ABSTRACT
Trans-continental indentured migration from British India to various colonial islands carried various forms of music with it. This chapter discusses the song genre of separation and movement called Birahā encompassing its cultural pathways, intersections, and survival strategies. This essay introduces a classification of Birahā into three waves and draws a comparison between stunted growth of genre in Indo-Caribbean as compared to dynamic and diversified growth in India. Previous works on Birahā incarnates by Peter Manuel have been examined. The chapter explores aesthetics of migration in general through the converging and diverging themes of Birahā.
