The Rediff Special/Pritish Nandy

'No one respects an artiste. They think we are favour seekers, parasites'

He is the Baul Samrat from Birbhum. The emperor of wandering minstrels.

Purna Das Baul was in Bombay last week to sing for Durga puja. Celebrating his legendary prowess as a folk singer, which has taken him all over the world and won him huge acclaim. He has sung with Mahalia Jackson, George Harrison, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Gordon Lightfoot and Michael Jackson.

The man who once begged for food, roaming the villages of Bengal and singing on local trains, a seventh generation minstrel and son of the man Rabindranath Tagore endearingly described as "the crazy baul"-- is now one of the world's most endearing country music stars.

Having put Indian folk music on the world map. An interview with Pritish Nandy:

How did you start singing? Who did you learn from?

My grandson will be the ninth generation baul. I am the seventh. My father Nabani Das was Rabindranath's khepa baul who kept singing and dancing and weaving his way through much of the literature of that period. He was, indeed, khepa -- the crazy minstrel and sang with such spiritual fervour that he had no idea where he was, what he was doing. He was always in communion with the gods. I have watched him getting carried away and stripping off his clothes on stage, singing almost naked before god. I learnt at his feet, you could say.

But I took time to start. I began my life as a shepherd boy tending sheep and cattle in the village-- because I was far too embarrassed to roam around and beg for my food as my forefathers did. I felt it was demeaning. It took me some time to realise that this is, after all, the way of the baul. There is nothing shameful about singing for people and asking them for alms in return. In fact, I was the first baul to sing on the local trains. Then, I moved on to the colliery belt where I found the labourers ready to part with a part of their food grains ration in return for some music. So I sang for them out here. I got much more than I would get in the village

Do you have different gharanas in the baul tradition? How many of them still exist?

Frankly, much of baul music is already dead. It died with the great bauls. Only about four or five gharanas still remain in Birbhum. The rest are fakes. They just hang around, hoping to catch firangees and go abroad.

Actually, there are four kinds of bauls. The aul, the baul, the sain and the darbesh.

Aul as in Nizamuddin Aulia?

Absolutely right. He was a great singer, a baul. He was always in communion with god like all the great auls. Theirs was a great tradition. Sadly, it is petering out. Then, there are the bauls like us.

Even among us there are two kinds: one is the udaasi baul, who never marries, never has children, never settles down. He is the true itinerant minstrel. He wanders from village to village, begging for his livelihood and one day you find him lying dead under a tree, thousands of miles away from the village where he was born. His music also dies with him.

Then there are people like me who get married, have children. My wife Manju is also a baul. I use the ektara, khamak, dugi, mandira and ghungur. She does only the ektara and the mandira. My voice was always considered effeminate. Hers strong and powerful. I am the griha baul. The householder. My children are also into music. That is why our tradition continues uninterrupted. Unlike the udaasi bauls, who die leaving behind only their students, their chelas. Their traditions run the risk of passing out.

The sain?

The sain is the worshipper. The darbesh is the fourth kind.

Would darbesh be the same as dervish? Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan?

Absolutely, it is the same tradition.

The twirling, shrieking, obsessed singer, high on drugs?

That's right. But not always high on drugs. I never did drugs. In fact, I don't even smoke. But Ravi Shankar once told me: You chaps are ruining our folk tradition by bringing in opium and hashish, and this drugs and drinking syndrome which the young Westerners fall for. This gives Indian music a bad name. I promptly corrected him, of course.

You don't do drugs and alcohol at all?

I steer clear of all these. I am high on music. It gives me all the trips I need. I don't need chemicals and artificial aids. If you ask people, they will tell you how my grandfather and my father would get so high on music that they would lose all control. That is why we are in the khepa baul tradition. We are mad. We are in love with life, despite all the sorrows and disappointments it brings.

What sorrow? What disappointment? You have achieved so much, you travel round the world nine months in a year. You have got so much joy, so much acclaim. Why should you be sad, unhappy?

Yes, I have received much acclaim, true. I have done joint concerts with Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. I have sung and danced with Michael Jackson and his entire family. I have been on stage with Mick Jagger and George Harrison. I have shared some of the most beautiful moments in my life with Mahalia Jackson. She has created gospel versions of some of my songs.

Even in India, Sachin Karta was a great fan of mine and he always praised me for taking him back to his roots in folk music. His son, RD was also a friend and admirer. But all this is far, far away from where I come. Birbhum. Bengal.

In Bengal, if I want to meet the information minister, I will have to wait for fifteen days, give twenty explanations as to why I want to see him, make a hundred telephone calls, stand outside his room for hours. No one respects an artiste in his own environment. They think we are favour seekers, parasites.

That is the sad part. I may be a beggar by tradition being a baul but that does not mean I am begging for anything from the government. I used to beg for food, not money. What money do we bauls have?

When my wife had a heart attack and bypass surgery a few years back, we went flat broke. It meant spending more time overseas, more concerts, more recordings just to stay afloat.

Do you earn enough to meet your needs?

Yes and more, quite honestly. More than I ever dreamt of, coming as I did from a humble village in Birbhum. I was a thin, weedy boy with a shrill, effeminate voice. No one thought I would ever make it as a singer. But life takes these strange twists and turns. Today, thanks to my agent Albert B Grossman, I am a success you could say. But what does success mean?

The word 'baul' comes from the Sanskrit word batul which means 'mad,' and I am the son of khepa baul Nabani Das, which makes me doubly mad. For khepa in Bengali means crazy. I am mad about the god who dwells within us all.

I sing and dance for him. I fall at his feet and worship him. I yearn for him.

What are the instruments you use?

The ektara is a one-stringed drone instrument whose sole string symbolises the oneness of all, as well as the single pointed concentration required to realise this simple truth. I also use the khamak, a rhythmic wooden drum with two strings that are plucked. It is also called the Ananda Lahori, the lightning of delight.

The dugi, my third instrument, is a small bowl shaped drum that I tie to my waist as I sing and dance. The mandira is my brass cymbals. The ghungur are the anklets I wear. My accompanists also use the four-stringed dotara and the khol, a large clay drum.

These are the most simple, most basic instruments in the world. They reflect the simplicity of my music, my worship.

Who writes the lines?

Much of them have come down through generations. Some of the more modern ones, I write. Having travelled to over a hundred nations of the world, my life has seen much more than what my forefathers saw.

Naturally, my repertoire has grown. My music has changed. My gharana has transformed itself. Allen Ginsberg, who was a great personal friend of mine, spent hours explaining the ethos of the West to me. All this has opened my eyes and ears and grown the universe of my music.

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