Precious Wildish Self

While Baul art form addresses important issues of mind-body-soul, is it also gender-neutral? Parvathy answers, “Baul is Guru-Shishya (English: teacher-student) stream of learning and teaching process. So basically, one goes to learn first from a Guru. The student needs to go through tough training: discipline, improvement through time and come out as a mature practitioner. On successful completion, the Baul community will accept anyone devoid of class, caste, religion, culture or gender. But I must say that a woman has to cross much more obstacles, and she has to be extraordinarily strong inside to keep her songs alive.” To my question of what does it mean to be a woman Baul performer, she adds, “There is a song in Baul: ‘Oh my heart , I wonder where you are a man or a woman?’. Within Baul, aspect of man and woman, both are inside the same body. We identify with sexuality in a biological manner only on the exterior while inside it’s the same. The real work is to keep both energies equal but it takes great opening (exposure) within to recognise this truth.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOgZJJmLfhA&feature=youtu.be

Hilda Doolittle's Eurydice