Nomaskar and Joy Guru! Please allow me to introduce myself:

My teachers call me Saraswati, and I have been learning Baul songs from Parvathy Baul and other Baul masters since 2017. For anyone unfamiliar with the Baul practice, it is a musical and yogic tradition rooted in the landscape of West Bengal, India, and Bangladesh UNESCO Baul songs an intangible heritage.

The seeds of my connection to West Bengal, home of the Bauls, started as a student at Mount Holyoke College when I traveled to Shantineketan in 2003 for a month of research on the educational philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore. While my visit was brief, a love of Bengali culture and people took root in my heart. Fully intending to return to India soon after graduating from college, it took 15 years, and many adventures, before I made my way back.

In 2017, circumstances conspired for me to meet Parvathy Baul at a USA-based retreat near Birmingham, Alabama. Touching the movement and song of the Baul practice, and resonating with the yoga inherent in the poetry, I put out a prayer to go deeper. That fall, I finally traveled back to India, and in January 2018, sat among the Baul Masters Parvathy Maa had gathered at her center, Santan Siddhashram. It was a coming together of many themes.

Since then, I began to immerse a little at a time whenever I could in the Baul Songs, and to serve in a volunteer capacity as a sevak for Santan Siddhashram’s mission to preserve and share the Baul tradition. A self-professed slow learner, it took three years to fully sing my first song. This determination permits me the continued opportunity to study and practice at the feet of Parvathy Baul, and others such as Aklima Fakarini, Andando Das Baul, Deb Das Baul, Kaniai Mohan Das Baul, Laksman Das Baul, and others.

The humility, kindness, and generosity of these masters and gurus is a beauty to be shared. It is for this reason I am raising funds to continue traveling back to India, to support my teachers, and also to come home again to practice and share what I'm learning with my home community. Gratitude and pranams! Guru kripa hi kevelam.