Nine Lives(103)

“According to the Hindu shastras you marry only once, and Arati had already been married. So the purohit did what is usual in such cases: he married me to a banana tree, and then I put sindhoor on Arati’s forehead.

“I was completely innocent when I was married. How could I know how to make the frog dance before the serpent? I can’t see! For this reason, my guru Gyananand had advised me to concentrate on singing, and not try to get involved in Tantric sadhana. So in these matters Arati was my guru.

“Nothing happened the first night. My education took place a week later in the new home the sadhus had helped me rent. She was a good teacher, and we now have four children. I owe this happiness to Manisha and the other sadhus of Tarapith: without them I would never have reached this plain of life. I tell you—there is such a lot of love in that place.”



On the last day of the Kenduli festival, I went for a walk with Kanai through the Baul encampment. The festival-goers were beginning to strike their tents and head off back on the road. Everywhere canvas awnings were being folded up and loaded on to bullock carts.

Only two old people seemed to be sitting still. Near the Kenduli cremation ground, I came across a Baul couple who were old friends of Kanai. Both were sitting cross-legged on the projecting ledge of a small roadside temple. Subhol Kapa and his wife, Lalita, were old but were still singing Baul songs to anyone who cared to stop and listen to them. They hailed Kanai, and he introduced us.

“I am eighty-three,” said Subhol, “and Lalita is seventy. Our age prevents us walking the roads like we used to. But we can still dance and sing, and listen to the other Bauls. Lalita is a good singer—much better than I. These days I am so sick, but when I sing or listen to Lalita it makes me forget my illness.”

“It’s true,” said Lalita. “When I sing I forget everything else. Often I don’t sing for anyone, just for myself, for my soul. I could not live without this life. I need to dance and to sing. I feel ecstatic when I sing.”

“It is enough for me too,” said Kanai. “I need nothing else.”

“Song helps you transcend the material life,” said Subhol. “It takes you to a different spiritual level.”

“When a Baul sings he gets so carried away he starts dancing,” said Kanai. “The happiness and joy that comes with the music helps you find God inside yourself.”

“The songs of the Bauls are my companions in my old age,” said Subhol. “We sing together, or with other Bauls like Debdas, Paban and Kanai if they come here. But when I am alone I take up my dubki, and sing to myself to keep myself company.”

“Did you both used to wander the roads together?” I asked.

“We used to be ordinary householders,” said Lalita. “Only after I had finished rearing my four sons did we become Bauls together—some twenty-five or thirty years back.”

“Even before then we used to sing,” said Subhol, “but after we became Bauls we were welcomed everywhere, with love and warmth and respect. It has made our life complete.”

“For eighteen years we walked the roads of this country,” said Lalita, “until we were too old to walk any more. This temple was my guru’s ashram. Now we cannot wander, we live here following the Baul way, protecting our bodies and keeping our hearts alive.”

“But I thought Bauls didn’t believe in temples?”

“This temple is just to attract people,” explained Subhol.

“For us Bauls it is just a building,” said Kanai. “It has nothing to do with God.”

“But people come here and tell us about their problems,” said Subhol, “and then we can give them solutions.”

“God resides in everything,” said Lalita, looking out over the river.

“You have to learn to recognise God everywhere,” said Kanai. “We have a song about this. You would like to hear it?”

“Very much,” I said.

The old people went inside a room to one side of the shrine and returned a few minutes later, with Lalita carrying a harmonium and Subhol an ektara. Lalita squatted in front of the harmonium and Subhol plucked a few notes on the ektara, then began to sing, while Kanai provided a high, reedy descant.

My soul cries out,

Caught in the snare of beauty,

Of the formless one.


As I cry by myself,

Night and day,

Beauty amassed before my eyes,

Surpasses moons and suns.


If I look at the clouds in the sky,

I see his beauty afloat.

And I see him walk on the stars,

Blazing within my heart.



Before long, despite his age and fragility, Subhol was rocking backwards and forwards, hopping from one leg to another, transported by the music he was singing. Kanai and Lalita sat cross-legged, swaying to the music, lost in its beauty. When he had finished, the three settled together on the ledge of the temple, looking out in silence over the river. It was getting late now, and the sun was setting over the Ajoy—the time Bengalis call godhuli bela, cow dust time.