Powerful depiction of the world of Bauls
ANJANA RAJAN
A journey into the mystical world of the minstrels of Bengal
BAULSPHERE: Mimlu Sen; Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd. MindMill Corporate Tower, 2nd Floor, Plot No. 24ASector 16 A Noida-201301. Rs. 395.
Mimlu Sen’s autobiographical account could not have been more aptly named. The word ‘sphere’ has many echoes and associations, as do the songs of the Bauls, the wandering minstrels of the Bengal region. Her life before she became formally involved with the Bauls too, seems to be very much a part of that mystical sphere.
As a child and right on into adulthood, all her actions, no matter how unconventional, are imbued with the sheer honesty of the true searcher. There is a nostalgic sort of pull in her story. If only we all had the courage of our convictions! This is perhaps also the reason why her prose, though straightforward, acquires a poetic appeal.
As a young woman she lived in a menage a trois, and gave birth to two of the three children arising out of that relationship. The three parents and three children lived as a family, sharing responsibilities collectively and individually, and it was out of this comfortable world that her meeting with Paban Das Baul too emerged, which led into the next sphere of her life. She had already worked with famine sufferers in Bengal, been jailed for her sympathies for the Naxalite leaders, travelled by road from India to Europe, and spent a year on her own in Paris, on an unplanned ‘escape’ from the regimented university group tour. Of course, the late 1960s were easier times as far as visas were concerned.
With a ticket valid for a year, the author stayed “that whole glorious year” in Paris. But the real restrictions are always within us, and those, she tells us early in the book, she was just not born to brook.
Determination
It is not surprising then, that when the author and Paban Das Baul are initiated formally into an intriguing Baul ceremony by the revered Hari Goshain and Ma Goshain, Hari Goshain tells her, “From what I hear, you don’t need me at all. There’s so many ways of getting to the same place. I myself have practised all kinds of sadhana.” The story of any true search, laced though it may be with ecstatic happiness, is also watered with burning tears. So too is this one. But alongside is a burning determination.
This book by a woman who was born into a landed family of Bengal — who desperately tried at first to discipline this wayward daughter into the lines prescribed by convention — provides remarkable insight into the world of the Bauls today.
As a seer tells her one day, seeing her falling in love with Paban, the Bauls are after all men. By night when they sing in ecstasy they rise to mystic dimensions, but in the daylight they are human. This paradox probably underpins every sect.
The author brings the two aspects together with lucidity and compassion time and again, culminating with the epilogue where she speaks of the choices and dilemmas before her and Paban as they perform, record, collaborate with other musicians, and travel the world.
Mimlu Sen’s powerful depiction of her journey to the realms both mystic and human is one that must be read by those interested in the world of the Bauls and its relationship with the rest of the world.
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