by Twinkle Das
And the story of Jitendriya Haripal, the maker of Rangabati
Talking about the alluring beauty of tribal lass in a sweet co local language of Sambalpuri, the song Rangabati is a piece of art. The tongue twisting lyrics magically weaves an illusion about the beauty of the Mother Nature in a musical manner. We all have grown up listening and grooving to the beats of Rangabati… the famous Sambalpuri folk song. The innocent raw lyric has now given the opportunity to bag Padma Shri Award to the tribal, untrained singer and composer of the song Jiitendria Haripal.
Always being on demand of every Odia, irrespective of the age, gender and class… Rangabati has been drooling 
us head over heels. No matter it’s a festival, cultural function, college fest, school function, picnic parties, Barat, everything seem so incomplete without this colourful cult song in Odisha. The voice of Jitendria Haripal and Krishna Patel for the song created an exemplary popularity.
The story of the iconic song ‘Rangabati’ which have also brought sheer pride to Odisha in the form of ‘Padma sri’ started in 1970’s. The track was recorded by All India Radio, Sambalpuri for a special programme ‘Sur Malika’ and the song was an instant hit. The lyrics and tune of Rangabati started spreading like fire in audiences. When people could hardly posses a transistor or radio, the popularity of the song gained momentum without much blessings of technology.
The song reached its popularity in nearby states. The essence of tribal music also started tinkling in Hindi regions of country in late 70’s. Seeing the popularity, a sound recording company INERCO re-recorded the track and made huge profit out of it. The company even signed a contract of 7 years with Jitendria Haripal. But irony is every story has to go through dramatic toughs to recreate legends, how could Haripal’s story be different! The company crashed in loss and due to the contract Haripal could not play for any other music company or band.
In between this battle of life, one thing happened like blessing in disguise and that is… the popularity of Rangabati. The song which was written, composed and sung in a folk language, it started ruling all over. Even the Cuttkias, Bhubaneswarias (the term used by western Odisha people) could not resist the craze of the song.
The story of unsung craftsmen of Rangabati came in light when the noted journalist P. Sainath was doing his fellowship research on drought by moving in different states. He discovered the story of Haripal and brought his existence and the tale of Rangabati in media. There is a rumour that people of the state forgot the artist thinking of him dead by poverty.
Well… P. Sainath’s effort made Haripal’s life back on track. Haripal got lot of government and private recognition worldwide and the song’s popularity came back in forms of recreation in different languages and versions. In recent times the song had also been featured in a Hindi film with revised Hindi lyrics.
Recently the song was also in controversy when an Odia originated bollywood singer Sona Mohapatra performed ‘Rangabati’ with rock fusion on a national television channel. It raised lot of debate though the revised version of the song by Sona was a top viewed music video on internet and other media forms. The people across border showered their love for the song and it touched more than 1.5 crore views so far.
Well… controversy is a different aspect and the discussions and debate will never end but today we are a celebrating the tenderness of our culture with the popularity of ‘Rangabati’. Jitendria Haripal has been honoured with one of the highest civilian award ‘Padma Sri’ for his life time contribution for Sambalpuri folk music. Today the creators of Rangabati are standing as icons with their heads high with Odisha’s love and pride.
Today, OdishaLIVE takes this opportunity to bow to the master craftsman of sambalpuri music, who have given the sweat and blood to the unfading hymn of Rangabati, the face of the rich folk culture. OdishaLIVE team wishes him to continue this glorious journey grow to the moon and back.