The Hindi Song Book, the first installment of an open access Manifold-created journal in collaboration with UW Libraries, officially launched last week. This project is the result of a collaborative effort of UW Librarians Verletta Kern and Dylan Burns, Hindi instructor Heidi Pauwels, and graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Washington in Seattle, with the simple goal of sharing the work and the fun of taking Hindi songs seriously.
While many people have a general sense of what Hindi songs are about, especially when performed with gestures and mime, it is not always easy to know precisely what is meant. Popular songs tend to be in registers different from standard modern Hindi, whether older or regionally diverse ones, which makes them harder to access for the average Hindi speaker. On top of that, songs in movies are often not subtitled, leaving room for misunderstandings. And yet there is so much to be gained by listening carefully. Besides acknowledging artists and working on a more precise understanding, we also aim for a better appreciation of the aesthetics and rhetorics behind the lyricists’ craft.
The project finds its origin in the class leadership and final presentations of students of HINDI 317 (Popular Hindi Song), 502 (Readings in Classical Hindi Literature: Avadhi) and 494 (Ramayana in Comparative Perspective) during Winter Quarter 2025, when the shared theme of these classes was the Ramayana. Several students voluntarily committed to convert their class projects into teaching material for their peers. It is intended as the first installment in a series on which to build in future years.
View the Hindi Song Book here: https://uw.manifoldapp.org/journals/hindi-song-book