Dialogue

Sangeeta G. June 28, 08

The Minstrels of Spring – I

Sweden is blush with the beginning of fall in August. It’s the time of change, when old leaves must blow away in a last radiance of colour. However, a band of Bauls, the wandering mystic singers from Bengal, turns the gust in an opposite direction. Baul Shilpi from Bangladesh performs in the Sagohuset in Lund, Sweden. And gently reaffirms that a centuries old musical tradition still drums in change, freshness and independence as much as it did five centuries ago when it first arose.

 The first arrival of the bauls is typically a paradox which blurs back to roots in several religions, or none; nonconformists who broke away from Islam, Hinduism, Budhhism, Tantrics, Sufis; mystic preachers called Ba’als from Persia, Vaishnavs called Kartabhajas and Shahajiyas or Followers of Easy Path of Buddhism. Around twelfth century there were thinkers and mystics discarding conventional religion in search of alternative living; some discovered a common bond in the felt truth of universal love and spontaneously imparted it through song and dance.

Since then, so say the records as only unwritten ones can, Bauls have been singing to the rhythm of the winds, open fields and vast skies of Bengal’s countryside for centuries. Travelling from one place to another in urgent pursuit of the divinity within oneself.  

The Minstrels of Spring II

 

Today, the world is tuning into the baul’s strains, at different frequency points from traditional to contemporary folk to rock, to hear and understand the village minstrel better. At this year’s Rainforest World Music Festival in Indonesia, the Indian folk music band Oikyotaan is showcasing Baul songs – with a minimal contemporary touch. Western strings join the traditional one-stringed ektara and the little hand held drum, doogi. But they have not fallen into the trap of all-fusion so their music may resonate with the natal song of the baul.  

At around the same time, in October, Tokyo will host a performance by another band  from Bangladesh, Nogor Baul or the city baul. This time it’s a rock band, and the connection with the baul quite ends with the shared spirit of independence.

 

This is not unprecedented; Throughout the last decade, a handful of Bauls have matched their lilting, footloose, ironic and philosophical meanderings to the sounds of alternative-music, abroad. Paban Das baul lent his haunting vocals to experimental albums in France and England. Real Sugar, his collaboration with Sam Mills created an alluring chemistry between funk music and baul harmony. Another collaboration with Sam Zaman produced the fusion album Tana Tani. Baul-western fusion goes back to the friendship of Bob Dylan and the living legend of Bengali folk, Purna Das Baul in 1965. The unlikely duo, one in patched Levis with a Guitar and the other in saffron Alkhalla with an Iktara toured the west together and also shared an album. Bob Dylan loved being called the American Baul, unleashing a romantic flashback to Rabindranath Tagore. Much of the great poet’s writings are luminous with the mysticism of the bauls. And he signed himself as Rabindra Baul, embracing a self discovery in the deepest sense.

The Minstrels of Spring III

 During the time of Tagore however, bauls were not the popular folk cult it is today. Orthodox society had denounced the sect as god less outcasts. Free spirits in discarded patches. Worshipping divinity not in temples but in the body. Social decrees of caste and marriage thrown to the four winds. These put them firmly on the fringe of society for as long as one could remember. In fact, they invited the epithet Baul in all probability from the Sanskrit word Betul which means restlessness of the wind and craziness. They are often identified as Khepa or Khepi, meaning mad cap.

 It took the urban elite the romantic awakening of twentieth century to remember the village mad cap. The generation was then heady with western enlightenment and imported doctrines of freedom, equality and humanity. The maverick singer, home grown rebel, was a startling self-discovery. From Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam’s literature and music to Jamini Roy’s paintings, the best voices of the time took a cue from the baul’s humble impunity to break free. 

 Since then the baul has found an urban audience. But that is far from saying the sect is a thriving parallel to mainstream culture. Contemporary audience and world music on one hand, sound of the soil on the other. The heritage of non belonging at one end and the market identity of commercialization have placed baul music at the crossroads of time.

The Minstrels of Spring – IV

  

Many groups of baul now have the economic choice of settling down and do not have to travel from place to place as mendicants. They have turned to more sustainable forms of culture like public functions and government sponsored awards. In many of these performances, the baul is a mouthpiece for the government’s drives like family planning and AIDS awareness.

 

As to music labels, except for a very few and recognised bauls, they have rarely come forward to represent talents here. Fewer recording opportunities, coupled with greater commercialization of successful names have given rise to stiff competition among singers. Bauls have been pushed to establish his or her lineage and trace their antecedents to illustrious gurus to thwart pretend-bauls who crowd the fairs and functions by droves.

 

Significantly the bauls never formed a separate faith or creed for themselves. They never bothered to establish any identity greater than that of ‘Manush’, the human being. The loosely banded community thrives on its tradition of independence.

The Minstrels of Spring – V

 The baul is a deeper paradox than can be bridged by trying to integrate them with the mainstream,  like a folk culture or traditional music. Their earthy lyrics, sung to the one stringed Ektara, Dugi and Karatals are but deviously rustic. In which humour can be haunting irony. Expression of divine love also spans one’s human desire for his partner or Boishnobi. Philosophy flows into the esoteric with tantric practices of worship of the body. Mysticism is iridescent with satire.  

 

The legacy of non belonging lets the baul belong to many worlds and all times. Its ideas dare the conventional, even today. They don’t need to reinvent themselves to be contemporary, nor integrate themselves to be mainstream. In fact, it has a leading edge over both as a progressive, independent cult in a time when such cults are galvanizing the music industry.

 Major music labels and the mainstream culture is only slowly rising to the realization. The UNESCO adopted the baul tradition in 2005 under its Intangible Heritage Project to preserve its original oral masterpieces. Paban Das Baul’s latest album, Inner Knowledge, is a return to full throated traditional baul numbers. In far away Sweden, it may be the autumn song for elite culture’s high handedness, but for the Baul, it’s a new spring.