Oral Tradition as the Living Handbook of Narratology: The Cultural Impact of Dogra Folksongs on Gender

In a society, a message from one person to another is communicated through the mechanism of a medium. Oral narratives, being one of the active medium, transmit cultural knowledge from one generation to another where in they reflect gender dogma in many ways. Among the several ways, oral narrations play a major part in creating and reflecting gendered culture in a society. This paper is based on a exploration of oral folk songs sung by Dogra women of the Duggar community of North India. These songs are in the Kandi and Pahari dialects of Dogri. The study is only circumscribed to those Dogri folk songs that expose women's wishes, feelings, emotions, unfulfilled desires, and reactions. Folk songs with the themes containing rituals, festivals, or ceremonies have been excluded.