Oikyataan Re

Live @ Fireflies, Bangalore

Street Walking - Kolkata

(Sleeping On The Slaughter Slab)

Parvathy And I

I'm crouching in a corner of a recording booth just about big enough for two people and an ektara. "Maybe I should sing," says the gentle, childlike voice of Parvathy Baul, "you'll get better shots that way." Even before words of gratitude took shape in my brain she had begun, not miming or half-heartedly for the camera but full blown, letting loose every iota of her vocal chords, releasing every atom of her heart, bearing her soul in song.

Blinking back instantaneous tears and listening to that little voice in my head telling me to close my gaping mouth and click, I shot away as the notes reverberated in that little booth and in my spirit. It felt all at once like a cool shower on a hot day, a warm blanket on a cold one and a glimpse, a tiny pinhole of a glimpse into the infinite.


From there on the conversations we would have were etched in the folds of my Grey matter and internalised a lot deeper. Parvathy Baul has a special soul and for a while that special soul held me, like the arms of a mother, warm, comforting, wordless. For a while that glowing smile made all existence seem insignificant. For a while I knew what it was like to be touched by beatitude.

group dynamics

young old man

The man resides within the man
Inside a strong armour, cylinder shaped,
Made of the five elements, designed of eight lotuses.

The power of yoga is his ornament,
He resides in the muladhara;
He journeys upward, he lights all the seven lights
He illuminates the secret room within the man.
--Gopla Khapa

Narayan Chandra Adhikari is 74 years old. He has been practising the art of Baul even before my parents were born. And yet, he still sings with as much gusto, still stalks the stage like a panther and still dances, the sound of his Nupurs dogging his every step. Here he's playing a version of the dotara that hails from the Bangladesh border.

Madness, True and Fake

I couldn't find true madness,
So I didn't become mad;
I saw fake madness all over,
I couldn't find a real one.

Some are mad for wealth,
Some others for glory;
Some turn mad with poverty,
Some others for aesthetic forms.

Siva, the maddest of the mad,
He, the one Who drinks poison;
Rejects elixir,
Leaving a palace of gold,
Enjoys abode in a Shamshan.

----Author Unknown

Shyam Sunder Das Baul, ever so soaring on the Anandalahari, Ghunguru and vocals.

Sreekhol Sophistry

What splendid fruit
The upside down tree bears
That tree -
The roots touch the sky

From that tree
The fruit is ripe, but hangs
Sans stem,
Where many tender ones
Have fallen to rot

If that tree is cut
It lives
If not,
It dies...

- On a banyan tree by Sarat Baul


Bidut Rajbongshi on the Sreekhol

Spinnin' Around/ Post #100