Nine Lives – In Search of the Sacred in Modern South Asia
Writer and historian William Dalrymple’s latest book, Nine Lives, is subtitled In Search of the Sacred in Modern India. Celebrating the book is this special concert over two nights, curated by the author and brings together music and readings to offer a unique insight into some of the fascinating spiritual and musical traditions that still thrive in the subcontinent despite huge social and economic change.
Performances on this special night include:
The Bauls of Bengal—a group of itinerant mystic minstrels whose beliefs draw on Vaishnavite Hindu and Sufi Muslim thought. Read what The Band (Bob Dylan’s many a time backing band) has to say about The Bauls of Bengal.
The Shah Jo Raag Fakirs who sing at the shrine of Sufi saint Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai in Sindh, Pakistan.
Susheela Raman offers insight into the Thevaram hymns of Tamil Nadu.
Chandu Pannicker Theyyam Dance Group with a spectacular ritual Theyyam dance from Kerala.
When: Jun 18, 2010 & Jun 19, 2010 @ 7.30 PM. The concert is followed by a reception.
Where: Lila Acheson Wallace Auditorium, 725 Park Avenue, New York, NY
More Info: Click here to buy tickets.
A few videos:
Paban Das Baul:
The Bauls of Bengal:
Susheela Raman:
A little background on the book: A Buddhist monk takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet – then spends years trying to atone for the violence by hand printing the best prayer flags in India.
A Jain nun tests her powers of detachment as she watches her best friend ritually starve to death. A woman leaves her middle-class family in Calcutta, and her job in a jute factory, only to find unexpected love and fulfilment living as a tantric in a skull-filled hut in a remote cremation ground. A prison warden from Kerala becomes, for two months of the year, a temple dancer and is worshipped as an incarnate deity; then, at the end of February each year, he returns to prison.
An illiterate goat herd from Rajasthan keeps alive an ancient 4,000-line sacred epic that he, virtually alone, still knows by heart. A devadasi – or temple prostitute – initially resists her own initiation into sex work, yet pushes both her daughters into a trade she now regards as a sacred calling.
Nine people, nine lives. Each one taking a different religious path, each one an unforgettable story. Exquisite and mesmerising, and told with an almost biblical simplicity, William Dalrymple’s first travel book in a decade explores how traditional forms of religious life in South Asia have been transformed in the vortex of the region’s rapid change. A distillation of twenty-five years of exploring India and writing about its religious traditions, Nine Lives is a modern Indian Canterbury Tales which introduces you to characters and takes you deep into worlds you would never have imagined existed.
Paban Das Baul: was born in 1961 in the village of Mohammedpur, in the district of Murshidabad in West Bengal, India – land of a population incarnating the spirit of syncretism between Tantric, Vaishnava, Muslim and Buddhist traditions through music, dance and song. He is well known for his genius of improvisation on the dubki (a small tambourine) and the inspired lyrical beauty of his songs, which give him the power to create trance-like states in his listeners.
Paban started to play and sing from the age of five: “When my father, a champion of martial arts, lost his lands, he wandered around the villages of Murshidabad singing and wrestling for money. I would accompany him and learn how to sing and play the dubki from the Sufi fakirs. Later, I met the Bauls and played in their festivals. At the age of fourteen I was initiated by Subal Das Baul.”
The word “Baul” means divinely possessed, without limits, simply mad; the Bauls address each other as khepa meaning furious. They have a mode of life entirely determined by a fundamental choice and bring chaos and disorder wherever they go – attracting people towards them, inviting intimacy, breaking the rhythm of daily life.
Their wild behavior and repetitive rhythms make them seem strange and manic; so it’s not surprising that in traditional Bengali society, where strict caste and class distinctions are rigidly maintained, they are chastised and despised. Through their songs, dances, gestures, through silences, through postures and looks, the Bauls tell stories of the earth, of the body, of lovers uniting – subtly revealing the mystery of life and the laws of nature. Submission to the divine is the tightrope to wisdom; Baul knowledge is transmitted through songs. This early apprenticeship gives Paban’s music a unique quality. His unconventional nature and versatile talents, drawing and inspiring him from old and new sources, make him a controversial figure in Bengal.
The Bauls of Bengal: The musical culture and life style of the Bauls has inspired village life in Bengal so deeply that Bengali people have protected Baul practitioners for many centuries. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (13th Century) was the greatest known Baul singer, and he travelled all over India. History counts him as the biggest influence among Baul poets and singers of later generations.
The word ” Baul ” refers to three terms : betul, which means ” mad “, ” out of rhythm ” ; vayu, ” air “, or the inner flow of energy which gives life and harmony to all sentient beings ; and âuliyâ, a term of Arabic origin, which means ” saint “, ” holy man “. Bauls can come from a Hindu or a Muslim background ; in both cases, they are usually rebels against orthodox practices and social institutions. The reason of that is purely spiritual : they are continuously searching for Adhar Manush, the ” Essential Man “, the inner being which is inside of each human body, and this quest for mad love goes beyond all boundaries.
The way of the Bauls uses poetry, dance and singing as tools to reach that goal. Therefore Bauls used to wander from village to village and sing for the people who would give them alms for the maintenance of their everyday life. It is said that Bauls would accept only what they needed and refuse anything more than the strict minimum. Their only possessions were their clothes and musical instruments, as well as their songs and secret practices.
The costume of the Bauls is very simple : many Bauls wear safran clothes, a long stiched piece of cotton patchwork covering their body from the shoulder to below the knees, a turban on their head and a mark on their forehead. As far as Fakir Bauls are concerned, they prefer plain white cotton.
Even today, most Bauls live in small huts ; they live in couples but are not supposed to have children : mostly they adopt abandoned children to whom they teach everything they know. Twice a week, they go to villages to collect food (mostly rice and vegetables). Sometimes they travel from one village to another in order to meet other practitioners. Most of them are also linked to non-singing gurus who teach them different spiritual practices (sadhana) and songs with an inner meaning. The verses of Baul poetry can come from past or present composers, and they always include secret teachings related to righteous practice and life style.
The living space of Bauls is called akhra ; it is somehow like an ashram, with the difference that men and women live together, considering each other as spiritual partners. Most akhras are also meeting places for other sadhakas and sadhikas, male and female practitioners, as well as for sadhus, holy men, wherever they come from. Each year, Bauls organise a big meeting where they exchange songs, experiences and spiritual teachings.
Many Baul gurus were and still are also poets ; Lalan Fakir, one of the most famous of them, was at the same time a revolutionary and a holy man ; he created more than 5000 such songs. In this poetry, the outer meaning looks sometimes very materialistic ; but the inner meaning, which is not accessible to everyone, includes teachings related to notions such as srishti tattva (doctrine of the creation of the world), atma tattva (doctrine of the soul), deha tattva (doctrine of the body), prem tattva (doctrine of love), etc.
The singing style of Bauls is linked to other Bengali folk culture, from tribal to village and even urban life. But Bauls have established their own singing style, known as baul s¸r, within which individual and regional styles sometimes remain very distinctive.
Bauls always sing and dance together in such a way that the mind melts into the soul in a harmonious way. In their dancing body, energy becomes fluid and intense, and this movement process wipes the ego away : only the Baul consciousness remains.
William Dalrymple: William Dalrymple was born in Scotland and brought up on the shores of the Firth of Forth. He wrote the highly acclaimed bestseller In Xanadu when he was twenty-two. White Mughals won the Wolfson Prize for History 2003 and the Scottish Book of the Year Prize. A stage version by Christopher Hampton has been co-commissioned by the National Theatre and the Tamasha Theatre Company. William Dalrymple is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Asiatic Society. His Radio 4 series on the history of British spirituality and mysticism, The Long Search, won the 2002 Sandford St Martin Prize for Religious Broadcasting. He is married to the artist Olivia Fraser, and they have three children. They divide their time between London, Scotland and Delhi.
Susheela Raman: As an artist, Raman continues to develop and explore issues of identity with new sounds that celebrate multiplicity. She draws her collaborators from across Europe, Asia, and Africa: Cameroonian bassist Hilaire Penda, Guinea-Bissau born percussionist Djanuno Dabo, American drummer Marque Gilmore, British-Asian tabla player Aref Durvesh, and of course British guitarist and producer Sam Mills are at the heart of this album as they were on Salt Rain.
Paradoxically, Music for Crocodiles is both more English and more Indian than either Salt Rain or Love Trap. More than half the songs are in English (her first language) and Raman emerges as a formidable songwriter (listen to What Silence Said and The Same Song). And where on the previous albums there were musicians from everywhere playing Indian songs, here we have musicians from India playing songs in English. A new dimension came from recording in India, as well as in the UK and France. The Indian presence adds joy, light, and depth to the record. tric East African groove and Raman’s blues based vocal could be from Addis Ababa, Mumbai, or Chicago. Incidentally the amazing Hammond organ is played by Malian Chek Tdjen Seck, the musical godfather of Paris. Light Years recorded in Madras, is a South Indian melody transmuted here into a sublime English love song. Meanwhile is Raman’s melody, sung in English but based on the rare South Indian raga, Kanyakangi, which infuses its sultry, seductive atmosphere. For the first time, Susheela also sings in French on L’ame Volatile.
The album was produced by Sam Mills and engineered by Stuart Bruce in the same room at Real World studios as Salt Rain. With much of the same band on the album it was a flashback to recording Ganapati. The buzz and feeling really reminded the whole team of Salt Rain. Everybody had that same feeling of excitement and revelation. Raman and producer Sam Mills put everything they had into this record. They took several months off to prepare for the studio and make sure they had the material they wanted and it’s paid off: The buzz the record has created is like Salt Rain too – Raman and Mills have had a hard time keeping hold of their listening copies as people eagerly requested the album. Now we can all hear it.
Reference: The Barbican
