Baithak in the Hills

Service Description

Celebrate the lives and cultures of beautiful Eastern Himalayan villages from the Darjeeling Hills. Go off the trodden paths in the Darjeeling hills to relish local culture and music. Discover stories from the Silk Route laden with Nepali folk music. A face-to-face dialogue with farmer musicians from the plains of Nepal. Be part of musical sessions interspersed with conversations about Nepali folk music, the musical instruments used, etc. Access the remote landscapes through music. Witness lively performances in a rustic setting nestled in the Darjeeling Himalayan Hills. Folk Musicians from Kachankawal of the Jhapa District in Nepal travel miles by pedalling, walking, and taking a few public means of transport to commute to the tourists' beloved Darjeeling. Otherwise, farmers from the fertile plains of Nepal, these generations of folk musicians perform well-loved Nepali songs with their ever-loved companion, i.e., the beautiful Nepali Sarangi. Made of sturdy jackfruit wood, and polished with silk-smooth pine resin, these instruments bear the symbols and impressions of ancient string instruments that evolved over thousands of years across the Silk Route. Once the symbol of their idiosyncratic culture and musical traditions, this music is now endangered beside the modern cacophonies of Nepali Music. With stories of beautiful villages, silk trades, and a regular dialogue of love, their music stimulates our common curiosity to become a deeper one and takes us on a soulful journey. Breaking away from the regular, they come with music taught to them by their forefathers. Never burdened with their existential struggle, they worship music as a way of life. "Baithak in the Hills'' is a specialty experience, organised and curated by Darjeeling Walks, that aims to construct and establish a dialogue between the oral traditions of the diverse music scenes of the Eastern Himalayas, the lesser Himalayas, and the institutionalised customs, practices, documentation of local music, and its history.