Who is singer Parvathy Baul?
Enchanting audiences all across the world, using a tradition that is hundreds of years old, Parvathy Baul, a young woman from Assam has given the Baul tradition of music a new lease of life. “I was born in Assam and studied Visual Art at the Kala Bhavan,” says the singer on a telephonic interview from her hometown, and adds, “I listened to Baul on the radio often but did not really learn it until I joined Santiniketan where I met singers of the tradition first hand.” But what is Baul, really? “Baul is a form of spirituality that is practiced every second of one’s life. Where one lives the song of life. We sing what is true and live by it too. It is our way of connecting with the divine. A baul’s life is his sadhana (practice),” says the songstress seen at performances with long locks that reach up to her anklets in saffron clothing, playing a duggi (a rhythm instrument) and ektara (string instrument). All Baul singers, Parvathy explains, have an ideal man in their heart — Moner Manush — and it is this ideal state that they are trying to live up to. “The Baul tradition is based on four concepts, ie, gurutattva where a guru helps one to realise the greater things in life, prematattva, where love is seen as the most important ingredient for reaching God, bhaktitattva, devotion to God that is based on knowledge and not fanaticism and finally, leelatattva, where they sing about the little episodes of Lord Krishna and his Gopikas.
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