Occasions in a repertoire

Alka Pande’s 1999 book distinguishes several seasonal song occasions. Its list includes Basant songs of spring, Sawan rain songs and Teeyan songs associated with the monsoon festival. It also records songs for swings, Rakhri and Sankrant. These labels organise a repertoire by occasions and relationships. A spring song, a swing song and a brother-sister festival song need not have the same subject or performance setting.[1]

Monsoon visits and sung response

Harnek Kler’s university encyclopedia article describes Teej, also called Teeyan, through visits by married daughters to their parental homes in Sawan. Women and girls gather in a shared outdoor place, with swings hung from trees and singing accompanying the dancing. His account describes one performer leading a boli, others repeating its closing passage, and pairs entering the dancing space. Clapping supplies rhythm. The songs can praise the natal family or turn towards relationships with in-laws, so the monsoon occasion also becomes a reunion with people and remembered places. Kler’s description joins the season to particular opportunities for visiting, meeting and collective expression. The occasion gives the songs a social setting as well as a place in the calendar.[2]

A college programme in 2025

Bela’s College of Pharmacy records a different presentation in its 2025 Communiqué newsletter. Its Teej report describes a procession, traditional dress, food and a cultural programme that included folk songs dedicated to the festival. Students and faculty took part, with Jaspreet Kaur as cultural coordinator. The report documents an institution arranging a festival programme for its campus community. Read alongside Kler’s gathering account, it shows why a seasonal repertoire can be encountered in more than one social setting. The newsletter does not identify the individual songs or establish that their words matched those sung in a particular village.[3]

Sources & notes

Source records include access dates and, where known, limits on what was examined. Checks used AI assistance; independent human or specialist review has not been completed.

  1. Alka Pande; Grantha Corporation in association with Mapin Publishing. Folk Music and Musical Instruments of Punjab: From Mustard Fields to Disco Lights ↗scholarly book through inspected public transcript · Source date: 1999 · Locator: Actually inspected web-readable transcript, Seasonal heading and category list at lines 1158–1169; original 1999 publication identified in preliminaries; no verified printed-page locator for the selected list. Accessed 2026-11-02.Actual original publication preliminaries and the Seasonal category list were inspected in a web-readable transcript. A printed-page locator and full facsimile for that passage were not verified. Other chapters, mirrors and reproduced excerpts belong to the same book.Return to Occasions in a repertoire, paragraph 1 ↑
  2. Harnek Kler; Publication Bureau, Punjabi University, Patiala. ਤੀਜ — signed Bal Vishvakosh article ↗independently signed university encyclopedia article · Source date: 2014-01-20 (online posting; print date not established) · Locator: Aggregate page, first block headed ਤੀਜ from Bal Vishvakosh, signature ਹਰਨੇਕ ਕਲੇਰ, posting 20 January 2014; visits, shared gathering place, swings and sung response; saved text lines 20–142. Accessed 2026-11-01.Only the first Bal Vishvakosh block signed Harnek Kler was selected and read. Its description of visits, gathering, swings and sung response is used. Adjacent School, Kazak and Nabha blocks and the essay’s origin assertion are excluded.Return to Monsoon visits and sung response, paragraph 1 ↑
  3. Amar Shaheed Baba Ajit Singh Jujhar Singh Memorial College of Pharmacy, Bela; Communiqué11(II). Teej Festival Celebrated at Pharmacy College Bela ↗primary college newsletter report · Source date: 2025 · Locator: Communiqué2025,11(II), printed/PDF6, complete Teej Festival Celebrated at Pharmacy College Bela report; PDF1 title/issue metadata. Accessed 2026-11-02.The actual newsletter title/issue metadata and complete Teej report on printed/PDF6 were inspected. It records the college’s 2025 programme without giving an exact event date. No general rural-prevalence claim is inferred.Return to A college programme in 2025, paragraph 1 ↑
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Record PH-CUL-0071 · English edition · human review not performed