Quest for perfection: Maki Kazumi and Sadhan Das Bairagya (Picture by Sanat K. Sinha)

What is Bangla ga-an? Is this necessarily locale-speci-fic and indigenously evolved? The session on folk music at the Banga Sanskriti Utsav (February 12-21) in Surendranath Park, put together by the Bhasha Shahid Smarak Samiti, revived that question. This annual celebration of Bengali culture has attained greater significance in the wake of globalisation, an antithesis of multiple cultural manifestations.

All doubts were put to rest when a frail and saintly Sadhan Das Bairagya, living in his akhda in remote Hatgovindapur, a 40-minute bus-ride from Burdwan rail station, took to the centre stage along with his disciples and touched the ground with his forehead as a mark of respect to the assembly. One got ready for a music which is essentially Bengali. Bairagya?s spirituals, delivered in an open-throated voice, played with indigenous string instruments, brass cymbals and minimal percussion devices, stemmed from the Baul tradition that feasts on folk lexicons.

At the outset his disciple Swapan Das Adhikari sang an encomium to his guru, relating life on earth with that of the Satya and Dwapar epochs of the Hindu mythology, singing aspirations of a life soaring high above the mundane and the profane. On close hearing one could catch a Kabir in that Gosailal Fakir composition. A Bhaba Pagla composition sung next by Bhajan Bairagya pointed towards the futility of a materialistic existence as opposed to a life divine. Metaphors were galore in Ebar theke bhese bhese ja re opare/Manhansa tumi santar de re kalisagare. One could relate to the richness of philosophical thoughts running through the folk culture.

This transcendental streak was vulgarised by a performance from Sahaj Maa and Utpal Fakir. They cleverly alluded to the last lines of the Communist Manifesto, referred to Valentine?s Day in an effort to connect the sacred love of the akhda with the profane, thereby exposing the vulnerability of the folk forms as they played to an urban audience.

It was the ektara-strumming master in a barely stitched cloak and lower garment who eventually recovered the ground beneath the feet with a stirring performance, touching upon the basic tenets of humanism vis-?-vis the Vaishnav way of life propagated by Chaitanya. Bairagya?s Japanese disciple Maki Kazumi took the discourse further, stressing quest for perfection at the feet of an able guru.

All the other performers, except the venerable Purna Das Baul, faded out in comparison to that gem of a recital. City-bred practitioners of folk music like Utpalendu Chowdhury, Swapan Basu and Abhijit Basu were generous enough to admit their basic inadequacy before giving their recitals.

Appreciating a Rabindrasan-geet recital the very next evening (Rabindra Sadan, February 15) was a tall task made easy by the presence of two wonderful singers from Bangladesh. Sadi Mohammed has been trained in Santiniketan and his easy-paced treatment of Ei asa-jaowar kheyar kule in a resonant baritone was a mature act only to be superseded by a brilliantly personalised rendition of Je chhila amar swapancharini by Shama Ali. However, Lily Islam, another Santiniketan product, displayed more artifice than art. Among their Calcutta counterparts, Rajyeshwar Bhattacharya had his Dionysian temper in check and Tanya Das was uncharacteristically pensive.