I have noticed over the past 13 years of writing about the "Vaishnava Bauls of Birbhum" since the age of facebook and social media that what I have written has been copied. The names taken off and other names added. The idea's, terms, circumstances, concepts, stories used in new Baul singers stories, books, youtube video's, and post with no credit given but new lineages made up, a cultural appropriation not necessarily people in other countries but a cultural hijacking within Indian Culture.
BabuKishan.org
Babu Kishan aka Krishnendu Das Baul was the first Baul to create a website called BabuKishan.com and he had millions of views, he started the website in the early 199o's and it was the first time people could learn about Baul on the world wide web. People copied and pasted everything he wrote all over the world, it was the first inner portal on Baul and he was fundraising for his lineage to help in his already decades of preservation on Baul his lineage.
He is the first to put Baul songs on MTV, he is the first for anything and everything regarding Baul, yet many have made up stories. Baul has been completely culturally appropriated by outsiders and by Muslims, there never ever was a such thing as a Muslim Baul, if Muslim is based on Sanatan Dharma, Yoga and Tantra we could say yes, but they are not and the watering down and reductionism is real. Baul is extinct, what is happening today is not Baul it is fake, it is drama and Baul singing. There are a few who have some keys who are more authentic but they are not seen, they are hidden, or can not make up stories and tell lies, therefore, no one knows who they are.
We have laughed over the years how people copied and pasted his story, whether it was right or wrong and he could see who was doing it. He could see every intellectual property theft.
Many started to make documentaries. Many people he thought were his friends and who he even gave the idea to about making documentaries on Baul went ahead without him.
Regarding scholarship he helped many in obtaining funding, even giving his signature and they promised to include him in the projects only to disappear and reappear with some fake Baul a token to make their project look legit. He helped many (you know who you are) fundraising from Universities, they took his lessons in Baul and Bengali and then went on to write about and create the Bauls of Bangladesh or just pushed him aside.
You see Babu Kishan is a very sincere serious guy and he believed you. This has lead to a huge distrust in any academic and they still come a calling, tell me, asking questions. I helped a scholar a year ago against Babu's warnings, yes I learned my lesson, he told me but I did not listen. Was that a mistake, yes I told everything I knew and then turned around and they used pictures of other Bauls who are not even Bauls and I will qualify this in the new book? They cut and chew and in the end the story is changed to suit their professor for a PHD, you see this is the cause to get funding or a job as a professor as the leading authority of a subject. Then others copy and paste what they write over and over, check out academia.com, it is like a competition of articles, to make themselves legit even if it is true what they write or not, just because it has been written before does not make it correct. It is mind boggling all fighting to be the one, for better funding.
Many scholars have written about the Bauls of Bengal and Babu Kishan has known them personally and qualified them because what they have written is wrong and now new scholar only copy and paste from book to book, it is like acid that burns a hole in a whole culture now deconstructing the culture.
Baul has been written about, it was easier to get funds from a University if there was a new subject or object of study. That is how many scholars have viewed Baul as an object of fundraising, so they create a Baul of Bangladesh with no clue of how this came about and that Baul is not nor never was from that area of Bengal when it was Bengal and that Lalon Fakir was a great poet, with Baul like ideas but he did not do any Baul sadhana and without Baul sadhana there is not Baul. Lets call Baba Pagla a Baul, lets call Lalon Fakir a Baul, lets pay some money to this poor family over here and they will be the centre of my research on Baul, whether they are Baul or not, no one will know?
Babu Kishan has had this problem even in his own family, sorry to say, it is about money not Baul for the sake of Baul. He is a real serious guy about his lineage and by the way no one ever used 'lineage of Baul' until I created this blog lineagebaul.blogspot.com for Babu Kishan. Babu Kishan spent decades preserving Baul and recored most of the Baul songs of his lineage, he is not just pointing fingers at others, he will be pointing fingers directly at his very own family who has played a big part in this deconstruction of Baul, there is no love lost there, but he still has deep respect for his lineage, Nabani Das Khyapa Baul & Brajabala Dasi, this truth will all come out soon and it will not be pleasant. Babu Kishan has always been a free agent and protected his family but he can not anymore. Baul is extinct.
And.. another by the way, Babu Kishan is the one who set the template, the ground, the platform for Bauls to travel around the world. He is the one who encouraged others to follow him around the world, his mother Manju Das is the first Baul women to travel outside of India, in the 1960's, yet I see others making this claim? You can not talk about Baul Women and firsts without talking about Manju Das love her or hate her, she was the only legendary Baul Women to ever travel outside of India. Baul has been extinct for about 30 years if not longer, all the rest is made up stories and lineages.
Babu Kishan brought many who follow Baul along on his own trips as musicians, now many are claiming they too have a lineage not this lineage but their own made up lineage? Their students are claiming they are lineage too?? When Babu knows exactly they were not Bauls, and their Guru never claimed lineage and the family did not even like this person because they only took and never gave back? How useful to make up a lineage of Baul, when it more likely they were kirtan-ist from Bangaldesh. Riding on the coat tails of this family and lineage.
Then you get the westerns who do not have a clue and can not make it through to Babu Kishan because he does not let people through, so instead of pushing through, they just fold their tent because it is too hard and follow and promote fake. I had a Kung Fu Grand Master and it took 3 years before he would call you by your name.
Baul is like that, you are not automatically in, anybody who is a Baul who automatically makes friends with you is not a Baul, there is a procedure of initiation by seeing how easy you are bought and sold.
Babu Kishan can tell who you are in a second, what you want, and what is your intention regarding Baul. Yes, he has been fooled by people in the past, especially scholars only because of a hope, a hope to preserve his tradition.
Do not expect Babu Kishan to give you a drop of Baul unless he can see you are sincere and are ready to go the length, he may even mislead you to qualify you. He is wiser and older now, the lessons of almost 60 years are etched on his soul. Lessons of growing up with Nabani Das Baul and Brajabala Dasi the last Bauls of his lineage who lived as Bauls untouched outside desires, of his journey through preserving Baul and all the Guru's and top in India Music Art and Film. Terrorist attacks, surviving the 2004 tsunami, many have no clue who Babu Kishan is and what he has lived, he is not a regular person or a simple Baul he is extraordinary and a genius in Indian music.
He has fundraised for thousands of peoples and causes for decades, so he helps many but when it comes to Baul he spent a lifetime, why should he give you his inner soul. You have show some sincerity from your inner soul.
No Bauls traveled the world or outside of Birbhum until this family (lineage) of Bauls did. All follow them, how they dress, how they dance, and the songs they sing and some even take the names off the people who recorded the songs (Babu Kishan) and the people who wrote the (poetry of the song) and put their own on, they copy the styles right down to watching a youtube of Babu Kishan sing the song a hundred times and give no credit.
I have seen people release a book on Baul, I have read the book, then only a few years later to see the book completely updated even using terms that Babu Kishan created 'the rasa lila mystics'. It just goes on and on, elaborately creating new lineages, the desperation is endless. One would say to me get a life, well this is my life, I am a researcher, reading everything that people have written about Baul and qualifying it.
All will be qualified, everybody including Babu Kishan's own family. This book is taking way longer than expected, now onto its 13th year and quite frankly, I more that anybody want to be done with this subject. What I have learned more than anything is that it is Kali Yuga, and in this time period, 'what is real is seen as unreal and what is unreal is seen as real!
That goes for truth, truth is lost to this world, I am not sure many people do not know what it is to tell the truth and be honest?"
Babu Kishan had written 3 books in the past and was the first Baul to ever write a Book on Baul, his father wrote one with a Vaishnava Scholar using all of Babu Kishan's notes and other book that were left in the Calcutta home without his permission or credit, I read it there are truths, it is a difficult read and through my research i found an post by a Baul Women who claims she is from a lineage, copied and pasted the techniques listed in the book directly, saying that is what she is teaching, un freaking unbelievable, life is stranger than fiction?? All will qualified.
He was the first to put Baul on Youtube, a mass of Bauls many of whom were not even Baul followed, singing folk songs, pieces of Baul songs, saying they were this and that.
I guess I could say, people follow this lineage of Baul, people absolutely follow Babu Kishan but in this circumstance regarding Baul, they follow, copy and make up stories?
Jai Guru, Jupiter the lord of telling the truth and good judgement just moved into Sagittarius rules by Jupiter (the Guru) lets hope some sense regarding a little sect of Vaishnava Tantric Bauls is told and told truthfully by someone who actually knows the truth.
Babu Kishan aka Krishnendu Das Baul was the first Baul to create a website called BabuKishan.com and he had millions of views, he started the website in the early 199o's and it was the first time people could learn about Baul on the world wide web. People copied and pasted everything he wrote all over the world, it was the first inner portal on Baul and he was fundraising for his lineage to help in his already decades of preservation on Baul his lineage.
He is the first to put Baul songs on MTV, he is the first for anything and everything regarding Baul, yet many have made up stories. Baul has been completely culturally appropriated by outsiders and by Muslims, there never ever was a such thing as a Muslim Baul, if Muslim is based on Sanatan Dharma, Yoga and Tantra we could say yes, but they are not and the watering down and reductionism is real. Baul is extinct, what is happening today is not Baul it is fake, it is drama and Baul singing. There are a few who have some keys who are more authentic but they are not seen, they are hidden, or can not make up stories and tell lies, therefore, no one knows who they are.
We have laughed over the years how people copied and pasted his story, whether it was right or wrong and he could see who was doing it. He could see every intellectual property theft.
Many started to make documentaries. Many people he thought were his friends and who he even gave the idea to about making documentaries on Baul went ahead without him.
Regarding scholarship he helped many in obtaining funding, even giving his signature and they promised to include him in the projects only to disappear and reappear with some fake Baul a token to make their project look legit. He helped many (you know who you are) fundraising from Universities, they took his lessons in Baul and Bengali and then went on to write about and create the Bauls of Bangladesh or just pushed him aside.
You see Babu Kishan is a very sincere serious guy and he believed you. This has lead to a huge distrust in any academic and they still come a calling, tell me, asking questions. I helped a scholar a year ago against Babu's warnings, yes I learned my lesson, he told me but I did not listen. Was that a mistake, yes I told everything I knew and then turned around and they used pictures of other Bauls who are not even Bauls and I will qualify this in the new book? They cut and chew and in the end the story is changed to suit their professor for a PHD, you see this is the cause to get funding or a job as a professor as the leading authority of a subject. Then others copy and paste what they write over and over, check out academia.com, it is like a competition of articles, to make themselves legit even if it is true what they write or not, just because it has been written before does not make it correct. It is mind boggling all fighting to be the one, for better funding.
Many scholars have written about the Bauls of Bengal and Babu Kishan has known them personally and qualified them because what they have written is wrong and now new scholar only copy and paste from book to book, it is like acid that burns a hole in a whole culture now deconstructing the culture.
Baul has been written about, it was easier to get funds from a University if there was a new subject or object of study. That is how many scholars have viewed Baul as an object of fundraising, so they create a Baul of Bangladesh with no clue of how this came about and that Baul is not nor never was from that area of Bengal when it was Bengal and that Lalon Fakir was a great poet, with Baul like ideas but he did not do any Baul sadhana and without Baul sadhana there is not Baul. Lets call Baba Pagla a Baul, lets call Lalon Fakir a Baul, lets pay some money to this poor family over here and they will be the centre of my research on Baul, whether they are Baul or not, no one will know?
Babu Kishan has had this problem even in his own family, sorry to say, it is about money not Baul for the sake of Baul. He is a real serious guy about his lineage and by the way no one ever used 'lineage of Baul' until I created this blog lineagebaul.blogspot.com for Babu Kishan. Babu Kishan spent decades preserving Baul and recored most of the Baul songs of his lineage, he is not just pointing fingers at others, he will be pointing fingers directly at his very own family who has played a big part in this deconstruction of Baul, there is no love lost there, but he still has deep respect for his lineage, Nabani Das Khyapa Baul & Brajabala Dasi, this truth will all come out soon and it will not be pleasant. Babu Kishan has always been a free agent and protected his family but he can not anymore. Baul is extinct.
And.. another by the way, Babu Kishan is the one who set the template, the ground, the platform for Bauls to travel around the world. He is the one who encouraged others to follow him around the world, his mother Manju Das is the first Baul women to travel outside of India, in the 1960's, yet I see others making this claim? You can not talk about Baul Women and firsts without talking about Manju Das love her or hate her, she was the only legendary Baul Women to ever travel outside of India. Baul has been extinct for about 30 years if not longer, all the rest is made up stories and lineages.
Babu Kishan brought many who follow Baul along on his own trips as musicians, now many are claiming they too have a lineage not this lineage but their own made up lineage? Their students are claiming they are lineage too?? When Babu knows exactly they were not Bauls, and their Guru never claimed lineage and the family did not even like this person because they only took and never gave back? How useful to make up a lineage of Baul, when it more likely they were kirtan-ist from Bangaldesh. Riding on the coat tails of this family and lineage.
Then you get the westerns who do not have a clue and can not make it through to Babu Kishan because he does not let people through, so instead of pushing through, they just fold their tent because it is too hard and follow and promote fake. I had a Kung Fu Grand Master and it took 3 years before he would call you by your name.
Baul is like that, you are not automatically in, anybody who is a Baul who automatically makes friends with you is not a Baul, there is a procedure of initiation by seeing how easy you are bought and sold.
Babu Kishan can tell who you are in a second, what you want, and what is your intention regarding Baul. Yes, he has been fooled by people in the past, especially scholars only because of a hope, a hope to preserve his tradition.
Do not expect Babu Kishan to give you a drop of Baul unless he can see you are sincere and are ready to go the length, he may even mislead you to qualify you. He is wiser and older now, the lessons of almost 60 years are etched on his soul. Lessons of growing up with Nabani Das Baul and Brajabala Dasi the last Bauls of his lineage who lived as Bauls untouched outside desires, of his journey through preserving Baul and all the Guru's and top in India Music Art and Film. Terrorist attacks, surviving the 2004 tsunami, many have no clue who Babu Kishan is and what he has lived, he is not a regular person or a simple Baul he is extraordinary and a genius in Indian music.
He has fundraised for thousands of peoples and causes for decades, so he helps many but when it comes to Baul he spent a lifetime, why should he give you his inner soul. You have show some sincerity from your inner soul.
No Bauls traveled the world or outside of Birbhum until this family (lineage) of Bauls did. All follow them, how they dress, how they dance, and the songs they sing and some even take the names off the people who recorded the songs (Babu Kishan) and the people who wrote the (poetry of the song) and put their own on, they copy the styles right down to watching a youtube of Babu Kishan sing the song a hundred times and give no credit.
I have seen people release a book on Baul, I have read the book, then only a few years later to see the book completely updated even using terms that Babu Kishan created 'the rasa lila mystics'. It just goes on and on, elaborately creating new lineages, the desperation is endless. One would say to me get a life, well this is my life, I am a researcher, reading everything that people have written about Baul and qualifying it.
All will be qualified, everybody including Babu Kishan's own family. This book is taking way longer than expected, now onto its 13th year and quite frankly, I more that anybody want to be done with this subject. What I have learned more than anything is that it is Kali Yuga, and in this time period, 'what is real is seen as unreal and what is unreal is seen as real!
That goes for truth, truth is lost to this world, I am not sure many people do not know what it is to tell the truth and be honest?"
Babu Kishan had written 3 books in the past and was the first Baul to ever write a Book on Baul, his father wrote one with a Vaishnava Scholar using all of Babu Kishan's notes and other book that were left in the Calcutta home without his permission or credit, I read it there are truths, it is a difficult read and through my research i found an post by a Baul Women who claims she is from a lineage, copied and pasted the techniques listed in the book directly, saying that is what she is teaching, un freaking unbelievable, life is stranger than fiction?? All will qualified.
He was the first to put Baul on Youtube, a mass of Bauls many of whom were not even Baul followed, singing folk songs, pieces of Baul songs, saying they were this and that.
I guess I could say, people follow this lineage of Baul, people absolutely follow Babu Kishan but in this circumstance regarding Baul, they follow, copy and make up stories?
Jai Guru, Jupiter the lord of telling the truth and good judgement just moved into Sagittarius rules by Jupiter (the Guru) lets hope some sense regarding a little sect of Vaishnava Tantric Bauls is told and told truthfully by someone who actually knows the truth.