Saving A Legacy's Last Refrain: The Story of The Bidesia Project
Here's a look at the drive to preserve traditional folk music and oral histories before they disappear
The pain of separation from my beloved has engulfed me
My heartless lover does not understand
I am pained from sorrow of separation
Where did you go my love?
Against a blue-washed wall on the porch of a temple in Bihar’s Chhapra, Bhojpuri folk singer Ajay Mishra sits cross-legged with two musicians, a harmonium and tabla beside him. Together, they sing these lines from Kahava Gaile Na, a Purvi song about a familiar ache in Bhojpuri life—the estrangement and parting resulting from migration.
Purvi, which literally means ‘eastern’, is a genre of Bhojpuri folk music centred on love, longing, and rural life. The form was popularized in the early 20th century by legendary Bhojpuri poet and singer Mahendra Mishra, an ancestor of Ajay.
Like countless Bhojpuri folk songs, Kahava Gaile Na has survived not in books but through oral tradition, passed from one generation to the next by those who continued to sing it. Today, songs like these are being documented by The Bidesia Project, an initiative preserving Bhojpuri folk traditions across Purvanchal—the Bhojpuri-speaking regions of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Through field recordings, storytelling and digital publishing, it archives songs of love, separation, migration, changing seasons and everyday rural life.
The initiative grew not from a grand preservation plan but from filmmaker and creative entrepreneur Simit Bhagat’s curiosity. In 2017, while on a work trip to Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh, he stumbled upon a group of Bhojpuri folk musicians performing in a village. Though he did not understand the language, he was captivated by the music and the effortless way the performers switched between instruments—from harmonium to tabla to jhal. “I came back, but the music stayed with me,” Bhagat recalls.
A year later, during a break between jobs,...
The pain of separation from my beloved has engulfed me
My heartless lover does not understand
I am pained from sorrow of separation
Where did you go my love?
Against a blue-washed wall on the porch of a temple in Bihar’s Chhapra, Bhojpuri folk singer Ajay Mishra sits cross-legged with two musicians, a harmonium and tabla beside him. Together, they sing these lines from Kahava Gaile Na, a Purvi song about a familiar ache in Bhojpuri life—the estrangement and parting resulting from migration.
Purvi, which literally means ‘eastern’, is a genre of Bhojpuri folk music centred on love, longing, and rural life. The form was popularized in the early 20th century by legendary Bhojpuri poet and singer Mahendra Mishra, an ancestor of Ajay.
Like countless Bhojpuri folk songs, Kahava Gaile Na has survived not in books but through oral tradition, passed from one generation to the next by those who continued to sing it. Today, songs like these are being documented by The Bidesia Project, an initiative preserving Bhojpuri folk traditions across Purvanchal—the Bhojpuri-speaking regions of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Through field recordings, storytelling and digital publishing, it archives songs of love, separation, migration, changing seasons and everyday rural life.
The initiative grew not from a grand preservation plan but from filmmaker and creative entrepreneur Simit Bhagat’s curiosity. In 2017, while on a work trip to Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh, he stumbled upon a group of Bhojpuri folk musicians performing in a village. Though he did not understand the language, he was captivated by the music and the effortless way the performers switched between instruments—from harmonium to tabla to jhal. “I came back, but the music stayed with me,” Bhagat recalls.
A year later, during a break between jobs, he returned to the region. With little more than a recording kit, a camera and a motorcycle, he set off on a 1,200-kilometre solo journey across Purvanchal, visiting villages and recording songs remembered by local performers and elders. The recordings eventually became his documentary In Search of Bidesia, and later evolved into The Bidesia Project.
The Music of Life
The project has so far recorded more than 200 Bhojpuri folk songs with 25 singers. Nearly 50 full-length songs are available on YouTube, while excerpts and clips are shared on digital and social media platforms. It is a self-funded, not-for-profit initiative and Bhagat is in the process of registering it as a trust.
“Folk songs have been a part of the culture in this region. Every season and occasion has a form of folk music associated with it,” said Bhagat. “People from the community believe that whether or not they live, this music will pass on and they will not let it become extinct.”
The songs mirror the rhythms of rural community life. Some mark changing seasons, others accompany agricultural labour, and many speak of longing and separation. There are Chaiti songs, sung during the Hindu month of Chaitra (March–April), expressing devotion and the arrival of spring. Then there are the vibrant and energetic Phagua songs sung during Holi. Songs associated with agrarian labour include Ropni songs, sung during the paddy-planting season, and Jatsar work songs sung by women around the chakki, or hand-operated grindmill. A similar initiative is run under the Grindmill Song Project by the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), which archives songs sung by women grindmill workers in rural Maharashtra.
Depending on the theme, the songs differ in mood. Bidesia songs are melancholic, Phagua and Ropni are upbeat, joyous and playful, while Jatsar are reflective. They are often accompanied by the harmonium and a range of percussion including the tabla, dholak, jhal or kartal.
Some songs have their unique compositional signature. Traditional Chaiti folk songs include the phrase ‘O Rama’ or ‘Hey Rama’ as an essential part of the lyrics. The month of Chaitra is associated with the birth of Lord Ram.
Also among the traditions documented by the project are Bidesia songs, which emerged from a region long shaped by movement and departure. Some recount the angst and experiences of indentured labourers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar who were transported to British colonies during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Others capture the anguish of those left behind. These themes continue to resonate in contemporary Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, two of India’s highest out-migration states.
For generations, these songs thrived because they were woven into everyday life. But those rhythms have changed dramatically. “One of the big reasons these songs are becoming extinct is that people used to meet in public places and sing these songs. But now, many of those who knew these songs have either migrated or passed away,” Bhagat added.
For 56-year-old folk singer Ajay Mishra of Mishrauliya village in Bihar’s Saran district, these songs are not merely performances but a lifelong inheritance. Mishra, who sang Kahava Gaile Na for The Bidesia Project, has been associated with the initiative from its early years and has recorded several songs for it.
“We are doing this to promote Bhojpuri culture. We want people to understand that Bhojpuri is a sweet language that has great artists, writers and poets,” Mishra said. He regrets the fact that modern-day Bhojpuri music is “very different” and that artists often resort to indecent themes and explicit portrayals.
Having begun singing at the age of 11, Mishra has also witnessed changing audiences. He feels that the importance of forms such as bhajans (devotional songs), ghazals and nirguns (spiritual compositions) has diminished. “This is because the number of listeners have gone down. Only those above 50 years of age appreciate us. I don’t see the same awareness in the younger generation,” he added.
Inheritance Finds a Voice
Academic studies and stakeholders have often criticized the prevalence of sexually explicit and misogynistic themes in sections of commercial Bhojpuri music. According to Bhagat, he often has to clarify that his project is concerned with another side of Bhojpuri music—one rooted in poetry, philosophy, labour, devotion and lived experience.
In the future, the project aims to significantly expand its archive of Bhojpuri folk songs, oral histories, letters, poetry and other vernacular cultural expressions. For oral historians, the significance of such initiatives lies in the kind of histories they preserve.
“Unless communities archive such songs, they too will move on and forget,” said Bengaluru-based oral historian Indira Chowdhury. “Very often they are singing not only about what their life is now but about their remembered past. If you look at the way official archives work, such things don’t exist,” she said, adding that community engagement is critical for such projects to succeed.
She cited similar initiatives—The Travelling Archive by singer, writer and researcher Moushumi Bhowmik, The Kabir Project by writer and artist Shabnam Virmani, and Arna Jharna—The Desert Museum of Rajasthan near Jodhpur, founded by folklorist Komal Kothari.
According to Chowdhury, this community has travelled extensively and its younger generations may not recognize the significance of these songs immediately. “As you grow older and travel by yourself, only then do you begin to appreciate the journey. These songs record those feelings and epiphanies,” she added.
Ultimately, Bhagat hopes the project does more than preserve old songs. He wants it to inspire pride in a cultural inheritance that still survives in memory and voice. “I am not even from there and yet I feel so passionate talking about it. I want people from that land to acknowledge that this culture exists and be proud about what they have, where they come from.”
In preserving Bhojpuri folk music, The Bidesia Project is also assembling a people’s archive of a region’s emotional and social history—of journeys undertaken, seasons observed, work performed and separations endured—through songs that continue to echo long after the voices that first sang them have faded.
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