialect.

Her husky voice floats out into the lanes of old Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, where she lives.“Now people rarely call us to sing at mehfils [gatherings]. Times are changing but | hope our songs will continue to resonate with people. Otherwise, how will we survive?” asks the 51-year-old, who hails from the Mirasi community, a group of traditional singers and dancers commonly found in northern India and Pakistan.The word ‘mirasi’ comes from the Arabic word, ‘miras', meaning heritage. In Awadh, the Mirasins, or female singers, are traditionally invited to sing at auspicious events such as births, Aqeeqah (where a newborn’s hair is shaved for the first time), Bismillah (when the child reads the Quran for the first time) and weddings.Umrana and her sister Farzana, 45, are perhaps the last custodians of the musical heritage of the Mirasins, who enjoyed great popularity in the 19th century, when there was a surge in cultural nationalism. In response to the colonial rulers’ disdain for Indian culture, talukdars, landowning Indian aristocratic families, began supporting artists, including the Mirasins, who became linked with their patron families.