Bhatiali or bhatiyali (Bengali: ভাটিয়ালি) is a form of folk music in both Bangladesh and West Bengal. Bhatiali is a river song mostly sung by boatmen while going down streams of the river. The word bhatiyali comes from bhata meaning "ebb" or downstream.[1]
It is mostly sung in several parts of greater riparian Bengal delta. Researchers[who?] have claimed Mymensingh District along the Brahmaputra River or the Bhati (lower region of a river) area as its place of origin. Bhaitaili lyrics traditionally consist of metaphorical and emotional verses about the waters and the situation of boatmen and fishermen. Among the 14 subjects of folk music in Bangladesh, that includes Deha-tatva (about the body) and Murshid-tatva (about the guru), Bhatiali deals with Prakriti-tatva (about nature).
Notable collectors, composers and writers in the genre are Miraz Ali, Ukil Munshi, Rashid Uddin. Jalal Khan, Jang Bahadur, Shah Abdul Karim and Umed Ali. Between the 1930s and 1950s, Bhatiali has seen its golden age, when most of these personalities were contributing to the genre. Singer Abbas Uddin made the genre popular singing "Amay bhashaili re, amay dubaili re" and other popular numbers. In the 2000s, Malay Ganguly and Bari Siddiki were two most prominent Bhatiali singers.
In the contemporary subcontinental music scene, Saurav Moni is eminently known as an international Bhatiali performer from India. He hails from Hingalganj, southernmost part of West Bengal, India. He has unearthed a distinct style of Bhatiali from Southern Bengal and added them with the mainstream Bhatiali which requires further attention to expand the horizon of Bhatiali. Moni left the audience spellbound on the set of MTV Coke Studio (Season 1, 2011)[2] singing a rare Bhatiali 'Shara Raatro Nouka Baiya' along with Bollywood singer Shaan who sang "O Majhi re". He has presented Bhatiali in various festivals like Celtic Connections, Scotland, Alchemy Festival in London, Lok Sangeet Sammelan in Delhi, Shrewsbury Folk Festival in Shropshire UK, Jaypur Literature Festival in Rajasthan, India, National folk festival in Kerala, India, and the Les Orientales Festival in France. He is also known as a collector of rare folk songs, vocal archivist and researcher of unexplored folk genres of Bengal.[3][4][5][6]
