Remembering Bijji and his folk tales

Vijaydan Detha aka Bijji, the Rajasthani folklorist writer, would have been pleased if he was there at JLF on Thursday.
Author Vishes Kothari who translated Bijji’s work and released a book was part of a discussion at the fest.
He said the tradition of storytelling has always been a work of the poor. “Most of the oral traditions are followed by people from the most unprivileged background.Among those, women are the treasurer of the tradition who would sing hymns and songs while doing their daily chores. Men would work outside and women would keep the tradition alive. Dijji followed those people and recorded their stories,” Vishes said.
Chandra Prakash Deval, who was part of the conversation, said folk tales could create magic. “Folk tales should not be looked from the glasses of literature. The power of folk tales has been continuing for thousands of years. Hitopdesh and Arabian Nights are a few examples which are still prevalent. If a story is good, it will be remembered for generations to come. Dijji recognised and collected these stories from people,” Deval said.
Talking about Dijji’s work, Vishes said to keep the Rajasthani touch in the stories, he kept original words and phrases in the same language. “I had to convince my publishers about it. There are words that have different meanings in Hindi and Rajasthani. There are many traditions followed in Rajasthan that will lose its relevance if translated,” he added.