Professional ragis, kirtan performers, travel a circuit between gurdwaras in India, Britain, Canada, the United States, Australia and the Gulf, engaged for a week or a month at a time.
It is a working profession with a career structure, a reputation economy and a hierarchy, and the best-known jathas are recognised across the diaspora.
The economics are direct: a gurdwara pays for the jatha, the sangat gives offerings, and recordings circulate free.
The repertoire and the style vary. The harmonium-led light style is standard; the raga-based revival with taus and dilruba is a minority practice with growing institutional support.
The circuit is one of the few things that physically connects Punjab to its diaspora on a continuing basis, alongside marriage and money.
It is also completely undocumented as an institution. There is no directory of jathas, no history of the profession and no study of how the repertoire has changed.
The circuit runs on invitations from gurdwara committees, and a ragi jatha or a kathavachak can spend months moving between Britain, Canada, the United States and Australia in the summer season.
The money raised on these tours funds institutions in Punjab, and the arrangement is old enough that some deras and taksals depend on it.
It carries the arguments as well. A dispute over maryada or over politics at Amritsar reaches Surrey and Southall within days, because the same people are in both rooms.