LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 22:5 May 2022
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Narrative and Structural Similarities Among
Select Haryanvi Folk Tales

Lakhwinder Dhull

Abstract

The cultural vibe of Haryana is one of the most vibrant in India. Unlike cities like New Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai that are very metropolitan and modern in the truest sense, Haryana is a state most of whose cities are still rustic and flaunt an authentic taste to its socio- cultural milieu. Through the didactic nature of the folklore, ideas of cultural reawakening and social awareness and upliftment are perceived and acknowledged by the conscious readers. Anthropologists and cultural theorists like Max Muller and Theodore Benfey have contributed considerably towards Indian folklore and have brought it to the mainstream of study. Similarly, Haryanvi folklore, similarly, is a constellation of the regional themes and cultural ideology. The cultural vibe of Haryana is one of the most vibrant in India. Unlike cities like New Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai that are very metropolitan and modern in the truest sense, Haryana is a state most of whose cities are still rustic and flaunt an authentic taste to its socio- cultural milieu. Through the didactic nature of the folklore, ideas of cultural reawakening and social awareness and upliftment are perceived and acknowledged by the conscious readers. Anthropologists and cultural theorists like Max Muller and Theodore Benfey have contributed considerably towards Indian folklore and have brought it to the mainstream of study. Similarly, Haryanvi folklore, similarly, is a constellation of the regional themes and cultural ideology.

This research paper attempts to draw similarities in the narrative structures and other literal aspects of five select folktales from Haryana namely: 1) The Farmer’s Present, 2) A Traveler’s Story, 3) Bellows for the Bullocks, 4) The Silver Well and 5) The Hoarder. Folktales challenge our understanding of morality by developing the audience’s perception of right and wrong, sanity and insanity and wisdom and imbecilities. These similarities will be analyzed using the Bulgarian-French historian Tzvetan Todorov’s narrative theory model.

Keywords: Folklore, Haryana, Didactic, literature, Indian folklore.

What is Folklore?

William John Thomas, a British antiquarian of the 19th century coined the word “folklore” in 1846 and it meant the “lore” (knowledge) of the “folk” (people). Before the term, materials on folklore were called ‘popular literature’ or ‘popular antiquities’ and only later, “W. J. Thomas, under the pseudonym of Ambrose Merton, wrote a letter to a journal titled The Athenaeum proposing that the singular word ‘folklore’ should be used in English to denote the “the manners, customs, observances, superstitions, ballads, proverbs” and other materials “of the olden time” (Dutta, 23).

Folklores are associated with the cultural sentiment of the state they represent and enrich oral and written literature by the way of preserving the cultural artefacts. They were mainly told in loud oral form as a source of entertainment and social gatherings rather than written. People identify communal pride and glory with their native folklore. In Haryana, rustic and simple peasant societies, people those are close to nature, hard- working farmers, their gullible tendencies, all are the features of the state. Even in the present times, a lot of Haryana associates themselves with these features; folklore hence, “is an echo of the past, but at the same time it is also the vigorous voice of the present”, as the Russian scholar Y. M. Sokolov says (qtd. in Dutta, 23).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Lakhwinder Dhull
NET Scholar, Masters in English Literature
M.N.S College Bhiwani, Chaudhary Bansilal University Bhiwani
lakhwinderdhull@gmail.com
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