A few days back my friend Patrick Ghose posted in fb that Gour Khepa had met with a car accident in Illambazar. He has been transferred to a hospital and fighting for his life. Gour Khepa doesn't fight for his life. He lives his life.
The news took me 35 years back on a cold wintry morning when I first met this Baul singer in the outskirts of Shantineketan in Bolpur.I was then just out of school and have entered the portals of St. Xavier’s and thought the world to be all mine. But had never witnessed something like this before. Dressed in saffron robes and patchwork jackets, the Baul singer played the simplest of instruments. Plucking a drum or khamak slung over his shoulder. He had a remarkable face. Sitting in an open circle he invoked his ancestors.
Gour Khepa Das Baul sang about being mad for God-Love. The difference between him… and "the rest"… is that Gour Khepa Das Baul may actually be mad for God-Love and the others feigning.Gour had curly locks, an innocent face, his bright eyes laughing. He rose, swirling gracefully striking his Khamak softly at first, then building up, little by little, to a crescendo of thundering rhythm, till at last he began to dance. Transported by the spell of his deep, bass voice and his insistent, steady tempo. His voice sounded so familiar, I felt I knew him already.The magicians on stage charged with energy like lightning conductors. He passed his current to the us, creating sonic waves with his instrument, which transformed into birds: clay bellied babblers and bamboo nosed warblers, wood eared and copper beaked, gut eyed and silk voiced, humming, droning, jingling.
I sat, enthralled, wanting to cry out to them, wanting to break the stunned silence of those who sat around me. When all this was over, I walked up to him. He was preparing a Chelum to smoke Ganja and asked if I had smoked earlier. I answered in the negative. He roared with laughter and spilled : "Dak Sala , Kake Dhora Anaches . Eto dudar Sishu”. The Chillum started going round and then he said with a childlike smile “ Na ektan da”.
Gour Khepa smoked his last chillum of ganja, abusing us vociferously. He had a foul mouth like a stable boy.Wild and abandoned, reincarnating a veritable bhairava baba. I stood at the window for a while all dazed as dawn broke over . A crow crawed on the tree, announcing the sunrise.
Baul are a group of mystic minstrels from Bengal. Bauls constitute both a syncretic religious sect and a musical tradition. Bauls are a very heterogeneous group, with many sects, but their membership mainly consists of Vaishnava Hindus and Sufi Muslims. They can often be identified by their distinctive clothes and musical instruments. Lalon Fakir is regarded as the most important poet-practitioner of the Baul tradition.
In the Hibbert Lecture at Oxford in 1930 Rabindra Nath Tagore had said:
Baul means khyapa ,crazy, from bayu (Sanskrit Vayu) in its sense of nerve current, and has become the appellation of a set of people who do not conform to established social usage. The derivation is supported by the following verse ...:
``That is why, brother, I became a Crazy Baul.
No master I obey, nor injunctions, canons or custom.
Now no men-made distinctions have any hold on me,
And I revel only in the gladness of my own welling love.
In love there's no separation, but commingling always.
So I rejoice in song and dance with each and all."
Gour was regarded as the true ‘khyapa’ by his contemporary performers. However, after visiting his residence, which is next to a high-drain at Nichu Bandhgora locality in Bolpur, one would struggle to believe the artiste spent almost half of his lifetime in different countries, performing, or teaching foreigners. The global legends he ministered included Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and Janis Joplin. And yet he was a simple soul.
In his essay on Baul written in 1949 Acharya Kshiti Mohan Sen had written :
If one asks the Bauls questions about their philosophy they do not respond in words, but in songs. And they have such a wealth of songs in their coffer! Why do they act this way? They reply: " We are the bird people -- we do not know how to walk, we like to fly" ...
Many of the Baul songs do not even have the signature of the composer. When I complained about this to an old Baul he pointed to the river Padma and said to me: "Look at the boats in full sail on the big river afar .. do they leave any mark in their wake? And see these boats being pushed through the mud in the little canals here, leaving lots of marks behind them. Which of these two is more natural and easy? We are travellers of the Easy Path (shahoj path), we do not give importance to leaving artificial marks in our wake."
And this is exactly what Gaur Khepa epitomised. Purnadas Baul had known Gaur when the Khyapa was just a boy. Later, they performed together several times in India and abroad.He had a unique grip and way of playing the khamak (a folk instrument).
But Gaur always lived like a Bohemian. “Whenever we met, I told him not to lead such a life. He promised everytime but could never keep himself in check. His khyapami was limitless.” Gour was a true khyapa, something which few Bauls could acheive. He had no desire for fame or money though he earned worldwide accolades.
Ten days ago, someone gave the Khyapa 10 blankets. The day after, he gave them away to someone else. ‘I have it all’, he said. But materially speaking, he had nothing,”If someone called him a beggar, he would respond: ‘I am a king’.
Today I feel he really was and is one, when 20 vehicles and a pilot car, ministers and so many well wishers are taking his remains for the ‘samadhi’,” he is the king.
As India celebrated it's 64th. Republic Day on Saturday, the 26th.of January 2013 Gour Das Khepa slipped away like a bird into oblivion.
— with Shivaditya Sen and Dhritiman Chaterji.