Indiawide Release, 05 March 2025: To uphold the folk music roots of India, Arnesh Ghose, a multi-disciplinary artist, in collaboration with Mythopia, one of India’s leading organisations and authorities on Indian and world mythology, is bringing a memorable evening of Bengali folk music Baul to Mumbai. Celebrating the vivid colours of spring and the spirit of Holi, an evening filled with Bengali folk songs, and storytelling is awaiting on March 9th, 2025, at Mukti Manch in Versova.
India is a mosaic of cultures, and there have been many cultural legacies that remain underrepresented in the mainstream. Baul music is one of those untapped musical legacies that has inspired many who hailed from West Bengal, including the works of Rabindranath Tagore. The Baul songs are listed under UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Through the Bombay Baul Project, Ghose is attempting to introduce folk music hailing from Bengal to a metropolitan, young audience, helping them to stay connected with India’s cultural heritage. Arnesh, a writer and storyteller, has also been a trained Hindustani Classical singer, along with receiving training in Rabindrasangeet. From an early age, due to his visits to Shantiniketan, where he first absorbed the melodies, writings, and teachings, Arnesh has taken interest in its philosophy and music. Through the Bombay Baul Project, he wants Bengal’s folk experience to be celebrated by a wider audience. He aims to spread the message embedded in the music’s philosophy that different faiths and philosophies often convey the same truths.
Baul culture, with its roots in history dating back several thousand years, is a harmonious confluence of various philosophies and progressive spiritual movements. These wandering minstrels, often called bauls, spread the message of the philosophy that is a vibrant mix of Sufism, Vaishnav, Buddhist, and Tantric traditions.
Their hymns celebrate the spirit of being a human, divine longing, and the quest for enlightenment, centred on the search for moner manush (inner man). Their music, accompanied by ektara (a one-stringed instrument) and khomok (hand drum), reveres gods merely as a path to enlightenment and not an end itself.