Paraman, The Street Violinist: Memory of a Culture and a Man

Pulluvas performing on stage

The Village Visitors

Those were simpler times in our bucolic countryside where everyone knew each other. The only outsiders who frequented the place were visiting relatives, a bunch of regularly appearing street vendors, the postman, the Gurkha (a man from Nepal who would be paid Rs 10 per month by each family for keeping vigil in the village during nights*), and our very own exclusive beggars. We knew them as they made rounds on almost expected dates and times.

These visitors would knock at our doors with a confidence emanating from mutual trust and familiarity. Someone at home would open the doors and exclaim loudly, "the pilgrim kesavan is here again begging for alms", or "thithumma is here again looking for some firewood." The community helped the needy without fuss. Charity had not yet acquired that name in our minds but sharing with each other the limited resources that we had was considered normal.

The Street Violinist Paraman’s Song

Paraman was one such regular, the street violinist, who had positioned himself between an artist and a beggar. In our culture, the members of the Pulluva community, to which he belonged had the traditional role of creating exquisite music using two delightful musical instruments- a single-string local fiddle and a round mud pot with a tight wire wound across it. They were the official local musicians.

Pulluvas - they perform in pairs, a man and a woman, often the husband and wife- would come to sing in our houses on every occasion of happiness- childbirth, marriage, girls attaining puberty, and so on. In their songs, they would bless the newborn or the bride or seek favour from the gods for the family's well-being. Their music was sad and melodious, songs that instill yearning and humble joy. The vocals meandered holding hands with the melody of the fiddle played by the male, while the tight string wound on the mud pot was played using the fingers by the female singer. The harmony that this performance, this 'jugalbandi', would create was divine, matching in all ways the slow pace of the pastoral life that we were in.

Paraman belonged to the Pulluva community, but his singing was awful. His mental state was fragile, and people thought he was crazy.      

Those were the days when individuals whom we today would have called mentally ill were accepted into society without much fuss unless they were violent. People would casually remark that this person is a little crazy, but let them merge with their everyday life. Children would sometimes tease them and would be immediately scolded by adults. Then, the next moment, it would be the adults who choose to mildly poke fun of them. Obviously, they could not complain because both the teaser and the teased were bound in a relationship that had a deeper foundation of kindness and friendliness.

Paraman was that kind of a member of our village society. Once in a month or so, he would appear with his fiddle at the doorsteps of every house in the village. He had a broken fiddle with its once-real string replaced with a thin jute twine used in the local grocery shop. Paraman did not mind that no music would come out of that string. He would move his bow to and fro over this fake string, which was kind of logical for him too because the bow was actually not a proper bow but just a stick that he had picked up somewhere from a tree branch.

All of us were damn sure that he believed his bow was a real bow and his fiddle's string was a real string too. No one wanted to shame him by pointing out the fact to his face. And he would come and he would sing a song that no one has ever been able to make out for what it is. The song ended as soon as it began, the first line was the last, too. Then, he would wait for people of the house to give him a one-rupee coin.

Month after month, we went through this same musical-yet-non-musical ritual. Paraman would sometimes smile at us children. He did not talk much, though. We were a little amused and equally frightened by him but both these emotions could never even approach the level of our curiosity.

We believed that we would see Paraman every month, our entire life. It was not possible to think otherwise in our tiny world. The home where we lived as children was believed to be our only home ever. 

Popular Pulluva songs

Memories, Loss and What Remains

In his prime, before his mental illness manifested, our villagers remembered him as a fine singer and musician. By the time we children saw him, he had reached middle age. He wrapped an ankle-length white cloth around his waist, which had turned yellow from long use, and wore no shirt. His teeth were blackened from smoking beedis, the local cigar. Yet he had a sweet black smile for us, children.

Childhood's blessings gave way to the hopes and anguishes of adulthood and I moved away from the village to study at a college in the city, and duly forgot Paraman. By that time, his visits were also infrequent.

I do not know what happened to him afterwards, but I wish to believe that his old age was not miserable. When I chance upon a fragment of memory that encapsulates him, this regret surfaces- I could have queried more about him and known where he lived and with whom he lived. Was he all alone? Was there anyone to take care of him? By the time I tried to ask around, only one or two people were alive who really knew where he lived. Searching their fading memories, they sat lost in those rich and complex folds, never able to come up with a legible answer.

People unceremoniously deboard from life's journey all the time and still we continue our journey either experiencing a sense of loss or sometimes even oblivious to what we have lost. Where do the roads take those who got down? Where will they take me when my turn comes?

(* Gorkhas were migrants from Nepal. They had big moustaches and military-type beret caps. They wore military-coloured shirts and trousers. Gorkha is a district in Nepal, and people from Nepal are generally known as Gorkhas in India. There is a Gorkha regiment in the Indian army renowned for their bravery. So, sometimes, retired military men from that regiment took up security jobs in different parts of India. Men from Nepal with big moustaches would come to our villages, with army experience or without, which nobody would know and care to check, and they would offer night vigil duty for the villagers for a small monthly fee. They would roam around during night hours blowing a whistle, and the villagers would sleep in the comfort that the Gorkha would protect them.)