MADURAI: I saw her singing at her work,
And o’er the sickle bending;—
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
Penned in 1805, William Wordsworth’s “The Solitary Reaper” is about an anonymous traveller’s encounter with the singing of a Scottish girl as she cuts hay. Though the narrator could not comprehend the song, its melancholic beauty echoed in his head “long after” it had faded.
Decades later in 1977, in the fields of Theni, R Manoharan in his early 20s, found himself in a similar moment. During a field visit, he came upon an elderly farm labourer singing as she worked. When she noticed him, she deftly wove his name into her song, teasing him with playful ease. It was a fleeting exchange, but stood out due to her spontaneity and the way she stitched together fragments of nature and life into verse.
“That single incident changed something in me,” the 68-year-old retired horticulture officer, recalls. What began as curiosity soon turned into a lifelong pursuit and ended up becoming a remarkable archive of over 940 songs and 15 books. For the past 28 years, equipped with a cassette tape recorder, he has been travelling through remote rural pockets to engage with singers to collect and preserve oral literature in the Cumbum Valley. In the process, he learnt that oral folklore spans folk tales, myths, legends, proverbs, songs, riddles, and rituals, each rooted deeply in the soil of a region and its people.
This moment, however, was not the sole origin of his interest; it had taken root much earlier. He had once aspired to become a doctor, but financial constraints forced him to abandon it. Instead, his affinity for Tamil poetry and literature began to take shape. “In the 1970s, my friend Nagarajan and I would spend hours at the government library in Devaram, reading science books and Sangam literature. Nagarajan had a talent for reciting poems, which I would record,” he recalls. What began as a shared pastime gradually deepened into a lasting engagement.
Reflecting on what eventually led him towards oral folklore, Manoharan adds, “I always wanted to pursue something different.” After getting a Diploma in Agriculture at Gandhigram University in Dindigul, he became a sales representative in the agrochemical industry. This brought him into close contact with agricultural communities. And this is where he encountered the woman farmer. Speaking with geographic precision, he says, “In 1997, I set out to document the oral folklore of the Cumbum Valley,” he says. “I chose to concentrate on around 100 villages.”
While folklore is often perceived as brief and easy to recall, Manoharan, during his arduous fieldwork, found it to be far more layered. “In 2023, I met a 40-year-old farm labourer with an extraordinary memory who sang multiple songs, some stretching beyond an hour.” When he later transcribed them, he found them to be over 60 lines. “In one sitting, I recorded three songs. Writing down even one took me over three days,” he says.
Much like the songs themselves, reaching the singers, most of whom are farm labourers, has been a challenge. Recalling an instance in Irannampatti village, he says, “I had heard of a 40-year-old woman known for singing thalattu (lullabies) and reached her house around 10.30 am. But she didn’t return from the fields until 2 pm.” Certain that she sang only when her child cried, he chose to wait. “Around 3 pm, the baby began to cry, she started singing, and I recorded the song.”
In Palaraupatti, near Kuchanur in Cumbum, he met one of the oldest custodians, a 107-year-old farm labourer with no eyesight and striking wisdom. “He shared nearly two dozen proverbs and riddles, which I immediately recorded,” Manoharan says. Though he relied on his family for daily needs, his gift for storytelling drew crowds. For Manoharan, a sense of urgency always accompanied his work. Over the years, he has watched many of his recorded voices go silent. “I have documented 940 songs from over 600 singers. Today, hardly a hundred of them are alive.” Each of the recorded songs now feels more like a fragile inheritance. “If we don’t document them now, future generations may never truly know this cultural heritage.”
The sheer likeness of the singers of the Cumbum Valley with the Solitary Reaper goes unnoticed, their inner worlds unfolding in song even as they bend over fields and toil through the day. Their voices rise and disappear into the open air, unrecorded, unremembered, unless someone chooses to listen. Much like Wordsworth’s traveller, Manoharan stops, lingers, and ensures these songs do not vanish into silence.
(Edited by Swarnali Dutta)
