Dilip Dutta

Jorhat, Feb. 1: Dilip Dutta, a former mathematics professor at Rhode Island University, Kingston, US, is all set to release his third book — on songs and dramas of Bishnu Prasad Rabha.

A die-hard Assamese at heart, Dutta has been engaged in the compilation of all recorded Assamese songs for the past 45 years and has published songs composed by Bhupen Hazarika and Nirmal Prabha Bordoloi in his previous two volumes.

Dutta, a resident of Gayan Gaon here, said though he had been living abroad for more than 45 years now, he could establish a connection with home, its culture and society through these songs. It also helped him retain his identify as an Assamese.

“Through the songs of Bhupen Hazarika, which graphically present a picture of Assam’s landscape as well as the habits and doings of the people, I could visualise home when I first started working in England way back in 1963,” Dutta said.

“Once I started plumbing the depths of the songs, the richness and variety of Assamese culture and society emerged. It helped me identity myself as an Assamese. From analysing these songs, I could also glean many facts of this place, hitherto unknown, which added to my knowledge as well,” he said.

The task of collecting these songs from different places in Assam was time-consuming and arduous. People were not willing to part with their gramophone records. Hence, Dutta decided to make the collection by tape-recording the songs.

Later, when the gramophones themselves got defunct, he armed himself with a record player, a gift from his student at the university.

“I used to record the songs at the house of my host. I collected more than 1,100 songs, including the first four recorded ones in 1925,” Dutta said.

The collection of songs include songs sung by legendary musician Bhupen Hazarika in his early days — Sakhi eikhon srojila Shantiniketan and Valmiki dev bohi asse jaano Himalay.

His search for songs also took him to the HMV studio in Calcutta. Unfortunately, however, all the copper plates used for recording songs prior to 1945 were damaged.

The songs collected by Dutta have all been uploaded at www.maZumba.com and can also be accessed from Apple iTunes because of the efforts of Rupam Sharma, a resident of Rajamaidam here, and a computer science engineer working with Apple.

Asked about the book on Bishnu Rabha, to be released in about a week’s time, Dutta said though he had managed to collect the songs, he had been unable to trace a drama on Madhavdev. He, however, acquired the one written on Shankardev and also an unknown composition.

Dutta, on a short trip to Jorhat, will leave for Kingston tomorrow.