From the riverbanks of Torsha in North Bengal, to the centre stage of world music, Parvathy Baul has travelled across the globe with her baul music. Much in the tradition of troubadours, bauls are wandering minstrels from the rural parts of Eastern India and Bangladesh. However, unlike most baul musicians, Parvathy di was not born in a baul family. “My father was very fond of music, but it was mostly Indian classical music. He would often bring classical masters from Kolkata to our place in Cooch Behar. So my early training was in Indian classical,” she recalls. But from an early age, she felt a pull towards folk music. “We would live close to the river Torsha, where I would often go to listen to the fisher folks sing. I would often go on their boats and they would sing and feed me too,” she adds.
At the age of 17, she left for Shantiniketan to study visual arts at Kala Bhavan. “I never loved to swot text books, so I preferred visual arts and always wanted to be an artist,” she remarks. But as fate would have it, on her way, in the train she happened to listen to a baul musician, which would play a pivotal role in her life. “I had never heard a baul singer and especially the ektara, the sound of which transported me to some ethereal place. I could not sense anything around but only the voice of the blind singer and the single note that he kept strumming with his long and dark skinned fingers with long and dirty nails, ” she says. Scared of her own instincts to leave everything for the pursuit of baul, she refrained from listening to more baul music, but eventually, stars aligned and her professor asked her to visit bauls in the villages to make portraits of the artists. “What I had feared happened. I became a baul.”
Since the age of 19, she has been living in Kerela with her husband and been travelling around the world disseminating the philosophy of baul. “The first time I had travelled to Europe to speak on the tradition and baul culture, I returned home quite disappointed. I felt that people didn’t delve deeper into the baul philosophy. On the surface level, it seems quite glamorous to them, but most often, they do not know the yoga and they don’t look inside,” she states, ruefully. Her master, Sanatan Baba, advised her to travel around and carry the true message of baul. “I hope it remains the philosophy that it is and is not turned into entertainment,” she concludes.
“This is my aim — to keep the tradition of baul music and make people understand the philosophy of baul. It’s about prem and bhakti. But of course, I do not want to force people into it, whoever is interested is always welcome,” she says with a smile before saying farewell like the bauls do: “joyguru.”
Parvathy Baul will be conducting a workshop which is a part of the Kabir Festival. Today, 9.30 am – 4.30 pm,
Somaiya Centre for Lifelong Learning, 2nd Floor, Somaiya Bhavan, Fountain Circle, (Above Kitab Khana), M.G.Road For registration: e-mail:kabirfestivalmumbai@gmail.com
