In the orange glow of renunciation lies the courage to face the vast blankness of the universe and to root faith in the enduring essence of humanity. This is the world of the Bauls and Fakirs of Bengal - mystics who dismantle the walls that divide us through their music and philosophy. Raghav Pasricha and Eva Zanettin embarked on a journey in 2023, inspired by the music of Pasricha’s aunt that led them to the Kenduli Mela, a vibrant gathering of Bauls. Their path took them through Bardhaman, Birbhum, Purulia, Bankura, Murshidabad, and Gaurbhanga, where they documented the layered histories and living practices of Baul and Fakir traditions. Combining visuals and poetry, this exhibition immerses viewers in a vibrant tradition that transcends barriers. In the Bauls’ quiet ease, their songs, and connection to the world around them, we find a path forward - not of escape but of engagement, where the divine resides not above but within and between us all.
Visuals: Animikh Sandipan Raghav Pasricha EvaZanettin
#RaghavPasricha #EvaZanettin #Music #Philosophy #BengalMystics #BengalBiennale #WestBengal #Shantiniketan #Art #Culture #Bengali #Heritage
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I'm Eva, Eva Zanettin.
00:02I'm Raghav Pasricha, and we were both doing photography independently.
00:09And then after photography school at New York,
00:13we started thinking of multimedia and film.
00:19And that's where Syncretic Traditions of India was born.
00:30Syncretic Traditions of India
00:56The work itself is an excerpt from our project called Syncretic Traditions of India.
01:01The excerpt that we showed at the Biennale is called Crossing the Divide.
01:05And before I get into that, it might be useful to understand
01:10what we mean by the Syncretic Traditions of India.
01:13Part of the ethic in which I was educated
01:17was about an India that has a lot of diversity.
01:22And while I experienced it since childhood,
01:24over the years, Eva has shared in that understanding of India
01:28as being a culturally rich, diverse country.
01:34So we began to ask the question of what does faith mean?
01:39Not just religion and spirituality,
01:41but what is the experience of faith in India,
01:43because it's so important to everyone.
01:46So Syncretic Traditions of India was about finding
01:49these incredible traditions that are born out of the Bhakti and Sufi movement
01:55that have guided people for somewhere between 1200 to 750 years
02:03to have an individual relationship with the divine.
02:07It's like a legacy that both of us got from our families, you know,
02:10through the music that they introduced us to,
02:12through the poetry and literature they introduced us to,
02:16and that's what we took forward.
02:19At the Biennale, we are showing, as I said, Crossing the Divide,
02:24and this is a documentation of the Baul and Fakir communities of Bengal.
02:29Oi hi toh bighi noyoti kudham
02:38Ode manus bighi jodhi bhagavan
02:45We had heard Baul music with my family at home.
02:48My maasi is a singer, and we had heard Baul gaan with her,
02:55and it was beautiful, but neither one of us is Bengali-speaking, not Banglabashi.
03:01But one of the sort of take-homes from that,
03:05through conversations with my mother and my aunt very specifically,
03:10was that Bauls are singing mystic poetry, so to speak,
03:18but that mystic poetry often has a profound understanding of something we call humanism.
03:24So, the basic questions that we began with is, who are the Bauls?
03:29Where do they come from geographically?
03:31And where do they come from historically?
03:35Geography, as you said, many people believe or assume that they come from Bengal.
03:39Now, one has to point out that this is not just West Bengal, but Bangladesh,
03:46and including parts of Assam, so Greater Bengal, if you would.
03:54Who are they?
03:55This is a more contentious subject, which we in fact deal with in our film.
04:01If you ask a lot of people in Bengal, if you ask,
04:04Baul ka ke bole? They'll tell you,
04:06Oh, Baul khub bhalo gaan kare.
04:08Loko shangeet.
04:10The fact that Bauls have a sadhana,
04:16or they are the part of a great tradition of philosophy,
04:23is sort of sometimes lost.
04:26It's not always lost. There are many people very aware of that.
04:30But often they're described as singers or wandering minstrels,
04:34which is, I would say, less than 10% of the story.
04:37So, that was what we began to investigate with the film and documentary.
04:43After researching a lot about the topic, and about them,
04:47and about reading a lot about the philosophy,
04:51we finally decided to go and document on the field.
04:56And we spent quite a lot of time with them.
05:02One of the things, I guess, that I took into my daily life,
05:08and while I was there, I was noticing, and I was telling myself,
05:14try to bring this home and keep it with you.
05:18It's the fact that they do live in harmony.
05:22They try to avoid feelings, negative feelings,
05:27such as greed, anger, jealousy.
05:32And they do try to maintain respectful relationships.
05:38They're really driven by love, respect.
05:43They don't want any discriminations,
05:49religious, politics, gender.
05:54So, I think at the base of all of it,
05:57there's great teachings that someone can take into their daily life.
06:04If you're looking at a 1200-year-long tradition,
06:08which is contemplating the human condition,
06:12which is contemplating gender, which is contemplating religion,
06:17which is contemplating materialism,
06:19which is contemplating conflict and violence,
06:23you can pick any subject in the world, really,
06:26and I think, by and large, you'd have a Baulgaan that addresses it.
06:34And it's not dated. That's what's incredible.
06:42The Bauls see gender as a continuum.
06:45It's there in our films, it's there in the music we've recorded.
06:48They see gender as a continuum.
06:50They see materialism as a part of the way society functions.
06:58They don't condemn it, and yet they build a distance from it.
07:02So, they have a very, you know,
07:08grand legacy, a 1200-year-old tradition, as I said,
07:12but their perspective is not just modern, it's contemporary.
07:16And that's what we went out looking for in Crossing the Divide.
07:20You know, we went across five districts of Bengal
07:23because through our research and conversations with people like Mukul Das
07:28and Uttam Das, who's our project mentor,
07:30who runs the Arshi Nagar Ashram and the Pranayama Ashram,
07:34who runs the Arshi Nagar Ashram and the Pranayama Ashram,
07:39we realized that there are philosophical strands within the Bauls.
07:42And we wanted to create a representative kind of documentation.
07:46We want to try, to the best of our abilities,
07:49which I'll be the first one to admit, and I think evalucate,
07:53is limited, to translate Baul poetry, their philosophy, their lives,
08:01from Bangla to English and make it more accessible to a global audience,
08:10to a younger Indian audience. And that's why we're doing this.
08:16That's why we're out there making photos, films, recordings.
08:21Finally, it's not about what we're doing. It's about what the Mahajani Padavali offers.
08:26And that tradition of Mahajani Padavali lives within the Bauls.