Page 275 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

250 P.J. Amala Dos

economic and political context. Thus, this character found in such
folk forms has the potential to rise to the occasion, and can certainly
be considered a major progressive element. But it does not end there.
These characters are not individuals; they represent certain values
and personify them. Therefore, it is possible to create new folk stories
on contemporary issues. Contemporary evils like corruption, illiteracy
and lack of awareness can be depicted as asuras (demons), and an
effective folk story can be written. Hence, the folk form can allegorically
warn that if the majority of the people are unscientific, the nation is
unscientific; if the majority of the people are illiterate, the nation is
illiterate, and so on.
In the beginning these was no manuscript for the text of folk forms.
It was passed on from generation to generation orally, and even today,
in spite of the spread of the print media, many folk artists consider
the oral message as the text. This is very much true even in the case of
folk artists belonging to well-established folk forms like Therukoothu
(street theatre performed in Tamil Nadu), leather puppetry, Veedhi
natakam (street theatre peculiar to Andhra Pradesh), Yakshagana
(literally song of the Yaksha; traditional dance drama popular in
Karnataka) , Bayalaata (a form of Yakshagana), thaiyam, burakatha
(a form of storytelling popular in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh),
oku katha, etc.
The aforementioned spontaneous folk forms do not require a
trained individual to play the role of an artist; all of the rural people
can play that role very effectively. In this case, the literacy standards,
economic status, social relationships, faith concepts, caste rigidity, etc.
represented in the folk forms become the basis upon which people can
reflect over their condition. Thus, these folk forms are a resource of
the nation’s value and culture.
When we talk about the influence of the folk forms, we mean the
influence of the people over the people, because, as I mentioned,
they are the people’s forms. If the people who are the masters of folk
forms are not sufficiently fed with information, there cannot be any
scientific influence over the population at large. Folk artists must be
convinced about the need for utilizing the medium to create aware-
ness among people.