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.