Komal Kothari (1929–2004)[1] was an Indian folklorist and ethnomusicologist.[2][3] Komal Kothari had devoted his life to investigation and documentation of folk traditions of western Rajasthan. Kothari received the honour of Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan from the Government of India. Komal Kothari painstakingly worked to preserve the cultural memory and made numerous recordings of folk music. He studied Langa and Manganiyar communities of folk musicians of Thar desert. Komal Kothari was not only a scholar but also a man of action. He co-founded Rupayan Sansthan - Rajasthan Institute of Folklore, in 1960 in the village of Borunda. The institution houses a repository of recordings by Kothari and works to collect, preserve, and disseminate the oral traditions of Rajasthan. Kothari was co-editor of the journal Lok Sanskriti, a journal based on the theme of folk culture. Besides, Kothari arranged international performances of folk artists from Rajasthan in several counries. His monograph on Langas, a folk-musician caste in Rajasthan, was enlivened by an accompanying album of recordings of twelve folk songs sung by Langa artistes.[4] His understanding of desert culture and its connections with ecology endeared him to the environmentalists. He planned a museum based on the ecology of the broom’, to show the technical use of specific types of desert grass for specific purposes. His vision was actualised in the form of Arna Jharna - The Thar Desert Museum of Rajasthan in Borunda, near Jodhpur.[5] Kothari was a scholar of patterns of culture and his expertise enriched both folklore studies and history.
Kothari's research resulted in his development of the study of a number of areas of folklore. In particular, he made contributions to the study of musical instruments, oral traditions and puppetry.[6] He was also a patron of Langa and Manganiyar folk music, the latter of which translates to 'beggars' and is currently used as a debasing term for Merasi.[7][8] He was the first to record them and helped shem out of their traditional regions.[1] To this end, he also founded the magazine 'Prerna'. Kothari was the chairman of Rupayan Sansthan founded by Chandi Dan Detha[4] and worked with Vijaydan Detha at Borunda village in Rajasthan, an institute that documents Rajasthani folk-lore, arts and music, and spent most of his career at the Rajasthan Sangeet Natak Academy.[9]
A 1979 documentary film on his ethnomusicology work, and another titled Komal Da, on his life and works, are now archived at Columbia University Libraries.[6] Kothari’s work on the oral epics of Rajasthan further extended his argument of geographical connections of folk music. He posited that oral epics correspond to specific agricultural and occupational zones. Kothari had made a deeper inquiry of folk traditions to make insightful observations on poer structures and hegemony that informed the historians of Rajasthan significantly.[12] Kothari conceived and started his work for the Arna Jharna Museum in 2000 in the village of Moklawas, near Jodhpur. The museum space has been designed as a section of Thar desert and its native vegetation like different cacti, and agrarian produce like jowar, bajra, and makka. It has replicas of village architecture, a boastful collection of the region musical instruments, puppets, and pottery. “The museum boasts mainly of an extensive collection of brooms from Rajasthan, indicating entire galaxies of rituals and beliefs associated with them."[13]
