Brave and Courageous: Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and "Kesariya Balam"

We have some folk music from Rajasthan on tap for today. The performer is Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, a Grammy winning Indian slide guitarist who focuses on Hindu classical music. His guitar, called a mohan veena, is a special type of modified Hawaiian guitar with 20 strings and a gourd screwed into the back of the neck. Bhatt modified the guitar himself and named the instrument with part of his own name - it has since been adopted by other musicians especially after Bhatt's Grammy award. He won the Grammy for a collaboration with Ry Cooder, and he has also collaborated with other musicians such as Taj Mahal, Béla Fleck and Jerry Douglas. You can find this song, Kesariya Balam, on Bhatt's 1994 CD Lure of Desert. The song in its lyrical form is a love story between Maru, princess of Pungal, and Dhola, Prince of Narwar where she calls him Kesariya, or brave and courageous.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishwa_Mohan_Bhatt; https://www.quora.com/A-famous-Rajasthani-song-Kesariya-balam-padharo-mhare-desh-In-this-song-whats-the-meaning-of-Kesariya-balam