Amay Vasaili Re--- Music and Lyric ©Jasim Uddin, Singer Runa Laila video

Bhatiali: music of fishermen and boatman, almost always tied by a common raga (mode), sung solo. Bangladesh is a country of rivers.Like the tendrils of a creeper, or like the ornments hanging on a women's limbs, the sweeping curves and half-curves lines of innumerable rivers have traced a network over the fields. In rainy season number of people take to their boats. The songs of the countryside are the voice of the river. Who is he, the unknown, unvisible maker of the village tunes, stroking the rivers with his softfingered wavy hands as a player strokes the strings of an instrument, creating the many-coloured songs of Bengal in the bhatiali tunes. (From: Folk Songs of East Bengal by Jasim Uddin- Essays of Jasim Uddin Part II,Palash Publication, Dhaka, 2001 A long time ago, when man did not obstruct rivers to suit his petty needs, the river channels served as goodwill ambassadors to extensive geographical areas - a river originating in one country flowing through another, joining another river, forming a filigree of merging and diverging rivers - with the social and cultural heritage of one region blending into another, each drawing on the rich yet varied perspectives in the whole process of cultural evolution. This is perhaps most apparent in Bengal's rich and enviable variety of folksongs. Rivers form an integral part of the topography of Bengal: "Bangladesh is the land of rivers. Ganga, Meghna, Dhaleshwari, Shitalakshya, Gadai - in so many names and in such myriad ...