चैती — एही ठइयाँ मोतिया हेराई गइले रामा

The classic chaiti 'Ehi Thaiyan Motiya Heraai Gaile Rama' in the recorded repertoire of Janki Bai of Allahabad, c. 1917 — the Chait-month song of the lost pearl, with its signature 'Rama' refrain, on a wartime disc.

Chaiti is the most languid of the seasonal forms: sung as Chait's heat rises, its long, falling phrases imitate the month itself. The fixed 'Rama' at each line-end is both refrain and breath. Janki Bai's seasonal sides — kajri in Sawan, chaiti in Chait — were calendar events for the catalogue.

The lost pearl is chaiti's most beloved riddle: a nose-stud, a token, maidenhood, the beloved himself — the song never says, and that is its art. The nayika searching 'right here' where it vanished is spring's own image of longing that knows exactly where, but not how.

Recorded chaitis from the 1900s onward carried the Banaras–Allahabad spring repertoire to listeners far from the Ganga. In the war years these familiar seasonal sides were safe stock for a company short of shellac and shipping — comfort music in anxious times.

This mukhda remained a touchstone of Purab-ang singing all century — later immortalised by the Banaras gharana's great women. Early discs like Janki Bai's are the form's first fixed footprints.