“I knew it, I felt it somewhere inside me. My expression was in art. I loved all forms of it—music, dance, and painting—and had engrossed myself completely in them. At the age of 13 itself, a certain restlessness started to gather inside me. There was something in the world, I sensed, that I was not convinced about at all. It was holding me back and I wanted to break free. When I met the Bauls, my heart experienced something very intense—the intensity of seeking this freedom within oneself and of exploring how I could be released. I embraced this freedom in the compassion of the Bauls and got more and more involved in their practice. It was so adventurous to go deep within. I told myself that if I dedicate myself to this, I want to go to the farthest end, if there is any, to see the exact dimensions of this mysticism. So, I kept going on.”
These reflections open a new world of thought when I meet Parvathy Baul, a practitioner and teacher of the Baul tradition, in the current baazar of digital interactions. Parvathy was born into and raised in a Bengali family of Ramakrishna devotees, who often hosted as their guests the Ramakrishna Mission monks coming to the Fakiragram Junction railway station. This junction in Assam, where her father was posted, eventually became a significant confluence from where many new streams flowed. Emanating from that confluence, Parvathy embraced the Baul parampara, which traces its roots to Shiva through the Nath sampradaya, and is presently shaped by the Bhakti teachings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Carrying forward the spiritual legacy of her two gurus, Sanatan Das Thakur Baul and Shoshanko Goshai, she has become the most recognised woman Baul performer in the world. This is our first exchange, though I have known her for some years now. Beginning this quest, I ask her about a Sadhika’s praxis of exchange amidst an increasingly capitalistic society.
“This is an interesting question for a Sadhika; I have already been on this journey to find a balance between the transactional world and something that goes beyond it,” she tells me. “Regarding the market…the Bauls have a very simple way in the tradition,” she unfolds, “they call it Madhukori.” It is, literally speaking, the practice of honey-gathering. Like the bees go to the flowers, the Bauls go the village houses to gather alms for the ashram. In that sense, it is kind of like fundraising, she adds. Madhukori becomes the act and the site of exchange between the two worlds. The honey-seeking Baul goes to a house and starts singing the Harinam or Shabdagan. This mostly happens during daytime when the householder is engaged in laborious tasks, riddled with the uncertainties of the everyday. The Baul enters the courtyard and starts singing the songs of wisdom, disrupting the attention of the householder otherwise engrossed in worldly anxieties. “The Baul’s song reminds them of their very truths. I have witnessed people crying, for they get to ‘touch’ something without even thinking about it. This is nothing but the life of the everyday, which is transcendental,” she says. Following the interaction, the householder, touched to the core by the Baul’s gaan, responds by offering whatever they have—from rice to vegetables, often bringing themselves to the ashram even. What the terms and conditions of this exchange are, I ask. “There is no fixed price. There is an understanding and there is an exchange,” she emphasises. Parvathy currently lives between Bengal and Kerala. When we connected, she was in Trivandrum where she founded Ekathara Kalari, along with her partner and co-creator, Ravi Gopalan Nair, and the trustee, Ramachandra Roddam, in 1997. She cannot practice Madhukori here, she tells me, but always does it when she is at the Ashram “as it is a thread of communication between the villagers and the Bauls.”
For Parvathy, Madhukori remains an important part of the body of her tradition even when she earns a living through different ventures. She has been teaching the philosophy of the Baul parampara for many years now while dealing with some questions to date, which she soon begins to share as our conversation flows further. The idea of a Gurukul and teaching spiritual education did not come easy, she recalls. Her task: How could one start a deeply reflective course, which the students could commit to? Could a certain price be set against it? “In the past, one sign of commitment was giving dakshina to the guru, when these fancy packages of the day did not exist,” she quickly contrasts tradition and modernity. How was the dakshina amount finalised then, I wonder? “The guru decided the dakshina, keeping in mind the students’ status. There was never a fixed price. It is easier when the price is fixed; when there is no price, you do not know what price you will have to pay!” We laugh as she expresses how interesting she finds this fact. I ask if she has been able to finally navigate these modern-day exchanges. “I cannot really say if I have already come to a conclusion on how to make the traditional practice survive in the modern time,” she admits.
In December 2014, Parvathy started a short-term course at the Ekathara Kalari Gurukul, inviting the Anuragees to get introduced to the Baul tradition and learn from the Baul Masters, alongside the permanent students of the Gurukul. “But it also involves expenses…how do I sustain the ashram? How do I keep offering services like Ayurvedic treatment and others to the villagers? And, more importantly, the Baul Masters should be paid for their time and efforts. Even though they don’t really ask for a fixed amount, but I do keep in mind a certain amount to offer to them.” She quickly ventures into the heart of the tradition once again, highlighting that the traditional practice does not allow to charge any money for offering food. She decided to circumnavigate this by taking no money for food for a day. “After everything is settled, sometimes I get something for my ashram and sometimes I don’t. Many management-friendly friends of mine keep asking me to fix a price and start thinking of the ashram’s expenses. I always tell them that I am learning—as I am telling you—whether it is possible to keep certain practices of the tradition intact yet work in/with the modern time. This is what I am trying. This is my aim.”
To fulfil the promise made to her guru, Sanatan Das Baul, Parvathy began the construction of Sanatan Siddhashram in Birbhum district of West Bengal in June 2017, with her architect friends, Prasanna More and Sourabh Malpani, and the support of Ekathara Kalari Trustee, Ramachandra Roddam. Apart from the week-long Baul Gyan Darpan retreat, she now sustains the ashram by doing concerts and workshops. On asking about the ashram’s commitment towards the village, she shares, “At Sanatan Siddhashram, I try to follow the Word that no payment should be taken for Chikitsa (Treatment), Vidya (Knowledge), and Pooja (Worship).” A holistic and dedicated relationship, like the one between a guru and a shishya, which, according to her, is an incomparable one, cannot be satisfied by any sum of money. “It is different from all other relationships because it has to be different. The navigations and marketing of a traditional school like ours, unlike the formal system of the universities, cannot be ‘black & white’ or ‘this much money for this degree’-type. When you are trying to rebuild a parampara and give it the mainstream space, you have to think differently of the ‘marketing and packaging’ because it cannot be like the marketing and packaging of the modern time. One has to find another way. In the parampara, the guru is not hungry for money—this is the first discipline that is given to the teacher. I learned from my guru and am now sharing on. If I ‘sell’ my teaching like the modern education system does, I will be selling my relationship with my teacher.”
Finding her way through these questions, Parvathy usually fundraised project by project, and did not accept any donations until a few years ago, although her friends, sensing the situation, kept suggesting her to find her Gurukula another monetary system. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, evaluating her friends’ caring suggestions, she now thinks that perhaps all the organisations should have a corpus fund to sustain themselves in the absence of fundraising activities. “But I am still not fully convinced; it might give access to anyone,” she announces. I enquire more about the application process that is followed to join the annual retreat. She tells me that she does a thorough background-review of the applicants, to know where they are coming from and where they wish to head. “I am inviting them to my home. While I do not expect that they all are set to become Sadhakas, I believe that they will gain something for sure, which will definitely enhance their own practice. But I have got to be a little careful. In that regard, you can say that commercially I am not very successful.” Her unsuccessful commerce forces the both of us to erupt in laughter.
I begin to unpack some of my leftover apprehensions and questions, enquiring about the future of such interactions, whether short-term or long-term, at a time when protected communities and spaces are being opened to ‘spiritual tourism’. She is confident that both Ekathara Kalari and Sanatan Siddhashram will remain untouched, as they have, but she does worry oftentimes about other sacred places and practices, about other Baul Akharas, about her Baul brothers. The tourism market, she agrees, is standing right outside the door with an open mouth to consume these centuries-old spaces. “I am in constant touch with the Baul Masters—always discussing with them how to keep themselves protected,” she assures.
Parvathy soon turns to sharing about her relationship with her fellow Bauls, leaving me wondering about the balance between renunciation and ownership, between letting-go and embracing, between the desires and the needs in the world of a Sadhika. I seek to know: Do the threads of worldly relationships hinder one’s balance? Is renouncing-it-all the only way? She responds with clarity: “Relationship is never hard for Sadhana. This is a big mistake that people often make—of thinking that to be a Sadhika, one has to go away somewhere, say, to a forest. When the world itself is a big forest where you can find creatures of all kind, why leave?” She poses an affirmative in front of me with a bright smile and radiance on her face.
“Only the Sannyasin renounce it all—even the family. But, like the Siddhas, the Tantriks, the Naths, and other Indian spiritual traditions, the Bauls accept both: the Shunya Marga of renouncing the world and the Grahastha Ashrama, in which the male and the female practitioners live together and keep the fire of Sadhana burning. The gurus are only telling you to cultivate non-attachment, the quality of Seva (Service), while being present and active in the world and its affairs. You have the responsibility to serve your family; you can do it as a service—serve them with love. The priorities and preferences have to go away. One should develop the quality of Samata (Parity)—of seeing everything only as the reflection of Krishna and nothing else. You must serve everyone equally and beautifully, with all your heart and attention—this is Sadhana. The Baul Sadhika stands beyond the likes and the dislikes. You share a relationship with the tree, which gives you fruits to eat, how can you opt out of that relationship? And, the relationship with the guru is not the relationship of this world; it cannot be packaged, marketed, or sold.”
Parvathy’s vivid metaphors and sharp words leave me entangled—almost hanging in between. Having decided to not leave me completely perplexed, she finally says, “The presence of the beloved is in everything—you’re always in the Sannidhya (Company). There is no destination to be reached. You just have to continue, and the beauty of Sadhana is in its continuation.” Yet another metaphor features in our conversation as a parting thought: “One has to burn in the fire like jaggery and get sweetened through continuous churning. The beauty of Sadhana is to continue everyday, with the same freshness and newness of loving oneself, one’s practice, and one’s teacher. After some 12 years of Sadhana, one might start tasting a little bit.” Following a few more shared smiles and laughs, we end the meeting. Parvathy goes back to her plans of organising the Baul Mela Online and I to my being-in-the-middle-ness, taking along something sweet from this confluence, for Kicchu Din…
