Lalan samgit sbaralipi, pratham khanda.

• Author: Das, Rahul Peter

The commercialization of Baul songs has resulted in a mighty industry, centered to a large extent in Calcutta, which spins out fake Baul songs written and set to tunes by professional artistes or their hacks; often genuine songs, too, are given a tune more in keeping with the taste of modern urban "folk-music lovers." Many songs of Lalan have suffered such a fate, and, though the original, or at any rate more traditional, tunes are still known to many Bauls, particularly in eastern Bengal, efforts to preserve them before they are forced into oblivion are obviously very much called for. The result of one such endeavor is a collection of twenty-five songs with their tunes in traditional notation.(11) The tunes were taken from the recollection of Khoda Bak-s, a Fakir in the tradition of Lalan and an acknowledged authority on his...