ABSTRACT
This chapter engages voice as a unique point for interrogating the Ramkatha spaces and reports on the perception of sounds and importance of oral tradition in every day Hindu religious life. Tapping into the Ramkatha performances, the auditory dimension and multi-functional aspects of sonic communication are deliberated. It is argued that sounds are aesthetic productions, coded with culture-specific imaginations and contribute to transformations of self and identity. Voice appears to create spaces, co-ordinate experiences, marks boundaries and mediate new forms of identity, affect and intimacy. Attuned to aesthetics of the performatively coded sound, silence and music productions, how do sound and voice relate to the expression, transmission and agency within the Ramkatha soundscapes. The ability of his audiences to listen repeatedly to a performance produces listening fidelity and conveys ideas about katha rasa and the ideal listening emotional state or bhava. As a bearer of scriptural knowledge, Morari Bapu's voice becomes even more significant as a vehicle of meaning and a representational trope for social position and power. Attending to sounds as a social practice that involves aesthetics, emotions and the body in various settings helps interrogate the power of recitation, orality and politics of remediation.
