A man from Narayanpur, Chhattisgarh, named Maniram Mandawi is going viral on Twitter for all the right reasons. In a video tweeted by People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), Maniram can be seen swinging a flute in the air to produce musical sounds.
Sharing the video, PARI captioned it as ‘the ingenuity of the indigenous people’. The 42-year-old flute maker also shares the story of his teacher and the reason why he started making swinging bamboo flutes.
The ingenuity of the indigenous people. Here's Maniram Mandawi with his signature swinging bamboo flutes. What does it do? How does it work? Got a minute? Have a look. pic.twitter.com/jnonvfS4eX
— People's Archive of Rural India (@PARInetwork) February 26, 2021
The interesting musical instruments called ‘swinging flutes’ are made from bamboo and produce music when swung in air. Maniram learned the skill from his 80-year-old teacher Mandar Singh Mandawi when the former was only 15 years old. Mandar had told Maniram how the swinging flutes were used for protection from wild animals in forests like lions, tigers and bears as the sound of the flute could scare them away.
Watched over 57,000 times, Maniram’s video has caught the attention of India Twitter users. Reacting to the video, a commenter called it ‘brilliant,’ while another said it was ‘incredible.’
This is beyond brilliant. Thank you for always working so hard to bring us information like this— kindness (@amo_libri) February 26, 2021
Incredible.— Anza (@AnzaAmbreen) February 26, 2021
A user named Amitabh said that he bought around 50 swinging flutes and has used them for decoration purposes.
I once bought almost 50 of them in one exhibition and used a lot of them for home decoration..they are really beautiful piece of art as well— Amitabh (@amitabhnayan) February 26, 2021
Many were also curious to know how they could buy one for themselves.
The flute maker sells the one musical instrument for Rs 50 per piece to handicraft organisations. However, according to a report by PARI, customers buy the swinging flute for Rs 300.
Almost 20 years ago, Maniram used to find the bamboo for flutes close to his workshop but now he has to travel a minimum of 10 kilometres to fetch wood for the musical instrument.
Remembering the old times, the 42-year-old flute maker said that earlier the forest was dense and full of trees. He added that he used to see deers and rabbits around the workshop and sometimes nilgai too. The report mentions that Maniram was teary eyed when speaking about the state of the forest today and said that if in the future, their children ask them about forest and animals, they would not have answers.