The Baul and the Bengal music

SHinjini Saha, INN/Gwalior, @Infodeaofficial

West Bengal is a state with a rich legacy of culture and heritage. The word ‘Baul’ gives out an impression that the legacy of music from West Bengal is no less impressive. The word ‘Baul’ means madness that comes out of an overwhelming love for the infinite self.

West Bengal, a land of fecundity and prosperity embraces all within her fold. The varied hues of her rich culture, color her songs, music and literature. 

The numerous tribes and ethnic groups of Bengal have their own distinctive folk arts, as varied and beautiful as the tribes themselves. Bengal’s repertoire of folk songs with its lyrical appeal and richness, its thematic diversity and range is a reflection of rural Bengals creativity and imagination. Baul is also one of them.

They involve prayers, offerings, celebrations and odes. During the post medieval period, was divided and closed society.  The community of protesters could be identified by a long saffron-colored cloak called the Alkhalla with a turban of the same color. 

The one-stringed instrument or Ektara they always carried and the bells they tied to their perpetually dancing feet. They were the Bauls, the creators of phenomenal music tradition that has survived and grown despite the ravages of time. 

Apart from the bamboo flute, they developed a variety of musical instruments like the Premjuri and Dotara, the Khamak and Goopi Jaantro, the Kartal and Doobki among others.

The Bauls are free wanderers. They are detached from the bondage of society and family. They move from place to place, making a meagre living from the alms given to them by those who can plumb the profound depths of their frugality. The Bauls belong to a sect with a distinctive mystic ideology of their own and their songs spread the message of peace and universal brotherhood.

The singers describe the transience of mundane existence and the simple means to spiritual upliftment, through the root of their philosophical theory rests in a deeper complex psychological consciousness. 

The Bauls have played a major role in India’s freedom struggle when they moved from village to village in rural Bengal with their songs stirring up a feeling of nationalism and pride in our motherland among the illiterate village folk.