If you have ever been hearing Marathi music, the strains of this mesmerizing song could surely not have escaped your ears. If you have ever lived in Mumbai, you could not have missed the quintessential koli tribe - the fisherwomen with their huge baskets of fish, yelling at the top of their voices in the fish markets.
The kolis are essentially fisherfolk, the original inhabitants of Mumbai, when Mumbai was not a sprawling city like it is today, but a group of 7 small fishing islands. Their deity is a goddess named “Mumbadevi” from where the city is believed to derive its name. Apart from a strong cultural heritage which has its roots in the fishing villages of the Konkan coast, a mouthwatering fish-centered cuisine, the koli tribe is also reputed for its love for music and dance.
The koli geet(music of the kolis) has a distinctive tangy edge to it, which makes you immediately feel as if you are either standing along the shore feeling the sea breeze blowing softly on your face or rocking gently on a fisherman’s boat. Koli music has been captured on celluloid by Raj Kapoor’s Bobby with “Naa chahoon sona chandi, naa maangu heera moti”, Sabse Bada rupaiya with “Dariya kinare ik bungalow ga pori”, and Dil Hai Ke Maanta Nahi with “Galiyant sakhli sonyaachi”, to name a few. However, this at best serves to reach out to a larger audience to give them a slight flavour of the magic of koli sangeet. But to get to the true essence of the folk music, one must enjoy it in its traditional language – in this case, Marathi.
This is where an album like “Geet Shilp” scores. Recorded sometime in the mid-1970s, the songs are sung mainly by Lata Mangeshkar with music by her talented brother, Pt. Hridaynath Mangeshkar. This album helped in popularizing this genre of music because of the presence of mainstream artistes.
I’m listing below the tracks in detail along with their interpretation as I understood them