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LalonLalon Fokir(1774-1890), also known as Lalon Shah was born in an obscure village in the district of Kushtia, now in Bangladesh). One of the greatest mystic-singers the Indian subcontinent has ever produced, Lalon was perhaps the most radical voice in India during British colonial rule. Like the mystic Kabir He had no formal education and lived in extreme poverty. Tradition has it that the hindu family he was born to abandoned him when he was sufferring from smallpox. Shiraj Shai, a Baul of muslim background saved him from death and took him under his wings. Writing in nineteenth-century lyrical Bengali, Lalon composed numerous songs which still provide spiritual and political inspiration to the Bengali rural peasant--a class from which Lalon himself came, and also to freedom-fighters all over the world. He celebrates the freedom of body, soul, and even language from all repressive and divisive forces. Always opposed to casteism, sectarianism, and colonialism, Lalon represents and exemplifies the true revolutionary and secular nature of his community known as "Baul", a community of low-class, illiterate, wandering singers whose wisdom and wit do not come from academic training, but from an active contact with a life intensely lived. In 1963, a mausoleum and a research centre were built at the site of his akhda. Thousands of Bauls come to the akhda twice a year, Dol-Purnima, in the month of Falgun (February-March) and in October, on the occasion of his death anniversary. During these three-day song melas, Bauls pay rich tributes to their spiritual leader. Excerpt from one of Lalon Shah's well known songs: What caste is Lalon? everyone asks.
My eyes fail to see the ways of caste,
Lalon responds.
....
Circumcision marks a muslim man,
but what for a woman?
The sacred thread is how one detects a brahmin,
But how to detect a Brahmani (a woman of brahmin birth)?
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