Company Of True Ananda

Be a Great Fool! A petty little fool is nothing but a worldling. But a Great Fool is a Buddha!” Harada Roshi

"Music opens the heart; music can be a vehicle to transcend, to transform, to bring a direct experience of inner happening ‘here and now.’ In Sanskrit we find a sloka ‘Sheelpena Sangeetha Sreshthaha’ – ‘Music is the highest state of art and expression.’ A Baul would say that ‘I sing and dance to impress my beloved so my beloved will come and reside in my heart.’

In all our traditions of Music, the musicians were mostly Upasakas (spiritual practitioners), more precisely Naad (sound) Upasakas, In India Music is more than entertainment – great masters of music were not considered only as entertainers: music is believed to be a direct way to connect with the divine.

MH How did you become a Baul singer? What drew you towards this music?

PB I was 16 when I was first exposed to the Baul Parampara. I always mention an encounter which really opened my ears to Baul songs and encouraged me to search for its source in the Baul path. I was on a train to Shantiniketan with my brother to register as a student. Somewhere in the middle of the journey a Baul singer came into our compartment – he was blind, was clad in a long orange kurta that had faded with time and a white dhoti, and had an Ektara made of tin. His long fingers and long nails struck the string of Ektara, and the sound immediately told me something that I’d known for a long time, a sound that transported me to another reality. When he started singing, all the people and train compartment disppeared from my sight; though I couldn’t understand a word of the Bengali song, it left me with traces of something very deep, a path less travelled, and a world to discover.

Later, when I saw Guru Shri Sanatan Das Baul of Bankura performing, I was amazed to see how he danced, sang and played his Ektara, Bama (a small drum made of clay tied to the hip of the Baul singer) and Nupur (metallic anklets). I had heard singers before, but the Baul’s voice came from the bottom of his heart, from the body; it was a voice opened to the sky. I observed the Baul practitioners closely and I found it was a living music – the philosophy and practice is followed hand in hand. There was more to explore in the Baul lifestyle even after the concert was over – a song can take you on a journey for a lifetime, you live the song day and night, you meditate, you transcend slowly through time. I have never experienced something so complete before; in my search to become an artist I was looking for this completeness.

I went in search of my Guru Sanatan Das Baul of Bankura and I was lead to his Ashram in Khayerbani. I arrived one afternoon in spring time and found him tall and dark, standing with a straight spine with all his hair gathered carefully into a topknot drying his clothes, and he looked at me with a lot of compassion. As an young student I had a thousand things to ask, but he smiled and asked me if I had lunch. Upon saying ‘no’ I was served delicious warm meals by his daughter in laws Gita and Moni, and he told me to rest and promised to talk to me afterwards. I spent fifteen days beside him, on the same small porch, and he didn’t even ask my name. On the 15th day he called me to come for a walk with him to the market. On the way to the market he started singing, looked at me and said, ‘stupid girl, why don’t you follow me’? "

I don’t know anything, I don’t know anything," said a Baul gurujee from Kolkata with an entire world of wisdom flowing from his eyes."

"My compassion boat
is filled with gold of nothingness
I have no space for any other

Oh Kamli, you have rowed your boat for many lives
you row your boat towards the sky

now let’s begin
and see where this journey takes you.

You have let gone the tie of ego
you have put up the sail of expansion
now go on the path by the guidance of a True Yogi.

take your boat to the right to the left
it’s filled with waves of sorrow and happiness.

Kamli, you have known every wave
you have found the company of true Ananda in your longing for the beloved."

-- A sadhak for more than three decades, Parvathy has had a beautiful journey of devotion, and personifies the musical Baul tradition.