CONTACT PERSON: Kuldeep Kothari
COUNTRY : India
CONTACT : dalitsanghmp@gmail.com
WEBSITE : www.arnajharna.org
The primary aim of the founders was to bring out and preserve the richness of Rajasthani language through documentation of literary traditions, folk tales and folk songs. From an institute that was started with a purely academic approach, Rupayan has evolved to a much bigger framework of activities.
From partnering with eminent folklore institutions worldwide, organizing meaningful platforms for folk art performances, quality research work, to effective dissemination of information at the grassroots, local and international level, Rupayan’s gamut of activities is extremely wide-ranging. Through these, Rupayan endeavours to inspire and empower the present and coming generations to uphold and preserve Rajasthan’s cultural and intellectual wealth.
Rupayan Sansthan has founded Arna Jharna, the Desert Museum of Rajasthan, near the city of Jodhpur to celebrate the living traditions of the people, cultures, and environment in Rajasthan through a holistic, interactive and educational experience.
Over the years, Rupayan has created an offline audio visual archive containing more than 15,000 hours of recordings of Rajasthani folk tales and folk music that are mainly used by researchers, scholars and institutions such as IIT, IIM and other national level universities. However, only a small portion of the archive is digitised. With funding support from Ford Foundation and working with national level cultural organisations such as Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and Sangeet Natak Akademi, Rupayan is now digitising its entire archive.
The digitised material will soon be made available on the organisation’s website to enable a global audience to access it.
