The Baul music which is predominantly spread in the Bengali region of India is a form of music that is infused with the elements of Sufism, Vaishnavism, Tantra and Buddhism. The Baul Music has been included in the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005.

There is an inherent contrast in the composition of the Baul music, it describes and celebrates the celestial in a very earthly tone and manner. Due to this very liberal and open-ended interpretation of love, it is within the nature of the Baul music to be devotional in its spirit and soul. The Baul music transcends religion and enshrines the belief of love across the superficiality of religious lines.

The great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore had his work heavily influenced by the Baul music which can be evidently seen in his famous Rabindra Sangeet.

The Baul music is representative of the deep belief and preaching of mysticism in Bengali folklore. The lyrics of the Baul Sangeet are a manual of deep mysticism and longing with the mystic and the divine. Metaphysical topics also found their way in the contents of the lyrics. They stress staying unattached and unconsumed by the delights of life even while getting a charge out of them. A significant piece of their way of thinking is “Deha tatta”, an otherworldliness identified with the body rather than the brain. They look for the divine nature in people.

The Baul songs have an inherent inclination in adapting and acclimatizing to the ever-changing times and in incorporating and infusing in them the contemporary economic and societal changes.

The instrument that was most commonly used is Ektara, which is a single-stringed instrument that has a plucked drum. The Ektara is usually carved from the epicarp of a gourd and then combined with bamboo giving the instrument an earthly connection, an expression that is at the core of the spirit of the Baul music. The other instruments include the dotara which is a fretless tube with a long neck, the khamak which is a single-headed drum with an attached string.

The Baul music is currently thriving through the states of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and in Bangladesh with Baul music finding its way in the hinterlands via fairs, melas and festivals.

Independent Project by Abhinav Sharma

Guide ⇒ Prof. Manohar Khushalani

References :

1. The Origin and History of the Bauls of Bengal Wandering Music Cult
2. Baul Song

Does the cold womb speak to the warm vagina,  are we meant to be bound  and knit into the body, so much so we do not seem to belong, not to have any identity ever?  The guess is not in the mystification nor in the pontification of the  “female” in the eyes of society. Nor it it amongst the peering eyes of manhood and by keeping them as some elusive or exclusive superior race.  It  lies in the individuality and the recognition of the self amongst all.  For once let us not see ourselves only through the wombs , the vaginas, or paling breasts but only as having separate yet same voices.  This through which we can declare strongly enough to be defined as all belonging to each other.

The time to be in categories of gender has long gone, it needs to be attacked and discarded as worthless.  These binaries and super binaries that do not see women as individuals first but use the safety net of phrases of gender are to be  shot down as  fallacies. We have been honoured enough by given powerful names by our ancestors.  We have been given recognition for sounding phrases strong.  Enough of gendering, enough and more than enough, it’s time to think ahead, as “you and me”, and “we all”, “as all of us” that belong entirely to each other.

This will allow us to love unconditionally, to let go unconditionally and remain forever within the societal definitions of a “ wife” “mother” “ daughter” or “sister”.  It will thus also not negate the man as a “ husband” “ father” “ son” or “ brother” and bondages will only only grow stronger and stronger.  Such singular terms of unity therefore allows one to outgrow force and coercion that often come within societal  relationships.  The urge here I see to all of us  only as me and you and forget the male, female, alpha male, alpha female etc.  The society will then accept unconditionality in loving and wanting to be loved.

For once live only for you and me and forget all expectations from each other, not because god says so, or you have enlightened and seen Buddhahood, or emerged victorious from the caves of inner meditation, but only because you truly and truly believe in the selfhood of each person. Wombs will then create the universe with its totality and spirit of mind.  Enjoy and embark in this unconditionality of living and letting to live.      

I remember my first learning after starting to live here in the hills. 2010, I think. Those days we were still city slickers who would travel up by the Ranikhet Express after putting in a full day at work. We would head up on a Thursday night and head back down by the Sunday night train to get into work on Monday morning! Gosh! I’m feeling tired just writing about those crazy trips!

During one of those trips, I remember we decided to use the local public transport of the shared Boleros that ply up and down from Ranikhet and stop anywhere they want to pick up or drop off passengers. We had bought some plastic chairs in Ranikhet and had tied them to the carrier of our chariot for the return journey.

After waiting for about 20 minutes for passengers to be rounded up, we set off at around 2 pm. As the vehicle was pretty crowded, Tripti sat in the middle seat and I squeezed into the extremely intimate back benches where five people and a baby were forced to rub knees and ignore touching thighs and hips! After about five minutes when we had just exited Ranikhet, the baby who was in her mother’s arms sitting next to me decided to entertain the bored passengers by evacuating her lunch onto my jeans and shoes. The mother turned a deep shade of red in embarrassment as she profusely started apologising and at the same time asking the driver to pull over.

I sat struck dumb, looking at the child’s lunch, trying hard not to react rudely or at all actually, while the driver pulled over on the verge and the rest of the passengers got off and hung around chatting idly. Gently reprimanding the mother for travelling with the little one so soon after her lunch, he pulled out a jerry can of water and came to the back and started cleaning the floor, the seat, my jeans and shoe. I thanked him and got off as well as he diligently finished the clean up operation. The whole operation from barf to boarding took around 15 minutes.

As I waited with Tripti, I looked around at all the rest of the passengers waiting with us. Some were squatting and smoking, some chattering, some busy on their phones, some cooing and chatting with the baby and her mother. 15 minutes of this. Once the driver announced the all clear, we all got back into the jeep and set off again.

And that’s when it struck me.
In all the time we had been waiting outside, not one passenger complained about getting late, expressed annoyance at the driver or the mother or in fact, expressed any kind of reaction of any kind whatsoever! This was totally amazing to me, coming as I did from a life where delays like this might mean the collapse of democracy as we know it or the heavens deciding to fall! 15 minutes? And not a peep? What was going on here? And that’s when it finally dawned on me. Time was a fictional concept invented by man to make life intolerable! What the local people knew instinctvely was that neither democracy, nor the heavens, nor in fact anything at all of import would ever happen in their life by waiting for a young mother to clean up her baby and make it more comfortable. Patience. Yes,that was my learning that day and I was humbled by it. Truly humbled. And just for that, I am forever indebted to these hills and to it’s truly human populace.