Excerpt
Helim Boyati and the Art of Melodic Reading
On 13 October 2019, I went with sound recordist Sukanta Majumdar to meet Helim Boyati of Rajibpur, Netrokona, to learn from him about jarigan and puthi-path, both forms of narrative song, the latter called melodic reading by David M. Kane in his detailed study of the form and its usage in Sylhet. Helim Boyati, a living master of these forms of narrative song of this region, talked about their current practice and described how things used to be in the past. He talked more about jari, but he also…