TO HELP CHILDREN

A Baul Ashram

a place where anyone can come without invitation, regardless of their societal status or financial situation

by Anando Gopal Das Baul
translated from Bengali

My own aunt is a Namgayok. In very traditional villages, people wake up at 4 am, sometimes to begin work, or also just because they like it and it is good for concentration. To start the day nicely, in the early morning they like to hear the name of God. My aunt sings the name of God in the early morning because people like it, and because in the daytime she could go house to house and be given rice. She uses this rice for her own food, and she also may feed some neighbors who are poor and hungry. This is her job. She has done this since she lost her husband around 40 years ago. Because she has no child of her own, she thinks of any child as her own, and she loves to take care of people. She lives on land that was donated to her. She has grown many different trees there, and people come to stay with her, help with the land, and eat together. My aunt has raised many children in this way. She has raised 4 or 5 children to adulthood, sending them to school, and many others came to stay for a few months or a few years. Her home is a simple mud house with a straw roof and two small rooms. Her home is called an ashram.

Today, in big cities like Calcutta, there are places like Ram Krishna Ashram. At the Ram Krishna Ashram there is a library, a book store, a business office, a hotel, lectures, a front lobby, a decorated courtyard, a cafeteria, and a bus stop outside. In foreign countries there are also ashrams like this, but this is not the kind of place that I am able to make or interested in making.

I was born in a family which has upheld the Baul tradition for several generations. In my youth, maybe at age 7, I started singing at bus stations and on passenger trains because at that time my father was the only wage-earner at home and he needed help. First I used to go and just play cymbols for my father. Later I would go alone and then with my younger brother. My father's parents didn't have a house to give us, and we all needed to work. Some days we would go to different villages and sing in the streets or inside people's homes in exchange for rice or money or vegetables. Sometimes we would go with my father to festivals around India. During our travels we would often stay at other people's ashrams. At that time, this was the way we supported ourselves. This is the traditional Baul lifestyle. My guru has a ashram where I stayed for more than a year and to which I return often. I like to go there because my guru was a Baul song writer and he used to sing for me, and he has taught me many things about life.

My parents' house in Bolpur is a Baul house and a family ashram. It is not like the house of the normal Indian family because we play Baul music and because all kinds of people come to our home. Since we travel all over India, we meet all kinds of people, from movie stars to the most desperate of beggars. All of these people come to visit our home or stay with us. People come to our house without invitation at any time of the day or night. Even people we don't know will sometimes come to knock on our door. Each person who comes will be offered a meal, and sometimes they might stay a night, or longer.

One day about 20 years ago, there was a huge flood in West Bengal. Many hundreds of people died as their homes were washed away. At that time I went to sing on the train, when suddently the train stopped and we were told that the bridge had just washed away and so the track was lost. It was night. I got off the train near the river and looked at the passing cows, goats, people crying out for help in the river. Suddenly I saw a boy floating in the river, and I reached out and saved him. The boy came to our house and he learned to sing and play music, and he stayed with us for until he grew up. Now he supports his own family with his music.

These kinds of experiences in my life have made me want to help others. In India there is so much suffering, and I would like to help someone in the way that my family has helped others. I do not want to make a grand project for helping hundreds of people, I just want to help a few people around me who I can help and need help.

I have been able to buy this land with the help of many different people, largely with the help of money I've made at concerts in Europe.

The next step for this land is to build a brick wall around the land. A wall is necessary because people steal dirt from open plots of land, or they start to dig on the land saying that it is their land. So I need to make a boundry to mark off my area. Then in this area I want to plant trees, and build a well for water. Then I will build a mud house. The roof should be tile or concrete, so it doesn't need to be maintained every year like a straw roof does. I will start with just a one-room house. Maybe someday I will have a cow. I dream that my garden will have flowers, and hanging sweet mangoes. At night the wind will come and rustle the trees. On a full moon the light will shine through the leaves. We will sing in a cleanly swept open courtyard outside the house. From a distance people will hear the music on a full moon night, and it will make them feel nice. In the rainy season the sounds of cicades will fill the air, and we will see green rice fields all around, and farmers coming on cow carts to harvest their rice after a season's work. At the beginning of the season women will come to plant rice seeds. The cow will come home from the fields in the afternoon and cry out "Maaa!," telling us to open the door.

This ashram may not have a toilet, and it won't have electricity, or a telephone. It will not have a paying lodging house or business office or cash box. I am not a business man. I do not know anything about how to run a business. I have not studied in schools. If I were to build a large concrete house with lights and toilets, gas stoves and water sinks and servants, it would be a failure. I don't know how to maintain this type of place, and I would be taken advantage of by the educated rich Indians who would understand easily that I don't know how to compete with them. I cannot ask for sponsorship of my project from banks or wealthy organizations or clubs, because I don't know how to speak the educated business language of these types of people. If I build a fancy house, people in the area will come after me and try to steal from us or destroy the house. This is what happens in India. I have seen this happen to many people. When I build my ashram, I must make the kind of place that I know how to manage and how to take care of. Anyone who knows India will will understand that it would be very dangerous for me to try to do otherwise.

If I want to save someone else I need to save myself first. Just giving me a chance to perform my music is good for me and therefore good for others whom I may someday help. All I ask for is a chance to earn money with my singing. If anyone is interested in my project I will gratefully accept whatever type of help they wish to offer, but what I most hope for is the chance to work myself by giving enjoyment to others with my songs and by teaching others about my culture.