If liberation could be had by taking baths or growing dreadlocks, fish and bear would have been liberated long ago! In this iconic song, full of delightful mockery, Kabir pokes fun at the hundred ways in which we fool ourselves – expecting that inner purity can be achieved merely through outer forms and practices.

***
Find lyrics/translation of this song at
[ Ссылка ]
Discover a universe of Bhakti, Sufi, Baul poetry and music at [ Ссылка ].
***

(Click on Settings for subtitles in English & Hindi. Click ‘B’ on keyboard to remove the black background in subtitles.)

Kaluram Bamaniya belongs to a vibrant tradition of singing bhakti poets such as Kabir, Gorakhnath, Bananath and Meera in the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh in India. He started learning at the early age of 9, by accompanying his father, grandfather and uncle on the manjiras. When he was 13 years old he ran away from home and went to Rajasthan, where he absorbed a wide repertoire of songs from an itinerant Mirasi singer Ram Niwas Rao for 1-2 years. Contact Kaluram Bamaniya at: 91-98264-00632, bairagkabir.bamniya@gmail.com, www.bairagkabir.com. Get his music at [ Ссылка ].

He sang this song in Napasar village on the 2nd night of the Rajasthan Kabir Yatra, a week-long travelling festival which toured 7 villages with 13 singers of Bhakti, Sufi and Baul poetry in February 2012. The Yatra was organized by Lokayan in Bikaner (www.lokayan.org) in partnership with the Kabir Project, Bangalore.

A special presence on stage in this song is Kaluram ji’s daughter Arpita, singing with gusto while she plays the manjiras. This perhaps best exemplifies how learning happens in the folk traditions – the sounds and styles are imbibed and absorbed through many hours and years of inhabiting shared spaces of satsang, both on and off the stage.

See the same song with slight variations in Jamali Bai’s powerful voice here: [ Ссылка ]

This is one of a series of uploads for Ajab Shahar, a webspace dedicated to mystic poem and song, created by the Kabir Project team ([ Ссылка ] ; [ Ссылка ]).

Song Credits:
Lead Vocals & Tambura: Kaluram Bamaniya
Violin: Devnarayan Saroliya
Dholak: Devidas Bairagi
Harmonium: Santosh K Pathundia
Nagaari (Timki): Sajan Singh Parmar
Manjiras & Co-singers: Ram Prasad Parmar & Arpita

Translation: Vipul Rikhi

Video Credits:
Cameras: Smriti Chanchani & Aarthi Parathasarthy
Sound: Atirek Pandey
Editing: Piyush Kashyap
Sub-Titling: Mamta Kandari & Vipul Rikhi
Collection: The Kabir Project

Date of Recording:
24 February 2012

свернуть