I was born and brought up in coastal rural Odisha. Nearly fifty years ago, when I was a child, one scene was inseparable from every village wedding. As the bride prepared to leave for her groom’s house, she would break into tears through song. The bridegroom often rode in a palanquin, and the bride was carried away in a closed sabari.
The air would slowly fill with the sound of Bahuna Gita; songs of farewell, grief, and separation. The bride’s voice would tremble first, but soon the gathered women would join in. The crying spread like an emotional tide. Even as a child, without fully understanding the meaning of departure or marriage, I remember my eyes becoming moist.
These Bahuna Gita belong to a rich tradition of Odia folk song . Their authors are unknown. They live in the fragile yet powerful space of oral tradition, sometimes remembered in handwritten notes, sometimes preserved in books by folk researchers and scholars. Yet like many living traditions, they have slowly faded with time. Social customs have changed, marriages have changed, and the ritual of kandana; the ceremonial crying of the bride has almost disappeared from contemporary life. It survives now mostly in memory.
After decades, I encountered this forgotten emotion again in an unexpected place: the PVR multiplex at Utkal Kanika Galleria in Bhubaneswar, while watching the new Odia film “Kanda Mastre.” Directed by the young filmmaker Biswajit Panda, with script and dialogue written by my close friend Zakir Khan, the film draws its narrative from this nearly vanished cultural practice.
The protagonist is a young man who chooses an unusual profession. He teaches unmarried girls how to sing and cry when they leave their parental home after marriage. Each song is addressed to someone: a father, a mother, a brother, a loved one left behind. Through this curious vocation unfolds a story that gradually moves into deeper emotional terrain.
When the kind-hearted teacher arrives at a zamindar’s house to train the zamindar’s daughter, the narrative begins to shift. Love, longing, sacrifice, and social tension emerge within the rigid boundaries of tradition. While the film lovingly documents an old cultural practice, it also questions certain orthodox social structures, touching upon issues such as widow remarriage and the burden of inherited customs.
Before reaching the screen, this story had already lived on stage as a theatre production written by Zakir Khan and received critical appreciation. Now it finds a new language through cinema, unfolding across carefully chosen locations and performances.
The actors bring sincerity and depth to their roles; particularly the grandmother and the young teacher, whose performances carry emotional weight. The songs composed by Bikash Das linger long after the film ends, echoing like distant folk memories.
Kanda Mastre is not merely a film; it is also a quiet archive of a fading cultural expression. It reminds us of a time when departure was sung, when grief had melody, and when a bride’s tears were shared by an entire community.
More people should watch this film. Somewhere between its scenes and songs, you may find your own eyes growing moist; just as mine once did long ago, listening to the haunting strains of Bahuna Gita in a village courtyard.
