Garhwali Poet - Mal Chand Ramola

Mal Chand Ramola : Who Collected Garhwali Bajuband Kavya (Folk Love Poems )
Bhishma Kukreti

There have been many Garhwali folk literature lovers who collected, reviewed the Garhwali Folk Songs, Folk Stories, Folk Arts , Proverbs but the author is witness that there have been only on Garhwali folk poetry lover and his name is Malchand Ramola. Ramola is also famous for creating Garhwali Dictionary, creating modern Garhwali poetry, publishing articles in Garhwali in regional periodicals, reading commentary on various subjects and Garhwali folk poems in All India Radio (Akashvani)

The literature of any language develops when its primitive literature is published and popularized among not only among its inhabitants but to other areas too. Malchand Ramola is credited to collect the primitive forms of Garhwali poetry ( which is still created in rural of Garhwal by its inhabitants) an dmaking it popular among Garhwalis and non-Garhwalis

One of the true and dedicated Garhwali folk literature lovers Malchand Ramola was born on 19th November 1915 in village bangdwara, Patti Dharmandal of Tihri Garhwal, Uttarakhand, India. After passing High School from Pratap Inter College Tihri, he joined Uttar Pradesh government Police services. He retired as Sub Inspector of Uttar Pradesh Police.

As a cop man , Malchand Ramola had to travell various remote areas of Tihri Garhwal and used to come with various types of people and the Garhwali literature lover Malchand took the opportunity for knowing various types of Garhwali folk literature, vocabulary of Garhwali specially poetic verses. Most of the knowledgeable Garhwalis did not take much interest in knowing all about Gbajuband Kavya or Garhwali Folk verse. Ramola took keen interest in Garhwali Bajuband poetries which is normally called Garhwali Love poems. However, Ramola found that the Bajuband poems are not only limited to love poems but the Garhwali folks have been creating Bajuband verses in all fields of subject.
He was influenced by great poet Turudatt who advocated folk poems in the following lines:

Absurd may be the tail I tell
It’ll suited to marching times
I love the lips from which it fell
So let it stand among my rhymes

Malchand Ramola will always be remembered in Garhwali literature for collecting the folk poems called Bajuband kavita and publishing two hundred fifty one such poems and then distributing the book free of cost that people know that Garhwal had a treasure of folk poems , which a re exclusive from common folk songs.
Bajuband poems are couplets and the first part does not have any relation to the second or last line. The last line has meaning in Bajuband verse.
Malchand Ramola not only collected folk poems of Garhwal but he reviewed each Bajuband verse by telling meaning of words and hidden meanings in Hindi,. He also compared each poem with poems of other languages.

Let the author shows one example of his work in reviewing the garhwali folk poems

fulee jaai lai---taruni Javani ko saj maya deni laai

He explained the poetry, compared this poem with a Braj Poem that the poet spent four stanzas in explaining same emotion , similarity with four lined verse of Vidyapati Thakur (Maithali ) , a Couplet of Das of Hindi, correspondenced with ‘Shers or gazals’ of famous Urdu poets Ustad Jauk, and Ustad Shauki, paralleled with the poem of English poet Lord Tennyson , evaluated with the couplets of Kabeer das, and measured with the poems of Raskhan Khan Khana.
The readers may understand the sound work of Malchand for reviewing each couplet of Garhwali Bajuband or Folk poem.

Though, now, Malchand Ramola is no more with us in this world but his contribution has been praised by eminent knowledgeable personalities of Garhwal as captain Shr Beer Singh brother of ex King of Garhwal , Dr Mahavver Prasad Gairola a prominent signature in Garhwali literature, Abodh Bandhu Bahuguna the top most literature creative of garhwali language, Arjun Singh Gusain the editor of Hilans, Ishwari Prasad Uniyal the editor of Garhwali daily paper Gadhaina and many more. Bhishma Kukreti wrote a fine commentary on this book Bajuband Kavya in Gadhaina and Ramola wrote that Bhishma Kukreti understood the urge of Ramola for publishing such a fine book in the history of Garhwali literature

Coyright@ Bhishma Kukreti, Mumbai, India, 2009