Kabir khade baazaar mein, chaahe sabki khair, naa kaahu se dosti naa kaahu se bair.Kabir stands in the marketplace, wishing well for everyone; he has neither friendship with anyone, nor enmity with anyone.These are the words Geeta Parag returns to, not just when she sings but in how she lives.“We can learn a lot from Kabir today. It is in just such an environment that Kabir makes us aware,” says Geeta, a folk singer from Madhya Pradesh’s Malwa region, known for her renderings of songs by Kabir and other Nirgun poets.After the couplet, she pauses, and the philosophy becomes a question. “I don’t know what has happened to people, why fighting and hatred are spreading. People live only for themselves instead of living to serve all of society. People have lost their sense of humanity. But on the other hand, there are people also working towards unity.”Her songs carry a quiet insistence on harmony, on a caste-free society, on gender equality. Along with her family – her mother-in-law Lila, daughter Tanu and husband Singaram Parag – she embodies the translation of philosophy into everyday life.Geeta, from a small village in Madhya Pradesh, has been awarded the Bheraji Samman for 2026, given to artists for upholding Malwi and Nimadi folk cultures. She has performed in more gatherings than she can recount since she began singing over two decades ago. “I have performed across Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Haryana, Punjab and other places,” she says.A recent international tour to Nepal marks another milestone for Geeta, who is known for being a rare women bringing Kabir’s songs to the national stage and for performing with a team that spans three generations. Early in her career, she was invited to the United States, but the patriarchal barriers she has since broken stood firm then – and among those resisting the idea of breaking them was Singaram.Now one of her strongest supporters, Singaram accompanies Geeta on the timki or nagari and is frequently at the wheel as the family travels from one performance to another.I met them near Indore, some 500 kilometers from their village in Dewas. “It was about fifteen years ago,” says Singaram. “I was against her singing, so I refused permission [to go to the US]. I said, there’s no telling what might happen – someone might sell you off.”“At the time, we did not have much of an understanding of the world,” says Geeta, who went to school up to class ten. She learned much more from studying the saint singers. “Since Kabir came into my life, I have experienced a great many changes,” she says.“I faced a lot of difficulties, both from my family and society,” says Geeta, describing the double challenges she faced – one, being a woman performer, and second, being born into a Dalit community.“So, in that sense, I have suffered discrimination. However, it is slowly dissipating, and I do get appreciation from all sides. Still, there are people everywhere who want to pull you down, believing women shouldn’t be allowed to get ahead.”She cites one example, recounting how, as a woman who did not wear ghunghat (veil) in her village, she was accused of being disrespectful. An elite-caste woman once told her as she collected water from the handpump, “How could you start using the pump when my water pot was there? You had no business doing that.” She responded, “Mata ji, what have I done wrong? I haven’t even touched your pot.”But the woman abused Geeta instead. She called her husband names too, and later complained to her mother-in-law, saying she was “uppity”.Recalling the day, Geeta recites Kabir’s other words:Mat kar maya ko ahankara, mat kar kaya ko ahankara, kaya gaar se kaachiDo not take pride in wealth (maya), or in the body (kaya), or the body is fragile: it is made of unbaked clay.“Then why is there this feeling of upper and lower caste in our society?” she says.Geeta says though caste-based discrimination was declining, it still existed – “in people’s hearts”.“You can tell by the way they speak to you,” she said.When invited to a wedding feast, she was made to sit away from other guests, or outside the pandal. “They honour and disrespect you at the same time,” she says. Years ago, Geeta stopped accepting such invitations, especially in villages. “You should not go where you are not respected,” she says.The seed of Nirgun marg, the spiritual path in which God transcends all describable qualities, forms and attributes, was planted in her by Singaram’s mother, Lila Parag, when Geeta was a young bride. The feisty mother-in- ensured Geeta’s potential could never be stifled by patriarchy.“My mother-in-law sang bhajans. Along with other women, she participated in programmes on the village chaupal or in villagers’ homes. They sang compositions of Kabir, Meera, Ravi Das and other saints. At home, she played cassettes of singers of Nirgun pad [verses], like Prahlad Singh Tipanya, Bheru Singh Chouhan and others from our region,” Geeta says.Lila would wake up at 5 and start playing her bhajan cassettes – devotional songs – which Geeta did not enjoy at all. “I preferred other songs,” she says, “I didn’t understand what a bhajan is.”But a new bride couldn’t go against elders’ wishes. So the routine remained intact.“Gradually I absorbed the words in those bhajans. I cannot say when it happened, but one day, the words of Kabir ji entered my heart. It changed me completely,” Geeta says.She started singing with her mother-in-law with her “itna saara ghunghat” fully veiled, as per the custom. Since she was only singing at home with her and other women, her husband did not object.“But when there was a programme outside, Singaram ji would say, ‘Mummy you can go if you want, but you can’t take my wife along. She is young and should not roam about. What if my friends see her at gatherings where other men are present? They’ll say my wife doesn’t obey me,’” Geeta recalls.Geeta Parag performing with her tanpura. Photo: By arrangement.Still, Geeta would go to sing, finishing her chores quickly and accompanying Lila Parag.“When I returned home, after my mother-in-law was asleep, my husband would fight with me. It was really upsetting,” she says.One night stands out in her memory.It was the evening after her mother-in-law said she should let Singaram fall asleep, and then they would leave to sing, never letting him know. “I’ll see to him later,” her mother-in-law promised Geeta. They left the house silently.“When we returned after 2 am, my mother-in-law went to bed, but I found he had locked me out of the room. I knocked and called, but he would not open the door. I cried, I prayed, wondering what was happening to my life. I was thirsty, and the only water I could get was from a bucket in the washroom.”Singaram speaks up, remorsefully, “She could not have gone to the handpump in the middle of the night as people would point fingers at a woman walking alone at night.”Geeta did not wake her mother-in-law. “She would have shouted at him and the neighbours would have heard, and there would have been gossip. I told her the next day, and she scolded him but he still wouldn’t listen.”Gradually, Geeta’s voice became recognised. She recalls candidly that when she had to sing at an event where professionals were performing, she was unselfconscious about being untrained, but the accompanying artists refused to perform with an amateur. The singers, however, noted her potential. After some days, they came to her house to ask if she wished to learn.“My mother-in-law and I were delighted,” says Geeta, “My guru is Narayan ji Delmia.”It was the Eklavya Sansthan that made her training possible. Along with Narayan Singh Delmia, other celebrated singers like Ajay Tipaniya, Suresh Patel and Kaluram Bamniya, also associated with Eklavya, took turns to train her.“They knew I would not be allowed to go to an institute to learn music, so Eklavya arranged to send teachers to our house.”Her commitment grew stronger as the lessons continued. Support for her talents also intensified. The world travelled musician, Ajay Tipaniya, accompanied Geeta on the dholak ungrudgingly. Geeta and Singaram laugh over how, unaware of the nuances of instrumentation, she once declared Tipanya was not playing the dholak the right way!Then came the day her guru asked her to sing one song at a monthly event held at Barandua, his native village. “That was my first stage. I got such love and applause that I cried for joy. The song was ‘Din Rah Gaya Thoda’. By whatever name we call the Creator, Allah, Ishwar, Wahe Guru, Kabir or Ram, we must first unlock the lock of ignorance (bharam). I started getting opportunities after that first performance.”But her joy was short-lived, because “logon ne phir inko bargala diya – people convinced her husband not to let her sing again”.Geeta would coax him to attend her programmes. He would sit at the back with his face covered so no one would recognise him. “People did mock us,” she says. They said terrible things about her, “because people feel free to say anything about a woman”. He would hear them and fight with her.Singaram regrets it all now. “I really did despise her work – main nafrat karta tha,” he admits. “Partly because I believed in sagun bhakti but I did not know the greatness of Kabir. Kabir spoke of the oneness of all human beings, he united hearts.”Sagun bhakti is a spiritual approach that attributes human-like qualities to God, making the Almighty comprehensible to devotees.Change was gradual. “I don’t know how it happened,” says Singaram, “When I think of my past, my heart weeps. I committed many wrongs and was cruel to my wife.” He smoked and drank in the past, and concealed the fact from Geeta – another regret he has.Singaram’s companions taunted him cruelly, he says, “‘Look at our wives, so respectable, within the four walls of home.’”“These taunts pierced me and I retaliated against her. But today, I am proud that those same men tell their wives – learn from Singaram’s wife. She is so respected that highly educated people listen devotedly to her singing.”Thus the caravan of life and music tumbles on, sometimes breeching, sometimes merely teasing the walls of patriarchy. After all, even scholars of Kabir say his views on women were contradictory. But Geeta Parag’s caravan has united three generations in their quest – undeterred by society’s restrictions on women.Anjana Rajan is a theatre practitioner, Bharatanatyam exponent, choreographer and teacher. She is co-founder, Art India Academy of Performing Arts, Dehradun.