Abu Bakkar, a septuagenarian baul from Meherpur, has pursued the wandering life of a Lalon devotee for over 50 years now. Never has he faced any harassment, that is until early August, when he had to ...

There was a time when Baul songs had a strong sway on the life of Bangalees. Musical soirees were arranged under a banyan tree or on the premises of a Baul guru where the audience sat spellbound by ...

The Bhoomi frontman and his friends are going to help 50 wandering minstrels in Santiniketan with medical insurance Financer Avijit Dhara too feels the need to rope in others. Bauls do not understand ...

The Bauls of Bangladesh were following their spiritual tradition much before the advent of Islam,writes Sumit Paul. The Bauls subscribe to a philosophy that doesn't acknowledge caste, creed and other ...

Bauls, Fakirs, and Sadhus have been an essential element in artistic Bengali culture. Their music carrying the words of celestial love and the love of nature. But time and time again this marginalized ...

At first glance, anyone encountering a Baul may assume they are merely wandering minstrels, ascetics devoted to song, detached from society even while living within it. Music appears to be their sole ...

Long-entrenched and still pervasive in Indian society, the oppressive caste system has even moved from its Hindu moorings to infect other faiths entering or originating in the subcontinent and defied ...

Bob Dylan would often visit a studio at Woodstock, New York, where the Baul musicians Purna Das, his brother Luxman and their entourage would hang out in 1967-68. Purna Das, now 83, remembers the ...

An exasperated British rock musician once remarked, after stewing in his own juice at a Baul festival in the village of Boral, now a part of the city of Kolkata: “There are none so sedentary as the ...

When he was six months old, Kanai Das Baul caught smallpox and went blind. His parents - simple day labourers - despaired as to how their son would make a living. Then, one day, when Kanai was 10, a ...

Early this month, Mohammed Fakir and his guests were enjoying an annual conference when they were accosted by religious zealots, conceited enough to arrogate to themselves a moral ascendancy. The ...