About Us
ABOUT US
Spiritual Minstrels
Baul Philosophy in undivided Bengal is in existence for more than five hundred years and with emotional feeling for searching the Supreme God. With such idea and belief they have became the wandering minstrels; they offer their worship through songs and dances which have very little connection with natural pleasure, rather the music and dance are the source of achieving heavenly pleasure through the minds chosen man, it is a continuous pleasure for searching.
Divine Love
Bauls believe the only love for mankind can lead to the love for the Divine. The Baul culture spells the love for humanity- irrespective of caste, creed, faith and religion. It does not even count colour or custom. It is the love for all that leads to peace of mind and it has the power that helps to achieve the Blessings of The God or Supreme Power. Bauls, in their songs express the complex mysteries of life in simple words to touch the heart of common people and they singing with one-string instrument (ektaara) with such a masterly stroke that as if exempts the music from the soil of Bengal.
Cultural Activism
The Baul of Bengal is a registered organisation, performing the socio- cultural activities throughout Bengal and other States also. Its main objectives are to spread the rare cultural pursuits of Baul and other folk songs to preserve the rural art and cultural specimen to work for social awareness like, health, care for mother and child, to work for eradication of superstition and protection of environment, stop atrocities on women, to save girl child, spread education, to entertain special children, cancer patients, lonely senior citizens through music therapy as well as other related social issues.
Cultural Empowerment
The Baul of Bengal desires to make an all-out spreading its activities to rehabilitate and organise Baul artistes and other folk artistes for their livelihood and to establish themselves economically. For this, Baul of Bengal will try to establish vocational training centers and other research centers for the development of different folk culture so that they do not meet moose-diving for grapnel extinction under the pressure of so-called development in the name of globalisation.
The Baul of Bengal
Baul philosophy in Bengal has been existing from more than 500 years and with an emotional feeling of searching the super Lord. With this idea and belief they offer their worship through songs and dances to the Supreme power. They sing song of joy and love, longing for mystical union with the divine. They are the wandering minstrels who sing the glory of Supreme power through the desired human being endowed with love, joy and submission to the divinity. It is a different cult of mixed religious ideas of Hinduism, Tantra, Buddhist and Sufi, Islamic elements.
These Baul culture endowed with honesty, love, simple living and flavored with songs and dances of rural Bengal preaching proper ideology in simple language and melodies of mixed with the smell of the soil. They do not usually live in one place for a long time because they are the wandering minstrels. They teach men to love all, cleans the dirty elements from the heart, to read and write and at the same time to teach the people to submit humbly the wish of the Supreme Power. In this process through the centuries a special, rural culture and art has been created not only in Bengal but in other States also.
The din and bustle of the city and town centric culture is gradually crushing these folk cultural peripheries, endowed with human values and as a result the people are becoming self-centered and various vices are on the spurt in the human society. So the time has come to preserve and practice such enriched culture for the mental development of human being.
The Baul of Bengal is a registered socio-cultural organization formed with the objectives to spread these rare cultural pursuits of Baul and other folk songs, to preserve the rural art and the cultural specimen, to work for social awareness like eradication of superstitions, health care of mother and child, environment protection, to save girl child and and stop atrocities on women, spread of education, to entertain special children, cancer patients and other social issues.
Film Making
Documentary Film making on different Folk culture of Bengal, Assam, Manipur, Jharkhand, Bihar, Nagaland etc. separately or jointly to enrich the cultural to enrich the cultural achieves of Eastern and North Eastern states. Our ultimate object is to protect the folk culture of the rural areas of the states of eastern and north eastern region and protect the balance of Nature and to help the rural folks to restore their own cultural heritage as well as to create an edge in them so that they are in a position to improve their living condition with the protection of environment.
Publishing
We shall take up continuous programme for publishing journals enriched with articles on Baul songs, their culture, other folk songs of different States, especially East and North Eastern states-environmental protection and other useful articles related to rural life development. Besides various research papers on folk- culture will also be published in the journal so that, continuity of pursuits on these sides of rural culture in India are enlivened and subsist in a perpetuating manner.If the situation permits we would venture to publish multilingual journals on various rural folks and their cultural activities.
Other Programmes
To increase the efficiency for implementation of our basic and prime programmes and to cope up with the modern streamline we will also take up different training courses for our eligible members and activities.
Our Main Objective
Our main objective is to bring other folk song artists and the Baul singers under one shade and to start a new movement to restore the rural culture in a very effective manner, of course blending with the amenities of improved living condition so that, they are absolved from the frets and anxieties of daily earnings – living from hand to mouth.
For this we, from the very beginning have the plan for vocational trainings including:
- making of indigenous musical instruments for Bauls and folk singers.
- Computer training.
- Photography
- Training with music and dance along with imparting basic education for those boys and girls who are orphans and no support base for their future.
Besides the above we have the programme for people’s awareness on different social topics especially on the protection of environment, music therapy for the special children, cancer patients etc.
To turn our commitment into action we must have an arrangement of appropriate environment for housing the parts of actions in one place where all the facilities may be provided for the aspiring artistes, researchers, commuters and other activities. For this we need a spacious place to make our project flexible.
We need a land for three acres:
The categorical classification for the utilization of the land will be as under.
- Institute:
- It will be a building complex to house the following:
- i). One auditorium having an accommodation of at least 150 seats, with stage and allied facilities.
- ii). One spacious floor for rehearsal of music, dance and drama and conduction of workshop of various cultural affairs.
- iii). Three guest rooms with all facilities.
- iv). Office space.
- v). Canteen.
- vi). Research.
- Vocational Training Centres :
- i). for computer courses, photography training.
- ii). Making of musical instruments.
- iii). Music, dance, drama training.
- Non formal education centres for poor and destitute children.
- Museum for storage and display of indigenous art works and folk culture.
Research centre:
On contemporary social and cultural life on which composition of new songs will be taken up.
The songs will be translated in other language – similarly folk and rural cultural life including their songs and dances, especially for eastern region will come under research projects.
Eastern states or eastern regions of India is rich in endowed natural beauty of West Bengal, Assam, Jharkhand, a portion of Bihar, Nagaland, Manipur, etc. are enriched with all the beauties of Nature from green hills and snow capped mountains, rivers and tributaries to the vastness of the sea. In this region socio-economic structure is governed by the environment and its natural resources. So, is the folk culture, the musical tune and songs all are coming out from its soil, its daily life and the struggle for existence? People cannot be separated from the Nature. The rich popular folk culture generated in this way.
Today the rural culture is pressed to the wall due to dismal condition in the name of so-called development under globalization. The rich heritage culture is at stake now. We have to regain it through continuous research and nursing the Folk Culture with much care, ability and sincerity.
So, we require an achieve as well as a good library for such research works. Those are related to practical application, thus to survive folk songs, folk culture and to create an environment for acceptability with honor and dignity.
- Institute:
- It will be a building complex to house the following:
- i). One auditorium having an accommodation of at least 150 seats, with stage and allied facilities.
- ii). One spacious floor for rehearsal of music, dance and drama and conduction of workshop of various cultural affairs.
- iii). Three guest rooms with all facilities.
- iv). Office space.
- v). Canteen.
- vi). Research.
- Vocational Training Centres :
- i). for computer courses, photography training.
- ii). Making of musical instruments.
- iii). Music, dance, drama training.
- Non formal education centres for poor and destitute children.
- Museum for storage and display of indigenous art works and folk culture.
Our Main Objective
The Baul of Bengal is a registered Socio-Cultural organization and was established and registered in the year 1982 inspired by the famous Baul singer Padmashri Pandit Baulsamrat Purna Chandra Das and his wife, noted baul singer Late Manju Das. The organizations first president was distinguished poet and writer as well as a good administrator late Annada Shankar Roy, IAS. The second President was a noted educationist and author Dr.Roma Chowdhury followed by Padmashree Amitava Chowdhury (noted journalist, editor and writer) and in the year 1984 the Vice- Chancellor of Viswa Bharati Dr. Nemai Sadhan Basu. The advisory board was illuminated by the Hon’ble Ex- President of India Sri. Pranab Kumar Mukherjee, Ex-Central Minister, educationist and lawyer Dr. Pratap Ch. Chandra as well as other eminent personalities like Late Atulya Ghosh, Late Shankar Das Banerjee (ex-speaker of W.B.L. Assembly & Central Minister), Rabindra Research scholar Late Prabhat Mukhopadhyay and others. Till the period upto 2000 The Baul of Bengal had a golden period through the service for the common people and Bauls. “The Baul of Bengal” feels that the city and town centric culture is gradually encroaching to crush the traditional folk cultural base. So the time has come to preserve the rich cultural heritage and move for the development of human values which are also gradually taking flight from the modern society resulting emergence of various vices to spoil the healthy social environment. Our present action plan is to preserve the rich culture of folk songs including Baul songs, through organizing various workshops on Baul songs and dance as well as other folk songs, to entertain mentally challenged boys and girls (now special children), elderly alone people, the patients at hospitals, correctional houses etc. through “Music Therapy” to which we are participating in various institutions like Manovikas Kendra, CINI ASHA, Ahead, Help Age India, Antara Village, Thakurpukur Cancer Hospital, Hope Foundation, Tech Mahindra Reach Trust India,Noble Mission and many other places.
Contribution For Society and Self
