Seventy-year old Motilal Hansda is a folk musician and a treasure-trove of knowledge on Santali musical traditions. 

Each and every Santal knows how to sing and dance. Motilal was very young when he lost his father, a Karam-Guru of the village. (A Karam-Guru is, in a sense, the official keeper of orally transmitted Santali rituals and traditions in the village.) His mother too was a good singer. But, Motilal was discouraged by family elders to dabble in Santali musical traditions and prevailed upon to concentrate on his education instead. The thinking at that time was that in order to meld with the mainstream, and to become upwardly mobile, it was best to eschew indigenous traditions. Further it was perceived amongst a few that such pursuits were markers of backward and poorly educated Santal youth. Thus, some parents or guardians, who wished to ensure a better future for their offspring, tried to enforce a ban on such cultural pursuits.  However, the young Motilal refused to listen – his heart told him otherwise. 

He would sing, full throated, all the way to school and back. He continued to do this till the end of his college days and stood out among his mates because of this practice. He also began to write down all the songs he knew and then went on to collecting songs from every conceivable source. He started by picking up and assiduously documenting songs that he heard at the numerous Santali festivals in and around his village. Later he added to his collection, songs gathered from village elders and Karam gurus, with whom he spent valuable time. In his single-minded quest, he visited neighbouring districts and states which had a sizeable Santal population, his notebook being his constant companion. Altogether, Motilal has spent more than 50 years collecting a massive repertoire across the numerous genres of Santal music. He also composed many songs.   

In 1984, his talent as a musician was recognized by an AIR Kolkata producer, and after a successful audition, he became a radio artiste for the Santali programme section. His association with AIR lasted for 20 years. 

His search for traditional Santali music led him to the tea plantation workers in a village near Dibrugarh, Assam once. There, to his delight, he found that the songs that had been orally transmitted for the last nearly two hundred years, had references to Purulia and in particular to the region that Motilal lived in. Though the Santal tea planters themselves had no idea of the origins of these place names or even characters like the Raja of Kashipur that appeared in the lyrics, to Motilal it was a joyful discovery. It meant that their ancestors had been sent from the Adra region in Purulia!

Motilal has since compiled his collection of Pata Sereng, or Pata songs into a book for Sahitya Akademi. He and his wife Kajoli have kept themselves busy since lockdown began, running Sikar Kuhu Adibasi Mission, a small primary school for needy Santali children, teaching them traditional Santali music and dance, in addition to standard classes.