Published in the The Daily Star, Saturday, October 20, 2012
The star attraction of Lalon's Mazaar (shrine) at Cheuria is the
holding of the Lalon festivals twice a yearonce on Dol-purnima in the
month of Falgun (February-March) and thence on his death anniversary in
October. During the festivals, the Lalon akhda (monastery) is thronged
with thousands of bauls and devotees from home and abroad. They flock
together and observe the festivals amid day-long and night-long
renderings of Lalon songs. That does not necessarily mean that the
off-festival times are devoid of the rendition of songs. As a matter of
fact, hardly a day passes when the bauls, either in twos and threes or
in larger numbers do not sit round somewhere at the shrine premises, and
go on singing and playing music on the local instruments like ektara
(a one-stringed musical instrument and khol (hand drum). They feel
heartened when visitors listen to them with overwhelming fascination.
Lately the festivals have assumed huge proportions and are being held
amid tight security.
I had been a regular visitor to the Lalon
mazaar since early nineties when I joined the Islamic University as a
lecturer in English. Leaving behind the 'sound and fury' of the capital,
I took refuge in the cool lap of a country town, Kushtia. I heaved a
sigh of relief for being 'far from the madding crowd'. Although there
was little distraction in this small town, I preferred it primarily
because of my fascination for this greatest baul of Bengal-- Fakir Lalon
Shah (1774-1890). I was one of the regular akhda-goers during the
festivals. We used to have bumpy rides on the man-propelled wooden
vehicles, locally called van. My van-mates and I would sit on the van
and swing our heads to the rhythms of the songs either sung by the
van-puller or floating up from the mazaar as we approached it. In fact,
the whole town assumed a festive mood and a feeling of joy and merriment
among the people became evident during the festivals.
It is said
that Lalon Fakir had composed about ten thousand songs of which only two
to three thousand are traceable while others are consigned to oblivion
or are living in the memory of his numerous followers. But quantity does
not matter in regard to Lalon songs. What really matters is quality.
The haunting melodies of his songs capture people's hearts and help
realize the error of your ways. These are 'our sweetest songs that tell
of saddest thought'. From everyone's taste in the country the songs suit
almost all tastes around the world.
There are, of course, subtle
differences between Lalon songs sung by the genuine bauls of the Akhda
School, and those sung on stage by the professional singers with
orchestra. The differences lie in pronunciation, intonation,
articulation and projection of the words and sounds of the song. Playing
the ektara, the bouls render Lalon songs with spontaneous fluctuations
of pitch. The sweet melodies of the songs in tune with the ektara or
dotara make us dance with joy. The bauls are musical by nature, and
hence their songs make us musical. The beautiful melody and the arcane
message of the songs leave us with an ecstatic pleasure. I grab every
opportunity to visit the centra1 p1ace of baul music, and enjoy the
amazingly beautiful songs of Fakir Lalon. I am afraid I may sound
dogmatic chiefly to the connoisseurs of music who may disagree with me
over my plain views on baul songs. Given the hair-splitting judgmental
process of song composition and tune-setting, they may sure dwarf my
emotion as sheer nonsense.
But there it is. I know I cannot
help it. As one of the teeming Bengali folks, my heart is swayed by the
magnificent songs of the baul king. The stunningly beautiful lyrics and
melodies like barir pashe arshi nagar (the glass-town by home) or jaat
gaelo jaat gaelo bole (saying caste is lost) or pare loye jaao amaey
(take me to the shore) have been the eternal source of our spiritual
pleasure. Fatigued and sick of the monotony of the humdrum life and
chagrined in the heartless concrete jungle, we may sigh with relief,
maybe momentarily, and feel lost in ecstasies, if we sit by the shabby
and unkempt bauls, and listen to their melodies. We cannot say we are
doing trash.
Lalon Fakir is our musical messiah who carries
tremendous relevance in our times. His importance as a minstrel can be
viewed in the local and global context in the present social and
cultural ambience, when the whole human situation is fast deteriorating,
hatred rules the roost, and culture suffers at the hands of
intolerance, sectarianism, fundamentalism, orthodoxy and fanaticism. A
new generation of scholars, writers, and readers has started appraising
Lalon's songs with much interest and greater understanding. The true
spirit of the songs can help us stand against the long shadow of
ignorance, superstition and dogmatism and lead people of various creeds,
ideas, and dogmas to peace and happiness in this age of social unrest,
political hostility, cultural aggression and religious intolerance.
UNESCO has rightly considered our baul songs as one of the
'Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity."
Dr. Askari’s the Messiah article
ReplyDeleteThank you Dr. Mamoon for sending me the link.
Dr. Askari’s piece on Lalon is a good work. I think he is not a stuck-up idiot like many of his predecessors. As a writer plus critic, he has an open mind. He has written this piece from a personal viewpoint, which has saved the article from being infinitely boring and unreadable. Usually, BD writers add a three-page long ‘work-cited’ to their articles to show how deep their knowledge is and how many books they have read. This writer on Lalon Fakir has spared us of that pain, cliché, and banality. Another reason for BD writers’ article to be unreadable is their problem with English language. These guys use very hard words that are often outdated using a format which is called Victorian. No-one reads these articles anyways. The newspaper people need to fill out their pages so they print such trash; readers on the other hand read mostly the titles and dump it—it thus gets the treatment is deserves. The doctor who wrote the Messiah (The musical messiah and our sweetest songs) article on Lalon does not seem to have this problem. He has been able to come out of this awful sub continental English language heritage. On top, he changes his style very often. Anyone who has read his article a year ago or so will see the remarkable variation if that anyone reads this article. This is a good style he has decided to master. Being personal is much better than being impersonal.
He is the first Bangladeshi writer who has spelled the Lalon’s place’s name correctly (Lalon akhda (monastery) is thronged with thousands of bauls and devotees from home and abroad). Use of ‘d’ instead of ‘r’ to spell a deshi word in right form is something our honorable BD guys never really comprehended. But this doc did, except the fact that ‘d’ in ‘Cheuria’ is missing. Got to give him the credit for initiating that. He didn’t mention one thing though i.e. the bauls hit a lot of pots. Minus cannabis, their musical ritual won’t be fully done. The orgy of cannabis smoking is one of the primary tourists attractions and the bauls are very generous in sharing their Heavenly Habanos (cannabis in this case) or the smoke of the gods. To write on Lalon is hard, the doc has made it easy. Two pundits Of KIU have substantially dwarfed mass’s interest in Lalon by feeding the same info for past forty years. These self-proclaimed Lalon experts have excelled more in repeating the same thing than cracking the mystery.