आज बिरज में होरी रे रसिया

“Aaj Biraj Mein Hori Re Rasiya” is a traditional Braj hori entered here as recorded by Janki Bai of Allahabad for the Gramophone Company around 1919. Set in the Kafi colour with sarangi and tabla, it is a late-period seasonal side from the gramophone era's bestselling 'Chhappan Chhuri', issued under the His Master's Voice imprint.

Raag Kafi is hori's home key — spring made audible. Over a lilting deepchandi sway, the singer alternates the mukhda's call with teasing bol-banav on 'barjori', the sarangi answering like a companion in the colour-play. On shellac the form's mehfil expansiveness is compressed into a bright three-minute festival.

The hori frame is eternal: Krishna the rasiya forces colour on the gopis, the protest is half the pleasure, and 'barjori' names the consent hidden inside the complaint. The text belongs to everyone and no one — a folk inheritance polished by generations of courtesan singers.

By 1919 Janki Bai 'Chhappan Chhuri' of Allahabad was a veteran of the recording horn — her discs had sold in the tens of thousands since 1907. Seasonal songs were her reliable bestsellers, and hori sides sat beside her thumris and ghazals in the HMV catalogues as the gramophone learned to sell the Indian calendar.

The hori genre that tawaif singers carried onto disc became a permanent register of Hindi music — flowing into film Holi songs from the studio era to today. Janki Bai's seasonal sides are early documents of that unbroken line.