Women, Religion and the Body in South Asia: Living with Bengali Bauls [1° ed.] 9781138561892

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of figures
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Key characters
Preface
Introduction
A historical perspective
Coming to know a family of Vaishnavas and Bauls
Chapter outline
Style of writing
Notes
1. Life stories: taking the plunge
Sunita: housekeeping
Muni Baba: seeking spiritual wisdom
Tara: a young girl goes begging
Tara’s first flow
Ceremony of initiation: a mother and a daughter
Courtship: love between neighbors
Karun: playing the flute, herding the cows
Kalpana: a promising student
Tara’s Vaishnava wedding: white and yellow flowers
Building a house
Nothing new
Notes
2. Caste, honor and devotion
Caste and class
The Brahman caste
The greatest caste
Rai Das: a caste framed as dirty
Muchi Ram Das I: a loving low-caste man
Muchi Ram Das II: love and dirt
Suffering as self-restraint
Mother Santasi: women suffer more
Setting themselves apart
Householders and sadhus
Worshiping Mother Sarasvati: “Brahmans are ignorant”
Brahman and Vaishnava ceremonies of initiation
Worshiping Shiva: the head and the phallus
Notes
3. Gardens of delight: food and yogic sex
Body songs
Retaining seed
Lentil soup
Seed in body substances
Flowers in the body
Rup
At the ashram
Thoughts and emotions
Performing songs
Muni Baba suffers from tuberculosis
Notes
4. Begging and initiation
Reciprocity
Singing on the trains
The guru–disciple bond
Dayal guru
Substances exuded by the guru
Greed and desire
Mantras and seed
Red and white
Will Papay get a sannyas mantra?
Shame as a key emotion
Visiting Dayal guru
Notes
5. Festivals and programs
Women’s dress and comportment
The festival called Paus
The festival called Shaktighar in Kolkata
The festival called Jay Deb
Singing in villages
Money and food: dakshina and seva
Lack of patrons
Concluding remarks
Notes
6. Death in the family
The mouth fire ceremony
The Jat Vaishnava burial
Honey in the mouth of the dead
Salting the body of the dead
Are Jat Vaishnava ignorant?
Jat Vaishnava self-control
The demise of Hira’s grandfather: a layman’s death
Village border ceremonies (ghather shraddha)
Fasting for the dead
Pinda offerings to the deceased
House ceremonies (gharer shraddha)
Keeping apart
Concluding remarks
Notes
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Women, Religion and the Body in South Asia

Noted for their haunting melodies and enigmatic lyrics, Bauls have been portrayed as spiritually enlightened troubadours traveling around the countryside in West Bengal in India and in Bangladesh. As emblems of Bengali culture, Bauls have long been a subject of scholarly debates which center on their esoteric practices, and middle class imaginaries of the category Baul. Adding to this literature, the intimate ethnography presented in this book recounts the life stories of members from a single family, shining light on their past and present tribulations bound up with being poor and of a lowly caste. It shows that taking up the Baul path is a means of softening the stigma of their lower caste identity in that religious practice, where women play a key role, renders the body pure. The path is also a source of monetary income in that begging is considered part of their vocation. For women, the Baul path has the added implication of lessening constraints of gender. While the book describes a family of singers, it also portrays the wider society in which they live, showing how their lives connect and interlace with other villagers, a theme not previously explored in literature on Bauls. A novel approach to the study of women, the body and religion, this book will be of interest to undergraduates and graduates in the field of the anthropology. In addition, it will appeal to students of everyday religious lives as experienced by the poor, through case studies in South Asia. The book provides further evidence that renunciation in South Asia is not a uniform path, despite claims to the contrary. There is also a special interest in Bauls among those familiar with the Bengali speaking region. While this book speaks to that interest, its wider appeal lies in the light it sheds on religion, the body, life histories, and poverty. Kristin Hanssen received her Ph.D. from the University of Oslo.

Routledge South Asian Religion Series 1. Hindu Selves in a Modern World Guru Faith in the Mata Amritanandamayi Mission Maya Warrier 2. Parsis in India and the Diaspora Edited by John R. Hinnells and Alan Williams 3. South Asian Religions on Display Religious Processions in South Asia and in the Diaspora Edited by Knut A. Jacobsen 4. Rethinking Religion in India The Colonial Construction of Hinduism Edited by Esther Bloch, Marianne Keppens and Rajaram Hegde 5. Health and Religious Rituals in South Asia Disease, Possession and Healing Edited by Fabrizio M. Ferrari 6. Time, History and the Religious Imaginary in South Asia Edited by Anne Murphy 7. Cross-disciplinary Perspectives on a Contested Buddhist Site Bodhgaya Jataka Edited by David Geary, Matthew R. Sayers and Abhishek Singh Amar 8. Yoga in Modern Hinduism Harihara-nanda Aran.ya and Sa-m . khyayoga Knut A. Jacobsen 9. Women, Religion and the Body in South Asia Living with Bengali Bauls Kristin Hanssen 10. Religion, Space and Conflict in Sri Lanka Colonial and Postcolonial Contexts Elizabeth J. Harris 11. Religion and Technology in India Spaces, Practices and Authorities Edited by Knut A. Jacobsen and Kristina Myrvold

Women, Religion and the Body in South Asia Living with Bengali Bauls

Kristin Hanssen

First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Kristin Hanssen The right of Kristin Hanssen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Hanssen, Kristin, author. Title: Women, religion, and the body in South Asia : living with Bengali Bauls / Kristin Hanssen. Description: New York : Routledge, 2018. | Series: Routledge South Asian religion series ; 9 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017055110| ISBN 9781138561892 (hardback) | ISBN 9780203710234 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Bauls–India–Bengal. | Women in Hinduism–India–Bengal. Human body–Religious aspects–Hinduism. Classification: LCC BL1284.84 .H36 2018 | DDC 294.5/512–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017055110 ISBN: 9781138561892 (hbk) ISBN: 9780203710234 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Taylor & Francis Books

Contents

List of figures Acknowledgements Glossary Key characters Preface Introduction

vi vii viii xii xiv 1

1

Life stories: taking the plunge

19

2

Caste, honor and devotion

50

3

Gardens of delight: food and yogic sex

81

4

Begging and initiation

109

5

Festivals and programs

136

6

Death in the family

161

Conclusion

185

Bibliography Index

197 209

Figures

2.1 Visiting Bara Ma

67

Acknowledgements

Many people have played a part in the shaping of this book. I am indebted to Arve Sørum, Pamela Gwynne Price, Jeff Rothenberg and Jean-Claude Galey for their careful reading of the chapters and their insightful comments. I thank Christopher Nielsen in particular for his support. Thanks also to Kathryn Hansen, Lisa I. Knight, June McDaniel, and to members of my dissertation committee Harald Tambs-Lyche and Ann Grodzins Gold for their inspiring comments and encouragement. Jan Ketil Simonsen and Astrid Anderson provided useful remarks. Santwana Dasgupta generously assisted me with translating the lyrics of the songs that I recorded, while Finn Thiesen gave up time to give lessons in Bengali. Librarian Frøydis Haugane has been of tremendous help, as have participants of the South Asian Symposium: Arild Engelsen Ruud, Claus Peter Zoller, Ute Hüsken, Geir Heierstad, Ruth Schmidt and Anne Waldrop. While the members of the family with whom I lived are nameless, I am truly grateful for their willingness to include me into their everyday lives, teaching me their songs, the nature of their path and the value of pursuing it. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments, which have been extremely helpful. Thankful acknowledgement is made to Ethnology for allowing me to reproduce passages from an article called, “Ingesting Menstrual Blood: Notions of Health and Bodily Fluids in Bengal.” Theme Issue, edited by Janet Hoskins, copyright 2002, Ethnology. Also, Palgrave Macmillan has kindly given me permission to reproduce portions of a chapter entitled, “The True River Ganges: Tara’s Begging Practices” which appeared in the collection Women and Renunciation in South Asia: Nuns, Yoginis, Saints, and Singers, edited by Meena Khandelwal, Sondra L. Hausner, and Ann Grodzins Gold, copyright 2006, Palgrave Macmillan. The Research Council of Norway funded the fieldwork and writeup of the thesis on which this work is based. Lise and Arnfinn Hejes Fond, and the Department of Social Anthropology (SAI) at the University of Oslo provided additional funding.

Glossary

alta adhyatmik ananda anuman

amish apon ashram atma bara lok bartaman batasha bhajan bhadralok bhalobasha bhat bhakti bhek bhiksha bhiksha ma biched gan bij bindu biye bou Brahman

Red dye applied along the edges of one’s feet. Spiritual, relating to the body. Joy, happiness, an aim of religious practice (sadhana). Belief based on reasoning or inference, usually understood as the opposite of bartaman in that the latter signifies a form of worship or belief based on practical and sensual experience directed not at icons but the divine element in humans. Food classified as heating, non-vegetarian. One’s “own” kin or fictive kin (a near relation). Monastery, the abode of a renouncer (sadhu) initiated into bhek. Soul. Wealthy, influential people. The path of knowledge that can be experienced directly, opposite of anuman. Sugar cakes offered to icons on one’s household shrine. Devotional songs, a form of worship. The Bengali-speaking educated classes. Love, affection Boiled rice. Devotion. Vaishnava renunciation. Begging. The initiate’s adopted guru-mother, received when taking bhek. Songs of separation; describing Radha or Krishna pining for one another. Seed, including the seed or procreative power inherent in male and female bodily secretions. Seed, sexual fluids. Wedding, carried out for householders (i.e. laypeople). Wife, daughter-in-law. Person with an upper priestly caste identity.

Glossary Caitanya choto lok chire dada Dalit dakshina

dor-kaupin

diksha deha deha-tattva dhuni dotara durbal ektara geruya

grihasta guru jal jatir karma jati kacha kairi kaj kam katha kasta khamak kirtan lajja linga lunghi

ix

Vaishnava saint (1486–1533), considered the founder of Bengali Vaishnavism. Literally, “small people,” poor with little or no influence. Flattened rice used for snacks but also in ritual procedures. Older brother. A Marathi term meaning downtrodden; formerly untouchables. A sum of money viewed as a gift of parting, given by Vaishnavas to guests who are about to leave, or to performing Bauls after a program is completed. It is also a fee serving to complete a rite. Loincloth worn by men initiated into bhek (sannyas), where the dor is tied around the waist and the kaupin covers the genitals. In burials for women initiated into bhek, the two strips of cotton clothing are wound around the head of the deceased before she is placed into the grave. Initiation; the first and most common form of initiation. Body. Metaphysics of the body. Sacred fire associated with sadhus. A lute. The name indicates two strings, although it actually has four. Weak, feeble and depleted of strength. Single-stringed instrument played by Bauls, gives off a droning sound. Orange, pink, ocher or red dye, the color of the clothes worn by Vaishnava mendicants and Baul. Some men combine a geruya shirt with a white lower garment. Householder. Teacher, preceptor. Water, euphemism for urine. Caste duty. Caste or birth group. Raw, unburned clay. Cowry shell. Customarily fastened at the base of the ektara, where it keeps the single string in place. Chores, work, practice. Desire. Religious story. Suffering, hardships, effort, pain. A drum with two strings that are plucked. A genre of Vaishnava devotional songs. Shame, modesty, embarrassment, self-consciousness, shyness. Phallic representation of the god Shiva, but also the male organ. Men’s clothing; checkered cloth wrapped around one’s waist.

x

Glossary

mala mala candan

madhukari

man mangal mati maya mela milan gan moksha Muchi mukhe bath mukti muri niyam nishkam niramish pagal par pinda pitr pran pranam pret puja purohit Rai ras rati rup sadhu sadhana sahaj samadhi

Rosary of sandalwood or basil wood worn to indicate one’s sectarian affiliation as a Vaishnava. Vaishnava and Baul wedding ceremony. The name means “garland of sandalwood paste.” Guided by their guru, the bride and groom exchange flower garlands and dab sandalwood paste upon each other's foreheads. Begging for alms in villages. The phrase literally means “honey-gathering” where Vaishnavas are likened to bees gathering honey from different lay households. Mind/heart, the source of one’s thoughts and emotions. Auspicious. Earth, soil; euphemism for feces. Affection, attachment, emotional ties, kindness, illusion. Larger festival and market. Songs of union. Salvation. Of the leatherworker caste. First cooked rice given to a baby. Freedom, liberation, release from the chain of rebirth. Puffed rice. Custom, tradition, system. Without desire. Diet of cooling vegetarian foods, associated with Vaishnavas. Crazy, mad; someone mad from religious devotion. Non-kin, unrelated “other” or person classified as stranger. Rice balls fed to ancestors. Ancestor. Spirit, life force, soul of a living person Gesture of respect, where juniors bow down before seniors to take the dust off their feet. Disembodied spirit, spirit destined for the ancestral realm. Worship, usually performed for images of deceased relations, deities and saints. Brahman priest. Polite name for Muchi (leatherworker) caste. Juice or flavor. It can also mean urine when used in conjunction with the other bodily emissions, rup, rati, and mati. Semen. Color, form, beauty; menstrual blood. Renouncer, woman or man initiated into bhek (sannyas). Religious practice. Easy, natural, direct; term used about Vaishnava sadhana (religious practice). Tomb or grave made for women and men initiated into bhek. It also signifies the state of meditation.

Glossary sadhu samaj sangsar sannyas seva

siksha

sikshita lok shisya tilak tirtha tulsi tyag

ulta yoni

xi

Sadhu society, community of sadhus. Household family. Renunciation, termed bhek by Vaishnavas. Service, acts of caring and respect performed for the elderly, one’s guru, or a deity. For Vaishnavas, seva also signifies the serving of a meal of rice. Literally “learning”: name of the second mantra of initiation that formally allows students to receive religious instructions from a preceptor. Educated people. Student, disciple of a guru. White marks made of sandalwood drawn upon one’s forehead indicating one’s Vaishnava sectarian affiliation. Crossing place; center of pilgrimage where gods and humans meet. Basil plant, associated with the god Krishna, commonly kept in the courtyard growing on a pedestal; believed to be cooling. A break with one’s former way of life as when a person takes renunciation into bhek. It can also signify a break in the sense of dying a social death by breaking off contact with one’s relations. Contradictory; often used to describe the Bengali Vaishnava and Baul path involving the reversal of one’s flow of seed. Female sexual organ or vagina, often represented in conjunction with the male phallus where it forms the base.

Key characters

Tara Karun Papay Kalpana Muni Baba Sunita Mahabhir Bara Ma Dipa’s mother Dipa

Woman in her early thirties, initiated into bhek. Man in his late thirties, married to Tara, initiated into bhek. Tara’s twelve-year-old son. Single mendicant woman in her early thirties, Karun’s sister, initiated into diksha. Tara’s father, initiated into bhek. Tara’s mother, working in a detention facility, initiated into bhek. Tara’s brother, working as a tea vendor, initiated into diksha. Woman initiated into bhek. Tara’s father’s second companion, they met after Muni Baba left his wife. Woman in her fifties, married Muni Baba after Bara Ma had moved away. A mendicant initiated into diksha. Tara’s younger sister, daughter of Muni Baba’s second wife.

Relatives living on the block Chayna Gopal Padma Dukhi Mira

Tara’s sister-in-law, married to Karun’s middle brother. Karun’s middle brother, married to Chayna; works as a road repairman. Chayna and Gopal’s daughter. Karun’s younger brother, married to Mira; sells lottery tickets. Married to Dukhi, originally from Kolkata.

Other relations and acquaintances Dayal guru Jagadish

Siksha and bhek guru, living in a different village. Baul singer living nearby, mendicant, initiated into diksha and siksha.

Key characters Dhiren Baba Gita Hari Ajit Swapan Mr. Mukherjee

xiii

A Vaishnava sadhu and mendicant, childless and initiated into bhek. Married to Gita. Mendicant and sadhu, childless, married to Dhiren Baba initiated into bhek. A flute player; sells religious booklets on passing trains initiated into diksha. Tabla player; unemployed and single. Tabla player; single, newspaper salesman. Congress politician.

Neighbors Hira Siksha Shantu Durga Santanu Josna Sudhir Protima Biseka and Suleka

Teenage girl, living across the road. Hira’s five-year-old sister. Hira’s uncle. Young girl, doing chores for Sunita in return for meals. Durga’s father, friend of Muni Baba; a rickshaw cyclist. Durga’s mother, married to Santanu; a maidservant. Young man and neighbor; working as a mechanic. Young woman and neighbor, married to Sudhir. Two young unmarried neighbor girls.

Preface

I was homeward bound, sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to be announced. My luggage contained saris and shawls as well as a box of mangoes, five liters of mustard oil, and a great big bag of puffed rice. I kept my field notes, my passport and my ticket in a small patchwork begging bag, a present from a Baul. My village companions sat beside me looking at the other people in the waiting hall, remarking that a girl – perhaps she was Japanese – was holding a mirror to her face applying lipstick to her mouth. They marveled at an elderly Indian woman seated on a bench smoking cigarettes, while Papay, their son, was staring at a group of blonde children running about on the floor before us. Jagadish tried to pull his legs up underneath him, but Tara stopped him, saying, “Look, nobody else sits that way.” He quickly put his feet back on the floor. A Baul, dressed in ochre clothes, stood behind us conversing with a group of people. Tara went over to talk with him, returning shortly after to tell us that he was on his way to London. We recognized a young Bengali woman at the opposite end of the hall smiling at us. Last time we had seen her was at a festival called Jay Deb, a Baul mela organized each year in Kenduli in January. We had been staying at a makeshift ashram, and a sadhu who occupied the compartment next to ours had received this girl as a visitor. We observed her through the see-through cloth partition, smoking a pipe of ganja, of which my family members disapproved. On seeing her now, Tara tugged at my arm, and said, “Look, there is the girl who smoked all that ganja.” The girl came over, to tell us that she was going to America with her mother to resume her studies. Then, turning to Tara, she said, “Are you going abroad?” Tara said, “My husband and I have come to say goodbye to our Kristin-di.” This was the third time that Tara, her husband, their friend Jagadish and their neighbor Santanu from the village had accompanied me to the airport, although this time Tara and her husband had brought their son along so that he would be able to see the planes ascending and descending. I glanced at my watch, and noted that I still had three hours left to wait. Looking up, I saw that Tara was crying. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She said, “Really, ever since I was a little girl, I have been hoping that a memsahib would come to live with me. You came and stayed with us. You and I must have been sisters in a previous life. If not, why else would you come and live in my house?”

Introduction

If you take a train that goes through Birbhum – a district in West Bengal – you may encounter men and women known as Bauls who play handmade instruments and sing for alms. A number of their songs are phrased in terms of riddles. Some are known as dehatattva (songs about the body), which allude to yogic sex and the ingestion of bodily emissions. But many others speak about the love and longing for one’s guru, or the love between the dark Lord Krishna and the milkmaid Radha. That the singers dress in white and ochre clothes might lead you to believe that they are wandering renouncers without a fixed abode. Yet most Bauls settle in the village of their birth or their husband’s birth and many Bauls have children. I lived with one such family, learning to sing Baul songs and traveling with them to perform at festivals and harvest celebrations. Bauls have been the subject of debates for many years.1 In fact, given the number of books and articles on Bauls, why write yet another? What more could possibly be said about these ochre-clad mendicants whose songs have long inspired middle-class imagination as exotic carriers of Bengali culture? Yet, in describing the everyday concerns of the Bauls I came to know, I portray the joys, hopes and anxieties bound up with being a mendicant and singer. I also portray the wider society in which they live, how their lives connect and interlace with those of other villagers, including relatives and neighbors who do not sing or beg for alms.2 A primary goal is to capture the flow of daily interaction by shining light on how particular women and men engage in meaning making, showing what values they select, internalize and use on a day-to-day basis, prompting them to act.3 Most Bauls, though not exclusively so, come from the lower castes and classes, and many also fall into the category formerly known as untouchables. Tara and her relatives were leatherworkers (Muchis), an identity that they resented, and which they were ashamed of, cringing slightly whenever their caste name came up in conversations, and growing visibly annoyed when strangers insinuated that their caste identity was low. Although they had never worked with leather, this was deemed their “true” work or occupation, and so their touch was also deemed polluting.4 The situation has vastly improved in that discrimination based on caste is no longer legal. Yet for

2

Introduction

people at the bottom rungs, caste is still an institution they embody in their person, evidenced not only in the way they dress but also in their manner of comportment. Consonant with Mary Douglas’s claim, the body of the individual may be likened to a text on which the hierarchies and norms of the larger social body are inscribed.5 The body, however, is also an instrument of learning.6 For instance, dressing in a silk sari might come off as vulgar in a woman from the lower echelons. In order to look glamorous and classy, the act of wearing silk must be “carried off with the right sense of cool,”7 which is problematic for those positioned at the bottom rungs; their bodies lack the skills that come from practice and experience. As Pierre Bourdieu has shown, the way in which knowledge is instilled into the body results from habitus, defined as “a system of structured and structuring dispositions” by which knowledge is made durable and lasting through mimicry and repetition8 largely carried out unconsciously. Mundane skills and dispositions learned through the course of growing up, such as how to sit, eat or wear expensive fabrics, grow so ingrained that they seem natural. Habitus shapes the way we think and feel, including our preference for certain foods and music, and it determines our position in hierarchical society.9 An example from my fieldwork might give a sense of how it plays itself out in the everyday. Tara’s mother, Sunita, and I once visited the detention facility where she worked. After touring the premises, her superior invited us into his office, where she refused the chair he offered, moving to the little stool beside the door. And she declined the tea brought in, averting her gaze and remaining silent for the rest of our stay, a manner of behavior in keeping with her lower caste and class position which she habitually enacted when in the presence of the comparatively powerful and wealthy. And yet, with his focus on constraints, Bourdieu’s approach leaves little room for different modes of inhabiting the world, how novel ways of being can be actively pursued through willful, conscious training.10 Indeed, for Bauls, the body occupies a salient position in another sense as well. Rather than polluting, powerless and weak, it is envisioned as a house, cage, factory or boat, sheltering the sacred soul in humans. Songs about the body convey the message that by exercising bodily control through yogic sex and by observing dietary regulations, a person will attain physical strength, a melodious voice, a golden complexion, wisdom, peace of mind and happiness. In this way, the body is reframed as powerful and healthy, and the conventions that define it as ritually polluting are challenged and opposed.11 In her recent work on Kabir songs in northern India, Linda Hess cites a singer saying that their audiences do not always grasp the underlying meaning of the songs that they perform. But I would add that even so, lyrics that depict the body as a garden filled with flowers, or as a site filled with a million stars and moons are captivating in themselves. These positive portrayals serve to empower people, giving them the strength and inspiration to act and to correct the social ills of caste.12 Baul songs may be viewed in a similar light. One might say with Partha Chatterjee that singing songs relating to the body leaves “traces of an

Introduction 13

3

identity not defined by others but by oneself.” These and other forms of protests, rooted in the quotidian, reveal, as Ann G. Gold and Boju Ram Gujar note, the “capacity to think critically and to have a sense of self unblighted by unfortunate circumstances” bound up with being poor, subordinate and of a lowly caste.14 Although phrased in terms of riddles, many body-songs (called dehatattva gan) are not impossible to grasp. Sacred rivers rising once a month may be recognized as allusions to a woman’s flow framed as a beneficent fluid that may be ingested. These songs are highly valued, but are usually considered too risqué or inappropriate for female singers. Baul women are more likely to sing songs describing Radha’s love for Krishna, or other types of riddle songs that are less explicit, such as those about the human mind, depicted as a bird or jewel residing in the body. Women’s mode of conduct is also more restrained than men’s; they dance with less abandon and assume an air of seriousness and dignity, avoiding facial mimicry since this might seem flirtatious. Saba Mahmood argues that disciplinary practices and modes of subjugation are the very means by which a person’s agency and subjectivity is constituted and performed. Discussing Muslim women’s mosque movements in Cairo, she moves beyond a dualistic understanding whereby women are assumed either to embrace or to reject liberal and feminist values, stressing the necessity of attending to the myriad of ways in which embodied skill are lived and acted out. She writes that veiling is “an integral part of an entire manner of existence through which one learns to cultivate the virtue of modesty in all aspects of one’s life.”15 Baul women do not veil, but have similar means of performing modesty; they dress in simple white or ochre cotton saris associated with asceticism and religious piety. They consider themselves conduits of a sacred presence,16 and what they wear and how they move when singing songs for alms are ways of forming and enacting a mode of agency and subjectivity rooted in their bodies defined as virtuous and pure rather than polluting.17 Their success in this regard hinges on their ability to train the body through practices such as fasting, begging and singing, by which they consciously establish and perform new kinds of embodied knowledge rather than those instilled in them since birth.18 Still another reason why body-songs are valued is that they celebrate a sense of shared humanity that transcends distinctions of religion. In her introduction to the Bengali novel A River Called Titash written by the author Adwaita Mallabarman, Kalpana Bardhan shows that the novel’s ethnographic value lies in its ability to capture the blurriness of religious boundaries evident in that the songs appearing in this narrative combine elements from Muslim and Vaishnava orientations. A Baul singer figures in the story. But the majority of songs are of a genre known as bhatiyali, sung by Malos (members of a low-caste fishing community located in Bangladesh). Carol Salomon has noted that melodically these songs are “indistinguishable from Baul songs.” They also have the same set of symbolic connotations, where a boat crossing a river represents the body (deha), and where the person at the helm is

4

Introduction

identified with the Supreme.19 Songs about the love between Krishna and the milkmaid Radha are also sung during the evenings when neighbors gather in the yards to listen, during which people pass the time by citing riddles similar to those that figure in the body-songs.20 In many ways the village scenes depicted echo my experience in the field. Living in Tara’s household, watching members of her family go about their daily chores and entertain visitors through singing, I was struck by the relaxed and easy-going interaction that took place between Bauls and their neighbors. Claims that Bauls comprise a cult forced to go underground due to the esoteric rites they practice, or that Bauls are situated on the margins of society, and also outside the Vaishnava community, did not ring true. Instead, I found that singers, mendicants and householders, as well as sadhus, all had images of Radha and Krishna on their shrines, kept basil plants (tulsi) growing in a pedestal placed near the doorways of their courtyards, and many, particularly the elderly, wore rosaries of basil wood around their necks to signal their devotion to the cowherd Krishna and his beloved Radha. Consonant with Donna Wulff’s assessment, my sense was that Bengali Vaishnavism is inclusive, where the label “Vaishnava” figures as an umbrella term accommodating fluctuating, overlapping, heterogeneous groups: renouncers (sadhus), Vaishnava mendicants and Bauls, as well as low-caste householders, and even Muslims.21 Moreover, where Bauls with a Vaishnava orientation sing Fakir (Muslim) Baul songs, and vice versa. As will shortly become clear, there is nothing new in this.

A historical perspective Exploring religious developments from a historical perspective, Richard Eaton notes that a characteristic feature of the Bengali-speaking region is that people from the lower classes – peasants, artisans and fisher folk – are divided into two distinct yet fluid, intersecting groups: Muslims and Vaishnavas. Eaton traces the development whereby the two communities emerged in processes beginning in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries when arriving Turkish rulers conquered the eastern part of the Bengali delta. Sufi pirs (saints) followed in their wake, drawing people from the lower strata of society who were attracted to the pirs’ charisma, their knowledge of the written word and the fact that they represented novelty. In the west, however, where Brahmans dominated, people from the lower echelons coalesced around Vaishnava gurus. Part of the attraction here was that Vaishnava gurus were less hierarchically minded than Brahmin priests.22 Founded by the saint Caitanya (1486–1533), the Bengali Vaishnava movement – known as the Gaudiya Vaishnava movement – is remarkable for its being less concerned with rank in terms of caste as well as gender. Not only were Sanskrit and Brahmanical ceremonies de-emphasized, but the Bengali saint Caitanya’s close associate Nityananda drew people from disparate social backgrounds, including women, into the Gaudiya Vaishnava

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5

fold. The majority of those who joined the movement were from the lower castes and classes with ties to Bengal’s Tantric-inflected Buddhist traditions. But people from the upper echelons, the nobility and “wealthy artisans and merchants,” were also drawn into the movement.24 Due to its exclusive focus on emotion as a means of worship, Gaudiya Vaishnavism soon acquired the appearance of being anti-intellectual, and as such it stood apart from other sects or sampradays.25 In consequence, a need arose to give the movement the appearance of being more refined so as to raise its status in the eyes of the elite and other more prestigious sects. Responding to Caitanya’s call, a group of scholars, known as the six goswamis, versed in Sanskrit, undertook a journey to Brindaban in northern India, their aim being to unite the different strands making up the movement. In traveling to Brindaban, they also sought to make the movement more respectable by giving more prominence to Brahmanism and to Sanskrit in the hopes that this would strengthen their ties with the Malla kingdom in Bengal.26 Seated at the frontiers of the Mughal Empire in the town called Bishnupur – in the western region of Bengal – the Malla kings enjoyed prosperity in part because of their relations with the Mughals. Not only were they able to expand their territory, as local kings with tribal roots they modeled their behavior on the Mughals whom they admired for their courtly cosmopolitanism. By taking on the role as patrons of the arts, they were striving to establish a distance from their tribal origins.27 But the cultural flowering that ensued was not limited to Bishnupur, but was trans-regional, emerging from the interplay between Vaishnava sects (sampradays) on the one hand and Rajputs and Mughal courtly circles on the other. The contact between these different social networks yielded local forms of art imbued with north Indian styles of poetry, music and architecture.28 In short, this new variety of Vaishnavism – what Kumkum Chatterjee calls “neo-Vaishnavism” or Brindaban Vaishnavism – which traveled from Bengal to Brindaban and back, helped fashion the smaller Malla kingdom into an important cultural center. By the time of its return, however, Gaudiya Vaishnavism had fractured and multiplied into a variety of lineages and orientations bearing a strong popular appeal.29 Thus, rather than creating cohesiveness among the different strands, the opposite took place in that the movement was divided into two. The Brindaban variety was steered in the direction of the nobility and wealthy classes, whereas the other part – composed of lineages and orientations that were appropriated by the Sahajiya Vaishnava fold – accommodated people from the lower castes and classes.30 Glen A. Hayes points out that “the term ‘Sahajiya’ denotes a number of tantric lineages that emerged in northeastern India, especially in greater Bengal, following the time of the great Bengali Vaishnava saint Krishna Caitanya (c. 1486–1533 CE).”31 In explaining the meaning of the name Sahajiya, Hayes notes that the prefix saha joined with the verb ja signifies “to be born” but it also means “‘together born,’ ‘spontaneous,’ ‘innate’ and ‘easy’” as well as “the ultimate state of liberation.”32 The term is also used in Buddhist Tantric scriptures “dating from the eight through thirteenth

6

Introduction

centuries” in the Bengali region, where it is sometimes “used to connote the realization of the ultimate state of cosmic consciousness after ritual sexual intercourse.” According to Hayes, the Sahajiyas appropriated Vaishnava beliefs by joining devotion to Krishna and his beloved Radha with erotic practices. From the viewpoint of Sahajiyas, Radha’s divine nature corresponds to the essence embodied by women, while Krishna’s essence is identified with men’s.33 According to Chakrabarty, the growth of heterogeneous cults must be seen as the inevitable consequence resulting from Brahman attempts to dominate the Vaishnava movement, rooted in mysticism and bearing a non-elitist bent.34 We cannot know for certain just when and how the Baul phenomenon arose, but it seems to have developed somewhere from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, most likely as an offshoot of the lower-caste Sahajiya Vaishnava branch. A characteristic feature of Baul beliefs and practices is devotion to the god-pair Krishna and the milkmaid Radha, where erotic love is joined with body-oriented practices that bear Tantric underpinnings, and which are taught by Vaishnava gurus.35 The Bauls I worked with often used the names “Baul” and “Vaishnava” interchangeably; they had Vaishnava gurus, and they referred to the body-oriented practices that they engaged in as sahaj. Other signs conveying their identities as Vaishnavas included initiation into bhek (Vaishnava renunciation), a rite that allows subjects to be buried in a manner appropriate for Vaishnava sadhus. They also wore sectarian accoutrements identified with Vaishnavas: white sandal paste (tilak) upon their foreheads, rosaries of tulsi beads, scarves bearing Krishna’s name, and clothes in white or orange (geruya) colors, worn separately or in combination. However, other scholars take a different view of the phenomenon, describing Bauls not as Vaishnava but as making up a fluid tradition comprised of singers, sadhus and householders who draw on a variety of creeds, ideas and traditions for their worship: Buddhism, Sufism, Sahajiya Vaishnavism and Vaishnavism. Some also note that while a number of Bauls dress in the clothes and accessories identified with Vaishnavas, this attire serves as a disguise, a means of trying to conceal their identity as Bauls so as to offset laypeople’s attention from their esoteric rites.36 In keeping with this view, Knight writes that Bauls wear ochre robes because the middle class elite expects them to dress in the color associated with renunciation. She writes that to be a Baul is to be “outside and even critical to normative society,”37 a position that leaves women in particular vulnerable to harassment from the larger nonBaul society. However, for women taking bhek protects them; it liberates them, and it also lends an air of respectability to their spiritual pursuits, allowing them to venture into public spaces to beg for alms or sing for strangers.38 Knight’s work highlights the relationships between Baul singers and their educated sponsors, and shows the various ways in which Baul women seek to retain their honor even as they push the limits of respectable behavior. But how do people with a lower caste identity perceive Bauls? Do their non-Baul neighbors view Bauls with disdain? Are they familiar

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with their body-oriented practices? Do they even care whether Bauls practice esoteric rites or not?

Coming to know a family of Vaishnavas and Bauls My contact with informants goes back to 1987. A friend of mine in Norway who had a number of acquaintances made during a previous journey to West Bengal in India asked me whether I would join her on a three-week visit to this region. We would be staying with a Brahman merchant family in the town of Burdwan in which the oldest son sang Baul songs. I had met him briefly earlier that year at a poetry festival that I helped to organize in Oslo, where he had performed with two other Bauls. Seeing this venture as a welcome opportunity to learn about a distant and exotic world, I accepted my friend’s invitation to travel with her, and so the family who would host us was notified. On arriving at the airport, we were taken to Howrah train station in Kolkata and whisked away to Burdwan town. Although my stay was brief and I could not speak the language, I was dazzled by the sights and smells of these new surroundings. Mustard oil permeated everything I ate. The brightly colored saris worn by the women were fringed with gold or silver, and wherever I went, people stopped and stared, a situation that I found somewhat disturbing. In fact, I would have been content to stay within the courtyard of the family we were visiting in Burdwan, reading and watching the women cook, but they were set on entertaining their guests. The elder son and other members of the family took us to a Vaishnava festival called Jay Deb where Bauls congregate to sing. We also traveled to the beaches and temples on the coast at Puri in Orissa, and to a village farther north, where I met a family of Baul singers. Arriving late, just before dusk, we spent the evening sitting on their porch, listening to their songs. At first, because she was albino, I thought one of the women was a European tourist too. But this I learned was Kalpana. Being single, she lived with her sister-in-law, Tara, a slender, serious-looking woman, married to a man called Karun (Kalpana’s brother), whose face was barely visible in the lamp-lit dark. When each of them had finished singing, Tara’s mother Sunita served us an evening meal of rice and curries, after which we all retired. The following morning we went back to Burdwan. Three years later I returned to India. My intention was to study Hindi movies in Bombay (Mumbai) for my Master’s thesis, but I abandoned this project for various reasons and decided to make Vaishnavas and Baul singers the focus of my study. So I wrote to the merchant family I had visited before and subsequently moved to Burdwan. When I told them of my plans, they attempted to dissuade me from staying with a Vaishnava minstrel family, saying I would not be able to cope with the heat and discomfort of a village, a place without electricity and proper food. Despite my efforts to convince them, my academic aspirations did not make sense to them. for why would I want to live with Vaishnava mendicants who are poor, who subsist on alms by

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Introduction

singing on the trains? Moreover, there was no point, they said, in actually staying with such a family, for they knew enough about them to be able to describe their way of life to me. So I rephrased my reason for going there as wanting to collect the songs they sing for later publication, and they reluctantly agreed to my plan. This explanation allowed them to save face, for once I overheard the family patriarch explaining to a neighbor that the reason I was moving north was to learn Baul songs, thus implying that our relationship remained intact. The period of negotiations was considerable, however, and I was sent for and returned to Burdwan intermittently. I should point out that their possessive stance towards me was not unique to them, but colored my relationships with most of those I met during the course of fieldwork. That they assumed I was rich is not surprising since, after all, not only was I an educated foreigner, but my first encounter with Baul singers was at a festival in Oslo where I had been in charge of booking tickets and doling out the fees to various performers. Yet my “handicap” should not be overestimated. It is likely that most scholars working with the poor have to deal with expectations of this kind, particularly those who carry out fieldwork among artists and performers. To sing abroad or in major cities on the Indian subcontinent is prestigious, and many Bauls view the educated classes, including foreigners, as patrons with the monetary means and influence to provide them with a program. My first venture to the village on my own proceeded without difficulty. I managed to catch the right train and get off at the right station, receiving instructions beforehand that I should not speak to strangers and should refrain from smoking cigarettes while traveling on the train. I knew enough Bengali to ask directions to the village, where people pointed out to me the hut where Tara and her family lived, arriving just in time for their midday meal, which was an awkward situation, since the food they ate was simple: lentil soup and rice with freshwater shrimp. As Tara ladled food on to my plate, she said apologetically, “We did not know that you were coming.” I was somewhat timid too when trying to explain that I wished to stay, asking Tara whether this would be okay. At this, her husband Karun resolutely picked up my backpack and carried it over to his in-laws’ house across the road, where Tara’s mother, Sunita, rolled out a mat for me to sleep on. Sunita assumed that I disliked living in the noisy town of Burdwan, stating, “Yes, yes, village life is good, you should stay here,” and I let the matter rest, although the question soon came up again. One morning while preparing food, Sunita said, “You want to learn about the things we eat and how we live. Is that why you are here?” But even though I nodded, saying that I wished to learn about village life, I could see by her expression that she was puzzled. I was puzzled too, for fieldwork did not proceed the way I had imagined. Observing the manner in which they made their living proved difficult, for now that I was here, her husband, Muni Baba, no longer had to beg, since I contributed money to the household. Moreover, members of their daughter’s household did not want me to accompany them,

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perhaps because they felt embarrassed; they gave me a shy and timid smile each time I asked them if I could come along, and, feeling shy myself, I did not insist on joining them. So I remained seated on the porch with Sunita, or I visited Tara’s household across the road. In the mornings, Tara’s father, Muni Baba, took me for walks around the village, following the path along the pond, tinged green by algae, with overhanging palms and bamboo groves, interspersed by adobe huts. Because the village was quite large, it was difficult to get an overview, though I noted that the rice fields marking the village boundaries in the opposite direction were not far off. The people we would visit on these morning walks would serve us tea, then comment on my looks, and the women touched my arm so they could feel the softness of my skin. When we were at home, an endless stream of people came to see me, posing questions in Bengali that I could not understand. One man in particular, an affluent Brahman politician, introduced to me as Mr. Mukherjee, would sit in a chair before me, sipping his afternoon tea, questioning me loudly in a mixture of Hindi and English that was hard for me to follow. From what he said, I did make out that he wanted to know whether I was married or not, how much money I earned and whether I liked India. Feeling exasperated, I repeatedly told Muni Baba that I could not cope with all the questions, saying, “My head reels, I am very tired.” Later, Mr. Mukherjee laughingly told me that Muni Baba had warned him that he would have to be careful or the memsahib would refuse to speak with him. The event, however, marked a turning point. I had drawn attention to the fact that I was vulnerable, so from then on Muni Baba and Sunita began to act as protectors and mediators, simplifying the questions posed, speaking slowly in a mode that I could comprehend, pointing out to me that I was like a child. Sunita taught me how to tie my sari. Her daughter Tara arrived each morning to put a dot between my eyes and to comb my hair, lending me her bangles until I had purchased my own. Because I am short and since my hair is somewhat long, this change of appearance made me look slightly more like a Bengali. In fact, once I got used to wearing a sari, distant acquaintances mistook me for Tara’s sister-in-law, Kalpana, to such an extent that members of my newfound family became accustomed to saying, “This is not Kalpana, this is a memsahib.” The first few weeks were spent playing music. In the evenings, Muni Baba and his friends gathered on the porch to sing. Once I hummed along, and thinking that I had potential, terming my voice sweet (mishti), they set about teaching me their songs. I sang the songs they taught me during various arrangements when family members would perform, at festivals and concerts held in conjunction with a puja, and at harvest celebrations. I also underwent a ceremony of initiation, performed by a Vaishnava sadhu living across the pond who pronounced Muni Baba as my guru and Sunita my guru ma. Although I felt uncertain about what this role entailed, I reasoned to myself that they as well as I would profit by it. Echoing the situation in Burdwan, my

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Introduction

presence could now be readily explained. I was there to learn their songs, and to understand the meaning of the lyrics and the melodies they sang. Perhaps this would make me less of an anomaly in that I resembled a student in pursuit of knowledge, or, as Sunita and Muni Baba phrased it, “Truths would be revealed to me.” Initially, Sunita’s husband, Muni Baba, constituted a primary source of information in matters pertaining to the Vaishnava means of worship. He taught me a number of songs, explaining the underlying meaning of the lyrics, stating, “Slowly, slowly you will learn.” From what I could gather, his authority derived from the fact that he was the oldest sadhu in the village. He had long gray hair and an uncut beard, false teeth and faded, worn-out clothing. Like Sunita, his ears were pierced and they both had a greenish dot tattooed between their eyes. But while Sunita seemed high-strung and nervous, rushing to and fro, feeding popped rice and cookies to the neighborhood children and stray dogs, her husband’s temperament was volatile. Sometimes he was gentle, calm and humble, but when agitated, he would gesticulate and yell. His temperament also showed in his style of singing and dancing. Moving about in a graceful manner, his eyes would suddenly flash. When singing high-pitched notes, he shot his right hand forth, letting it sail through the air to the rhythm that he kept. Sunita was fond of singing too, but because she was unable to keep the rhythm, the other family members grew embarrassed when she sang, receding into their own courtyard. Muni Baba also grew restless, sometimes leaving, only to return when she had finished singing. Tara, her husband and sister-in-law kept to themselves in their own courtyard, coming by to visit now and then, while Sunita was usually preoccupied with cooking, commenting from a distance on the conversations taking place, chiding the men for smoking marijuana. Every now and then an argument arose, alerting me to the tension pervading the atmosphere, but my grasp of Bengali was still too shaky to enable me to understand the subtleties that underlay their conversations. I therefore focused my attention on the meaning of the songs that I collected. Back in Norway, and with the generous assistance of a native speaker in Bengali, I translated the lyrics and, to the best of my ability, analyzed them with reference to the sacred nature of body substances, particularly the nature of a woman’s monthly flow. Yet many questions had been left unanswered. Fieldwork undertaken for my dissertation sought to cover topics that I was unable to address before. When I resumed fieldwork in 1995, I initially lived with Muni Baba and his wife, and as I settled in, the days proceeded uneventfully. Their friend Jagadish would pop his orange-turbaned head in through the doorway of the courtyard every morning on his way to board a train to sing for alms, then pop by at noon again, bringing me a piece of fruit that he had purchased at the market before proceeding home. Santanu, who was a rickshaw peddler and a close friend of Muni Baba, came even earlier, at dawn, to drink tea and listen to the radio, sometimes joined by Dhiren Baba, their white-clad sadhu friend who lived across the pond. Santanu would also

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bring his daughter, Durga, who helped carry out the household chores while Sunita was out working. Durga lived with her family at the other side of the pond. She was a goodnatured girl with a sweet face. People though her pretty, but teased her about her large feet, which resembled those of her father. Her father owned a rickshaw, and although he was proud of his vehicle, he did not earn much money. There was too much competition. I had seen him in the square on the outskirts of the village, sitting on top of his rickshaw with a host of other rickshaw peddlers. He told me that an entire day might pass without him getting a fare. Durga’s grandfather tried catching fish in the pond with a net he made himself. Sometimes I saw him at the market, walking barefoot with his cane. “I’m not doing any shopping,” he said. “I’m just taking a walk.” He had noted my fondness for Durga and jokingly told me to bring her to Norway. The plan, however, was to marry her off within the next two years. Working for Sunita prepared her for marriage since she learned how to cook and clean. But more important was the fact that she improved her diet. Once, Sunita remarked that many women were willing to work in return for meals. After finishing her tea, Durga marked the entrances to the house and courtyard with sacred circles called maruli, after which she swept the porch and yard, then washed the floors with cow dung and proceeded with the cooking. Muni Baba and Santanu would likewise have a cup of tea while listening to the radio. Sometimes Muni Baba hummed along to what he termed a Baul song, but which the radio announcer invariably called a folk song. “They always say a Baul song is a folk song,” he replied, when I questioned him about the matter. After a while the two would leave the courtyard to stroll around the neighborhood, returning some time later to have a morning snack, while I remained with Durga, passing the time by posing questions such as why she used cow dung when she washed the floor. Durga said, “It’s clean and it keeps the body healthy.” Occasionally, she scolded me for not making proper conversation: “You must ask me what my health is like and what I’m cooking.” She seemed pleased that I was writing down the sequence of her chores, for once in a while she paused and sighed, then waved her hand through the air, indicating the courtyard, porch and hearth, and smilingly said, “This is my work.” From where I was sitting on the porch, there was nothing much to see. On my right-hand side was a guava tree. At the opposite end was a tulsi (basil) bush, and beside the bush a patch of vegetables and flowers with an additional guava tree growing near the wall. During my previous visit, Tara’s elder brother, whose name was Mahabhir, had lived in that particular corner of the yard. But since his wife and his mother did not get along, the family moved away, and the empty space where their house had stood was turned into a garden, where Sunita grew eggplants, spinach, beans and squash as well as bushes bearing white and purple flowers. Mud walls thatched with grass surrounded the courtyard on all sides, blocking the view of the road. At the time of which I write, the rains had not yet ceased. A brief shower turned the soil

12

Introduction

into mud in the course of a few minutes, and the prevailing humidity gave rise to mosquitoes, hovering around the shady porch where Durga and I were seated. In the early-morning light, the walls and curled-up dogs gave the impression of merging with the light brown soil of the yard. Despite the fact that Muni Baba showed some signs of being ill, neither he nor others seemed to take it seriously, claiming that he had bronchitis. Then a month into my stay, his condition took a turn for the worse, and I moved in with Tara and her family members who lived across the road, although I made frequent visits to the doctor to ensure that Tara’s father received sufficient care and medication. The atmosphere in Tara’s household seemed harmonious, but it was stricter in another sense. Although she and her family members enjoyed having a foreigner in their midst, they sought to fashion me into what they deemed a good Bengali woman. They scrutinized my looks, straightening out the creases in my sari, and raised their chins ever so slightly whenever the free end of my sari covering my chest would slip. I gave up smoking since they found the habit shameful. Kalpana explained that women who smoke cigarettes or bidis are considered dirty. I knew that Tara’s mother smoked, but she and other women like her smoked in secret under the cover of dark, or while preparing food so that the smoke from the bidi mingled with the smoke rising from the hearth. I learned to keep my legs crossed whenever I was seated. I wore a sari night and day, a dot (tip) between my eyes and a bangle on my wrist, and my hair was fastened into a bun in such a way that not a single hair would stray. There was an empty room available across the road where Kalpana gave reading lessons and where Mr. Mukherjee kept a bunch of fold-up metal chairs, but whenever I raised the question as to whether I could live there, they laughingly dismissed the notion as absurd. I missed the freedom I enjoyed in Burdwan, when I could walk about alone. One morning I decided I would go to the market to buy a newspaper. Then, as I returned home, a group of Vaishnava beggars started trailing after me, tugging at my arm, crying, “Money, money,” an experience I found curiously unsettling as I had had no trouble coping with such incidents before. I made another attempt. A few days later, I went for stroll, heading towards the village boundary to see the fields. But as soon as I had left our immediate vicinity, people standing by the roadside started calling out to me, and then one woman grabbed my arm, pulling me on to her porch, where, surrounded by her family, I remained seated for some time answering questions about my native country. I realized that solitude was near impossible – there were people everywhere – and so I resigned myself to emulating Tara and Kalpana’s behavior, but turning this to my advantage. Instead of trying to get an overview of the many different castes and religious orientations in the area, I would learn what it is like to live and travel with a single family of Baul singers. Like the other women in the family, I had two everyday saris, alternating between the two, exchanging one for the other when I took my bath at noon. I learned to shower and to bathe fully clothed, and to change into a new sari

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13

without revealing any body parts. During the winter season I slept with other family members in the hut, but moved out on to the porch during the hot months. Occasionally, I sought refuge in the novels I had brought, but the others in the household grew uncomfortable – they thought I was a little crazy reading while smiling to myself, and would often interrupt me, asking me to put the book away. Our practice sessions continued, but after Muni Baba grew ill, Tara and her husband took on the task of teaching me. A young Brahman friend, whose name was Ajit, came each evening to accompany us on the tabla, while their friend, Jagadish (a Baul and former student of Muni Baba), accompanied me on the khamak. I sang these songs for neighbors and acquaintances, but also during festivals and harvest celebrations, as well as functions. Having had some previous experience singing American folk songs in bars when living in the U.S. just after I turned twenty, singing for a larger audience in rural West Bengal did not seem too daunting. Concerts were extraordinary events, something they looked forward to, but begging on the trains was their major source of income. Although I expressed an interest in learning more about their begging practices, they shook their head whenever I asked them if I could come along. It was only when we took the train to visit people they knew, or when traveling to a different town to carry out some task or other, that I had the chance to see them sing for alms, thus giving me a sense of what begging can be like. Begging and why it is a valued practice, despite the condescending attitude that some assume towards Bauls and other Vaishnava mendicants, is a topic I take up in the ensuing work. I also cover topics such as caste and gender, the meaning of Vaishnava life-cycle rites, and how notions about body substances link to conceptual arenas such as food, song and psyche. Throughout, I endeavor to describe how cultural conceptions of the self and body are enacted in the everyday.

Chapter outline The first chapter introduces the mendicants I lived with, their motivations for becoming Vaishnava devotees and singers of Baul songs, and the reason why some opted to take initiation into bhek (Vaishnava renunciation). I note that even as I focus on a single family, members of this family undertook initiation for different reasons and have different attitudes towards initiation into bhek (sannyas). I argue that this lack of uniformity among members of a single family is symptomatic of the tradition as a whole, but has led scholars to place undue emphasis on the fluid, heterogeneous nature of Baul identities. I note that the path that they pursue, and their reasons for pursuing it, is understandable as a phenomenon as long as we acknowledge that Bauls with a Hindu orientation are subsumed within the larger category of Vaishnavas. I further note that a focus on life stories is a useful tool for illuminating not only typical but also atypical cases, but that the diversity of cases thus revealed needs to be examined comprehensively.

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Introduction

The second chapter shows that even as some mendicants, including Bauls, take initiation into sannyas (renunciation), they differ from the archetype of myth and Vedic scriptures in that they do not sever ties with biological relations, but continue to reside in the neighborhood where they grew up; they marry and some also have children. The point I make is that since their prior history is public knowledge, and since Bauls are known to come from the lower castes and classes, singers of Baul songs still risk being treated as untouchables and continue to regard their caste identity as a source of social stigma. At the same time, initiation does provide them with another leg to stand on, where initiation from a Vaishnava guru constitutes a means of fashioning a new identity outside the dominant socio-religious framework of caste structures. The mendicants I worked with insisted that the acquisition of a sannyas (bhek) mantra parallels the Brahman sacred thread ceremony, even as they also denigrated Brahmanism. Despite their strong critique of caste, then, I show that initiation is perceived through the prism of caste structures where many Vaishnava mendicants, including singers of Baul songs, take initiation in part to create a distance from their lower caste identity, and/or to resist Brahman dominance and ideology, even as they turn to Brahman priests when this is deemed strategically useful. The third chapter takes a closer look at esoteric rites. Given that body substances are supposed to be retained, I examine yogic sex through the category of gender from a woman’s point of view. I further note that even as the songs Bauls sing celebrate the female flow, and the merits of ingesting this and other bodily emissions, the mendicants I lived with did not consistently or even necessarily ingest their body substances. These findings point to a discrepancy between precepts taught by gurus and everyday behavior. The ethnography I offer describes informants’ intense distress about their health, especially the condition of feeling powerless and weak (durbal), due to a depletion of vitality, which they claimed stemmed from the hardships and exertion of singing songs for alms. In tracing the connection between the soul (pran), the mind (man) and body (deha), I explore the link between cultural ideals about the self and how these are implemented and experienced in the everyday. This is set against the backdrop of an older Baul singer’s physical, emotional and mental decline due to his contraction of tuberculosis and the Vaishnava lens through which this illness was perceived. The fourth chapter highlights initiation rites and begging practices as central markers of Vaishnava piety. I argue that begging is important, evidenced by the ritual idiom through which it is perceived. I also focus on the meaning of detachment – that is, the capacity for self-restraint, perceived to be the hallmark of renunciation. I elucidate the relationship that the people I worked with fostered with their guru, describing the initiation rite that I myself went through, and the expectation that disciples should confer material donations on their guru. In this discussion I attend to key emotions such as shame (lajja), greed (lobh) and affection (maya), portraying how these sentiments

Introduction

15

play themselves out in social interaction as well as the ways in which emotional restraint is thought to manifest degrees of piety and self-control. Drawing on Sarah Lamb’s insights concerning widows in Bengal,39 I further note that although a central feature of the Baul path is detachment, this is understood to be a means of dealing with and acting in the world, rather than a means of retreating from it. The fifth chapter looks at stage performances and middle-class stereotypes of Bauls and authenticity, particularly as these relate to dress. To substantiate my argument that singers of Baul songs are Vaishnavas, I elucidate the sacred ritual dimension of rural celebrations, a dimension that is absent in stage performances arranged by the Bengali middle-class elite (bhadralok). This ritual dimension involves the gifting of a fee called dakshina and partaking in a meal called seva. In elucidating Vaishnava understandings of these ceremonial procedures, I hope to add new insights to prior scholarly discussions of these themes. Viewed through the lens of hospitality, I note that the monetary sum called dakshina is not simply treated as a fee paid for services provided, as when Bauls perform their songs on stage, but also serves to loosen ties established with one’s patrons, cast in the role of hosts. While this might seem contradictory, dakshina is treated as a gift of parting. It facilitates a person’s journey home. Another point I make is that seva (service) is not only treated as a means of manifesting deference to seniors, or as a social service carried out to benefit the common good. In a Bengali Vaishnava context, seva also signifies the sharing of a meal during which the sacred element within is nourished. Taking up a point I make towards the end of Chapter 3, I argue that being Vaishnava, which involves worshipping images of the god-pair Radha and Krishna, is quite compatible with worshipping the sacred element in humans. In other words, contrary to what one might expect, performing household pujas to images of deities (murti-puja) does not preclude the practice of esoteric rites. The sixth chapter offers an ethnographic description of a mortuary rite conducted by Tara and her husband for a Vaishnava woman. I then compare this ceremony with a mortuary rite held for a non-Vaishnava householder. I show that an overriding goal of lay mortuary rites is to unite the soul of the deceased with its class of ancestors, after which the soul is reborn anew. By contrast, Vaishnavas with a sannyas mantra aim to break the family line, having as their goal to liberate the soul from its cyclic transmigration (samsara). I show that an important key to understanding the significance of sannyas (bhek) is that Vaishnavas with this mantra should not take part in ceremonies that involve establishing relations with a set of ancestors. The last chapter integrates the different themes discussed in the preceding chapters, where I stress the point that women and men take up the path as mendicants and singers in part to acquire recognition for their musical abilities, but also to fashion new identities as Vaishnavas, distinct from yet similar to Brahmans in terms of ritual purity and religious status. I suggest, however, that despite their lofty sentiments concerning their vocation, their feeling

16

Introduction

weak and disempowered indicates a sense of disenchantment and distress with their failure to acquire sufficient social recognition and monetary support from laypeople. Although many laypersons appreciate their calling, many others persist in viewing them as low-class rag-tag riff-raff. I conclude by narrating the trajectories of the people with whom I worked since I first met them more than twenty years ago.

Style of writing The style of writing is deliberately chosen as a means of trying to convey the atmosphere of village life, dimensions often lacking in ethnographic realism despite the fact that non-verbal dimensions such as temperature and lighting, smells, taste, touch and sound “are all part of culture’s palette.”40 Drawing attention to these aspects also serves to emphasize the context in which statements voiced took place. Moreover, by focusing on the details of day-today experience, my intention is to highlight the disjuncture between cultural ideals and actual behavior. Experience-near ethnographies show how rules are manipulated and created, refuted or ignored to suit divergent needs. Like a range of other authors, I have included my presence in the text, although, like them, in a manner intended to illuminate rather than obscure the inter-subjective and subjective meanings I describe.41 When I moved in with them in 1995, Tara and her kin would often tell me that I resembled a child, implying that I lacked basic social skills such as being able to sit properly by keeping my legs crossed, eat with my fingers without spilling food upon the floor, and change from one sari into another without revealing any body parts. While these skills required practice, they eventually became second nature to me. What I had trouble getting used to was my not being able to act independently. Simple outings, such as venturing to the fields to see the mustard flowers blooming, going to the market or to the post office, were outings that had to be planned. I had to change into a fresh sari, do my hair up, place a dot between my eyes, and then wait for Tara or Kalpana to finish whatever task they were performing before they too would dress in an immaculate sari with matching bangles and a dot (tip) between their eyes. I was no longer free to do as I pleased. Seeing that my conduct would reflect on them, I accepted their view that it was important that I look and behave in a manner they thought suitable for a memsahib. Their manner seemed possessive, but their attitude towards me may also have been a means of trying to protect me, for once the novelty of my presence in the village had worn off, villagers began to ask me for material assistance in a manner that was often rude, demanding money whenever they had me to themselves. Also, they may have feared that I might settle into another household since, after all, I had left the family that I lived with in Burdwan town when I moved to Chilluri, and then after I had lived with Muni Baba and his wife, I took up residence with Tara and her family. Perhaps they thought that I would move again.

Introduction

17

My not having recourse to a separate room and kitchen meant that I had to follow their schedule, sleeping when they slept, eating when they ate. But I took comfort in the fact that being with the family on a round-the-clock basis was in some ways an asset insofar as it allowed me to observe ongoing activities. Despite my language problems, I did not work with an interpreter, and except for recording musical sessions, I did not employ a tape recorder or other technical devices. I gradually acquired sufficient language skills to be able to carry on simple conversations and to listen in on other conversations that they had with friends and neighbors. Information was collected with a pen and notebook. When observing certain ceremonies such as weddings or funerals or when transcribing how a Vaishnava marriage is supposed to be performed, I took notes on the spot, but usually refrained from doing so during conversations, applying myself to the task of writing when nothing else was going on. Tara and others were aware of the fact that the information they disclosed regarding their religious practices as well as their opinions on caste and gender would be published as a book. Whether it is morally correct to include other aspects of their lives as well, such as their relationship with parents and with siblings, their feelings towards their guru, their personal histories and their daily interactions, is an ethical dilemma that I have not managed to resolve. In an effort to protect them, however, I have altered personal names as well as the name of their village.

Notes 1 See e.g. Battacarya [1957] 1971; Capwell 1986; Das 1992; Dasgupta [1946] 1969; Dimock 1966; Knight 2011; Mukharji 2009; Openshaw 2002; Salomon 1991; Sen 2009; Tagore [1931] 1968; Turner 1969; Urban 1999. 2 Cf. Jackson 1998: 28, 173–4. 3 Hollan 2000: 547; see also Obeyesekere [1981] 1984: 33. 4 Cf. Moffat 1979. 5 Douglas 1970: 71, 72. 6 Bordo [1993] 1995: 165–6. 7 Banerjee and Miller 2003: 74–5. 8 In McGuire 2011: 123. 9 Bourdieu [1972] 1977: 94, 95, 1979: 178; see also Chatterjee 1993: 194; McGuire 2011: 122–3; Urban 2001: 139, Weidman 2012: 219. 10 Csordas 1999: 183, Mahmood 2005: 139, 139n. As Michel Foucault’s work shows, being docile, the body can be taught, trained and disciplined through practice. But the body is also monitored by powers arising from institutions such as schools, hospitals and prisons, as well as regulated and controlled by the social norms and values in a community or in society at large ([1961] 1989, [1975] 1987; see also Lamb 2000: 182–3). In behaving submissively, Sunita was acting according to the norms and regulations, a form of conduct expected in the lower caste and poor. 11 Cf. Alter 1992: 24; Chatterjee 1993: 186–7; Hess 2015: 41. 12 Hess 2015: 170–1. 13 Chatterjee 1993: 197. 14 Gold and Gujar 2002: 19. 15 Mahmood: 2005: 51, 52. 16 Cf. DeNapoli 2014: 57.

18

Introduction

17 Lisa Knight points out that, in contrast to the women’s mosque movement in Cairo, Baul women cherish values such as freedom and liberation that feminists hold dear, but “seem more invested in explicitly critiquing society's treatment of other categories of the disenfranchised” (2011: 182). 18 Cf. Mahmood 2005: 139. 19 Salomon 2003: 62. 20 Bardhan 1993: 268. 21 Wulff 1995: 100. 22 Eaton 1993: 109–10, 232–9, 268–9; see also Thapar 1979: 67, 68. In fact, Ramakanta Chakrabarty notes that Vaishnava worship or Vishnu worship was not new in the Bengali-speaking region: “From the fourth century A.D. to the end of the thirteenth century Vaishnavism as a Brahmanical faith co-existed with Buddhism, Jainism and Saiva-Sakta worship” (1985: 1). 23 Chatterjee 2009: 161; Dimock [1966] 1991: 51–2; Wulff 1995: 101. 24 Chatterjee 2009: 161. 25 Chatterjee 2009: 161. 26 Chatterjee 2009: 162; Chakrabarty 1985: 341; 2006: 174. The residence of the six goswamis in Brindavan coincided with Mughal ascendancy in northern India, a power that wanted to “accommodate resistant Hindu kingdoms, especially Rajput clans in Rajasthan. During Muhammad Nizamuddin Akbar’s reign (1556–1605) a notable spirit of imperial tolerance and even patronage of Hindus prevailed, which was especially favorable to the flourishing of Vaishnavism in greater Vrindavan (Vraj/Braj)” (Valpey 2011: 313). 27 Chatterjee 2009: 152. 28 Chatterjee 2009: 150, 155, 174. 29 For instance, Donna Wulff writes that Vaishnava “songs, stories and symbols were taken up into every regional performance form including Muslim forms such as phakir gan” (Wulff 1995: 100). 30 Sekhar Bandyopadhyay 1995: 160. 31 Hayes 2011: 507. 32 Hayes 2011: 507. 33 Hayes 2011: 507. 34 Chakrabarty in Chatterjee 1993: 183. 35 Glen A. Hayes holds the opinion that works by Salomon, Openshaw and Urban clearly show that Bauls (along with the tradition known as Kartabhajas) are modern-day inheritors of Sahajiya Vaishnavas (2011: 513). Dimock by contrast hesitates to call them so, believing that yogic sex is not part of Baul sadhana ([1966] 1991: 250). He writes that Bauls are no doubt related to Sahajiyas, evident in lyrics such as “The body is the world in which the Lord’s lila [play] is taking place” (260). Still, he finds that the main distinction between the two, i.e. what sets Bauls apart from Sahajiyas, is that the poetry in Baul songs is “Vaishnava in spirit,” “lyrical and sensual,” while Sahajiya poetry is dry in comparison (268–9). 36 See Capwell 1986; Openshaw 2002; Urban 1999. 37 Knight 2011: 23, 42, 91, 95, 115, 148–9. 38 Knight 2011: 143, 166. 39 Lamb 2000: 116–17, 153. 40 Shore 1991: 12; Stoller 1989: 29. 41 Cf. Abu-Lughod 1993; Briggs 1970; Daniel 1984; Gold 1988; Khandelwal 2004; Knight 2011; Narayan 1989; Trawick 1990.

1

Life stories: taking the plunge

Because I would be staying in their small house for nine months, understanding why Sunita and her husband, Muni Baba, did not get along was a matter of both scholarly and personal concern. Sunita’s constant references to my not understanding why she was unhappy made me curious as to why their relationship had soured. While I imagined that knowing something of their pasts might serve to ease the tension, I also thought it might shed light on what had motivated each of them to take initiation into bhek (Vaishnava renunciation).1 With the exception of work published by Knight,2 there is no material on life trajectories of contemporary Bauls, and none had been published at the time of which I write. My aim, then, was to remedy this gap. Yet my first attempts to elicit information were largely unsuccessful; the arguments between them tended to take center stage. Muni Baba’s frequent complaints about his health infuriated Sunita, who had her own difficulties to contend with. She viewed her husband as a freeloader at liberty to stay at home when he felt out of sorts, since singing for alms gave him room for maneuver and a self-timed regulation, while she worked full-time as a prison guard at a detention facility for women. When Sunita returned from work at noon, the stray dogs eagerly gathered around her. Neighborhood children also came, anticipating a treat. She unpacked her bag and distributed the fruit and cookies she had bought at the market and smilingly exclaimed, “Everyone comes to see me when I’m home.” Birds also hopped below the porch, pecking at the mustard seeds that she flung into the courtyard. But usually Sunita was tired and depressed when she returned from work. Entering the courtyard with puffed-up cheeks, she moved her head to and fro, then questioned me mechanically in a slow monotonous tone of voice, “How are you? How is your health?” If Muni Baba was home, she vented her frustrations at him, blaming him for not doing any work around the house. She frequently turned to me and said, “What can I do? I have to work at the jailhouse in a little hot place full of mosquitoes. I cannot rest. I have no time. My whole body aches.” At times she showed me her medicine, spreading the different pills and bottles on the porch, explaining, “This is for lack of sleep, this is for feeling weak, this is

20

Life stories: taking the plunge

for gas, and this is for my chest pains which go dor-dor-dor.” Then she would yell at Muni Baba for not helping her out with expenses for food and medication. In trying to elucidate why life stories should be of interest, Sidney Mintz has noted that their importance lies in their bringing to light the range of alternatives available to individuals, the choices made and values they pursue, allowing one to highlight the complexity and fluidity of culture.3 Arnold and Blackburn similarly note that life stories are useful in revealing how individuals grapple with society, rather than the ways in which society grapples with individuals, providing us with fresh insights into people’s experiences and attitudes “but also of the wider society, or social segment, of which they are a part.”4 Life stories are tools for privileging individual agency, a subject often overlooked in studies emphasizing caste and kinship structures and religion, where individual voices are rendered marginal, subsumed within a dominant collective. Narrating a person’s past allows us to shed light on voices, “not normally heard,” including women and Dalits, and people living on the margins of society whose trajectories are in some ways unusual.5 As a genre in anthropology, life histories have a long tradition in America, emerging from the interest shown by the American public in Native Americans. The first biography appeared prior to 1825.6 And while many other works ensued, Paul Radin’s Crashing Thunder, which came out in 1920, is thought to be the first in-depth biography written by an anthropologist.7 Narrating life stories is still considered an important means for portraying the commonplace as well as the extraordinary.8 Yet most accounts restrict their focus to a single individual. Oscar Lewis’s work, The Children of Sanchez, about a Mexican family living in an urban slum, was the first to highlight the various trajectories of members from a single family.9 Here I follow his example by letting each family member give their own version of their past. When speaking of her past, Sunita drew attention to her state of vulnerability and ignorance. She said that she had never been to school, that she was married off at an early age, and that her husband had abandoned her. Not once did she mention having taken bhek, suggesting that the step was first and foremost an expression of devotion, where initiation allowed her to take part in a community of fellow devotees, providing her with some diversion and relief from her rigid working schedule, and perhaps also consolation from her marital discord.10 In answering my queries, she spoke in an idiom of suffering, which, as many authors note, is a common practice in South Asia, where women often represent themselves as victims of misfortune when narrating their past.11 But as I listened to her speak it soon transpired that Sunita was not as helpless or as passive as her first self-portrait seemed to indicate. She showed considerable initiative to alter undesired circumstances, moving back to her natal village when deserted by her husband, and taking on a job to feed and clothe her children.

Life stories: taking the plunge

21

Sunita: housekeeping Sunita had been an only child. She could not remember her father for he had died just after she was born. Her mother passed away when she was nine or ten years old. She had never been to school and she described herself as ignorant because she was illiterate. There was no one to look after her and teach her things, she said. To illustrate how vulnerable she was when she was a little girl, she related an incident that occurred when she was eight or nine. Her mother was about to leave one day, but just before she left, she told Sunita to cook the midday meal, threatening to slap her if the food did not turn out okay. Sunita made the meal, but started to worry about the results. So she ladled some of the vegetable curry into a bowl and positioned herself in the doorway of the courtyard. Sometime later, a stranger came walking down the road and Sunita held out her bowl to him. Helping himself to a portion, he smilingly assured her that the dish was fine. The two of us were cleaning spinach in preparation for the midday meal, which may have triggered the memory of her experience with cooking. At any rate, she laughed as she finished the story, but she made no further comment. In fact, except for relating this specific incident, she rarely spoke about her mother, despite my efforts to encourage her. The only times she mentioned her was when she chided Durga (the daughter of her husband’s friend and neighbor) who assisted her with household chores in return for meals, calling out, “My mother always kept the house clean.” She said her aunt had been responsible for arranging her marriage with Muni Baba, who at that time had resided in his natal village Dusna. Another female relative had also been married off to a man from Dusna. The ceremonies took place together in order to cut down on expenses. A dowry (pon) was not provided since in those days this was not the custom. Even so, her aunt gave her a few items – a sari, a plate and a brass goblet. That was all, she said. A few days later while we were sipping tea and eating biscuits on the porch, I asked Sunita whether she enjoyed living in her husband’s village. “Yes” she said, “it’s a clean place. You can still use the water from the pond when cooking.” She was in a good mood, and giggled as she edged a little closer. Looking up at me while talking, she said that in the early phases of their marriage, her husband answered to the name of Hari Krishna and made his living working as an actor, impersonating women. His hair was long, he wore a nose ring, and he had two coconut shells fastened to his chest made out to look like breasts. She said that she felt shy when watching him on stage, so embarrassed that she would cover up her face with the free end of her sari whenever he danced or delivered his lines. She laughed at the recollection and later in the evening I overheard her repeating the story to Tara, who laughingly inquired whether I had heard the story too. Recounting her past, however, was not Sunita’s forte. And so it was chiefly through explicit questioning that I was able to gather some information concerning the first few years of her marriage. She gave birth to three children.

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Life stories: taking the plunge

Her firstborn drowned in a pond when he was two or three years old. She told me matter-of-factly, “There was a pond below my house. My son fell in and drowned.” After this she gave birth to Mahabhir and then to Tara. Four or five years passed. Then one day, her husband disappeared. Not knowing whether he would return, she eventually moved back to her natal village where she settled with her aunt who lived by herself in the house where Sunita had previously lived with her mother. In order to support herself and two children, she took on various jobs, working in a rice mill, and later in a construction site, carrying bricks. “Then what happened?” I asked her. Sunita said, “My aunt died.” “So you lived in the house with Tara and Mahabhir by yourself ?” Sunita said yes, but told me that the house was different then. The old house where she used to live had stood where the garden was currently growing. She tore it down when her aunt passed away, then sold off half the property and built her present two-story house with the money she made from the sale. She also took over her aunt’s job, working as a prison guard at the detention facility, the same job she currently held. Sunita seldom spoke of her past, yet she often referred to the time when her husband returned, although it was hard to make sense of what she was saying because the course of events was alluded to in a disjointed fashion. Also, she invariably brought the matter up when in an agitated mood. Anything might set her off. Her husband’s habit of leaving the door ajar, so that goats would enter and nibble at the plants growing in her garden, his habit of smoking marijuana (ganja) with Durga’s father on the porch, or his complaints about his chest pains. After yelling at him, she drew me aside and told me, “He hit me till I bled,” referring to a previous fight between the two of them. She also said, “I had to sleep over there,” nodding her head in the direction of the shabby little room opposite the hearth. Her anger would abruptly subside and give way to crying. Wiping the tears from her eyes with the free end of her sari, she lit a bidi with trembling hands, blowing the smoke into the cooking hearth. Efforts on my part to obtain more detailed information were dismissed with remarks such as “You do not understand. My life is very hard. My husband never gave me food. I have no one.” The detention facility where Sunita worked was located in a nearby town in an unassuming building enclosed by yellow brick walls. I had passed it when she and I and her daughter, Tara, went to the market. Sunita had often said that she wanted me to see the quarters, but each time she had inquired whether this was feasible, the guard posted at the entrance said that I was not allowed inside. Then one morning she returned from work and happily exclaimed that her boss had finally consented to my coming along. So after finishing our meal at noon, Tara, Sunita and I set out together. A prison guard led us through a hallway, passing the chief inspector’s office to our right. At the very end of the corridor was an open courtyard. A large prison cell with approximately twenty prisoners stood in the middle of the yard. On seeing us, they all rushed forward, staring at us through the bars. As we

Life stories: taking the plunge

23

followed the guard around the cage, the prisoners all scrambled from one side to another, gazing at us silently. To get to the female quarters, the guard unlocked the gate on the left-hand corner of the yard, which opened up to another smaller courtyard. Once inside, we turned an additional corner, where Sunita pointed to the small terrace where she spent her time while she was on duty. The terrace overlooked the single cell containing the female prisoners, consisting of two women who were both standing upright, gazing at us through the bars. Tara nudged me, saying she would never be able to endure having to spend so much time on the little terrace. “My mother goes through a lot of hardships,” she remarked. At this point, Tara decided to leave the building, while Sunita and I went to pay our respects to the chief inspector. Sunita seemed very bashful as she seated herself on the little stool just inside the door, while I was given a chair to sit opposite the chief inspector’s desk. I accepted the glass of tea he offered, while Sunita declined. He was a talkative man, asking questions about Norway. At one point, he instructed one of the guards to fetch a prisoner. A man was promptly brought in. He was dressed in a blue-checkered lunghi and a T-shirt, and stood before me silently as the inspector informed me that he had committed murder. With this, our visit came to a close and I took my leave, waving to Sunita as she disappeared down the corridor to start another shift. That evening, when Sunita returned from work, I questioned her about her job. She answered my questions hurriedly while getting ready to boil tea, saying that the number of female prisoners was usually three or four. If there were no prisoners awaiting trial, her presence was not required, which meant that she would have two or three days off work. But as long as she was working, her duty was to make sure that none of the women attempted suicide by hanging. “Is that all?” I asked her, as she remerged from the interior holding our teacups in her hand. “Well,” she shrugged, “if a woman becomes ill with diarrhea or with vomiting, I must notify the superior, but this rarely happens.” Sunita’s days were mostly uneventful. When she worked, she spent her time beside the cell on the little terrace, chatting with the prisoners. There was nothing else to do, and this was why she was unhealthy. If she could have spent her days at home, cooking and cleaning, her body would not be weak. The pain in her chest, back and stomach resulted from her having to sit quietly for hours at a time. She handed me a biscuit and a cup of strong black tea, and then she started speaking of the chief inspector. “He drinks a lot of alcohol. Why drink alcohol, when there are so many nice things to drink like milk and tea?” Just then her husband Muni Baba appeared in the doorway. He moved through the courtyard, proceeding slowly to the porch while complaining of his chest pains. After seating himself carefully beside us, he requested a cup of tea from Sunita. She reluctantly got up, saying she was tired and unwell from working at the detention facility, and that he could have made the tea himself. At this point, we did not know that he had tuberculosis.

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Life stories: taking the plunge

Muni Baba: seeking spiritual wisdom Muni Baba gave a different version of his past. Unlike his wife’s account, his narrative suggested a certain sense of grandeur for he claimed that he had come from a long line of Bauls. His parents, grandparents and great-grandparents had all been Bauls. His parents used to wear orange clothing like him. His mother played the ektara, while his father played the violin, and they sang together on the trains. In an attempt to keep the conversation going, I asked him why he did not learn to play the violin, since that had been his father’s instrument. “I will tell you why,” he said, and related the following story. One day his father met a man from Bangladesh, who had a dotara but wished to learn to play the violin. They decided to swap instruments. And when Muni Baba was born, he also learned to play the dotara. I suspected that what he said was a fabrication, but I persisted in my efforts to question him about his past, asking him to iterate his life story (apnar jibaner katha). He repeated the phrase, “My life story,” staring into the courtyard, but remained silent. In an attempt to encourage him, I said that Sunita had told me that he disappeared. “Why did you leave?” I asked him. “Where did you go?” He paused and then he offered me a short explanation. “I wanted to get away from this householder life. I went to Navadvip. I heard the talk of God (hari katha) that was discussed there, and I acquired wisdom” (gyan). He seemed annoyed at me for probing him but confirmed what his wife had said, that he used to support himself and his family working as an actor. “Why did you quit?” I asked him. “I grew tired of it.” I repeated my question, and he said, “When you have a new wife, you no longer want to be out all night. People kept coming to my house, asking me to perform, but I said I was unwell, and after a while they stopped coming.” That was it. He did not elaborate, nor did he volunteer other stories relating to his past, so I eventually gave up trying to elicit information.12 Muni Baba’s reluctance to speak about his past might conceivably be linked to his having taken bhek (sannyas). Because renouncers are supposed to die a social death when they take initiation, acquiring information about their prior lives is often difficult. The step typically entails severing ties with family members, or relationships with others assuming a different nature.13 Yet, as Knight has pointed out, the Baul and larger Vaishnava community has “a distinct flavor that sets itself apart” from other more prestigious traditions, in that members are not expected or required to settle elsewhere or to alter ties with relatives after taking bhek. Instead, relationships with kin remain the same.14 Muni Baba’s description of himself as having descended from a lineage of Bauls seems rather to be based on the assumption that this would impress a foreign student interested in Bauls, who might arrange for him to sing abroad. In hindsight, he might also have been trying to conceal his caste

Life stories: taking the plunge

25

identity as a Muchi (leatherworker), which was something he thought shameful. Sunita’s remarks about her husband suggested episodes of domestic violence; that his behavior in the past had been dishonorable, at odds with the way a Vaishnava sadhu should behave, where self-discipline is an ideal, and where acting in a cool, serene fashion is appropriate. In view of this, his silence may have been a strategy that he made use of in order to appear respectable and decent.15 Occasionally, when Sunita grew agitated, he tried to soothe her, and once he quietly admonished her, saying that if the atmosphere became too gloomy, I might settle elsewhere. Not realizing that I overheard him, he said that I was kind (maya) and that I might give them money. But because he was unwell – he was on the verge of developing tuberculosis – he grew increasingly annoyed with her, and their bickering continued.

Tara: a young girl goes begging Tara differed in that she was quite willing to talk about her past. Like her mother, she told me, “You don’t understand.” But, unlike her mother, she tried to elaborate. So it was mainly through Tara, but also her husband and her sister-in-law, that I was able to piece together information concerning her parents’ past and what had prompted each of them to pursue the Vaishnava path. Some of the things that Tara told me were said in response to my queries, but mostly her narratives were triggered by events, such as visits to a local shrine, riding the train where she went singing and the onset of her father’s illness. Seeing her father grow weaker day by day, and accompanying me to the pharmacy and to the doctor’s office to obtain medication and advice as to how we should care for him, undoubtedly gave her cause to reflect upon the way her father had formerly behaved towards her. Concrete places and specific situations would stir her memory, and because I was present and since I was interested, she shared her recollections with me.16 When relating her past, Tara’s initial concern was clarifying her relationship with her father so that I would understand the difficulties she and her mother had endured, presenting a narrative that conflicted with that of her father.17 She claimed that although her father tried to appear as a respectable and knowledgeable guru, his conduct in the past had not been good. She confirmed what her mother had said: that her father had left at a time when she and her brother had been much too small to take care of themselves, leaving her mother with the sole responsibility. “This is why she gets angry at my father,” she said in an attempt to shed light on why her parents argued so much. During the initial month while I was living in her parents’ household, I never complained of their bickering. Still, Tara must have sensed my discomfort at having to endure it. Whenever her mother yelled at her father, she would come to the doorway of her parents’ courtyard and beckon me over to her house. I once remarked that I thought her parents seemed unhappy, since they argued so much, to which Tara’s husband Karun commented, “They are old. Old people behave that way. Being with people your own age is better.”

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Life stories: taking the plunge

Because the tension pervading the atmosphere persisted, I gradually made it a habit of slipping out of the courtyard to visit Tara and her husband now and then. Soon after, when Tara’s father grew seriously ill, I moved into Tara’s household. I transferred my belongings to Tara’s house, and this was also where I ate my meals, although I continued to visit her parents a couple of times each day, hoping that my move would not be thought of in a hostile light. By the time I moved in early November, the temperature had lowered somewhat so we spent the nights inside the hut, as is the custom when it’s cold. I slept on the platform bed. The hard wooden surface was covered with quilts (khetta) made from worn-out cotton saris, mostly white and fringed with blue and red, now faded into pink, stitched together by Sunita when she was young and her eyesight had been stronger. Karun, Tara and their son, Papay, lay on woven mats and quilts upon the floor beside me, explaining that they preferred the floor, but they also insisted that because I was a guest, it was only proper that I should sleep on the bed. As to Kalpana, she continued to sleep on the porch on a cot, as was her habit. The arrangement was a welcome change for me. Since Tara and Karun rose much later than Tara’s parents did, I was able to get the privacy and rest that I had longed for, since, to a certain extent, having my own mosquito net was like having a room of my own. When the lights were put out, the hut grew quiet, and I could let my thoughts wander. Sunita, too, seemed happy with this change, for I overheard her telling Kalpana shortly after I had moved that sleeping alone was wonderful. Not much else changed except for the fact that I now spent more time in Tara and her husband’s courtyard or in the road in front of their hut. One morning as I was sipping tea on their doorstep, watching the women fetch water from the tap across the road, Tara seated herself beside me and began to speak about her father’s disappearance. She said that when he left, he went to Navadvip. “Oh,” I said, “Navadvip,” reminded of the fact that this is where the founder of the Bengali Vaishnava movement, the saint Caitanya (1486–1533), had once lived. But Tara suddenly hesitated. “You must ask my father, I’m not quite sure.” She went on to say that her father was gone two or three years and that during his absence he had been learning how to sing. She told me there was one traumatic episode that occurred during her father’s absence. She brought the matter up a few days later. We were walking to a shrine to make offerings to a goddess called Santasi Ma (mother Santasi). Our doing so was linked to another event that had happened two months earlier, when Karun traveled to Kolkata to audition for the radio. He passed the ordeal, and a few days later after hearing his song aired on the radio, Karun had said that he would like to make an offering of food to Santasi Ma to show his gratitude to her for fulfilling his wish to pass the audition. The three of us purchased two coconuts at the market to bring to her shrine. The next morning, Karun stayed at home cooking up a meal of khichuri that we would eat as soon as our offerings had been made. He said the food that he was cooking was catered to suit the goddess’s taste. Leaving

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him behind, Tara, Kalpana and I proceeded to Santasi’s shrine, located near the market, carrying a big brass bowl containing two coconuts, a cluster of bananas as well as red and white hibiscus flowers picked in Tara’s son’s tutor’s garden. As we walked, she related the following story. While her father was away in Nawadvip, her mother had suffered from a stomach ache, and because of her pains, she decided to seek help at a hospital. She said, “It was a good hospital with English doctors, located in a distant town.” To get there, her mother had to cross a great river in a ferry boat. Tara and her brother remained at home waiting the entire day. When it grew dark, Tara began to worry that the boat had capsized and that her mother had drowned, so she prayed to Santasi Ma asking her to bring her mother safely home. Later that night, she returned. To show her gratitude, Tara decided to offer flowers to Santasi Ma every Friday for a period of sixteen weeks. She left her house at dawn searching for flowers, feeling cold in her bare feet. “Your feet must always be bare when you worship Santasi Ma,” she explained, implying that being barefoot is a means of showing one’s devotion (bhakti) by enduring hardships (kasta). She gathered the flowers from other people’s gardens. Then one morning, someone saw her and she fled. As it turned out, the owner of the garden had recognized her and told her mother what had happened. Tara said she was so embarrassed that it was six months before she dared to pass the owner’s house again. During another walk – Tara often talked while we were walking on our way to do some errand or when visiting a friend – she told me that her father eventually returned after being gone for four or five years. (Although I noted that the number of years had increased slightly, I refrained from interrupting, inferring that her point was not to be exact but to convey that her father had been absent for a long period.) Tara continued, stating that when her father finally did come back, he arrived in the company of a woman whose name was actually Gauri, but whom Tara and her husband called Bara Ma (great mother). Bara Ma would visit now and then, and I had also been to see her with Tara and her husband and with Tara’s father, but none of them had ever told me how they came to know her. She was approximately sixty years old; her hair was thinning and her frame was tall and slender. She resided in a thin walled hut of clay on the premises of an ashram in a village further south. Tara said, “Bara Ma was my father’s guru. She taught him how to worship Krishna and she also taught him how to sing.” She went on to say that while her father was gone, he had lived with Bara Ma in a Vaishnava ashram, probably in Nawadvip where Bara Ma had been in charge of the cooking. “This is why she is able to cook such wonderful, tasty food,” she said, implying that Bara Ma always omitted amish foodstuff classified as heating (amish) such as garlic and onion, commonly thought to increase one’s passions. I will return to the subject of food in a later chapter. Suffice it to say that after praising Bara Ma’s cooking abilities, Tara went on to speak about her past, stating that prior to settling in the ashram, Bara Ma was married to a

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different man, living in a different village. In response to my query, she told me that she had never met this man and thought that he had probably died several years ago. She continued her account, stating that Bara Ma did not have children with her former husband, and, realizing that she would probably remain childless, she said to herself, “Okay, I will become a sadhu.” What Tara seemed to be implying was that Bara Ma’s lack of children was the reason why she opted to become a sadhu (renouncer). Unlike laywomen, whose childless state is an object of pity, sadhus are not expected to conceive. That Bara Ma might be barren was not an issue that she raised. Instead, her point was to say that in becoming a sadhu her childless state would be viewed as a feat rather than a sign of failure.18 Tara continued with her story, saying that having left her husband and moved into an ashram, Bara Ma met Muni Baba, whereafter the two started singing on the trains together. Then, when four or five years had passed, she decided that they should go to Chilluri together. Tara said, “Bara Ma brought my father home. She entered our house, and said to my mother, ‘This is your husband.’” For Tara, then, it was due to Bara Ma’s efforts that her father eventually returned and her family was reunited, and she insisted that Bara Ma was able to effect this reconciliation because she was a pious, loving person, evident in a number of ways. For instance, the interior walls of Bara Ma’s little hut were decorated with posters showing deities that she would cover up with pieces of clothing during the chilly winter months so that they would not suffer from the cold. At mealtimes, she always offered a portion of her food to them, and although she was illiterate, she carried a copy of the Bhagavad Gita bound in white cloth and decorated with gold and silver ribbons. Tara explained that she and her mother grew fond of Bara Ma, and that she had also made lots of additional friends among the villagers. Life would have been good, except that her parents did not get along. Arguments constantly arose between them concerning trivia, such as her father accusing her mother of adding too much salt to the food she cooked or boiling the milk too long. Once, in a fit of anger, her father tore up a picture of himself, ripping it to shreds. Tara said, “My father used to have waist-long hair and a big black beard, but since the picture is gone we cannot show you.” During another quarrel, he hit her mother till she bled, at which point Bara Ma exclaimed, “What are you doing, she is your goddess?” She decided to leave, but instead of moving back to Navadvip, she went to Kartik, a village further south, where she knew another Vaishnava family and settled in their ashram. A few days later, while we were eating our evening meal, huddled together within the hut, Tara resumed the subject of her past, stating that when Bara Ma had left them, her father started teaching her to sing, so that they could make a living singing on the trains together. Tara practiced on the porch. She had to sing the high-pitched notes, and when she failed he slapped her. Her mother would tell him to leave her alone, but her father retorted, “Singing means food.” At this point, Tara’s son, Papay, who was listening suddenly

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broke in, saying, “Singing is a path,” which I took to mean that singing is a source of income. Tara turned to him and smiled, and then continued with her story, stating that she was still a little girl when she learned how to sing. “I was too young to wear a sari, nine years old,” she said, adding that it had taken her a while to get used to singing on the trains. Her father would tease her, saying, “You are feeling shy, aren’t you? You are feeling shy.” “But that’s how I learned to sing. Now I’m not embarrassed (lajja). I’m Muni Baba’s daughter,” she said, smiling at me playfully. As time went by, I grew accustomed to hearing this remark. Whenever Tara felt a cold approaching or when she felt a little dizzy and therefore wondered whether she should go singing on the trains or not, she would occasionally announce, “I’m okay. I will manage. I’m Muni Baba’s daughter.” Her statement implies that despite her father’s neglect of her, she nevertheless resembled him. Among other things, she had inherited his traits, which enabled her to sing in spite of feeling weak, for she was strong-willed like her father. Still, although Tara identified with her father, she distrusted him and frequently remarked that he could not run a household. Also, like her mother she disapproved of his habit of smoking ganja and of drinking alcohol. Her attitude was implicit in her conduct towards her husband who was not allowed to drink, smoke or even to take snuff (khoini), since an advertisement that appeared on television had stated that this might lead to cancer. Kalpana remarked that on one occasion when Karun reverted to his former habit, Tara had grown so agitated that she tore off great tufts of her hair, which she and others frequently referred to as the central mark of womanhood. Tara once told me that long black shiny hair is a woman’s pride, so her deliberate self-harm in this regard was probably her way of trying to convey to Karun that she feared ending up as her mother did, living with a spouse she could not trust, who smoked ganja with his friends instead of focusing his efforts on their marital relationship. Although snuff (khoini) is a mild stimulant, it is still considered detrimental to one’s health, liable to bring on cancer. Tara’s father’s illness, which she thought resulted from his smoking habit, plus the fact that he had left his family twice before – when he went to Navadvip, and when he moved away with Dipa’s mother – may have rendered her fear of meeting with her mother’s destiny all the more acute.19 Tara’s dislike of the conventional role attributed to laywomen was evident in that she occasionally told me not to cover my hair with the free end of my sari since it made me look like a wife (bou). Once I asked, “What is a wife?” to which she replied, “A wife is a woman who stays at home, who is illiterate, and spends her time rearing children.” She said that she did not resemble a wife because, in accordance with Vaishnava customs, she refrained from applying vermilion in the parting of her hair and she did not cover it up with the free end of her sari. Also, she left her home (with her husband or with Kalpana) to go singing on the trains. Her contact with others was also something that she drew attention to when stating that because she could sing and play an instrument, she met

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with other people, in contrast to the neighbor women who remained at home, and therefore lacked a social network beyond their family ties. In this respect, Bara Ma provided an alternative model of identification. She traveled to distant places, made contact with other Vaishnava mendicants, which meant that she could settle at an ashram somewhere else if and when her current situation became intolerable. She was not wholly dependent on natal kin. To Tara, Bara Ma was an ideal in other respects as well. In keeping with the Vaishnava path, she subsisted on a niramish diet – consisting of foods classified as cool – to balance her intake of “hot” bodily emissions. She could recount mythological tales and knew a number of songs, and because of her devotion she had managed to bring Tara’s parents together. Tara’s trust in Bara Ma’s ability to mediate conflict was evident on another occasion as well. Her husband had helped himself to a portion of snuff offered by a friend while shopping at the market. Tara, who was standing by, had grown hysterical and a neighbor woman who happened to observe them went home to notify Kalpana. Hearing what had happened, Kalpana asked me to accompany her, whereupon the two of us set out to look for them. We found them at the station seated on a bench. On seeing us, they shyly explained that each of them had separately decided to take a train to Bara Ma’s village in the hope of finding her at home so that she could soothe them. While Tara recounted her past, I had noted that her brother did not figure in the narrative. He made a living as a tea vendor, selling tea to passengers on passing trains, and was currently living with his wife and two daughters in a hovel by the roadside leading to the station. (During my first visit he lived in an adobe house on his mother’s property, but since his wife and mother did not get along, they moved.) Tara said that her father tried to teach him how to sing, but gave up teaching him when he did not manage. In consequence, after Bara Ma had moved away, the family lived off the money that Tara’s mother earned at the detention facility and the money that Tara and her father were able to collect on the train when singing. Several months later, Tara related another episode that serves to illustrate her reliance on her father. We were in a different village about to give a concert, waiting for our turn to sing. A stout woman surrounded by musicians was singing kirtan songs on stage. These songs are dramatizations of mythological tales about Krishna and Radha, a genre that Tara’s mother was particularly fond of. During one such performance in our neighborhood, she sat listening with her head resting in the cup of her hand, gazing dreamily at the singer. But I knew that Tara disliked kirtan, so I was surprised to learn that she could sing them. Speaking softly so as not to disturb the audience, she said that when she was a little girl, begging with her father, a female passenger had praised her voice, then asked her father whether she might take his daughter to Kolkata to teach her kirtan. Her father had consented, but the woman turned out to be a troublemaker (badmas). She did not provide Tara with good clothes to wear during performances. Nor did she give her proper food, but had mixed a bunch of vegetables together, cooking them up with

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lentils (dal). Also, she kept all the money that they earned to herself. So Tara wrote a letter to her father, asking him to take her home, and then the two resumed singing on the trains together. At one point, when I inquired how they got along after Bara Ma had left them, Tara said that her parents continued to argue, that their house was never peaceful (santi). But things got worse when her father took another wife. Like Bara Ma, this woman was a Vaishnava sadhu, dressed in white. Her father slept with his new wife in the main room of the hut, while Sunita, Tara and her brother had to move into the small room beside the hearth. A few months later, she conceived a baby girl named Dipa. Although Tara’s mother had always suffered from a weak constitution, she was taken seriously ill after Dipa was born. Tara could not recall exactly when it happened, but said her mother grew anemic, and therefore much too weak to work, and so Dipa’s mother took over her job working at the detention facility. They all continued to live together, although eventually Muni Baba, Dipa and Dipa’s mother moved away, the reason being that Tara’s parents continued to quarrel. The following period was difficult. Having given up her job to Dipa’s mother, Sunita had no income. And Tara was too young to go singing on the trains alone. Then her brother ran away to Kolkata with a friend, where he worked in a tea stall, run by his friend’s relations. “My brother was full of mischief,” she said. “He just left,” which meant that Tara and her mother were by themselves. In trying to provide for the family, Sunita removed Tara from school and sent her to the fields where she picked wild spinach, gathering the leaves in a basket and selling it to villagers, charging one rupee for a kilo. “That’s what we ate,” said Tara, “spinach and rice.” When times were hard, she said, she and her mother did not even have rice to eat, but subsisted on spinach. Although I did not know it at the time, I soon learned that rice and spinach is a meager diet. The only thing considered worse is rice accompanied with salt. Tara’s sister-in-law Kalpana made it a habit of teasing me whenever I asked her what we would eat for our midday meal. She said, “I think that we’ll have rice and spinach,” and then she would screw up her face, affecting surprise, “Oh, there’s no spinach left, so we’ll just have rice and salt. Will that do?” But such a diet is not considered adequate to live on. Tara’s eyes watered as she talked about these hardships. Fortunately, the situation changed for the better. Sunita got her job back. Tara’s brother returned from Kolkata. And Muni Baba too eventually moved back. But Dipa’s mother continued to live apart, supporting herself and her daughter by means of begging. Although they no longer kept in touch with Dipa’s mother, Dipa herself, who was now a grown woman with children of her own, would visit now and then, and she gave news of her mother’s affairs. Regarding Tara’s own troubles, I never detected a note of anger in her voice when she spoke of her father, despite the fact that he had been responsible for much of her hardship by leaving her family twice. Instead, she seemed to

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doubt that her father cared for her. One evening as we crossed the fields at dusk, returning home after visiting an old school friend, Tara told me that her father did not love her. “He loves his other daughter, Dipa,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes. In an effort to console her, I said, “I think he loves you too,” but Tara disagreed. “Remember the sari you gave him when you first came to visit, which was intended for me? I never got it. He gave it to Dipa. He loves her more.” Somewhat startled, I walked on in silence. After a while I asked her, “Why would he love Dipa more than you?” She said, “Who knows.”

Tara’s first flow Although Tara was often sad when she spoke about her father, there were times when she referred to him with dignity and pride. As already noted, she said that she was able to sing in spite of feeling weak because she was his daughter. Aside from that, there was one specific event that she was particularly proud of, in which her father had played a pivotal role. She ingested her own menstrual blood when it first appeared. Although Tara, her husband and I were alone, she related the story in a hushed and serious manner. She closed the door leading out to the road so that the neighbors would not enter. Her son, Papay, was playing cricket in the fields. Kalpana was visiting a friend. Karun was frying fish, and Tara and I were cleaning spinach in the courtyard. She said, “It is all right to speak of the matter, as long as we are by ourselves. I cannot tell regular people. They would be disgusted. They would not understand.” The attitude that she assumed when describing this event differed from the way she behaved when speaking of her hardships. Not only was she proud of what she told me, but she noted that the subject was directly linked to my research, and suggested that I get my notebook so that I could write down what she said. So I left off cleaning spinach, fetched my pen and book, and seated myself beside her, writing while she talked. Tara said that she was twelve years old when she got her period. She told her mother, who told her father. And her father went to their family guru, to tell him what had happened and to give him the piece of cloth containing the drops of menstrual blood, which Tara termed rup, a word connoting color, form and beauty. Her guru then invited other sadhus to his ashram for the forthcoming event. “Great, great sadhus gathered together to partake in the new rup. It is a very good thing. If my son had been a girl,” she added, “great sadhus would come to my house, asking me to invite them. Few people manage to obtain it.” Tara’s father had prepared himself ahead of time by purchasing a piece of cotton cloth (nekra) at the market so that she could wear it when her rup appeared. The type of cloth that she referred to is the type that male renouncers wear on a daily basis. It is also wound around the forehead when a person takes initiation into bhek (Vaishnava renunciation) and at death when she or he is buried. Tara’s father gave the blood-stained cloth to the family

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guru. He set it aside and then sent out a number of invitations to various sadhus informing them about the upcoming event when the flow would be ingested. Once the Vaishnava sadhus gathered at her guru’s ashram, her guru rinsed the cloth in water before he let it soak in a mixture made of four different ingredients including cow’s milk, green coconut juice, camphor and palm juice (dudh, dab, karpur and micri). These added ingredients created a pleasant fragrance, and they also served to cool the heating properties inherent in her flow. White sugar cakes (batasha) were also added to sweeten the ingredients. Tara said, “The mixture of red rup and white milk yielded a juicy (sorbat) substance, bearing the color pink (golapi). Milk,” she mused, “is very strange. It draws the red rup out of the cloth, so that the cloth turns white again.” On the surface, the sacredness that Tara and other Vaishnava mendicants attribute to the female substance appears remarkable in light of the ethnography reported across the Indian subcontinent where a woman’s flow is linked to female sexuality, conceived as negatively valued.20 The Vaishnava practice of ingesting the female flow might easily be viewed as an inversion of mainstream values, a view in keeping with Mary Douglas’s model positing that body substances are anomalous – that is, matter out of place, difficult to fit into a clear-cut category – and thus perceived as either pure or dirty.21 Douglas’s well-known thesis, that “the body is a model that can stand for any bounded system,” has been criticized by authors who maintain that people do not view the body as impermeable and closed,22 and who also fault her structural approach for assuming that the meaning ascribed to body substances is fixed rather than fluid.23 Consonant with these assessments, I found that the sacredness that Vaishnavas attribute to the female flow varies with context and with circumstances; it is treated as pure in certain instances, but not subjected to special care in everyday behavior. For instance, although Tara often likened her period to the river Ganges, during the time I spent with her she never treated her monthly flow as a sacred substance or indicated that I should do so. Like laywomen, we both wore rags torn up from cast-off saris, which we washed before we hung them up to dry behind the house in an area that was not swept clean and where bits of trash tended to accumulate. Tara went on to tell me that when the different ingredients had merged, the coconut shell containing the fluid was passed around to those present. Each sadhu, her parents and she herself took a sip. She cupped her hands to illustrate the amount that they ingested, and smiled at me while saying, “We drank a tiny little bit,” implying that others might be disgusted by the act. But her smile also indicated pride at knowing something that most laywomen and men do not know: that a woman’s first flow is beneficent. Karun, who was listening and who had never had the opportunity to ingest a woman’s first flow, exclaimed that Tara had been fortunate. “A woman’s first rup makes you healthy,” he explained, adding that the liquid is also very beautiful. “All the colors of the river Ganges are present in the first rup. It bears the true colors

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(asal rang) contained in the river Ganges,” Karun said, meaning that the substance is primordial.24

Ceremony of initiation: a mother and a daughter Tara said she was fifteen when she and her mother received a sannyas mantra (bhek), a sacred syllable whispered through the forehead, marking their initiation into renunciation. “The event was very sad. People cried.” “Why?” I asked her. “Because receiving bhek means that you do tyag.” “What is tyag?” “It means that you cannot bear children. If you get a sannyas mantra and still conceive, other sadhus will bad-mouth you, saying that you are not a sadhu.” When I asked her why she wanted to become a sadhu, Tara said that she made the decision because Bara Ma had taught her that being a Vaishnava is a good thing. This was also why her mother took the step. Her father was not mentioned as a motivating force, although he played a key role by initiating the event, as he did when Tara’s first flow had been ingested. During the course of the ceremony, Tara and her mother received new ochre saris and white strips of cotton cloth (dor-kaupin), which they wore around their foreheads, and which resemble the strips of cotton that males initiated into bhek wear around their genitals. In keeping with van Gennep’s three-part division, the ceremony signifies a social death whereby initiates relinquish their social identity and are separated for a three-day period, before emerging from their period of seclusion, a step which signifies that they have been born anew.25 Emphasizing birth, Tara said, “This is why our clothes were new and why we cut our hair. A newborn baby has no hair. Everything is new.” But then she said that she and her mother did not remove their hair completely: “You feel bad seeing a woman without hair, so we just cut off a little bit,” adding, “Indian women love big hair. Short hair makes you look like a boy. Only women who are doctors and teachers or those who marry men with very good jobs cut their hair. Long thick hair, beautiful eyes and breasts are female attributes, although hair is particularly feminine.” Tara pulled a few strands from the nape of her neck to show me what she cut. The ceremony lasted three days, during which she sat in a room where she was fed boiled rice and boiled potatoes, both of which lacked salt and spices. When the three-day period was over, her guru gave her the sannyas mantra through her forehead. After this, her adopted alms-mother (bhiksha ma) entered the room to give her rice grains (cal), which was actually a bit of sweet rice pudding. She also gave Tara a brass plate with the word “auspicious” (mangal) inscribed upon the surface. At this point, Tara fetched the plate of brass to show me, explaining that the plate and rice she got are known as bhiksha (alms), and that receiving them meant that she would have to spend the rest of her life living off the food and money she collected while begging. Tara’s mother had received a different bhiksha ma who had died during the

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summer in 1996. I met her briefly once. Sunita kept a picture of her taken on the day she had been buried, showing her seated upright with her legs crossed, wearing a white sari, strips of white cotton cloth (dor-kaupin) wrapped around her head, and horizontal tilak marks drawn upon her forehead. She continued with her explanation, saying that to be reborn as a Vaishnava entails that you receive a new set of parents. “My guru provided the seed (bij), so he is like a father. You call him baba. The mantra that he whispered through my forehead is the seed. The bhiksha ma is like a mother, since she gives food and this is why you call her ma (mother). She is the first person that you set eyes on after taking sannyas, just like mothers are the first people babies see when they are born.” At this point Karun interceded, stating that nowadays babies see the doctor first, since women give birth at the hospital. Tara quickly replied, “Well, then, the doctor is like our Dayal guru, and the mother is like the bhiksha ma.” Turning to me, she proceeded with her interpretation: “When I got a sannyas mantra, I also got a new name as babies do when they are born. The name that I received was Tulsi, while my mother was called Sabriti. In both cases the first letter (akkar) of our old names were transferred to our new names. This is the Vaishnava custom.” Although I will elaborate on the significance of taking bhek in Chapter 4, it is worth noting that the three-day fasting period when the initiate must remain secluded parallels a fetus’s temporary stay within a woman’s womb. Also, the fact that the initiate assumes a new birth is represented by her acquisition of a new set of parents, new clothing and a new name. Similarly, the eating of the first rice parallels the life-cycle rite carried out by laypersons when feeding rice to infants (mukhe bath). Birth and sustenance were themes that Tara drew attention to, where the relationships established were expressed in terms of kinship ties. She also compared the ceremony to the Muslim act of circumcision and to the rite a Brahman boy goes through when he receives a sacred thread. But she emphasized the fact that Vaishnavas differ in that women also undergo the rite, implying that they are treated as men’s equals. Tara said the other kids in the neighborhood used to tease her for wearing the rosary (mala). That she was subjected to ridicule is not surprising since rosaries are associated with sadhus and the elderly – people whose minds are turned to God, rather than to worldly pleasure. Teenagers by contrast are preoccupied with fashion and with schoolwork, and they dreamily look forward to impending marriages. In this light, a young girl wearing a rosary appears incongruous. But Tara told me that being ridiculed never really bothered her. “When you have sannyas, you no longer feel embarrassed (lajja),” implying that renunciation necessitates the courage to be unconventional.26

Courtship: love between neighbors A couple of years after Tara received bhek, her father wanted to marry her off, so he went to the village Kartik to speak with another Baul, thinking that he would arrange a marriage with his son who also happened to be a Baul.

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But his plans failed because Tara wished to marry Karun, her neighbor across the road. In so doing, she broke with virilocal marriage settlement patterns common in north India where daughters are supposed to marry into distant villages. Although her parents were opposed to her choice of husband, Tara said she insisted on marrying Karun who at that time was still a layperson, and she expressed relief at having managed to defy her parents. Whenever we met the Baul whom her parents had wanted her to marry, she would later comment, “If I had been that singer’s wife, I would have had to stay at home cooking and cleaning for my husband, while he went singing on the trains.” She said that this had been the fate of the woman whom the singer had eventually married. She looked and behaved as a laywoman, dressed in patterned saris with vermilion in the parting of her hair, and her days were tied up cleaning and cooking for her husband, her four children and her in-laws. In defying her parent’s wishes, then, Tara managed to avoid conforming to the traditional gender role for women. She smilingly described the way her husband used to look during the time he had courted her. He used to wear a pair of pants and a shirt. His hair was short and he had a moustache. Tara pointed to a picture of him, hanging on the wall inside their hut, a black-and-white photograph taken in a studio. The close-up showed his face turned at an angle, gazing steadily into the camera lens. It hung beside another smaller photograph, also taken in a studio, which showed the family together, a year or two after they were married. In this picture, Tara looked frail, almost gaunt. Seated on her lap was her son, Papay, a toddler at the time. A thick line of kajal (kohl) lined his eyes. Tara’s husband, Karun, sat beside her dressed in ochre, resembling his present self, with long black hair and a full beard. Unfortunately, he closed his eyes just as the picture was taken. His sister, Kalpana, was seated beside him; she looked composed and was, I thought, the only person who seemed genuinely healthy, bearing the full cheeks typical of a woman in her teens. Now the situation was reversed. Kalpana had grown thin, while Tara had gained weight, so that her face was fuller and she had a slightly bulging stomach. Tara said that when her husband had proposed, she had told him she would marry him provided that he became a Vaishnava, and she added that her guru also said that this was necessary. Besides, she said, looking at me questioningly, since both of them could sing, they would be able to make a living, singing on the trains together. “It was a good arrangement, don’t you agree?”27 Tara seemed to view her relationship with Karun through the lens of bhakti, of Krishna’s love for Radha, evidenced by her portrayal (described below) of her husband playing the flute and herding cows during their courtship. But practical concerns also figured strongly in her choice to marry Karun. On their wedding day, Karun first received a sannyas mantra at Dayal guru’s ashram. He shaved off all his hair, and, like Tara and her mother, he wore strips of white cotton cloth tied around his head, while the rest of his clothes were ochre (geruya). His bhiksha ma was Dipa’s mother. In choosing

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her, Karun (and Tara) sought to strengthen the ties with her that had weakened when she broke up with Tara’s father. Being his bhiksha ma, she was the first person to enter the room where Karun was secluded to view his face, and to give him grains of rice and a bowl of brass.

Karun: playing the flute, herding the cows Karun was born in Chilluri and had lived there all his life. He was approximately ten years older than Tara, so the two had not been playmates, but they were neighbors so they saw each other daily. Moreover, Karun’s late uncle was a friend of Tara’s father. The two would sing together in the evenings, smoking ganja and teaching one another songs. Since they lived across the road from one another, Karun was also acquainted with Tara’s other relatives. When Karun’s parents were alive, his family had been large, consisting of a grandmother, maternal aunt and maternal uncle, his father and mother and five siblings of whom Karun was the oldest. They also owned a flock of cows. There were six to eight cows in the family. Karun was charged with the responsibility of looking after them and so he was removed from school after finishing the third grade. Tara smilingly told me, “He left his house at dawn, bringing a stick for herding, an umbrella to protect him from the sun, a book of songs and a bamboo flute. All day long, he remained in the fields, watching the cows, singing songs and playing his flute.” Karun specialized in “songs of separation” (biched gan) – sad songs sung by Radha longing for Krishna, (fondly nicknamed Nilmani, Kanai and Shyamarai), which he practiced in the fields. Now without Nilmani Radha’s hair is matted She is a yogini Like a deer fooled by a mirage in a desert Kanai tricks her; shows himself to Radha The winds breathe fire The sandalwood bears poison The pains of separation gradually grow stronger Like the burning summer sun that cracks the soil Shri Mati’s heart is cracking without her Shyamarai If my love does not appear, my heart will not survive In mediation Dija Baba Pati bows to the feet of the Supreme When Karun reached the age of ten, he joined a band of musicians, performing at religious gatherings, singing with his friends till eleven or twelve at night. His grandmother would serve him puffed rice (muri) when he returned. After bringing the cows back in the afternoons, he would spend the rest of the day cutting grass for fodder. The skin on his right hand,

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between his thumb and index finger, was still dark and calloused from years of cutting grass. When I questioned Karun about his family’s property, he told me that in those days the land on which they lived was larger than their present quarters. His family had a big courtyard as well as a thatched two-story mud house, and a shed where the cows were kept. The property belonged to their mother’s family. Their father hailed from a different village in Murshidabad, but had moved to Chilluri when he had married. Karun’s mother was so young that she did not even realize that the man who came to see her was her future husband. When addressing him, she called him “elder brother” (dada) which prompted her mother to correct her. Their father worked as a road repairman. Karun’s sister, Kalpana, described him as a quiet man, fond of his wife and children. After being gone for several days, working in a different district, he would return, bringing two kilos of meat, and say, “I may suddenly die one day, and then my children will go hungry. But as long as I am alive they will not suffer.” Karun said their father and mother had been very close, which was why their father was overcome with sorrow when their mother died. He hardly ate and when at home he spent his time seated on the porch, staring into space. Karun showed me how he looked, seating himself on the porch, affecting vacant eyes, his legs stretched out before him. A year after their mother died, their father passed away through grief, longing for his wife.28 Shortly after, their younger brother died, although this had been an accident. While climbing a tree, picking fruit, he slipped and fell, succumbing to the injuries he suffered. Then their uncle passed away from cancer. Their uncle made a living running a tea stall where he served chickpea stew and luchi (little puffed-up wheat breads). He had been married six times. His first five wives did not conceive, and each eventually divorced him. His sixth wife, however, gave birth to a daughter. Still, she too eventually divorced him, moving back to her natal home in Suiri. When speaking of his uncle, Karun described him as a good singer and musician (he played the harmonium). Their uncle and Muni Baba taught Karun and Kalpana to sing. But during these singing sessions, the two would smoke ganja and drink alcohol, and this, said Karun, was probably the reason why his uncle contracted throat cancer. Kalpana interjected, “Our uncle looked after us when our parents died. And we took care of him when he was sick with cancer. It took him several months to die. Towards the end, he was so sick he could only speak in a whisper. The last thing he said was ‘After I have eaten rice, I will go home.’” The subject of their uncle’s death was raised again a few months later. I had been gone a week to visit a friend in Chennai, but had told Tara and Karun the date and time of my return. It was the first occasion that I had left them for several days in a row, and I would be leaving permanently one month later. When I arrived, Karun and his friend Hari, a flute player, came to meet me at the station. Karun took my backpack and, without a word, started back to the village. Proceeding briskly down the path, he abruptly

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slowed his pace and stood waiting for me to catch up with him. When I did, he started speaking of his uncle’s death. Karun looked at me intently, “When my uncle realized that he was going to die, he said he wished to give me his savings, since he looked upon me and my siblings as his own children. But in spite of my uncle’s wishes, I decided to give the sum of money to my uncle’s sixth wife and her daughter. I wanted to do this even though she never came to see my uncle when he was sick with cancer. I went to Suiri, and I gave my uncle’s earnings to her, saying, ‘You can have the money. I don’t want it. Instead, I would like to have a present. If you give me a harmonium, that would make me happy.’ But,” said Karun, staring at me wide-eyed as if in disbelief at what had happened, “she never gave it to me.” I had never seen Karun so excited, and I was somewhat taken aback, wondering whether his agitation stemmed from the fact that I had been away. Perhaps my absence reminded him of my imminent departure. Perhaps in telling me this story, he was trying to communicate to me that he was hoping that I would continue to support them economically after I went back to Norway. Later in the day, when the subject was resumed on my initiative, Karun said that their financial situation had been difficult when their uncle passed away. They had fallen into debt at the pharmacy, and in order to pay for their uncle’s medication as well as the subsequent funeral expenses, all the cows they had were sold. Part of the property was given to their mother’s younger sister when she married. Another part was put up for sale. The rest of their property was divided among the three remaining brothers so that each of them could build a house along the road. Karun’s house stood at the corner. His middle brother, Gopal, built his house next door where he settled with his wife, Chayna, a woman from the same neighborhood. And Dukhi, the youngest of the three, erected his house next to Gopal’s quarters.

Kalpana: a promising student Karun’s sister, Kalpana, was the only daughter in the family. Prior to her birth, her father had offered food and clothing to the goddess Tara, asking her to give him a girl. His wife conceived, but died too soon for Kalpana to remember her clearly. One day, she brought me over to her brother Dukhi’s house to show me a picture of her parents. After seating ourselves on the platform bed, Dukhi’s wife, Mira, served us tea. She waited until we had finished it, then she pulled out a metal chest from underneath the bed. There was a black-and-white photograph stuck among the leaves of an old notebook. Mira removed the picture and handed it to me. Its edges were worn and the print was beginning to fade. Kalpana sat beside me, crying silently as I examined the picture, showing her parents as newlyweds. The picture had been taken in a studio, and they were staring gravely into the camera. The girl appeared to be thirteen or so. Her feet were bare, and her sari was crinkled as if it had been hastily wrapped around her. Her husband, seated next to her,

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looked two or three years older. His feet were also bare and he was simply dressed, wearing white cotton drawstring pajamas and a dark shirt. A young girl sat beside them; she had evidently moved just as the picture had been taken for her face was blurred. Kalpana said the little girl was her mother’s sister, and she entreated me to bring the picture back with me to Norway, so that I could erase the image of her aunt. “That way,” she said, “we can do puja to our parents. This we cannot do as long as my aunt who is alive figures in the photograph.” I assented, placing the picture of her parents into one of my own notebooks and sticking it into my backpack as soon as we came home. Kalpana said she missed her parents, and she called herself unfortunate for not having them around. “Parents are sweet. They worry about you, touching your forehead to check if you have a fever.” Once, when speaking of her father, she said, “Since my father’s mother was dead, he called me mother, and I called him son” (this is a common term of endearment among fathers and daughters). Lamenting the loss of his affection, Kalpana said, “My father would tell me not to stand in the sun. He was afraid that my skin would redden and he wanted to make sure that I would stay healthy.” Because Kalpana was albino, she was sensitive to the sun. During the hot summer months, when she carried water, she piled the free end of her sari on top of her head to shield it from the burning rays, but her face and arms would flush and crack. Still, she shrugged it off. When she accompanied me to the post office, I always brought an umbrella along, but Kalpana insisted that she did not need one, stating, “I’m a wooden girl. I can manage.” Nor did she try to improve her looks by coloring her hair a darker shade. Her father used to give her scented soap to use for washing her hair, and he dyed it black. Once, he had a picture of her taken in a studio, with her hair dyed black and braided. He had also given her heron to eat, hoping that her skin would darken from eating the flesh of a white bird. “My father was illiterate and ignorant,” she said, meaning that although he was uneducated, he acted out of kindness when trying to improve her looks and worrying about her constitution. Kalpana had never married, but insisted that she was content. Marriage had been out of the question. They lacked money for the dowry, and, besides, she claimed she did not wish to marry. When her parents passed away, and the property was divided into three separate sections, her intention had been to live with Gopal and his wife, Chayna. Kalpana described her brother Gopal as a quiet, hardworking man who resembled their father, for he was also a road repairman, which meant that he was often gone several days in a row working in a different district. Also, like their father, Gopal frequently brought fish or meat from the market when returning home after being away for several days, cooking up the meal himself. But although Kalpana was fond of him, Gopal and his wife, Chayna, often quarreled, and because of this, she decided to join her older brother, Karun, and his wife. She took the mantra known as diksha (initiation), and received a rosary of tulsi beads as a

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sign of her identity as a Vaishnava devotee, and she went begging on the trains with Tara, thereby contributing money to the household. Unlike her brother and his wife, she had never married, and in consequence Tara's and her husband's guru claimed there was no need for her to acquire the other mantras. Kalpana remarked that a former teacher would occasionally pass her on the road, lamenting the fact that she had not continued with her schooling. She had been a promising student – her favorite subject had been drama – but she quit after finishing the fifth grade. During her school years, she would assist her aunt and grandmother with chores at home in the early-morning hours, and then, when she was through, attended classes from ten o’clock until the afternoon. Early-morning classes were reserved for slow learners and Kalpana had been clever. Still, despite the fact that she quit at an early age, Kalpana still made use of her education. In the evenings, she ran a literacy center, teaching illiterate women and children how to read and write. Moreover, she was interested in politics and had run for the seat of commissioner representing the Congress party in 1995, a position she almost secured, losing by just 106 votes. During the campaign, a journalist had interviewed her, asking her how much schooling she had had. She had told him she was forced to quit after finishing the fifth grade. He also asked her whether she was married, and she had told him no. The next question that he posed was how she made a living, to which she answered that she made her living singing songs on trains and giving concerts. At this, the journalist inquired whether she preferred politics to singing songs, to which Kalpana replied that she liked singing, and that singing was her caste duty (jatir karma). The final question that he posed was: “As a commissioner how will you perform your job? If someone needs your help, will you attend to that person or will you go singing on the train first, and then look after the person in need?” Kalpana responded saying, “If someone requires my help, I will attend to that person first. After that I will go singing.” At this the journalist remarked, “You’re smart.” Kalpana showed me the interview that had been printed in the newspaper; after I read it through, she said that her political rivals had accused her of lying when the article appeared. “But now,” she said, “the people who voted for the CPI(M) [the Communist Party of India (Marxist)] regret that they did not vote for me. They tell me that their situation has not improved and that they should have trusted me to do the work of a commissioner.” Karun also frequently commented that Kalpana was smart, pointing out that she had written lyrics about the necessity of learning how to read and write, and that the two of them would later compose the melody together. Aside from that, she was also complimented for her singing. I knew this to be a fact, for on two occasions a stranger stopped me in the streets, praising my voice, thinking I was Kalpana. At times, when attending a festival, I would observe a man or woman from the audience pin rupee notes on to her sari as a “prize” to honor her singing. And during the concerts that we held, people often asked her to do an encore. When Kalpana sang, she delivered her songs

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in a piercing manner, carrying the tune so forcefully and phrasing the melody in such a way that the audience would murmur and wiggle their heads in appreciation. In this she resembled her brother Karun who likewise had an undulating voluminous voice, with a sharp “feminine” edge, recognized and respected by fellow musicians as well as by people in the audience. When Kalpana spoke about her voice, however, she spoke modestly, saying, “My elder sister, Tara, learned to sing when she was little. I learned to sing late in life. My voice is not as good.”

Tara’s Vaishnava wedding: white and yellow flowers Because her grandmother disapproved of their self-chosen match, Kalpana was not allowed to attend Tara and Karun’s wedding. She also thought it inappropriate for a single girl to venture to a Vaishnava ashram. But her younger brother, Dukhi, and her older brother, Gopal, were allowed to go. Even though their aunt and grandmother had been opposed to the wedding, they presented Tara and her husband with a wedding gift consisting of a metal trunk. Tara’s parents were not so generous. Although their Dayal guru had accepted the match and had assumed the responsibility for conducting the ceremony, her parents refused to attend. As a wedding gift, Sunita gave her daughter and prospective son-in-law a goblet and a plate made from aluminum, a gesture that Tara regarded as insulting since, according to custom, one should give articles of brass. One of the passengers on the train where she went singing had been kind to her, however, giving her a brass water vessel. No one else supported them, which meant they had to rely on their own resources to pay for the wedding expenses, including the fees paid out to Baul singers, the meal served when the singing was completed, and the new clothes that they had worn when the ceremony took place. “There were lots of sadhus present,” Tara said. We were sitting in the courtyard, peeling potatoes while she was trying to recall what happened on her wedding day. She said, “All through the night, ‘songs of separation’ (biched gan) were sung,” describing Krishna’s longing for Radha. “And the final song performed was a ‘together song’ (milan gan).” The wedding took place at night at Dayal guru’s ashram. Tara and her husband were seated opposite each other on the ground beside their guru. A stone plate was placed before them, containing five different sweets, flowers, milk, sandalwood, as well as two large flower garlands made from little white akanda flowers. Both Tara and Karun had smaller chains of these same white flowers wound around their wrists, upper arms and necks. They were also dressed in ochre (geruya). “My blouse and petticoat, everything was ochre,” and then she added that since Karun received a sannyas mantra earlier that morning, his crown was bald. She smiled as she recalled Karun’s little brother, Dukhi, who had burst out crying when he saw his older brother with a shaven head. Having recently experienced the death of his father, brother and uncle,

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Dukhi thought a relative had died again, and so Karun had to explain to him that in this case he had shorn his hair because he had received a sannyas mantra. Tara went on to say that her guru had conducted the ceremony by uttering lots of mantras, consisting of different Vaishnava mantras, but she said that she could not remember them. After a slight pause she quickly added that their Dayal guru called the sun and the moon, telling them to watch the wedding. “He did this so that the gods would not become upset.” Her guru next instructed her to give him sweets, after which Karun gave him sweets. Then Tara gave Karun sweets, and Karun gave her sweets in return. They repeated the gestures using milk. When this exchange had been completed, Dayal guru made a paste out of sandalwood and water, and told Tara to dip a yellow flower named karabi into the paste. She proceeded to make a mark on Karun’s forehead with the bell-shaped flower. Following Dayal guru’s instructions, Karun repeated the gesture, making a similar white mark on Tara’s forehead by means of another karabi flower. After this, Tara picked up the garland of little white akanda flowers, placing the garland around Karun’s neck. He picked up the remaining garland, giving it to Tara. Finally, a shawl was thrown above them, so that Tara’s, Karun’s and their guru’s heads were covered. While concealed beneath the shawl, their guru said, “You look at his face, and you look at her face.” The gesture, said Tara, marked the final stage of the wedding ceremony. She had stopped peeling potatoes as she was talking, applying her sole attention to the telling of the story. Their wedding, she said, differed from the weddings conducted by householders. “A Vaishnava marriage is known as mala candan. You don’t employ the term biye, which is the term employed by laypeople.” At this point, Karun joined the conversation, saying that their wedding had been simple. “When we got married, there was no commotion. Lay weddings are complicated. There are such a lot of rules you have to follow. You must have so many things. Vaishnava weddings do not have all this turmeric business. People are obliged to watch these customs, so many customs. It’s impossible to know what it all means. Poor people have to pay a lot of money just to conduct the ceremony. They pay at least five hundred rupees. Rich people pay more.” As will be discussed more fully in the following chapter, his statements should be read against the background of their lower caste identity as Muchis (leatherworker) – that is, as an implicit critique of weddings carried out by Brahman priests, which tend to be expensive, and where the meaning of the Sanskrit verses are not accessible to people with a lower-caste identity, who were formerly barred from reading Vedic scriptures.

Building a house It took Tara and Karun a year to save the money they needed to build a house after they were married. Matters were complicated by the fact that

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Karun had been sick with bronchitis, which meant that he had not been able to contribute the money they had needed to build their house. So despite the fact that Tara was pregnant at the time, she went begging with Kalpana, singing on the trains. Kalpana said, “In the morning we collected money for food. In the evening we collected the money we needed in order to build the house.” When Tara gave birth to Papay, she brought him along, handing him to one of the passengers while she sang and played the cymbals. Because she had been singing on the same train since she was a child, all the passengers knew her, she said, and so they did not mind having to hold her baby. While they were saving money to build their house, Tara and Karun first lived in Karun’s natal home on the second floor. Later, when the house was torn down to make room for the new houses to be built (after their property had been divided among his brothers), the two moved in with Dipa’s mother, renting a room in her quarters for which they paid a monthly sum of fifty rupees. I visited the site in 2006. Tara’s half-sister Dipa, then divorced, was living in the housing complex with her mother. The complex was made up of a number of attached huts, each consisting of a single room, fronted by a porch and sublet by Dipa’s mother to Vaishnava mendicants. 29 Tara said they never quarreled with Dipa’s mother. “We moved before an argument arose. But now we are afraid of her. She says nasty things. So when Karun sees his bhiksha ma walking down the road, he turns his head away.” Tara gave a sigh and said, “His bhiksha ma.” After leaving Dipa’s mother, they moved in with Tara’s parents who let them sleep in the tiny room opposite the hearth where the cow-dung cakes are kept, and where Tara, her brother and mother had been forced to stay when Muni Baba took up with Dipa’s mother. Kalpana had joined them. She had, until then, been living with her brother Gopal and his wife, Chayna, but being unable to endure their arguments she moved. As it turned out, however, the atmosphere in Tara’s parents’ house was also tense. They had not been able to reconcile themselves to the fact that Tara married Karun. Nor did they sympathize with their struggle to save money to build a house. Once Sunita gave Tara a single rupee, saying, “Take this, you can buy an egg to eat,” mocking her daughter’s efforts to economize. They were especially angry with Tara when they discovered she was pregnant. Muni Baba told her that everyone would laugh at her for taking sannyas and then becoming pregnant. He did not tell her this directly to her face, but she heard it from another Baul, and he told Tara what her father said. This made Tara angry, so she confronted her father, saying, “You took sannyas, and yet you had a daughter, so how can you blame me for becoming pregnant?” But her parents’ anger subsided when she delivered her baby. Then, a few months later, they moved into their own separate quarters diagonally across the road. Since then they had managed to get along quite peacefully, although Tara once remarked that she wished the distance between her house and that of her parents had been greater. Still, despite the proximity, she did not wish to move.

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Nothing new That the bhek (sannyas) ceremony marked a new beginning was symbolized by the shaving of hair, the putting on of new ochre clothes, receiving a new name and a new set of parents, further symbolized by the act of ingesting a bit of sweet rice pudding, a ceremony known as “first rice” or “mouth rice” (mukhe bhat), also carried out for infants a few months after they are born. But initiation into bhek did not entail a transformation of their lives. Tara’s mother did not give up her job. Tara went begging, but she had done so for many years since she was a child, so nothing really changed after taking bhek. Perhaps it did for Karun? His sister Kalpana, however, went begging even though she lacked this mantra. Interestingly, too, with the exception of Sunita, all had previous experiences with the performing arts. Tara’s father made his living as an actor prior to becoming a Baul singer. Karun used to sing with a group of musicians, performing songs at religious celebrations, while Kalpana had had some experience of acting when she went to school. She and her brother took singing lessons from their uncle, while Muni Baba taught his daughter, Tara. In this sense, too, becoming a performing Baul and mendicant did not constitute a radical departure from their prior lives. It did not entail a life in limbo, which is how the path might easily appear to laypersons without experience and connections with Vaishnavas.30 Still, begging for alms is not an easy venture. It requires humility as well as courage. Although Sunita disliked her job, she felt too shy to beg. To her, becoming a Vaishnava through initiation was largely an act of devotion and a source of solace and diversion,31 whereas her daughter Tara and her husband seemed to view initiation into bhek as a matter of commitment. Tara’s choice to marry Karun, rather than the Baul whom her parents singled out as suitable for marriage, was in part a means of trying to ensure that she would not end up having to remain at home, cooking and cleaning for a husband who might abandon her. As Khandelwal points out, “renunciation is (at least potentially) an act of transgression,” creating “a site for undetermination” that allows women to elude the expectations of normative society.32 Indeed, the Vaishnava emphasis on menstrual blood as beneficent may hold particular appeal for women, as it did for Tara who had had first-hand experience of ingesting her menarche. In claiming that great sadhus had been present during this event, she strengthened a rhetoric that accentuates the value of womanhood where wives are viewed as indispensable in the pursuit of liberation. As I elaborate more fully in the following chapter, many initiated Vaishnavas view their path as an alternative to Brahmanism, claiming that they do not need the presence of a priestly go-between. The emphasis on menstrual blood and other bodily emissions as sacred health-inducing substances may certainly be read as a reaction to Brahman rules of purity. Still, resistance is not the sole motivating force leading women and men to pursue the Baul and Vaishnava path. While renunciation does indeed “provide asylum” for those unable to conform,33

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and while it does allow women to renounce society’s hold on them,34 Tara and her relatives also viewed the path as valuable in and of itself. As I note in the proceeding chapters, devoting one’s life to serving God through singing songs for alms was repeatedly described to me as an act of piety and beauty, a source of pride and self-respect, where wandering through begging renders others (par) their own (apon), and where begging entails that strangers are transformed into intimate relations, who should see it as their duty to patronize singers and mendicants. That this ideal appeared to be at odds with everyday experience was a source of some distress.

Notes 1 Like Sidney Mintz, whose curiosity was kindled when learning that his friend and interlocutor Don Taso had converted to the Revivalist Church, I was curious as to why the people that I worked with had chosen to become Vaishnavas (see Mintz [1960] 1974: 96, 257). Knowing that they were poor also made me wonder why they would choose a path that entails a hand-to-mouth existence. 2 Knight 2006, 2011. 3 Mintz 1979: 25–6. 4 Arnold and Blackburn 2004: 6. 5 Arnold and Blackburn 2004: 6. 6 The work was entitled Memoir of Catherine Brown, a Christian Indian of the Cherokee Nation Langness and Frank [1981] (1991): 15. 7 Those that came before include The Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico by Frederick Webb Hodge (1907), three short war narratives by A. L. Kroeber (1908), The Sun Dance by Wilson D. Wallis, published in 1919, and a short account about the life of a Nootka Indian by Edward Sapir published in 1920 (Langness and Frank [1981] 1991: 18). Problems of method and theory relating to life stories were not explored until the 1940s, a development probably resulting from the interest shown in psychological anthropology, where the focus was on the relationship between personality and culture, with the individual at the fore. 8 Important life history accounts published after Mintz’s narrative, include Joseph Alter’s Knowing Dil Das (2002), Ruth Behar’s Translated Woman (1993), Vincent Crapanzano’s Thuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan (1980), Louise Lamphere's Weaving Women's Lives (2007), Karen McCarthy Brown’s Mama Lola (1991), Barbara Rylko-Bauer’s biographical account of her mother’s experiences in Auschwitz, and her subsequent relocation to America (2014), James Staples’ account of a Tamil man suffering from leprosy (2014), the biography of Viramma by Viramma, Rosiane Racine and Jean-Luc Racine ([1995] 1997), also Alisse Waterston’s account of her father’s trajectory from Poland via Cuba to North America (2014). 9 Oscar Lewis 1961. 10 Explaining the appeal that the Revivalist Church in Puerto Rico has for the poor, Mintz notes that the church fills many needs. Rather than trying to inspire awe by laying stress on architecture and formal and expensive ceremony, personal feeling and spiritual exhilaration are emphasized. Also, because leaders are often of the same class, and speak in a language that followers can grasp, they are easy to approach (Mintz [1960] 1974: 258). A similar situation holds true for the Bengali Vaishnava path followed by the poor. Unlike Brahmanism, where the emphasis is on expensive ritual and Vedic scriptures, the Vaishnava path highlights personal devotion (bhakti) and simplicity. Also, gurus assume the role of guides, who teach

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13 14 15

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followers religious practice, and console and give support in times of trouble (see Roy [1972] 1992: 138–44). James Wilce notes that speaking in an idiom of suffering is common when recounting past and present tribulations in South Asia. Focusing on trouble talk in Bangladesh among the mentally ill, he writes that lamenting one’s fate is one way of voicing disapproval or resistance, but if interpreted by others as evidence of narcissism, such behavior will be silenced (Wilce 1997: 365, 1998: 42, 77). Although Sunita certainly critiqued her husband’s conduct, her behavior was not silenced. Nor were her complaints solely about resistance. As Katy Gardner notes, representing the self as a passive victim of misfortune is commonly enacted in order to construct one’s identity as honorable where suffering and pain are indicative of dignity (Gardner 2002: 59). Gardner draws her insights from Benedict Grima’s study of Paxto women’s narratives in Pakistan where lamenting one’s troubles before an audience establishes the narrator as honorable and pious (Grima 1991). She adds, however, that she feels distressed about the conclusion one might draw from reading Grima’s study: that women speak about their pain, not because their misery is genuine, but to create a favorable impression in society (Gardner 2002: 59n). It needs emphasizing, then, that vanity is not always or necessarily the reason why people wish to represent themselves as virtuous and upright. Whether it results from poverty, sickness or ill treatment by close kin, suffering is often viewed as shameful, and may elicit gossip in which the sufferer, rather than external forces, is to blame. Portraying the self as a helpless victim of life’s vicissitudes may counter potential charges of having brought misfortune and disgrace on one’s self. But this is not to say that women who portray themselves as helpless lack the ability to exercise control over material and social resources. Rather, I suggest that these attempts are ways of trying to appear unblemished, to ward off charges that the victim is at fault. Recounting past and present tribulations to an audience, as is common in north India and Pakistan (cf. Grima 1988; Narayan 2004), was not a practice I encountered among residents of Chilluri. Regarding Tara’s parents, the narratives were chiefly given in response to my persistent queries when we were alone. To give a sense of the emotional tone and the particular personalities of the people I describe, I include the context in which these dialogues took place, my aim being to describe “the culture through the people and the action” rather than focusing on key concepts as windows into their lives (Beatty 2010: 439). Minute details and the specific circumstances in which our conversations were embedded have therefore been included to illuminate Vaishnava culture as a lived experience where “words can be tested against action” (ibid.). Moreover, what remained unsaid, their silences on certain topics, is considered when interpreting the stories told (see Narayan 2004: 227). Muni Baba’s response recalls Joseph Alter’s account of Dil Das who, rather than talk about his family life and work as a dairy farmer, focused on the heroic aspects of his career as a hunter of deer and leopards. Alter humorously remarks that Dil Das’s reluctance to talk about the mundane issues and events of his past made him a “terrible informant” (Alter 2000: 90). Gross 1992: 100; Hausner 2007: 57; Khandelwal 2004: 21, 34. Knight 2011: 151; Openshaw 2007: 321. When asked to recount the story of one’s life, people often do omit or distort significant information (see Arnold and Blackburn 2004: 16; Langness and Frank [1981] 1991: 56; Mintz [1960] 1974: 263–4). In discussing her fieldwork and why people remain silent on certain topics when speaking of their past, Kirin Narayan has noted that “ellipses and omissions” were made use of to maintain family honor (2004: 235). In Muni Baba’s case, however, his own honor was at stake. Tara’s telling me her story, and the shape it took, underscores the point that life stories are collaborative ventures between interlocutors and ethnographers. Also,

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18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Life stories: taking the plunge that in order to acquire insight about a person’s life, it is important to be present during daily activities, as well as during extraordinary occasions (Langness and Frank [1981] 1991: 45). Arnold and Blackburn note that scholars attempting to construct life histories often find themselves “dealing with the shadows cast by other ‘lives’ – by the way our subjects are consciously or unwittingly invoking as a model for their life that of an authoritative family member, a saint, a guru, or a cinema idol” (Arnold and Blackburn 2004: 12). It is also likely that taking up the path served to lend legitimacy to her spiritual and musical pursuits (Knight 2006: 192–3; Hausner 2007: 43–4). Becoming a widow or a divorcee is a trajectory feared by many women, including singers of Baul songs who often emphasize the value of matrimony even when subjected to domestic violence. Knight notes that, at the same time, the Baul path provides single women with “another leg to stand” in that begging constitutes a source of income (2011: 158). In discussing what it means to be a woman, Tara seemed to be implying that Baul and Vaishnava women differ from “ordinary” laywomen in that they are not perceived as objects to be covered and enclosed by men, which, as Wardlow states in her work on women in New Guinea, is a common way of visualizing women where patriarchal values are pronounced (Wardlow 2006: 12; see also Hansen 1992: 23). Although many laypeople perceive the Vaishnava path through the lens of piety where begging is condoned, women risk being subjected to harassment, and so for safety reasons younger women seldom beg alone, but do so with their spouse or in the company of other Vaishnava or Baul women. See Bennett 1983: 252; Kakar [1978] 1994: 93; Obeyesekere [1981] 1984: 78; Trawick 1990: 278; Yalman 1963: 43. Douglas 1966: 115. Lamb 2000: 13. Buckley and Gottlieb 1988: 30–1. One might say, with E. V. Daniel, that the flow is treated as a metonym or part that represents, condenses and encompasses the river as a whole (Daniel 1984: 107–8). Van Gennep 1960; Openshaw 2007: 323. As a symbol of transition, birth also figures prominently in Vaishnava burials conducted for takers of a bhek mantra. Cf. Knight 2011: 157. Tara’s choice of spouse was in keeping with the pattern observed by Shalini Grover in a Delhi slum, where unions based on love were made between women and men living in the same neighborhood (Grover 2009: 5). Grover notes that contrary to what one might expect, these unions tend to be more stable than marriages arranged by parents. Due to recent alterations in marriage settlement patterns, daughters who marry according to their parents’ expectations also marry into households close to their natal homes. The proximity allows them to make frequent visits to their parents, especially during times of stress, which means that husbands grow resentful, and in many instances their marriages break down. By contrast, women who marry for love cannot count on parental support should conjugal difficulties arise, and must endure unhappy marriages (Grover 2009: 5, 14, 16). In Tara’s case, however, parental support was always tenuous, which was why she had no faith in her parents’ choice of spouse. And while, on the surface, her marriage seemed to be based exclusively on love, a closer reading of her narrative suggests that compatibility was an important aspect of her union. It is worth noting that Grover’s findings are based on case studies of couples who experienced conjugal discord; there is little space devoted to the significance of compatibility as facilitating marital success, which, as Khandelwal points out, is as important in matches based on love as in arranged marriages (Khandelwal 2009: 604). For Tara and her husband, mutual respect for one another’s singing capacities appeared to strengthen their

Life stories: taking the plunge

28 29 30 31 32 33 34

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relationship. Interestingly too, love (bhalobasha) was not framed in terms of modernity resulting from a novel change in lifestyle or new settlement patterns typical of urban settings (cf. Grover 2009: 18, 23). Rather, Tara viewed it through the lens of bhakti, of Krishna’s love for Radha, evidenced by her portrayal (cited below) of her husband playing the flute and herding cows during their courtship. Nor did Tara seem to view their love match as the antithesis of arranged matches (cf. Grover 2009: 24). As her narrative implied, practical concerns also figured strongly in her choice to marry Karun. See also Anne Waldrop (2012) for an interesting account of New Delhi based middle class women's practical concerns and changing attitudes to love and marriage through three generations. Love in an arranged marriage is a central theme in the third part of The Apu Trilogy by the director Satyajit Ray. Here Apu grows so distraught from losing his wife in childbirth that he wanders aimlessly for several years. As I elaborate in Chapter 4, supplementing one’s income made from begging with other means is not uncommon (see Openshaw 2002: 98, Knight 2011: 151). In Gold 2006: 260–1; see also Guha 1997: 53. Cf. Mintz [1960] 1974: 258. Khandelwal 2004: 43; see also Knight 2006: 196; Openshaw 2007: 330. Hausner 2007: 44; Gross 1992: 133, 415, 416. Knight 2011: 158.

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Aside from relatives and neighbors, there was one person with whom Tara and her parents had daily contact. This was Mr. Mukherjee, a local Congress politician and a wealthy Brahman. A commissioner at first, he became the chairman in the municipality during my second term of fieldwork. He was in his early forties; taller than most, his complexion was light, and he was one of the few people that I met apart from sadhus whose face was clean-shaven. Tara told me she had known him for a number of years, and that she first met him on the train while singing with her husband. He had asked them if he could come to see them, and since then he had made a visit nearly every single day, using their house as a base from which he established connections with others in the neighborhood in an effort to obtain their votes.1 When I first knew him, Mr. Mukherjee kept a couple of wooden fold-up chairs in Sunita’s house, leaning against the wall beside her shrine. One was for him while the other was meant for a visitor in case he had one. As soon as he arrived, he brought his chair out in the road and spent the next few hours conversing with the women and men seated on the ground in front of him as they described their plight, hoping that he might help them out. He read and translated receipts for medication or other documents that people, being unfamiliar with the English language, could not understand. He distributed tabs (rationing cards) for rice or flour that he had access to by virtue of his being a commissioner, and he listened to complaints concerning dowry demands. In return for the favors he bestowed, and hoping that he might assist them in the future, Mr. Mukherjee was invited to partake in meals served during special occasions, such as pujas, wedding and mortuary rites. Tara, Karun and Kalpana also benefited from his patronage. For instance, when Karun’s younger brother, Dukhi, fell in love with Mira, who had come to Chilluri to visit her maternal uncle, Mr. Mukherjee accompanied Karun to Kolkata to negotiate the impending marriage with her parents. I was struck by the fact that he showed his concern by sending a messenger to their house to warn them of an upcoming storm. He had heard the news at the police station and was worried that their fragile house would fall apart in the torrents of rain. Occasionally, Mr. Mukherjee gave Tara and Karun a sum of money so that they would not have to go singing on the train. He had also been responsible

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for building their latrine, although Tara said he did so chiefly to fulfill his own needs, since using the fields was something he thought disagreeable. When he built an office made of clay, he supplied the building with electricity, and at the same time he provided Tara and Karun with the means of gaining access to it without having to pay for the power they employed. The mud-thatched “office building” was divided into two sections. He reserved one room for himself, which was also where Kalpana ran a literacy center for uneducated women, and where pujas occasionally were held. The remaining half of the building, consisting of a single room with a separate entrance was given to a young couple whose parents were opposed to their wedding since the bride and groom belonged to different castes. He was a Let (fisherman), while she was a Muchi (leatherworker). Living there without having to pay rent allowed them to save up enough money to build their own house. When Mr. Mukherjee decided to run for the position as a chairman in a nearby town, he first encouraged Tara to take his place as the commissioner. And when she declined the offer, Kalpana decided to stand as a candidate. The family all supported the Congress party, and said they did so in honor of Indira Gandhi, although their ties with Mr. Mukherjee may have figured as a motivating force as well. Karun spoke of Indira Gandhi as intelligent, much more so than her father, Nehru. She could speak 108 different languages (a mythical number). Her efforts to instill birth control were also admirable: “Laypersons keep having babies. Their bodies grow weak and wasted, and in consequence they cannot feed them. People behave like dogs or pigs. There are too many people in India.” Karun felt that Indira Gandhi had been right in recommending sterilization to curb the population. A few years ago, he had attended a market in a nearby town, where there had been fireworks. One of the fireworks took the shape of Indira Gandhi. Then another appeared in the sky bearing the shape of a flower garland falling round her neck. Occasionally, Tara, Karun and Kalpana performed songs in honor of Indira Gandhi during the concerts that they held. Of the two songs I transcribed concerning her, one praised her as the mother of India. The other told the sad news of her death, and said that nine crores (ninety million people) had listened to the radio and cried when they heard she was assassinated by her bodyguard. They sang these songs if they knew their audience voted for the Congress party. Regarding Mr. Mukherjee, Kalpana described him as her guru since he had taught her how to speak into a microphone when she ran for the position of commissioner. During the election, the neighboring couple, Sudhir and Protima, living in a section of Mr. Mukkerjee’s office, had not supported Kalpana’s candidacy, but cast their vote for Sudhir’s aunt who represented the CPI(M). The reasons for doing so was that they wanted to appease their relatives who cut their ties with Sudhir when he married Protima, whose caste identity was lower than theirs. Although his aunt was illiterate, she won the election, and after this Kalpana, Tara and Karun were no longer on speaking terms with Sudhir and

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his wife. Three months later, they asked us over for a meal of chicken, and while nothing came of this, the gesture effected their reconciliation. Mr. Mukherjee’s new position as chairman meant that he did not spend as much time in the neighborhood as he had previously done. Still, he continued to visit daily, arriving on his bicycle, which the neighborhood children were allowed to play with. Sometimes he came on foot, accompanied by an armed bodyguard. Tara said that people were afraid of him after he became chairman. Men threw their bidis in the gutter in a gesture of respect when they heard his voice approaching from a distance. Then, after seating himself in the road, he requested tea and snacks from a neighbor, and the woman or child to whom the request was directed would promptly give him what he asked for. He often entered Tara and Karun’s courtyard to chat with them about his job, his family or just to watch TV. If he came while they were eating, he requested a portion of their meal. Mostly, he sat in his chair out in the road, or in Tara and Karun’s courtyard. But he also sought the company of others in the neighborhood. Once his bodyguard told Tara, “I’ve understood this much about Mr. Mukherjee. He likes the company of married women.” Others made similar remarks. Tara commented that Mr. Mukherjee’s father also used to spend his time with married women. Now his son was behaving in the same manner. “His whole lineage (bangsha) is corrupt.” I asked, “Why do women see him?” She said, “They hope that he will help their husbands find a job. Because he is the chairman, they think he has connections.” One afternoon in April, a villager accused Mr. Mukherjee of sleeping with his wife. At the time, I was seated on the steps leading to our courtyard, sipping tea alone, while Mr. Mukherjee was sitting in his customary chair across the road from me, outside his office building, when suddenly a young man appeared and started to reproach him. At this, Mr. Mukherjee rose from his chair, and then, pointing his finger at the accuser, shouted, “You have been drinking. You have been drinking.” Neighbors stood in their doorways silently watching as Mr. Mukherjee paced up and down the road, yelling furiously, the veins in his neck bulging. A sudden shower put an end to the confrontation. As the rain began to fall, Mr. Mukherjee opened his wallet and gave the man five hundred rupees, telling him to keep quiet and refrain from making trouble. Two weeks later, the man came back, but this time he was meek and quiet. He sat upon the ground in front of Mr. Mukherjee, asking his forgiveness, touching his feet, and then he started to massage his legs. Stone-faced, Mr. Mukherjee accepted the apology. When addressing me, Mr. Mukherjee always spoke in English interspersed with Hindi phrases, which meant that others were excluded from the conversation for no one else knew English. Although I answered in Bengali, he persisted in speaking English, telling me that he did so in order to practice his vocabulary, although speaking a foreign language undoubtedly gave him a chance to show himself off as a resourceful person to people in the neighborhood.

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One day he borrowed money from me – ten thousand rupees – which he paid me back in public while I was at the market, counting out the money loudly as he handed me the bills one at a time. He let me use his newly installed telephone (at a time when mobile phones had not yet been introduced), for which he did not require payment. Instead, he requested a silk sari for his wife, the price of which exceeded the amount it cost him to let me to use his phone. He was not a person to be treated lightly, yet this did not deter Tara and Karun from making fun of him. Since they had noticed that he was not too fond of music, one of their jokes was showing me how they could make him go away. Karun would fetch his ektara, pluck a string and clear his throat, saying, “I think I will sing a song,” which invariably caused Mr. Mukherjee to rise and leave their courtyard. But they warned their son, Papay, not to tease him openly, since he was what they called “a big man” (bara lok).2 One morning, Tara said we were obliged to pay a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Mukherjee. This was during Durga puja, the largest festival of the year, celebrated in honor of the goddess Durga. It was the fourth and last day of the puja, when people customarily visit their elders to pay their respects. Tara and Karun had already paid their respects to Dhiren Baba, a senior Vaishnava sadhu living just across the pond. Now they would visit Mr. Mukherjee and they suggested that I come along. As soon as we arrived, Tara made our presence known by calling out her greeting loudly as we pushed the caste-iron gate open, slipping off our sandals in the outer hall. As always, the brick house in which Mr. Mukherjee lived was full of various men, waiting to use the telephone. His daughter showed us into the main room, where we seated ourselves upon the chairs lined against the wall. A few minutes later, Mr. Mukherjee and his wife entered the room. Observing that Tara and Karun stood up, touching their feet in a gesture of pranam, I followed suit, accustomed as I was to emulating their behavior. But as I regained an upright position, I saw that Tara and Karun looked distressed, while Mr. Mukherjee and his wife were beaming, obviously pleased with this ceremonial gesture indicating subordination. No comments were made at the time, but from then on Mr. Mukherjee assumed a superior attitude when in my presence. He expected me to yield the cane stool to him when he came to visit, and, like the others, I learned to move to the porch, seating myself on a woven mat as soon as I heard his voice outside the courtyard. He also began to give me advice as to how I should behave, starting off by saying, “I am your elder. You must listen to me.” He was concerned about the fact that I was living in a mud house and invited me to stay with his wife and family, an invitation I politely declined. He also felt that it was inappropriate for a foreign woman to travel with a group of Baul singers to give programs in nearby villages. It was dangerous, he said, and he insinuated that I might be raped. It would be better for me to travel with him in a car. I assured him that Tara and Karun were able to take care of me. Except for one occasion, he did not interfere with our performances.

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On the day when we were supposed to give a May Day concert in a nearby town, Mr. Mukherjee arranged for a rickshaw driver to ride around the streets with a megaphone, proclaiming the presence of a foreign lady. The man shouted, “Memsahib will sing tonight, Kristin Hanssen, Hanssen, Hanssen.” That same evening, as I entered the premises where the program would be held, Mr. Mukherjee came up to me with two uniformed armed men who sat beside us as we waited for our turn to sing on stage. And as each of us delivered our songs, the two men stood beside us. Two weeks after this event, Mr. Mukherjee came to have a word with me. I was sitting with Sunita in her hut, keeping her company while she was eating. He seated himself on a cane stool near the doorway and then, looking down at me, he said, “I have the influence. I am chairman of this place. You just come to me. I will give police protection. When you will go to villages with Tara and Karun, people will try to eh … with memsahib. They will try conjugal relations with foreign lady.” He made a pause, and proceeded to tell me that I should not give money to Tara and Karun. “They are young,” he said. “They can sing on the train. I will give to Tara. You just give to Muni Baba. He is old.” He repeated the sentence a couple of times. “You just give to Muni Baba.” When he had finished speaking, he turned to Sunita and said, “Give me food” (using the familiar form tumi). She hurriedly set a plate for him, at which point he seated himself on a mat inside her hut, spilling rice on to the floor while eating. I left the premises to tell Tara what Mr. Mukherjee had said. Hearing this, she broke down crying. “I have suffered all my life. I have been struggling since I was ten years old. Nobody looked after me. I had no one. Why do people want to make me suffer? I don’t know.” She lay on a mat on the floor, sobbing, while I fanned her in an attempt to calm her down, assuring her that I would continue to support them economically despite what Mr. Mukherjee had said, although she continued sobbing, saying, “I can live off rice and spinach. I don’t mind, but I want my home to be peaceful.” Later in the evening, when Sunita returned from work, Tara said, “How could you give him food, after what he said to Kristin-di?” To which Sunita replied, “He was speaking in English. I did not know what he was saying. Then he asked me to give him food. What was I supposed to do? Say no?”

Caste and class Long considered a central feature of social structure in India, observers have attempted to explain caste by foregrounding specific themes including economic distribution, food transactions and ideology. Emphasizing ideology, Louis Dumont argued that caste relations are based on rules of purity where the pure ranks higher than the impure and must be held apart to avoid contamination.3 In his holistic framework, Brahmans, who study sacred scriptures and assume the role of mediators during religious worship, occupy the highest rung in a structure portrayed as a vertical line rising up into the

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air. Given this premise, the kingly function of power, associated with the consumption of meat and with waging battles, is subordinated to the Brahman priestly function, associated with scriptures and with vegetarianism. Exploring processes of ritual transactions, Gloria Goodwyn Raheja presents an altogether different view of castes. She suggests that dominant castes, defined in terms of wealth and numbers, comprise the axis around which other castes revolve.4 In the model she presents, Brahmans do not occupy the highest rung, but hold a peripheral position with respect to wealthy landholders. Like other servant castes (kamins), such as barbers, water carriers, potters and weavers, Brahmans are conceptualized as vessels appropriate for absorbing inauspiciousness.5 Raheja notes that wealthy landowners (jajman) in the village of Pahansu, Uttar Pradesh, where she carried out her fieldwork, distribute food, grains and clothing imbued with inauspicious substances as payment for the work that servant castes (kamins) perform. Servant castes are required to accept and also to digest these inauspicious substances in order to ensure successful harvests and the prosperity of their village as a whole.6 Arguably, the model that Raheja has proposed is more flexible than that suggested by Dumont, for while Dumont held that each caste is assigned a place of rank along a scale envisioned in a somewhat rigid ladder-like fashion, Raheja’s model allows for the possibility that upwardly mobile castes may claim the dominant position held by those belonging to another caste by virtue of their wealth and numbers, or they may insist that their own caste has a higher rank than that proclaimed by others. Still, as Alan Dundes notes, Raheja’s model fails to account for the institution of untouchability.7 It is in this respect that Dumont’s model proves most illuminating, although, in my view, his weakness lies in his thesis that the logic of purity serves to explain caste ranking as a whole, along with his assertion that power is divorced from and opposed to cleanliness. Indeed, Saurabh Dube critiques the stance made by Dumont as well as the approach outlined by Raheja, pointing out that while the two models differ, the underlying premise is the same insofar as power and purity continue to be treated as disconnected spheres.8 As Dube points out, the ability of Brahmans to implement rules of purity should be recognized as an expression of political dominance and power. In fact, one of Tara and Karun’s main objections to members of the Brahman caste was their refusal in the past to let others read the sacred scriptures or to worship God without the aid of Brahmans, sanctioned by the widespread conception that Brahmans are superior and pure. During our conversations, Tara and her husband, Karun, consistently referred to the phenomenon of caste as a set of customs (niyam) created by Brahmans, relegating people to certain occupations, ascribed by birth, linked to either cleanliness or filth. To Tara and her husband, as to Dumont, the basic feature of the system was the opposition between clean Brahmans and the unclean lower castes making up the bottom rung. Still, they did not express this dichotomy solely in terms of purity as Dumont proposed. In their view, Brahmans were formerly rulers and kings able to exercise power over

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lower castes perceived as weak and poor, whereas the latter were dependent on Brahmans for their livelihood. As will be made clear below, in asserting that Brahmans had devised the rules of caste, Tara and her husband denied them the honor of religious superiority, claiming this position for Vaishnava sadhus. 9

The Brahman caste To Tara and several others in the neighborhood, Mr. Mukherjee was a typical Brahman. He was rich and influential, and he employed his powers to patronize the poor as well as to enhance his own position. When speaking of Brahmans in general, Karun said, “In the past, Brahmans used to seek out the houses of low-caste villagers and help themselves to the vegetables growing in their gardens. Nobody would dare to stop them. Nor would they let people with a lower caste identity learn mantras or read the Bhagavad Gita. If they tried, Brahmans threatened them by saying, ‘Your son will die. Your lineage will be ruined. Your house will burn. You will be in danger. You should do nothing but cultivate the land.’” Karun described how Brahmans had formerly behaved: “If poor people wanted to worship God, they would have to ask a Brahman to carry out the rite. A Brahman would come to the house of a poor man, take his fruit, then offer it to God.” He added, “Brahmans always kept the greater portion to themselves while the low-caste person would only get a small sample of the offerings.” He gave an example, saying, “If ten bananas were offered to God, a Brahman would claim nine of them, leaving the poor low-caste man with only a single banana. Likewise, if a Brahman craved meat, he would tell a poor low-caste man that he wished to bless his goat. He would then impart mantras, give the owner a portion of the meat, while claiming the rest for himself.” Karun described Brahmans as a greedy group of people: “They eat a lot of meat and drink alcohol. In the past, if a Brahman liked the looks of a married woman, he would give the woman’s husband alcohol to make him drunk, and while he was sleeping, he would rape his wife.” That same afternoon, while Mr. Mukherjee was sitting in their courtyard drinking tea, Karun began to speak about the Brahman caste again, repeating some of his earlier statements, though varying the content slightly. He said that Brahmans used to visit the homes of poor low-caste people and bless them by uttering mantras, using their sacred thread, an act for which they demanded money. In the past, Brahmans referred to themselves as gods and addressed others by employing the lowly term tui. Sometimes they gave the low-caste men alcohol to drink, after which they raped their daughters, or they omitted the alcohol and simply said, “Give me your daughter.” Before, Brahmans would enter a low-caste neighborhood, see a garden in which vegetables were growing and tell the owner, “Give me a cauliflower; if you don’t, you will commit a sin” (pap). Mr. Mukherjee listened while Karun spoke, and when he was through, he told him, “It is true. In the past, some Brahmans behaved that way. But most

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of them were decent people.” Karun made no further comment, but after Mr. Mukherjee had left, he resumed speaking, directing his statements at me: “The Brahman caste and the Muslim caste do not behave well. They are troublemakers. Some of them may be good, but most of them are bad.” He added, “Times have changed. Nowadays, Brahmans do not dare to demand things from people. They know that people would beat them if they tried. Nowadays, stray dogs piss into their mouths. When Brahmans drink alcohol, they fall into the gutter, and when the dogs run by, they lift their legs and urinate into their mouths. That’s the way Brahmans behave.”10 During the months I spent in the village, Tara, Karun and Kalpana repeatedly told me that the Brahmans had made the caste system (niyam), forcing people from other castes to carry out various chores. The Brahmans had decided who would have to make their living catching fish, and who would have to fashion pots and pans. Lower castes were forced to work, farming land owned by Brahmans. Brahmans also collected taxes from the poor. If a poor man did as he was told and gave the Brahman his daughter to work for him as a servant, he would not have to pay as much as other people did, but the Brahman would rape his daughter, thereby ruining her. Karun said that Brahmans were kings (raja), so they did as they pleased. They decided how to worship deities, and made up rules on how to conduct weddings and funerals, determining how long the different castes must fast whenever a death occurs in a family. Whereas Brahmans fast for a short period, other castes must fast for several days. And whereas all other castes must eat their wedding meal (bhoj) at night, Brahmans eat their meal during the day. “Brahmans,” said Karun, “devised this system in order to make others suffer. Poor people must go without food, but Brahmans make sure that their stomachs are full.” As with the villagers with whom Wadley spoke, Brahmans were regarded as a separate group, opposed to all the other castes in terms of being powerful and wealthy.11 Tara made a distinction between big (bara) castes and little (chota) castes, although she occasionally rephrased her statement, saying, “No, not little castes, low castes.” Ignoring the middle range (Shudras, classified as clean), she said that Brahmans constitute a category of high castes (upare jati), whereas schedule (tophasili) castes were low (nice jati). And while those belonging to the Brahman castes are rich, lower castes are poor. Once I pointed out that not all Brahmans are wealthy, but that some of them are also poor, such as their Brahman friend Hari, the flute player, who made his living selling little booklets on the trains. Karun interceded, stating that the reason some Brahmans such as Hari are poor is because they had had too many children. In order to feed their families, they were forced to sell their land, and as a result they became poor like people from the lower castes. Whenever their Brahman friend Hari stopped by to visit, he often joked about his caste identity. I had brought a bottle of duty-free whiskey from the airport when I came, and although I did not drink myself, I portioned out a

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cup to those of their friends who liked to drink. Hari would usually tell me, “Give me another cup. I’m a Brahman. I drink a lot.” Unlike Hari, Mr. Mukherjee was rich. He did not drink alcohol, but Tara and Karun said that his manner of conduct was characteristic of a Brahman in most other respects. He was fond of food, especially foods regarded as heating and invigorating such as eggs and meat. His sloppy way of eating was Brahman, for bad manners were signs of arrogance, typical of Brahmans. Also, he popped prasad into his mouth without bringing it to his forehead first. Nor did he brush his right hand across the top of his head after consuming the offerings that he received. Once, Gopal’s daughter Padma (Karun’s niece) chided him for not performing the act correctly. But Mr. Mukherjee said that it was okay for him to omit the ceremony, since he was a Brahman. At this, Padma laughed and raised her eyebrows in a mocking gesture, saying, “Really, is that so?” to which Mr. Mukherjee smilingly called out, “I am a Brahman. I know all the mantras,” and he began to rattle off various syllables in a loud and ringing voice.

The greatest caste Shortly after this exchange, Mr. Mukherjee left to sit in the road in front of his office building, and I impulsively pursued the subject by asking whether there was a hierarchical difference between the various Brahman castes. I told them that a Brahman friend of theirs, whose name was Chatterjee, had said that the three best castes were the Chatterjees, Mukherjees and finally the Banerjees, in that order. At this, Karun laughed and stated that it was impossible to know which caste was greater since no matter whom you ask, those to whom the question is directed will state that their caste is superior. Still, in an effort to resolve the question, Tara offered to send her son, Papay, over to Mr. Mukherjee to ask him whether he knew which caste was greater. I stood in the doorway watching as Papay posed the question. Mr. Mukherjee answered loud and clear, smiling as he spoke. “The Mukherjee caste,” he said, “is the greatest caste of all. Except for Krishna who is a Ghosh (cow herder), all the gods are Brahmans. Shiva is a Mukherjee. His second name is Mukherjee.” I re-entered the courtyard, and Karun repeated what he had said, that people always say that the caste that they themselves belong to is the greatest. “A Banerjee will say that the Banerjees are best and so on.” The next day, a Brahman friend came by to visit. Tara had spoken warmly of their friend, whose name was Uday, who held a government position as a mailman. She said he liked to listen to their music and that he sometimes gave them twenty or thirty rupees as a token when they sang for him. After Uday had seated himself on the porch, Tara asked him whether he knew which caste was superior, the Mukherjees, the Chatterjees or the Banerjees, to which Uday replied, “The Mukherjee caste is not the greatest, for they have a Muslim lineage (bangsha). This is because they have eaten cow’s flesh. It happened a long time ago.”

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“Once,” said Uday, “there was a sage (sadhu muni) who was doing puja to God, calling out the name of Bhagavan and Krishna. Beside him was a cow disturbing his worship, grazing. To gain some peace, the sadhu cut the cow into different pieces and put the flesh away, then continued with his puja. As he called the name of God, a man called Mukherjee happened to walk by. He noticed the meat lying next to the sadhu, and felt an acute craving for it. So he took some of the flesh, the part comprising the left side of the cow’s back, and then he cooked the meat and ate it. When the sadhu finished his puja, he reassembled the cow, but discovered that a piece was missing, and this was when he realized that the Mukherjee Brahman had eaten the flesh.” Concluding his story, Uday said, “This is why the Mukherjee caste has a Muslim lineage.”12 Tara said that she had heard a different version. “The sadhu who did puja had two daughters. While he was busy doing puja, one of his daughters helped herself to a bit of cow flesh. She wished to taste the meat, and so she ate it. When she later married and gave birth to a child, this child was a Muslim. This is how Muslims arose,” she said as she finished her version of the story. The question as to which caste was the greatest remained unsettled. Their friend Uday said he did not know, and Karun insisted that it was impossible to know, since people always claim that their own caste is superior. Jagadish (a Baul living in the neighborhood), who entered the courtyard during this discussion, said that he would ask his student Swapan. As he rose from his cane stool, gathering his instrument and bag of groceries, he said, “My student is a Brahman, so he knows which caste has the highest rank.” Jagadish’s student Swapan was a young man in his early twenties, who had recently started taking singing lessons from Jagadish. Once, Jagadish had brought him over to show us how he was progressing, but as soon as they had left, Karun dryly said, “Like teacher, like student, his voice is fat,” by which he was implying that he was not particularly impressed by Jagadish’s singing either. Swapan made his living selling newspapers at the station and had made it a habit of stopping by occasionally to sell me a copy of The Statesman on his way home to eat his midday meal. But on this particular day he came to discuss the Brahman caste with me. Swapan hadn’t even sat himself down upon the floor before he stated that the man called Mukherjee had never eaten cow flesh. He wanted to eat cow flesh, but he did not actually do so. For while the sadhu was doing puja, the man called Mukherjee hid the meat away. The sadhu realized what had happened, and told him to return the piece of flesh, threatening to have him circumcised if he refrained. Swapan concluded, “Hindus do not eat beef. Only Muslims eat cow flesh.” No one said anything, so I raised the question again as to which caste was the greatest, but Swapan wavered in his response. “Before each caste was separate,” he said. “It was possible to tell which caste ranked higher, but nowadays everything is khichuri” – a dish where lentils, rice and vegetables are mixed together. He then proceeded to recount a story about the origin of Brahmans.

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“Once,” he said, “there were four Brahman brothers whose names were Bandopadhyay, Mukhyopadhyay, Cattopadhyay and Gangopadhyay. The four brothers came to this country, where they settled down and married four women who were Shudra. That is why women cannot say om,” said Swapan. “Women are not Brahmans. They do not know mantras.” Turning his attention to me, Jagadish began to speak, saying, “In this country, women do not utter their husband’s name aloud. You, Kristin, whenever you speak of your husband, you call him Christopher. Indian women do not do this ever. They say ‘my husband’ or ‘my child’s father.’ They treat their husbands as if they were gods. They give them respect (samman).” I refrained from commenting but nodded my head to show Jagadish that I had understood, when Tara suddenly remarked, “Brahmans think that they are clean, but a lot of them are dirty.” A short silence followed. It was difficult to ascertain whether Swapan had been offended by her comment, for he remained composed. Karun then told him that a Muslim friend of theirs abstained from eating onion and garlic as well as meat. At this, Jagadish began to talk about the meal he would prepare, showing us the vegetables that he had purchased at the market, which put an end to the conversation about the different castes. Mindful of the tension surrounding the issue, I did not intervene while Jagadish was talking, and later I forgot about the comment Karun made.13 As soon as the two men left the courtyard, Tara said, “I think Swapan got angry when I told him that a lot of Brahmans are dirty, and that that is why he left so soon.” She sounded slightly anxious, but grew confident while speaking, saying, “Jagadish and Bara Ma believe that Brahmans comprise a superior caste, and that they attain immediate salvation (nirban) when they die, that Brahmans do not have to be reborn, the way other people do. But only those who are illiterate voice such views. They are ignorant. There is a story in one of my son’s schoolbooks in which it is written that Brahmans formerly exploited lower castes.” Tara then repeated what I had heard from Karun, that in the past Brahmans would not let lower castes study the Bhagavad Gita. Only Brahmans were allowed to read and only Brahmans were allowed to carry out pujas, since they had learned the appropriate mantras, adding, “Brahmans do not know the meaning of the mantras that they utter. They say ‘ham kling om’ while throwing flowers on the figures of the gods and goddesses, but they do not understand what they are saying,” implying that their knowledge is completely worthless. Tara’s expression grew serious as she told me that one of the ponds in the village used to be reserved for Brahmans. During the worship (pujas) for the goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Kali, Brahmans employed the water from that specific pond when cooking their food in their Brahman households, while those belonging to a lowly caste were not allowed to use the water. She showed me the pond one day when returning home after we had visited a temple. This was during Samjan, the day preceding shiber ratri, when laywomen offer fruit and flowers to the image representing Shiva. As we started

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back to our house, a young unmarried woman from our neighborhood approached us in the road and urged us to accept a portion of her offerings. Our hands became sticky from eating what she gave us, so Tara walked down to the edge of the pond to rinse her hand, smiling as she did so, saying that this was the pond she had spoken of where only Brahmans could bathe before. When she was a little girl, she was not allowed to touch it.

Rai Das: a caste framed as dirty Despite the fact that the issue of caste was a common topic, especially their views on Brahmans, it took me quite some time before I learned the name of Tara and her husband’s caste. Since their contempt for Brahmans was pronounced, and since Tara told me they were looked upon as dirty, I realized that their caste was low, and that they were living in a low-caste neighborhood. Yet they consistently evaded my question as to what their particular caste identity was, saying, “Caste is not good. We don’t care about castes. It is a bad custom established by Brahmans.” When I replied, “Yes, I know, but what is your caste?” they said, “I don’t know, Muni Baba knows.” Muni Baba on his part insisted that his family had been Bauls for several generations. At one point I tried to ask the neighbors, but they responded similarly, replying that the caste system is bad, and that they disliked it. So, as time went by, I reconciled myself to the fact that I might never know, even though I continued to pose the question casually at regular intervals, hoping that they would disclose this information. One year later, Tara revealed her caste identity. We had finished eating our midday meal and had just retreated into the hut to take a nap in the shady interior. Tara, Karun and their son, Papay, were sitting upright on their bedding. They had spread their mats upon the floor and straightened out the quilts, while I was on the bed. Once again I posed the question, although I did not expect an answer, when Tara suddenly replied, “Rai Das.” Her voice was barely audible, so I repeated the name loud and clear to make sure I got it right while groping for my notebook. Tara whispered “Yes,” smiling shyly, then immediately implored me not to tell her father that I knew: “He has forbidden me to tell you” (nished kareche). The incident that led her to reveal her caste took place some minutes earlier. We had finished eating our meal, and were outside the house, letting our hair, still wet from our midday bath, dry in the sun. While sitting in the roadside, I noticed an old neighbor woman, eyeing us strangely and keeping a distance as she passed us. I asked Tara and Karun why she was avoiding us. Karun told me that she belonged to the sweet maker’s caste (Maira), which was why she felt superior. I said, “Is that a great caste?” to which Karun laughingly replied, “She believes her caste is great.” Tara then proceeded to explain, “The old woman thinks her caste is clean (parishkar), and views our caste as dirty (nangra), so she tries to avoid our shadow.” She continued, “When her son was younger, the woman used to make him change his clothing when he

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returned from school. He had to keep his school clothes separate from the ones he wore at home. But she only made him change if the clothes he wore were made of cotton. If he wore synthetic garments, it was okay.” Tara did not know why synthetic garments were not contaminated by the touch of a low-caste person. When I asked her why, she said, “Who knows?”14 A few days later, I asked Durga whether people in the village regarded her as dirty because of the caste that she belonged to. Durga said, “Sudhir’s mother thinks my caste (Mandal) is dirty. When I fill my vessel with water and carry it down the road, she always tells me, ‘Slowly, slowly’ (aste aste), and she treads on the ground carefully, avoiding the water that I spill on the ground. She thinks the water I carry is urine.” Laughing, she said, “What a lot of fuss she makes.” That same evening, while we were eating, Karun began to speak about the Maira woman once again. He told me that her widowed sister, Putun, was regarded as a little crazy (ektu pagal) by people in the village, since she habitually went from house to house requesting food. Sometimes she came to their doorway while they were eating, asking whether she could join them. But when she did, she always ate hurriedly, constantly looking over her shoulder to see if her sister would pass by and see her eating with a Rai Das family. Tara likened the Rai Das caste to a caste called Muchi Das but emphasized that although the Rais are similar to the Muchis in that both work with leather, Rais are greater (aro bara). When I asked her whether her relatives had ever worked with leather, Tara denied this, saying that her father’s family as well as Jagadish’s had been cultivators, tilling land owned by Brahmans. Even so, they were still considered dirty, since people believed that their true essential work (asal kaj) was leather. Of the various songs that I collected, only one song spoke of caste. The overall theme was love: Don’t make love chaotically Love is like the glue stemming from the jackfruit Shiva sits in the cremation grounds because of love Git Gavinda, Padmabati, they know love Love is like a fig flower Like the roots of the aloklata flower If you cannot find the flower, your efforts are in vain Like an ant stuck in molasses A Brahman boy was ostracized When washing the feet of a laundry man’s daughter He drank her soiled water If you condemn his act, you will not know moonlight Regarding herself, Tara seemed embarrassed when she talked about her caste. She smiled timidly as if to excuse herself, and she lowered her voice while speaking. In contrast, there was not a trace of shame when she spoke

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about her chosen path. She was proud of being a mendicant and singer, and talked about it frequently, on her own initiative. But being a Rai Das was something she felt to be demeaning. She rarely broached the subject, and I did not press the issue. But then a few days later, when we were seated by ourselves, she related a story about a man from the leatherworker’s caste (daser galpa), pointing out to me that what she was about to tell me was a true story. A long time ago, she said, this had really happened. “It is not a fairy tale” (galpa na, satyi).

Muchi Ram Das I: a loving low-caste man There was once a man named Muchi Ram Das who worked as a leatherworker sewing shoes. He noticed a Brahman who passed him on the road, on his way to the river Ganges, where he was going to do puja. The man named Muchi Ram Das called to the Brahman and asked him whether he could do puja on his behalf. He explained to the Brahman that he had a lot of work to do, which was why he was unable to make the trip himself. The Brahman complied, accepting the two bananas that Muchi Ram Das handed him. When the Brahman got to the river Ganges, he entered it and waded out till the water reached his waist. Then he held out his offerings, consisting of a number of different kinds of fruit – bananas, apples, cucumbers – and various flowers. He carefully placed his offerings in the water. Then he turned back to the shore, but as he emerged from the river, he suddenly remembered that he was supposed to give Ganges a puja from Muchi Ram Das too. So he turned around, but he did not bother to wade back into the river. He just flung the two bananas into the water. But Ganges rose and lifted her hands into the air to catch the humble offerings from Muchi Ram Das. Tara said, “The Brahman then realized that Muchi Ram Das was a very devout person. He used to think that his own puja was superior, since his caste was greater. But after seeing Ganges rise from the water, he was forced to admit that he had been wrong. The Brahman therefore paid a visit to Muchi Ram Das to tell him what had happened, adding, ‘You are a very devout person.’” Tara looked at me, smiling shyly as she proceeded to make an implicit parallel between herself and Muci Ram Das as simple folks, yet loving and sincere. She said, “I do not know a lot of mantras. I say to God, ‘Here is some fruit. I am giving it to you.’ This is how I carry out my puja. I think it is a good puja. Don’t you think so too?” And then she immediately recounted another story about Muchi Ram Das, stressing that this narrative is also true.

Muchi Ram Das II: love and dirt Once, Draupadi invited the god Krishna to eat at her house (o sevar jyana nimantra karechen). She was going to cook the meal herself and serve it to Krishna. But Krishna said, “There is one person who is an extremely devout

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man. His name is Muchi Ram Das. I think you should invite him first. You can invite me afterwards.” At this point, Tara interrupted her narrative to ask me whether I knew who Draupadi was. I said, “Yes, she figures in the Mahabharata.” Tara nodded and continued with her story. When Muchi Ram Das received the invitation, he went to Draupadi’s house to eat. She placed the food that she had made before him. There were lots of different dishes. There was spinach, lentil soup, yogurt and sweets. To make sure that I would grasp how elaborate the meal was, Tara said, “Really, there were five different kinds of curry dishes.” She then proceeded with her story, saying that Muchi Ram Das began to knead the different curries together, and as he started to eat, the bells began to chime so that the gods would be alerted to his act. But while Draupadi was watching Muchi Ram Das eating, she was thinking to herself, “I’ve made all these different curries, and he’s mixing them all together. They’re not separate anymore. He won’t be able to tell one dish from another.” At this, the bells grew silent. Muchi Ram Das looked at Draupadi and said, “What were you thinking just now? The bells stopped chiming.” Draupadi told him, “I’ve gone to all this trouble, trying to make each dish special and separate. Now they all taste the same. How will you understand the separate tastes? You’ve mixed them all together.” Tara added, “What he did was strange. It was hard for him to eat.” She then continued, saying that when Muchi Ram Das heard Draupadi’s answer, he told her that he was unable to continue eating. “I cannot proceed,” he said. So Draupadi carried his plate away and began to cook a new meal. When she had finished, she brought her various curries out, served the food to Muchi Ram Das and seated herself beside him, while the bells began to chime as he mixed the curries together and resumed his eating. Tara said that this way of eating was his custom. By kneading the various dishes together, the food changed. It became like dirt (nangra matan mekeche), and so it was difficult for him to eat the food. As if to explain his act, she said, “He was a very devout person” (khub bhakti chila), and she concluded, “When someone cooks a meal, she should always sit next to her guest, watching the person eat to make sure there is enough food. But she should not say anything or think anything in particular about the manner in which that person eats. This is a Bengali custom,” she added matter-of-factly as she got up to attend to her household chores. Although several things about her narratives had caught my interest, I was especially puzzled by the fact that Muchi Ram Das mixed the curries into one undifferentiated mush. Why was this an act of piety, and how was it linked to his occupation as a leatherworker? His behavior was at any rate highly unconventional or, as Tara put it, strange. It occurred to me that his manner of eating was an inversion of the customary rules pertaining to a meal. During my initial stay in the village, Tara had taught me the correct sequence of eating the various dishes given. I should start off with the spinach, then the potato sticks, followed by the lentil soup, a vegetable dish, and, depending on what was being served, an omelet, a fish curry or meat curry, and finally the

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chutney. If curds and sweets were given, these should be eaten at the very end. When returning home after a wedding or a funeral meal, neighbors often corrected me if I failed to recount the number of dishes served in the proper order. But Tara’s latter narrative also reminded me of what she had previously told me regarding her stay in Kolkata when she was a little girl, during which time the woman who was supposed to look after her had boiled vegetables and lentils together. Food served in this manner was distasteful to her, which was why the experience was traumatic. Muchi Ram Das presumably felt similar to Tara, and, unlike me, he knew how to eat a meal correctly. For when Tara related the story, she pointed out that it was very hard for him to eat the food and in saying this she seemed to be implying that his action was a feat, which in turn meant that he changed the curries into “dirt” on purpose. Perhaps, I thought, the gods were impressed by his ability to handle dirt.15 He carried out the deed despite the fact that he disliked it. As such, his action might be linked to his occupation as a leatherworker. For the leatherworker caste he belonged to was certainly viewed as dirty. Tara did not draw attention to this fact when she explained the meaning of the story. She had done so previously when stating that leather is perceived as dirty and that those who work with leather are also viewed as dirty. But I could not induce her to elaborate further on the narratives. To her, the underlying message was that people should not think badly of others. Even though their action may seem inconsiderate or even repulsive, one should nevertheless refrain from thinking badly of them, since what appears to be base is actually a sign of strength and devotion. In view of this, I suggest that the gods favored Muchi Ram Das because of his capacity for self-restraint.

Suffering as self-restraint Writing about women in Tamil Nadu, Margaret Egnor Trawick notes that worshiping God by undergoing hardship entails self-sacrifice. It is a pious act – that is, an expression of devotion inflicted on one’s self in a variety of ways, by relinquishing one’s sexuality, by fasting, or through maltreatment by one’s husband. Because women stand in a relationship of servitude to men, they experience more hardships than men do, and in consequence they gain powers known as shakti. An accumulation of shakti enables them to heal, which means that others seek them out.16 Tara and Karun held similar beliefs, stating that women are more capable of suffering and by implication they exhibit more self-restraint than men. They did not explicitly state that self-restraint entails an accumulation of shakti. Ideas of self-restraint were tied to notions about suffering through servitude, and, when endured, they said it might lead to particular boons from God, although, as will shortly become clear, self-restraint extended beyond issues of womanhood. The ability to suffer (kasta karte pare) by undergoing self-restraint was a recurrent theme whenever Tara spoke of village life in general as experienced

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by low-caste people like herself, or as it had been lived by Muchi Ram Das, the protagonist of Tara’s tales. As the first story indicated, he bore several traits in common with Tara and her relatives. He was also poor, and his caste was identical to theirs. Also, like them, he had to suffer the humiliation inflicted on him by people from the Brahman caste because of his association with leather, which was viewed as dirty. Moreover, Muchi Ram Das suffered because he worked so hard that he had no time to go to the river to honor the goddess Ganges. Nor was he able to give the goddess expensive fruit as the Brahman did, for the lowly job of a leatherworker does not pay much. For all these reasons, he led a difficult life. Ganges realized this, and to show her appreciation she rose from the water to catch the gift of two bananas, something she did not bother doing when receiving the offerings made by the Brahman, despite the fact that they were lavish. The significance of Tara’s narrative was that wealth is not important, but the ability to live modestly and practice self-restraint is. The story Tara told closely resembles a Rai Das narrative from Rajasthan that Gold and Gujar recorded, where they point to the lack of subversive content; its message is that “God loves me even though I’m polluted.”17 In keeping with their view, Tara’s reading of the narratives she told differs from the sharp criticism she would voice against Brahmans in our daily conversations. In the narratives the stress was on self-discipline and suffering linked to the capacity to deal with dirt, glossed as positive and noble virtues identified with Muchis, but denied to Brahmans whom she portrayed as selfish, powerful and wealthy. The second story told may be viewed in a similar light. Muchi Ram Das willingly transformed the various dishes made by Draupadi into a substance resembling dirt, which he then went on to eat. Although Tara did not mention this when she interpreted the narrative, I suggest that this act too was indicative of self-restraint, reflecting his occupation as a leatherworker, meaningful in terms of a broader framework where the ability to withstand discomfort and to transcend the urges of the flesh, usually associated with women and with sadhus, is indicative of love and power. To think otherwise, as Draupadi had done, was wrong, and this was why the bells stopped chiming as Muchi Ram Das ate the meal. His ability to suffer meant that he was capable of deep strong love and so the gods favored him, more so than they would a Brahman. Devotion was his distinguishing trait, but what of the qualities attributed to gods? Although Tara did not mention this when interpreting the narratives, I suggest that compassion is another aspect, which enters into the relationship between poor people and gods. As powerful and knowing beings, they realize how hard it is to undergo distress and pain, and so they sympathize with those who tolerate discomfort. Tara touched upon this subject once, while we were traveling home after visiting Bara Ma who resided in a tiny thin-walled hut of clay. While seated in the train car, Tara gazed at the villages we passed and mused, “I think God gave us adobe houses to live in so that we would not

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have to suffer so. Adobe houses are cool in the summer and warm up in the winter, as opposed to the brick and tiled houses inhabited by rich people, which are hot in the summer and grow cold in the winter.” Her remark suggests that the act of suffering does not go unnoticed and that such a person is entitled to a favor, in this life or the next. This was also how Tara’s mother, Sunita, viewed her state of poverty, for she repeatedly told me that since she suffered by working at the detention facility, she would surely go to God when time came for her to die, implying that her suffering was not in vain. I should add that Sunita was usually upset with her husband whenever she spoke of dying, stating that the gods would surely punish him for doing what he pleased by turning him into an insect, whereas she would be rewarded for her pains. When I questioned others as to what would happen to them when they died, most people said they did not know what lay in store for them. They hoped that they would go to God, but were uncertain as to whether this would actually happen. Self-restraint, however, was a virtue, a good quality, deserving reward. Because poor people undergo more hardships than the rich do, they are entitled to a boon. Still, although the gods may pity and therefore favor people who are poor and from a lowly caste, this is not to say that others are exempt from suffering when undergoing self-restraint. People practice self-restraint to please the gods regardless of their caste or class. The most common means of worship is to offer food, but when placing offerings before the divinity your own stomach should be empty. Once I asked Sunita why she abstained from eating

Figure 2.1 Visiting Bara Ma

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during the solar eclipse, which occurred during my stay, when it is commonly thought that the demons Raban and Khetu are harming the sun god Surya. Sunita responded, saying, “Should my stomach be full while God suffers?” To have a full stomach is to experience pleasure, but you should not enjoy yourself while those you love experience pain. Whenever she ate a meal, she always began by raising a handful to her forehead first, and once she told me, “God is in my head, which is why I feed God first, before I feed myself.” Likewise, if somebody sat next to her, Sunita would always offer her guest a portion of her food, and if her guest declined, she repeatedly said, “I’m eating. I’m eating,” as if to say, “Are you really sure that you are full?” One should honor one’s guests by feeding them first so as to make sure that they do not go hungry. This same reasoning underlay Tara’s act of fasting on the day we worshipped the deity Santasi.

Mother Santasi: women suffer more Karun had promised to worship the goddess Santasi in return for fulfilling his wish to appear on the radio, so the morning when Tara, Kalpana and I went to her shrine to place our offerings of fruit before her image, they refrained from eating (because I was thought to be too delicate, I did not need to). Tara said that it was wrong to be full while Santasi Ma (mother) was hungry. I asked, “Is the goddess truly hungry?” to which Karun replied that this is a matter of belief (bisvas). “If Santasi Ma has not yet eaten the food we are giving her, you think that she is hungry, and so you go hungry too. If she suffers, you suffer.” But although Tara and I refrained from eating, Karun breakfasted on muri. Tara explained, “Since we are women, we suffer on his behalf, for he is a man, so he cannot suffer.” Later in the afternoon when the three of us were drinking tea, I told them that I disagreed, saying that in my view men and women suffer equally. To demonstrate that I was wrong, Karun pinched my arm. Surprised by his action, I looked at him questioningly, whereupon he laughed and said, “You see, you are a woman so you endure the pain without complaining.” A similar view was expressed when I sought to gauge their views on gender, asking whether they thought that men were better than women. Although I posed the question to each of them separately, Tara and her mother immediately replied that women are better for they suffer more. As an afterthought, Sunita added that it is better to give birth to a son because sons stay at home to care for their parents in their old age, while daughters go away when they come of age and marry. “If her in-laws treat her badly, she will suffer, but since sons continue to live with their parents, they do not risk enduring hardships of this kind.” Still, as Tara pointed out, the fact that women are stronger than men does not imply that men refrain from self-restraint entirely. They exercise selfrestraint when they honor a deity directly – that is, if their wife does not honor God on their behalf – and in their case, too, abstinence from food

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through fasting is a common means of worship. Other means of self-restraint include deeds performed during funeral rites. Tara once remarked that when carrying a corpse to the cremation ground, you should be barefoot, and that ideally people should carry the corpse during the day, when the ground is hot from the rays of the sun, so that their feet will burn while walking. During the ensuing mourning period, both men and women should bathe in a pond periodically, and the colder the water the better. Tara and Karun’s white-clad sadhu friend Dhiren Baba had made a habit of bathing in the pond below his house at four o’clock each morning. (Occasionally when I got up at this early morning hour, I saw his white-clad figure in the pond.) Another sadhu friend of theirs, Pagal Baba, told me once that he worshipped God by abstaining from food for an entire year, pointing out that Muni Baba (Tara’s father) would never manage to endure such hardship. I suspected him of lying until I realized that he equated food with rice, and that he had survived by eating a variety of other items, such as muri and luchi with vegetable curries on the side. Only rice is held to be substantial. Other kinds of snacks and curries do not really count, and so he suffered (kasta). Collecting alms to organize an utsab (smaller festival) is likewise viewed through the prism of suffering hardship. Dhiren Baba cried when he posed for the picture that I took of him after he had fed his guests. There are, in other words, different ways of worshiping God, all of which involve some form of selfrestraint by undergoing hardships, such as bathing in cold water, abstaining from rice, or, as Muchi Ram Das chose to do, by kneading good food into a mushy substance so that it resembles dirt. As Tara’s first story indicated, the state of being poor and of a lowly caste is a difficult form of self-restraint, since it entails enduring the humiliation inflicted by others because they are viewed as dirty.

Setting themselves apart Because Tara resented Brahmans because of their superior attitude, I had assumed, somewhat naively, that she and her family would feel akin to other people regarded as inferior, but this was not the rule. Whenever we walked through the station on our way to the market, we passed a group of people living on the platform in between the railway tracks. They were obviously poor, thin-looking and shabbily dressed. When we passed them in the morning, I saw them taking a bath using a tap by the tracks on the platform. Towards noon, the women would be busy cooking, while the men made baskets out of cane. Tara described the basket weavers at the railway station as dirty, and if we passed them as they prepared their meal, she remarked, “They eat the flesh of birds.” She also said that they make money by gathering honey, which they sell to other people. “They travel a lot. They go from place to place. And when they get old and weak, the young ones leave the old behind, on some platform or other, to die.” Twice, when walking through the station, passing

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them as they were taking their noonday nap, Sunita loudly exclaimed, “Would it be possible to sleep out here near the railway tracks? I think not!” Sunita, Tara and Kalpana often spat on the ground as we walked by, complaining of the odor (ganda), explaining that spitting was a means of preventing the sick-inducing fumes from entering their bodies through their mouths. Still, their behavior towards the basket weavers living by the railway tracks was not consistently demeaning. Occasionally, they stopped to chat with an old man making a basket, and once they beckoned me over to admire his work, calling him an artist (silpi). Their attitude, then, was ambivalent. They showed their disgust as well as respect. The latter did not surprise me, for they shared common features with them, the most obvious parallel being that they belonged to unclean castes, as well as the fact that they were poor. Not only that, but, as mendicant singers, Tara, Karun and Kalpana spent a lot of time on the platform, waiting for a train, chatting with vendors and other beggars. One such person was an old blind mendicant whom Tara and Karun referred to as a “harmonium master.” They described him as a good musician, singer and friend. He came to visit now and then, and had at times played with them when they performed in neighboring villages during pujas. Like Tara and Karun, he subsisted on begging, although because he was blind, he did not board the train, but preferred to sit on the dusty platform singing for the bystanders. To an untrained eye like mine, he looked very much like the basket weavers who had made the station their permanent home. His clothes were crumpled, his hair unkempt, and he lived from hand to mouth, as did Tara, Karun and Kalpana. Significantly, too, he was also a musician, which was one reason why Tara and her family valued his friendship. By contrast, they had little in common with the basket weavers, apart from being poor and of a lowly caste, although, from their perspective, this commonality was probably the reason why they sought to set themselves apart. Tara and her other family members were wary of appearing dirty and poverty-stricken. They always took care to dress nicely, wearing clean saris whenever they left their house. In fact, one of the things that I had to get used to when I settled in with them was having to comb my hair and tie it back in such a way that not a single strand would stray. It was important to them that I looked like an upright, decent woman. This was also why they discouraged me from walking about in the village unaccompanied. The same reasoning underlay their disapproval of my smoking habit. Kalpana once told me that if people saw me smoking, they would say that I was dirty since only low-caste women smoke. Tara and her husband were proud of being literate as well as knowing how to sing, and pointed out that they differed from their neighbors, Hira and her relatives, who were illiterate and lacked musical abilities. Every afternoon and evening, Hira’s parents sat upon their doorstep facing us. Occasionally, they made a comment about the heat or the meal they had been eating, but mostly they simply sat about relaxing before getting up to carry out their chores,

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while Hira’s father went to work at a bicycle repair shop. Although people came to visit Tara and her family, no one ever came to see the neighbors. Tara said, “Why should they? All they do is work, eat and bear children. They do not go anywhere. They do not meet with other people!” Certainly, Tara and her family members were aware of being regarded as inferior by people who disdained their begging practices. Each time they sang on the train, they risked having a passenger belittle them. Indeed, several months went by before they allowed me to accompany them. They eventually admitted that they were reluctant to have me join them; they were embarrassed by the fact that they were frequently ignored or even told to cease singing. Because of these factors, begging was often humiliating and probably more so since they were used to being belittled in view of their lower caste identity. The Maira woman, for instance, would not even touch their shadow for fear of becoming contaminated. I am unable to provide further examples as to how they were treated, because Tara and Karun were disinclined to talk about this aspect of their lives. Nor did I notice whether other people behaved in a similar manner. Caste, however, seemed to hover just beneath the surface, something to be spurned and blotted out, but which could not be entirely obliterated since people are aware of the fact that most Vaishnavas and Baul singers have a lower caste identity.18 Once, when giving a concert in a different village, a man asked Karun to disclose his name. After giving him his surname Das, the man inquired which caste Das denoted. At this, Karun’s eyes flashed angrily. He said he was a Vaishnava and then turned away. Mindful of their feelings, I did not wish to be equally rude by asking them to specify how some high-caste people treated them. But their very reluctance to speak about their caste is enough to indicate that the idea of being viewed as unclean was something that they were ashamed of and therefore sought to avoid. Ironically, their demarcation would at times entail showing their disgust towards those considered even lowlier, although, as I have already said, their behavior was not consistently demeaning. Regarding the basket weavers, for instance, they also showed their respect by admiring their work, and when Karun introduced them to me, he called them artists. As to their own position as unclean leatherworkers, Tara and Karun repeatedly said that they resented it and blamed the Brahmans for this state of affairs. Each time a puja was held, or whenever a wedding or a funeral was conducted, Tara and Karun seized the opportunity to comment on a situation, which in their eyes was unjust. Over and over they told me that Brahmans had formerly been rulers and kings, who claimed that they were gods, and who inversely claimed that gods were Brahmans. They insisted that Brahmans had no right to consider themselves better than others for they did not know the meaning of the mantras they pronounced. Knowledge (gyan) about spiritual matters (adhyatmik katha) acquired through the taking of a siksha mantra (learning) was one of the qualities that rendered a person superior, closer to God and therefore also pure.

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Householders and sadhus In Tara and Karun’s view, by becoming Vaishnavas they, rather than Brahmans, had learned the proper mode of worship. Not only that, but taking bhek (sannyas) meant rejecting Brahman forms of worship. As Karun said one day, after he took siksha (learning) – the second step of initiation – the Brahman mantra known as OM disappeared. Then after he took bhek (sannyas), which rendered him a full-fledged sadhu, the OM vanished forever; he no longer needed to depend upon a Brahman priest or show his deference to Brahmans when he worshipped God. The attitude that he assumed during a Kali puja we took part in will underscore this point. I had heard about the all-night Kali puja, and had expressed a wish to see it. Then when Ajit’s mother said she wished to see it too, Jagadish and Karun decided to accompany us. The puja took place out in the open before a sculpted image of the goddess Kali. Each time the priest stood up to ring his bells, we were expected to rise as well. But throughout the ceremony, Jagadish and Karun remained seated on the ground, despite Ajit’s mother’s vigorous signaling for the two of them to rise. As we proceeded home, Karun proudly said, “I didn’t rise a single time!” Later he remarked, “Just because the priest suffers (by getting to his feet), why should I?” A few days later, a relative of Tara’s arrived unexpectedly. Seated in a rickshaw, he enthusiastically declared that he would organize a puja for Shasti, the goddess and protector of children. At this, Karun said he had renounced (“sold” was the word he used) Ma Shasti-pasti puja when he took bhek, implying that because he was a sadhu he was not supposed to sire children. Of course, in stating this, he also set himself apart. Even so, the line they drew between the two realms, sadhus versus Brahmans, was not as rigid as one might assume. Pragmatic concerns would prompt them to seek the help of Brahman priests (purohits) when they thought this opportune. For instance, when Karun wanted to pass the audition to sing on the radio, he prayed to the goddess Santasi in the hope that she would help him out. Passing the audition was important, not only because he would receive a fee, but because singing on the radio meant that he might achieve some fame, which in turn might provide him with the opportunity to give more concerts in the future. To achieve a favorable outcome, he prayed to the goddess Santasi. Then, when all went well, Karun wished to thank her for her boon by offering two coconuts, but these offerings had to be imparted through a Brahman priest (purohit) since in this context proper worship necessitates a Brahman go-between.

Worshiping Mother Sarasvati: “Brahmans are ignorant” Signaling distance, Tara and Karun remained in their courtyard while a Brahman purohit was busy making preparations for a forthcoming puja held in celebration of the goddess Sarasvati. I decided to watch the proceedings, and therefore brought my pen and notebook over to Mr. Mukherjee’s office

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building where the image of the goddess had been placed against the wall. Her long black hair was flowing past her shoulders, her lips were painted red, her skin was white, and beside her stood a large white swan (hash), the goddesses’ companion. Kalpana had supervised the children, cutting little banners out of paper to decorate the room. Strands of these multicolored banners were hanging from the ceiling, and she had placed a single banana tree on each side of the doorway. Although Tara dismissed the puja as pertaining to the householder (grihasta) realm, she nevertheless explained to me what was going to happen, stating that children were especially excited when worshiping Ma-Sarasvati. Young girls, she said, will clean their hair by washing it with soap or mud, and they will wear saris instead of their usual dresses. “In the morning, a puja will be held at school and in the afternoon a second puja will be conducted in the neighborhood.” I had met the purohit before, a mild-mannered man in his mid-twenties. He was dressed for the occasion in a fresh white dhoti and a white cotton cloth covering his chest. We exchanged greetings, whereupon he told me to sit beside him as he arranged the various items before the image of the deity. These included a stack of the books that I had brought with me, Tara’s harmonium, a clarinet lent by a neighbor, a mirror, sindur, a towel and a sari as well as marigold flowers, leaves from the bel tree, and various kinds of fruit. When he had finished sorting out the items, he instructed one of the children to inscribe the first three letters of the alphabet on the ground before the deity. After this, the little girl bowed down and said, “Mother Sarasvati, give me knowledge.” At this, a man standing behind us in the road began to beat his drum, while the purohit rang a bell and waved incense before the goddess. Children and neighbors, as well as Mr. Mukherjee, entered the room to observe the puja, and, laughing merrily, we all held out our hands so as to receive a cluster of marigold petals and leaves from a bel tree from the priest. Clasping his sacred thread, the priest turned around to face the goddess and proceeded to utter mantras while tossing leaves and petals at the deity, a gesture we repeated. Our worship ended as it had begun. The man commenced to beat his drum, and then when he had finished, we all received a portion of the fruit that had been offered as prasad, whereupon the crowd dispersed. As the purohit wrapped up his share into a towel, which included uncut pieces of fruit and a sari, he told me that a lot of Brahmans turn the practice of conducting pujas into a “business venture” so as to make a living, but that he differed for he merely did so because he had a sacred thread. “I will bring the fruit home to my family since they like eating Sarasvati’s prasad. Everyone enjoys eating her prasad, and so do we.” Then, drawing a parallel between the goddess Sarasvati and the goddess Tara, he said, “Just like Tara, Sarasvati is a mother,” and then he made an additional analogy: “Because I am a Brahman I am like the sadhu Bama Kheppa (a devotee of Tara). Bama Kheppa ate the remnants of mother Tara’s offerings, and now I will eat the remnants of mother Sarasvati’s offerings.”

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Although I anticipated the answers, I nevertheless posed a few questions to the purohit. “Why did you give the goddess books and instruments?” He replied, “This is because she is the protector of learning.” I continued, “Why did you give her vermilion, a mirror and so forth?” He said, “This is because Sarasvati is a woman. She is fond of female things. We treat her like a relative.” Suddenly, Tara interrupted this conversation, drew me aside and steered me to her doorstep, and in a low voice asked me, “Why are you questioning him? He is a Brahman. He knows nothing.” I let her comment pass but queried Tara about the monetary aspect of the puja. She said, “People give according to their means. Most people donate thirty or forty paisha. But since Mr. Mukherjee is rich, he gave ten rupees. All in all,” she concluded, “the purohit probably received a total of twenty rupees.” “Was the drummer paid?” I asked. Just before the worship had begun, he had been sitting in the roadside on his haunches, dragging on a bidi while chatting with Muni Baba. To me he seemed quite poor, dressed in a soiled shirt and lunghi and wearing a pair of dilapidated plastic flip-flops on his feet. Tara replied that he received fifty rupees for his work. “Well, then,” I said, “the drummer makes more money than the purohit.” But Tara said that this was not the case. “The drummer only plays at a single puja, whereas the purohit will go around from house to house performing pujas and collecting money the entire day. He will probably receive a hundred or two hundred rupees.” While we had been talking, the purohit had left, so I could not check whether he would in fact go around from house to house conducting pujas, but this is not important. What is significant is Tara’s claim that a purohit will profit from the act of doing pujas, more so than the drummer would. Still, he emphasized that he himself did not perform the puja for monetary gains, but did so by virtue of his being Brahman, drawing parallels between his own love for the goddess Sarasvati and the love shown by the Tantric sadhu Bama Kheppa for the goddess Tara. Since Tara and her husband had derided Brahmans, I was surprised to learn that they too pointed to the similarities between sadhus versus Brahmans when explaining the significance of initiation into bhek.

Brahman and Vaishnava ceremonies of initiation I was alerted to the parallels between Brahmans and Vaishnavas while we were visiting Swapan’s family. They had invited us over for a midday meal, and as we waited for the cooking to be done, Tara and I walked into the hut where she noticed a picture of Swapan hanging on the wall. It had been taken shortly after he received his sacred thread and showed Swapan wearing an orange dhoti, and an orange cloth around his shoulders which partially concealed his sacred thread running diagonally across his chest. His crown was bald and a pink strip of clothing was wound around his forehead. In his right hand was a wooden staff. In his left hand was a kettle.

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Tara’s face lit up as she excitedly pointed to the picture, stating that this was how her husband looked when he received his bhek mantra. Of course, she said, being a woman, she had worn a sari and had not shaved off all her hair, but the ochre color of her clothing and her other accessories had been similar. After we had finished eating, and had taken leave of Swapan and his family, Tara talked about the rites while walking home, saying that the two ceremonies were almost identical. The difference, she said, lay in the fact that Brahmans tie their dhoti in the customary fashion, pulling it up between their legs, while Vaishnavas let it hang down below their knees so that it almost reaches their ankles. Also, while Brahmans have a pink piece of clothing consisting of a dor (string) and kaupin (cloth) wound around their heads, the dor and kaupin that Vaishnavas wear are white.19 At other occasions too, when speaking of the ceremonies, Tara and Karun emphasized the traits they bore in common with the Brahman caste, saying that the sequence of the Brahman rite parallels the sequence of the Vaishnava ceremony.20 Both receive mantras through their ears at an age with an odd number. And they also cut their hair and wear ochre clothing. Aside from that, they receive a wooden staff (lathi) made from nim wood, a square begging bag (jhola), wooden sandals and a kettle of water from the river Ganges. As to the way the ritual takes place, the pattern that they follow is the same. Both Vaishnava and Brahman initiates sit in a room for a three-day period, eating boiled food, after which a married couple enters the room to impart a handful of rice and a gift of brass or gold as alms (bhiksha). In so doing the man and woman assume the role of biksha ma and baba (begging mother and father). Finally, the mantras given by the guru to his students after the threeday rite is over may not be disclosed to others unless these others have these mantras too. Having undergone the rite of initiation, Brahmans receive a sacred thread that is wound around their upper body, while Vaishnavas receive a loincloth. At one point, I overheard Karun evoking this latter analogy to Ajit’s mother. “The two ceremonies are the same. The only difference is that Brahmans have a sacred thread, while Vaishnavas have a loin cloth,” Karun said while pulling at the strap tied around his waist. Ajit’s mother refrained from commenting, but her stern expression suggested that she disapproved of the juxtaposition. Nor did her son admit to the similarity; he simply recounted the different steps, which in every respect resembled the ceremony Tara had been through. His age had been an odd number, for he had been eleven, whereas Tara had been fifteen. He wore orange clothing, his hair was cut, he had a headband, a staff and a kettle of water, and he sat in a room for three days eating boiled food, after which a married couple entered the room to give him alms. Ajit added that during the three-day period a Brahman novice should not see a woman’s face, since this would mean becoming a sadhu, an inversion of the Vaishnava rite in that what Brahmans seek to avoid is the principal aim of the Vaishnava ceremony. As to other similarities, Karun said that Brahmans

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as well as Vaishnavas are permitted to cook during sacred gatherings, the reason being that Brahmans have a sacred thread while Vaishnavas have a loincloth, that this renders Brahmans and Vaishnavas clean or pure. He went on to say that during ceremonial occasions Brahmans cannot eat food prepared by non-Brahmans, while the same holds true for Vaishnavas. Both require uncooked vegetables termed side, which they take home after the ceremony to cook themselves so as to ensure that they will not absorb the impurity of others. Still, despite insisting on these common features, Tara and her husband also claimed that the Brahman and Vaishnava forms of worship differ markedly.

Worshiping Shiva: the head and the phallus The day known as Samjan when people offer fruit and flowers to the god Siva at his shrine seemed like any other day. Tara and Kalpana had left at dawn as usual to go singing on the train, while Karun remained at home to carry out the household chores. When they returned before noon, we ate our breakfast fare of muri (puffed rice) and begni (fried slices of eggplant) that Kalpana and Tara had purchased at the market. It was only when the neighbor girls, Kabita and Padma, entered our courtyard that I realized that something extraordinary would occur. Their long black hair was lose and newly washed and they were dressed in starched saris, moving about awkwardly for they were only twelve, not used to dressing in this fashion. Because they would be carrying out a puja for Shiva, they had not had breakfast. A little while later, two other sisters, Suleka and Biseka, came to visit urging me to see the Shiva temple. Biseka, the elder, pointed out that this particular puja was very difficult to carry out. She said, “You cannot eat during the entire day. Nor can you drink water. You must wait until the puja is completed; only then may you have a little fruit.” At this, Karun remarked that people with a sannyas (bhek) mantra do not perform this puja. “I will tell you why,” he said, directing his speech at the sisters. “God (thakur) never decreed that you must abstain from eating food and drinking water. Human beings devised this rule. It is a bad custom since your health will decline if you go hungry.” He went on to say that a couple of years ago a young Bihari girl had visited the village to see some relatives (the two sisters hailed from Bihar). Because it was Samjan, the girl had refrained from drinking water the entire morning. Her body grew very weak and as a result, she died of heart failure. He paused for effect and then told the sisters that the relatives of the girl became afraid and ran away, and on the following day her parents came to bring her body home. “So what is the use of trying to obtain God’s love by fasting when you may die as a result?” The two sisters giggled a little, but made no comment; from what I could gather, the story did not seem to affect them. When they rose to leave, they urged me again to make a visit to the temple. My curiosity was kindled, so I asked Tara to tell me what would happen on this day of Samjan. She said, “People cut their fingernails and wash their hair

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with soap or mud, but do not use oil, since Shiva did not use it. They will also fast, but in the afternoon they will eat some muri, though people are really supposed to eat a bit of fruit. Eating muri is not really right since the grains have been cooked when popped, and ideally the food should be uncooked. But because the poor cannot afford to buy expensive fruit, they substitute muri for fruit.” She went on to recount the proceedings of the puja, saying, “At noon, people will bring garlands of flowers to drape around the image of Shiva. They also offer water from the river Ganges mixed with milk, along with fruit and bel leaves. And tomorrow they will serve food to Brahmans. Some will serve a meal of rice and curry. Some serve fruit, and some serve luchi with chickpea stew.” On the following day, the sisters Suleka and Biseka made another visit, telling me that they had been invited to a Brahman family’s house, and that they would serve them a snack (tiffin) consisting of luchi, fruit and sweets, after which they would eat themselves. Tara then informed me that Papay and I had been invited to Jagadish’s house together with Mr. Mukherjee, where the three of us would be given chickpea stew and luchi. Kalpana, who was busy grinding spices, called out rather loudly, sounding quite annoyed, “Tomorrow the Brahmans will eat a lot. This is the only puja in which you give prasad to Brahmans first.” After the two sisters left our courtyard, Karun dryly remarked that since the Brahmans believe that they are great sadhus, they demand to be fed first. Raising his voice, he repeated his statement, saying, “Brahmans think that they are sadhus. During Vaishnava celebrations, great sadhus who wear a dor-kaupin (loincloth) are always fed first. And since Brahmans have a sacred thread, they too think that they are great, and likewise want to be fed first, but they are householders.” Karun paused, and then he proceeded to explain to me how the Vedic texts arose. He was, I realized, referring to the four books known as the Rig Veda, the Yama Veda, the Atharva Veda and the Sama Veda, defined by scholars as the property of Brahmans, comprising a compilation of sacred Sanskrit texts, recited during sacred ceremonies. The conventional scholarly view is that these texts were once transmitted orally, but that they were later preserved in writing. But Karun presented a different view on how the texts arose. “A long time ago”, said Karun, “God (Brahma) wrote the Vedic books. He had four arms and he employed these four arms, when writing each of the Vedic books. The other gods who were present said, ‘There is a fifth Veda. Why don’t you write that down?’ But Brahma replied, ‘I cannot write it down. I have four arms, and I used these four arms to write the four Vedas. Since I do not have a fifth arm, the fifth Veda will stay in my mind (mane thakbe). I will not write it down. The other four Vedas will be known to all but the fifth does not belong in a book. Sadhus will keep it to themselves. Unlike the others, the fifth Veda will not be announced to laypeople (sangsarik lok).’” Karun looked at me and said, “Do you understand?” I nodded, repeating what he had told me earlier that Brahmans are laypeople, and that only those initiated into bhek (sannyas) are allowed to call themselves sadhus. As I spoke,

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I was reminded of another conversation that the three of us had had when Tara recounted the manner in which she ingested her first flow (rup). Karun had remarked that I was fortunate for I was learning about Vaishnava customs, which unlike lay customs are not decreed in books. I now realized, and Karun confirmed this, that the books that he had been speaking of were the four Vedic texts, also known as granta katha (book talk), employed by Brahman purohits when they carry out their pujas. 21 While I was noting down the contents of what Karun had been telling me, he collected the vegetables that he and Tara had been chopping into squares and which were doused in bowls of water ready to be fried. He placed the wok on the glowing coals and added mustard oil, and while waiting for the oil to heat, he turned on the TV set and began to watch a program about dancers from Nepal. By this time, Kalpana had finished grinding spices, and had rinsed the pestle and mortar, which was set against the wall to dry. Now she and Tara were resting on the porch, their faces turned to the TV set. After I had written down the contents of our conversation and put my book away, I started to feel bored at the prospect of spending the rest of the morning watching television, so I told them that I wished to see the puja carried out for Shiva. Kalpana said she could not go, while Karun said he had to cook, but Tara offered to accompany me, so we changed into fresh saris and set out together. As we followed the road going through the village proceeding to the temple, Tara said, “Because Kalpana has her period she believes she would commit a sin (pap) if she visited the temple. That is why she stayed at home, but if I had had my period, I would go anyway. Nothing would happen to me, for I have a sannyas mantra.” After a while she added, “Kalpana always refers to the image of Shiva as his head (matha). This is what laypersons believe. They think that they are placing flowers round his head, but really they are draping flowers round his penis” (linga). The temple turned out to be a small building; the interior was dark and smoky from the incense burning near the black phallic image representing Shiva. Young women and adolescent girls in freshly starched saris were clustered together in front of the image, holding plates of fruit. Tara made a quick pranam, then gently tugged my arm as a sign for us to leave. I followed her through the doorway, and as we stepped into the sunlit road, we met the woman who gave us a portion of her offerings, leaving our fingers sticky, which prompted Tara to rinse her hand in the pond that she had spoken of where only Brahmans could bathe before.

Notes 1 I later learned that they were familiar with Mr. Mukherjee’s family. We were visiting a local Kali shrine when Tara mentioned that his father used to patronize Baul singers by sponsoring a festival each year at this particular location. 2 As Kathinka Frøystad notes, people classified as “big” are perceived to be rich and influential, while those considered “small” people lack influence and contacts (2005: 99).

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3 Dumont 1970. 4 Raheja 1988: 18–29; Quigley 1994: 40–1. 5 Raheja’s model is inspired by McKim Marriott’s ethnographic findings where caste is seen as an aspect of a person’s organic make-up, where to engage in transactions with someone ranking higher or lower in the social hierarchy alters the quality of a given person’s nature (Marriott 1976). 6 Raheja 1988: 164, 188, 203. 7 Dundes 1997: 8–9. 8 Dube 1998: 10. 9 Rather than positing a single dimension for explaining caste, then, I suggest with Steven M. Parish that actual ranking orders are based on symbolic as well as economic dimensions that interact and blend with other forms of asymmetrical relations (Parish 1996: 177). 10 Gold and Gujar write: “Purity is evidently linked with honor; to have one’s purity defiled, without resisting, is to lose face” (Gold and Gujar 2002: 107). By portraying Brahmans as people who get drunk, lying in the gutter while dogs piss into their mouths, Karun turns the tables and claims that Brahmans have no honor. 11 Wadley 1994: 81. 12 A similar version of this myth has been recorded by Michael Moffatt, which concerns the origin of the Paraiyans, an untouchable caste in Tamil Nadu (Moffatt 1979). Although the myth concerns untouchables, the meaning is similar insofar as it explains a change of rank from higher to lower. Here, four children are born to the goddess AaDi and Lord Shiva. Except for the fact that castes had not been created yet, all else had been seen to. To remedy this situation AaDi and Shiva made their children cook a meal of beef. The elder son did the cooking, but during the process he accidentally dropped a piece of meat upon the ground. Worried that the others would think he was incompetent, he hid the meat away, but his brothers saw him and accused him of trying to commit a theft. As a result, the elder brother was forced to settle apart from the rest of his family. The person who recited the myth explained to Moffatt that the underlying meaning of the story is that although the intentions of Parayans are good, they are misinterpreted and that is why they must live separately (Moffatt 1979: 121). 13 When thinking it over in hindsight, however, it occurred to me that in saying that his Muslim friend did not eat meat, regarded as a heating substance, Karun might have been implying that his friend was pious and therefore morally superior to Brahmans. Several authors make a similar point when linking ideas about hierarchy to thermodynamic qualities, suggesting that these represent an alternative to the rigid ranking order based on principles of purity. Coolness is widely held to be superior to heat because it is associated with tranquility and the ability to moderate behavior. The opposite condition is linked to lack of control or danger and by implication negativity. To benefit from heat, it has to be transformed and rendered less hot (Basu 1998: 124; Daniel 1984, Lamb 2000). And yet during conversations Tara and her husband often emphasized that heat is not inferior to coolness, but that excessive states of either kind are dangerous. While too much coolness drains the subject of vitality, excessive heat arising from a frequent consumption of meat and other heating substances may lead to aggression, and because of this such a diet is frowned upon. That the two must be in balance was something that they emphasized. By calling attention to the fact that his Muslim friend refrained from eating meat, Karun might have been implying that he was pious and moderate, able to maintain a balance between extreme conditions. And in stating that his Muslim friend did not eat beef, he also contradicted Swapan’s remark that all Muslims eat beef whereas Hindus do not, perhaps suggesting that people can be pious and devout regardless of their religious affiliation.

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14 As Marriott points out, because cotton is made from organic material it is conceived as a vehicle for transmitting substances (Marriott 1976). 15 John E. Cort notes that Shvetambar Jain renouncers do not consider eating to be a pleasure and to emphasize this point they mix the food together into a single substance (Cort 1999: 99). Writing of the same group, James Laidlaw similarly notes that mixing food into a uniform substance is viewed as a form of austerity, which is one reason why renouncers practice it (Laidlaw 2000: 623). Although Tara shared the view that the practice of eating an undifferentiated mush was impressive, she and others showed no sign of attempting to replicate this act. On the contrary, as I note in the following chapter, Tara, her kin and sadhu friends were extremely concerned about their diet and spent a great deal of time discussing and preparing food. 16 Trawick Egnor 1980: 14, 15. 17 Gold and Gujar 2002: 209. 18 Cf. Osella and Osella 2000: 70. 19 Openshaw likewise notes that “bhek (Vaishnava renunciation) has structural parallels to the sacred thread (paite) ceremony of Brahmin boys” (2002: 89n). 20 The idea that Brahmans and Vaishnavas resemble one another is perhaps rooted in neo-Vaishnavism, discussed in the introduction, a phenomenon that arose in the fifteenth century when Vaishnava devotees put on the sacred thread after initiation no matter what their caste (Chakrabarty 2006: 176). 21 Interestingly, Kathryn Hansen writes that north Indian theatrical performances, Nautanki, are likewise called the Fifth Veda. The art form arose when the king of the gods, Indra, appealed to Brahma the creator to devise a body of knowledge that would be accessible to all, including Shudras, women and non-Aryans. Complying, Brahma took the best elements from each of the four Vedas in order to produce the Fifth Natya Veda (Hansen 1992: 33–4). By contrast, the Veda that Karun spoke about was not available to all but the exclusive property of Vaishnavas, inaccessible and hidden. In telling the story, Karun inverted common understandings of class structures by representing Brahmans as unenlightened laypersons, while Vaishnavas were construed as spiritually insightful, a reading that negated Brahman claims to religious superiority.

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Knowing that Tara, her husband and her parents had been taught religious practice (sadhana), I took it more or less for granted that if they felt unwell they would ingest a portion of their body substances to restore their strength. This practice, along with yogic sex, is a mode of worship taught by gurus to disciples, where the underlying aim is to acquire a healthy constitution. Describing yogic sex, Carol Salomon has noted that the male practitioner makes use of a technique by which he draws a drop of menses through his phallus. Then, employing breath control, the fluid is directed to the head, a process known as ulta (contradictory), leading to a state of bliss and serving to facilitate longevity and health.1 While this technique would seem to indicate that women only serve as men’s ritual assistants, helping them acquire strength and spiritual prowess, women too should take a small portion of their substance for purposes of health. Absorbing other bodily emissions – urine (jal), feces (mati) and semen (rati) – is still another means of strengthening one’s constitution.2 But as the weeks and months went by, I saw no signs suggesting that mendicants and singers ingested body substances. This puzzled me because their concerns about their health seemed genuine. Muni Baba said that he was feeling weak (durbal). His chest hurt, and he coughed a lot, spattering the courtyard with his phlegm. He was forced to give up marijuana, since whenever he tried to inhale the smoke he succumbed to a fit of coughing. Then bidis also became a problem. He held his bidi in his hand, viewing it with disbelief as if it was a friend that had betrayed him. He had trouble eating too. Halfway through the meal he would push his plate away, complaining of his lack of appetite. He seemed dispirited and grew easily annoyed, but swallowed the pills recommended by a pharmacist, and twice a week a nurse stopped by to give him an injection. The pills, he said, were “hot” and served to counteract the “cold” that he was suffering from. Other family members also complained of feeling weak. Each day, before she went to work, Sunita (his wife) examined her face in a little mirror propped upon the porch, complaining of her troubles, that her skin was turning black, and that her body had grown weak with pain. One day she suffered an attack, during which she sank to the floor rolling her eyes, heaving her chest and arching her back in a series of spasms. Durga, the neighbor girl assisting

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Sunita with chores, ran across the road to fetch Tara who, on seeing her mother prostrate on the floor, began to wail. Karun said he thought her heart had stopped, but when I took her pulse I found that it was regular and slow, and shortly after she revived. A few days later, when I had gone with the rest of the family singing at a program, Sunita had a similar seizure. Mr. Mukherjee, who happened to be present, grew worried and took her to a hospital where the personnel pronounced her a hypochondriac. Sunita vehemently denied this, and she continued to seek out various doctors in search of a cure. There was a pain, she said, moving in her chest, back and limbs. She grabbed my hand frequently, and pressed it to her bosom so that I could feel it throbbing, explaining that the pain goes “di-di-di” and “si-si-si.” The pain, she said, stemmed from the fact that she worked as a prison guard at a detention facility; sitting idly by the cell for hours at a time gave rise to this condition. Having observed her rigid schedule, I was inclined to think that she was right. She worked different shifts. She began at six a.m., and then returned at noon when she would eat her midday meal. She went back to work at six p.m. and stayed for twelve hours, returning home at six in the morning. She spent the following six hours at home before she left to do another shift that lasted six hours. After this she had the evening off and would spend the night at home, before reporting back to work at six a.m. Thus, half her time was spent at the detention facility. When returning home from work, Sunita removed her uniform – a white cotton sari, lined with a green – and then, hiking up her underskirt to shield her breasts from view, she hurried down the path leading to the pond below her house to take a bath. Returning, she flung her wet sari on the clothesline, and hastily wrapped an ochre sari round her body before entering the house to do her puja. Seated on the floor before her shrine, her long hair loose and wet, she lit a stick of incense, then sprinkled water from the river Ganges on a heap of white and orange petals from a little basket, pasting these on to the glass-framed posters on her wall depicting the god-pairs Narayan and Lakshmi, Krishna and the milkmaid Radha, and the Vaishnava saint Caitanya. Directing her worship to the saint, she knelt and uttered, “Jay Guru, Sri Guru, Caitanya Mahaprabhu,” and then, picking up a pair of cymbals and beating these haphazardly, Sunita would sing. One morning, as I sat beside her, Tara stuck her head in through the doorway and signaled for me to come outside. As soon as we had reached the road, she turned to me and said, “My mother sits there singing like a crazy person, and you sit there listening like a crazy person.” Gazing at me curiously, as if trying to discern whether I had gauged the situation, she said, “My mother is not a Baul.” I told her that I knew her mother was an amateur. “She’s not a Baul. She cannot keep the rhythm, she only sings to ease her troubles.” The song she sang most frequently spoke of growing ill, where the ailing human body is likened to a house that comes apart, a dying tree and a barren field, all of which are images serving to evoke the transience and hardships of existence, which Sunita experienced as a corporeal pain.3

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Guru, how much longer will I cry? How much time will I have to spend in sorrow? I hoped to have a house But I could not make a thatched roof guru The wind has carried it away I hoped to eat the fruit off the branches of my tree I watered it, but then the branches dried and withered You gave me an ox, you gave me a plough I ploughed the fields of others My own soil lost its rhythm Guru, how much longer will I cry?4 Unlike her mother, Tara did not complain of a corporeal pain, but she often said she felt unwell. She suffered spells of dizziness when singing on the trains, and when walking in the noonday sun to and from the station. Because the trains were often late, she did not get home early enough to eat her midday meal on time, and this upset her balance. She said a “hot” gas kept accumulating in her stomach, rising to her head, and she worried that the gas might cause a stroke. Dizziness signified an oncoming stroke, and so she refrained from begging whenever she felt dizzy, and spent the day resting in the shade, pouring drops of coconut oil, a cooling substance, on her scalp to lessen the heat. Her husband suffered from the opposite condition. Karun was susceptible to the cold stemming from moisture – rain or dew – as well as from the low temperatures in the winter. To shield himself against the cold, he always heated up the water that he used for bathing regardless of the season, and if he felt a cold approaching, he refrained from bathing altogether. On such days, Tara fried some cloves of garlic in mustard oil, both perceived as heating, and rubbed this mixture on to her husband’s back and chest. As a further remedy, he would abstain from eating rice, preferring flat unleavened bread, since bread bears heating properties. Occasionally, he also had diarrhea, and at times he had a headache, in which case he refrained from eating heating foods. But there were also times when Karun felt hot and cold simultaneously. On such days he ate puffed rice (muri), although he could not subsist on this diet for long since muri too would make him weak, and so the next day he reverted to eating rice. When Tara and her husband returned after begging on the trains, both looked flushed and anxious. Entering the doorway of the courtyard, they clutched their heads and heaved their chests. Kalpana immediately handed them a goblet of water while I fanned them as they lay upon the porch recuperating. Watching them, I could not help but wonder why they suffered so. Was begging really so exhausting? And why, I wondered, did they not ingest their body substances? When I queried them directly, Tara and her husband said that singing drained them of vitality; that the hours spent away from home upset their equilibrium and left them weak. Tara said that body substances are extremely potent, so much so that the practice of ingesting

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them when in a weakened state would be like taking poison. In fact, as the weeks went by, it gradually became clear to me that Tara and her husband made an effort to restore their equilibrium, not by ingesting body substances as I had initially assumed, but by eating different kinds of foods that could be heating (amish) or cooling (niramish) depending on the types of symptoms they displayed. If signs of weakness stemming from imbalances persisted, herbal remedies or stronger medication obtained at pharmacies was sought. In what follows, I suggest that the importance placed on food and medication when trying to maintain a healthy constitution has not been emphasized sufficiently in work on body-oriented practices and gender. Instead, as Meena Khandelwal points out, scholars have assumed that a hydraulic model positing a rigid correspondence between body substances and power (shakti) is the only one available. She writes: “Classical and popular conceptions assume that both men and women have power to begin with but that women have more.”5 A woman’s power is supposed to grow stronger during sex when she is able to absorb the semen of her partner.6 But her power is conceived as stronger than her partner’s in another sense as well, because a woman can replenish what she loses through menstruation and vaginal discharge, while a man must save and store his semen to obtain ascetic power (shakti). In keeping with this model, women are often portrayed as dangerous temptresses, sapping men of strength. By kindling their desire, they distract men from their spiritual pursuits.7 Even Tantric texts that celebrate the sacred female principle embedded in a woman’s flow assume a male perspective, for a man is told to retrieve from his partner “not only his own lost seed but hers as well.”8 Yet, instead of viewing body fluids strictly in somatic terms, I would, like Khandelwal, suggest a different tack, namely that male and female substances are vehicles for physical, emotional and mental activity. Also, that food, not body substances, constitutes a major means for gaining mental and bodily control.9 That Tara and others sought to restore their vigor by balancing their intake of heating and cooling foods indicates that practices involving the ingestion of body substances is an ideal – that is, a guiding Vaishnava principle, taught by gurus at their ashrams, not a precept implemented in the everyday. While subsisting on a cool (niramish) diet facilitates powers of control, eating heating (amish) foods brings on the opposite condition, leading to passion and a lack of self-control.10 But heating foods were not simplistically perceived as negative. In order to maintain a healthy mind and body, a person should assume a state of equilibrium by balancing their intake of cooling and heating foods, and by trying to avoid excessive temperatures of either kind.

Body songs Songs about the body were highly valued. As for me, the lyrics were a springboard for learning about religious practice (sadhana), which Tara said should be concealed (lukiye rakha), meaning that one should not talk about it openly and carelessly in improper settings.11 Gurus are the ones who teach body-oriented

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practices, which Tara and her husband referred to as the Fifth Veda (see Chapter 2). Strictly speaking, given my interest in religious practice (sadhana), the proper course for me to take would have been to seek out Dayal guru at his ashram, ask him whether he would accept me as his student, and, if so, remain with him for an extended period listening to his sermons. If discontent, I could have traveled elsewhere to seek guidance from another guru there. But my concern was not religious truths per se, but to gain a broader understanding as to how principles about the body figure in the everyday. Because I lacked initiation (diksha) and a training mantra (siksha), Tara told me that disclosing what they knew to me was not entirely in keeping with standards of propriety. A practical solution was consequently sought; with the assistance of their neighbor Dhiren Baba, a Vaishnava sadhu, the two mantras were divulged, whereafter I accepted Muni Baba as my guru baba while Sunita became my guru ma. As I elaborate more fully in Chapter 4, the step was not without its problems. I had assumed somewhat naively that relationships between close kin, even if they lived in separate households, would be marked by trust. But Tara and her husband grew evasive each time I queried them about religious practice (sadhana) in Tara’s father’s presence. I later learned that because he was my guru, he had told other mendicants and singers that he alone possessed the right to explicate the meaning of the dehatattva songs. He viewed his daughter and her husband as his rivals, and they in turn described him as ungenerous and greedy. Feeling awkward but determined to see my fieldwork through, I continued to pose questions about the dehatattva songs, though mindful of the tension, I never queried them directly about religious practice (sadhana) when members of the different households were together.

Retaining seed One evening, while Tara, Karun and I were seated in their courtyard, I asked them to explain a song that I had learned from Tara’s father, composed by the nineteenth-century minstrel Lalan Fakir.12 A line in the song had puzzled me, which spoke of thefts committed in the body. Dilduria boatman This is a strange factory of joy There is a room in the middle of the body In this room a theft takes place Six people make a tunnel One person commits a theft There is a river in the body A boat moves in the river Six people pull the boat One person gives directions

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Gardens of delight: food and yogic sex There is a garden in the body Flowers bloom inside the garden Lalan’s mind does not take part in this factory of joy

When I asked them to explain what the thefts might signify, Karun rose and stood on the porch, while Tara explained the setting. “My husband is a man, while our house is a woman. He is a penis (linga) while our house is a vagina (yoni).” As she finished speaking, Karun crossed the threshold and entered the hut. Once inside, he turned about, gazing at the bright blue walls, yellow in the light from the kerosene lamp, and called, “Now I’m inside, and I’m looking around. Everything is very nice,” after which he stepped back on to the dark mud porch. I watched his orange-clad figure pausing in the shade. Then, slowly, he turned and walked into the hut again, calling, “Now I’m back inside. But this time, I’ll commit a theft.” His eyes swept across the lamp-lit room. Seeing my thermos, he grabbed it and carried it to the porch outside. The demonstration was over and the question posed was directed at me. “Which is better?” said Karun. “Enjoying the beauty of the room, then leaving? Or entering the room and stealing something?” I said, “Viewing the room, but leaving it untouched is preferable,” at which point Tara exclaimed, “Yes, because getting the thermos is like getting a child.” To make sure that I would understand, she added, “Entering a house to obtain a thermos is like entering a woman to obtain a baby. You rob the place of valuables.” Although nothing more was said, the message they conveyed was that seed (bij) should not be transported out of the body in the form of a child since this depletes the male and female body of the vital and divine essence that is contained in seed. It was a principle that echoed other statements they had made about the quality of seed, and why it should be salvaged. Still, Tara and her husband did not wish to tell me everything they knew at once. Despite my efforts to convince them of the contrary, they told me they suspected that if I got the information I required, I would go home and write my book and never visit them again. So they disclosed what they knew gradually. During the course of a day, a couple of sentences might be uttered. At other times, the conversation lasted somewhat longer, but then two or three days would follow during which nothing more was said. Whenever I grew impatient, Karun smilingly assured me, “I will tell you later. There is time.” Our conversations were often interrupted. When at home, a relative, a neighbor or Mr. Mukherjee would suddenly come by to visit. And if we talked while we were walking, it seemed we arrived at our destination just as we had reached some crucial point in our conversation, so that at times I felt as though acquiring information was like obtaining a piece of gold. Karun told me never to disclose what he taught me to householders (grihasthas): “If they knew what we know, they would be disgusted. They would not understand why the seed should be ingested. They may listen to the songs, and enjoy the beauty of the lyrics, but we must not tell them what the lyrics

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signify.” Then at other times he would suddenly exclaim, “If they knew what we know, then they would stop having children and take lessons from a Vaishnava guru. This is not ordinary chatting (galpa). This is very good talk.” Muni Baba’s manner was similar to Karun’s; he divulged his information bit by bit, and he also tended to repeat himself. But he differed in the sense that he did not seem to understand why I kept pursuing a given subject after he had told me what he deemed essential. Having answered my questions, he would invariably conclude by stating, “A lot has been said,” referring to the significance of what he had been saying, rather than the elaboration or exemplification of themes, namely that since seed (bindu) carries the essence of divinity, this means that one should not conceive.13 Time and again, I was given to know that most of those who look like sadhus do not qualify as such since they have children. Karun said, “Dressing like a sadhu, and having a child once a year is not good.” Their Baul friend Jagadish, who happened to stop by during one such conversation, pointed out that he only had two children, and the reason his wife conceived was that retaining seed is very difficult (khub kathin). At this, Kalpana seated in a corner of the porch busy grinding spices, joined in, saying, “Not everyone can manage.” As soon as he had left, Tara turned to me and said, “Really Jagadish conceived five children altogether. Two were stillborn, and his only son died when he was three. If you take bhek, you must refrain from having children, but since Jagadish wanted to have a son, he and his wife decided not to undergo the ceremony.” I interjected that she herself had had a child, but Tara countered this by pointing out that she was young and inexperienced at the time, but Jagadish had made an effort to produce a son, although his attempts were unsuccessful. Five years ago his wife gave birth to yet another baby girl, and now that she was middle-aged, it was unlikely that she would conceive the son they so desired.

Lentil soup When performing for an audience, either Karun or Jagadish would sing a song about cooking lentil soup (dal), where allowing one’s soup to run over refers to the act of losing seed. Jagadish performed it in a manner that stressed its amusing aspect, dancing in a clownish fashion. But when Karun sang the song, he would take the opportunity to tell the audience that the song he was about to sing was not merely entertaining but also spiritual (adhyatmik). When I asked him to explicate the meaning, he remarked that the elderly prefer spiritual songs, while the young request songs that are amusing (moja), and in performing the song about lentil soup both were satisfied. He added that since listeners are likely to be sidetracked by the whimsical lyrics about everyday concerns, they are given the chance to ponder the underlying meaning when told explicitly that the song that they are going to hear is spiritual. The housewife stayed in the kitchen, but she did not learn to cook The spinach turned out fine, but she could not whisk the lentil soup

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Gardens of delight: food and yogic sex Add the ginger and the cumin as well as the remaining spices Pick up the pestle, moisten the mortar then slowly, slowly grind the paste to prevent you waist from aching

When I asked Karun to explain the meaning of the lyrics – Kalpana and Tara had gone begging – he said the inexperienced housewife represents a novice who is taught the art of caring for her body, where the pestle (sil) and mortar (nara) signify the male and female sexual organs.14 Also, the sadhanbhajan (sexual intercourse) between them should be slow so that they will not lose control and spill their seed. In the next two verses, the kettle bearing lentil soup (dal) is the central theme. Whisking it alludes to the skills necessary to conserve one’s seed, while the intact kettle signifies a woman’s body whose openings have been sealed. The narrator, Dayal, states that the housewife should follow her guru’s directions, so that her seed will stay intact and be perfected. Add the turmeric, salt and a bay leaf and approximately six chilies Don’t use too many When the soup starts boiling, start your whisking, so that the bottom of the kettle stays intact You will cook and serve; your hands will be popular Your father in-law will praise you; you will influence your husband Dayal says, whoever eats this lentil soup; his tongue will not be hurt While understanding the meaning of these lyrics requires some measure of imagination, the following song, which Muni Baba taught me (but which I did not sing), conforms to a well-known pattern that makes use of riddles and imagery such as flowers, rivers and rising tides, widely known as euphemisms for a woman’s flow, and is therefore easier to recognize as a deha (body) song.15 Girl Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati Once a month its tide rises at the three-point junction When Ganga flows she plays a game that lasts about three days One day she’s black, one day she’s fair, and one day she is red When I discussed this song with Karun, he said the three rivers signify three river goddesses identified with Durga, and that the play of colors in the rivers rising once a month represents the female substance. He said, “The rivers flow for three days, while the fourth day marks its closure,” implying that a woman’s period lasts three days, which mirrors the duration of the goddess Durga’s celebration. Every autumn Durga makes a visit to her father’s home. She stays three days, whereafter her image is submerged into a pond or river. On this day, too, people pay their respects to their elders as Karun and Tara did when they went to see the neighbor, the sadhu Dhiren

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Baba, and then later in the afternoon when the three of us had gone to visit Mr. Mukherjee (see Chapter 2). A girl of virtue stays at home She views the world Virtue remains, dharma remains Milkmaids watch the house that lies in Gokul When I die this time around I will become a woman I will swim in the ocean of love that my guru has revealed Through the lessons of my guru I will learn the rules of love Das Kamal says my family line will be discontinued The woman, who contemplates the world from home, knows that her body holds the universe, a theme usually identified with Tantric thought, but which is widespread in the region, where the universe or macrocosm is envisioned as contained within the human frame or microcosm.16 Krishna was brought up by his adopted mother, Yashoda, in Gokul which is also where he herds the cows, during which he meets with his beloved Radha. Since their love play is illicit, the two must meet in secret, which they do under the protective watch of Radha’s friends, the milkmaids. In the final verse, the composer says he hopes to be a woman when he is reborn so as to break his family line (bangsha), and thus acquire liberation from the cycle of samsara (the chain of rebirths).

Seed in body substances During one of my visits to Tara’s guru’s ashram, Dayal guru fetched a book to show me the pictures he had made of the different cakras. He had drawn them in a diagram fashion, showing a person seated in a yogic posture with a lotus flower within the head bearing lots of tiny petals flanked by two white ducks or swans. Since my grasp of Bengali was still too rudimentary to follow Dayal guru’s rapid speech, I relied on Tara and her husband’s explication, which they offered when we returned to Chilluri. Their friend Dhiren Baba, who happened to be present, grew animated when I mentioned the pictures of the ducks, and told me that the ducks (hash) swim in a pond of seed within the head. He then began to demonstrate the way in which the seed should be retained. Despite his living just across the pond, Dhiren Baba’s visits were rare, but when he did stop by he usually arrived in the early morning hours before going to the market or going out to beg (madhukari). He lived with his wife, Dipa (also initiated into bhek), and her widowed sister and her sister’s two daughters. Whenever Dhiren Baba sought me out, he prodded me about spiritual issues, and on this particular morning he asked me whether I knew what the Vaishnava form of worship was. “No,” I replied. “What is the Vaishnava form of worship?” He crossed his legs, straightened his back and

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pressed his right index finger to his right nostril, after which he started to inhale slowly until his chest began to bulge. Holding his breath for a while, he gradually exhaled, whereafter he repeated the procedure, but this time inhaling through his right nostril, closing the left one with his left index finger. “Do you understand?” he said, smiling broadly when he had exhaled, and then after lingering a few more minutes he departed. Several weeks later, while Tara, Karun and I were sitting at a station waiting for a train, Karun suddenly exclaimed, “You should learn sadhan-bhajan and perform it with your husband.” Glancing quickly round the station to make sure that nobody was watching, he bent forward and, keeping his back turned to the bystanders, he began to enact the same technique that Dhiren Baba had previously enacted. But his demonstration was cut short when a vendor came to ask us whether we would like to buy a cup of tea. The subject was not raised again until the afternoon. We had finished our meal and our ensuing nap. Kalpana was gone, cleaning dishes by the pond, when Karun told me that the Vaishnava mode of worship (sadhan-bhajan) is simple (sahaj) and direct, quite unlike the Brahman mode of worship involving lengthy recitations of Sanskrit verses. To illustrate how Brahmans worship God, he wrapped his arm around his head, while reaching awkwardly for his nose in a roundabout fashion. Then he placed his hand directly on his nose, calling this the Vaishnava mode of worship. He smiled and Tara nodded proudly, but once again we were interrupted when Kalpana walked into the courtyard carrying the dishes that she had been cleaning. When I brought the matter up with Tara’s father, he said that when the flower closes up, only small amounts of fluid trickle through the petals. He closed his fist to illustrate his point, and went on to say that the flower is like a trap; that if the male fails in his attempt to exercise control, his seed will be ensnared within the center of the flower. But once the woman starts to menstruate, the petals open up and there is no danger of conceiving. At this time the river turns red, and her flow increases until gradually the petals of her flower shut, so that her river runs dry, receding back into the body. Muni Baba unclenched his fist, cupped his hand and spread his fingers to show me. Smiling, he said, “Ordinary people (emni lok) do not know.”

Flowers in the body “Are there really flowers in the body?” I asked Tara. She was walking ahead of me, following a path leading to the market. She turned her head and called, “That’s what sadhus say.” “Really?” I persisted, trying to ascertain whether Tara actually believed that there were flowers located within. At this, she grew uncertain, stating, “I don’t know if the body really contains flowers, but the songs written by great sadhus say that this is so.” She added, “I will tell you later,” and then she hurried on along the path. We did not resume the subject, but her response suggests, as E. V. Daniel notes, “that the line that divides the figurative from the literal is a thin and fragile one.”17

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When I posed the same question concerning flowers in the body, Muni Baba nodded. He pointed toward the centers in the body while listing their names, and then to illustrate the process by which the female seed emerges, he closed his fist, and then he opened it and stated that when the monthly flow occurs the petals will unfold. “This,” he said, “is a period of joy (ananda). When the female seed emerges, the male will let his seed flow too. As long as her flower is open, there is no danger of conceiving.” Rising from the porch where we were sitting, he added, “Men should behave like Radha.” I questioned Sunita about this issue soon after she returned from work. The two of us were waiting for the milk to boil, which would be added to our tea. She confirmed what her husband had previously said: “When a woman has her period, her husband lets his seed flow too.” Giggling, she remarked, “This is a time of joy” (ananda). Curious as to whether Tara and her husband held similar beliefs, I brought the matter up with Karun shortly after (Tara had gone singing on the trains with Kalpana). I found him on the doorstep of his courtyard, relaxing in the sun. When I told him what his in-laws said, he looked surprised. “Is that so?” he said. I asked him whether he too believed that a man should let his seed flow when a woman has her period. But Karun said that this was not the case. “A man should never let his seed flow out. A man behaves like Krishna. His seed should always be retained.” Waving his hands through the air, he said, “During sahdan-bhajan, male and female seed should meet, but never mingle. Like the moon, they come and go, but they never mix, for if they did, they would conceive.” Karun termed the flow of seed the true moon (asal cad), adding, “When a woman has her period, you refrain from sadhan-bhajan. During these three days, you do ruper kaj,” meaning that this is when the female flow should be ingested. He said the reason why he and Tara had a child was because they had been inexperienced, but that after Papay had been born, he had never let his seed flow. I asked him whether Tara’s parents had been wrong in saying that the different kinds of seed should merge during a woman’s period. But Karun said, “The customs (niyam) vary, but the dharma is the same.” Later, when I queried Tara as to why her parents’ practices diverged from theirs, she said, “They learned sadhan-bhajan from Bara Ma, whereas we were taught by Dayal guru.” Karun cited Krishna as his chief model when he said that he refrained from losing seed, and likened laypeople to Radha because their fluids fall and circulate. But then Tara contradicted Karun’s statement, when she once explained to me that although Radha had been married to a man called Ayan, she did not lose her seed by having children because Ayan lacked a linga. Radha practiced sadhan-bhajan with Krishna, and so her seed remained intact. “This is why people do not call Radha ma (mother). All the other goddesses are addressed as mother.” As I wrote down what she said, she queried, “Why don’t you ask me why I wear alta on my feet?”18 When I did, she immediately replied, “Since Krishna does, I wear it too”. When laywomen are widowed, they no longer wear the color red, but Vaishnava women will continue to wear alta when their husbands die.

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Despite her having a child, Tara did not wear the marks that signified her married state, and by extension her status as a mother. But this is not to say that she disliked children. Once, after being gone all morning singing on the trains, Tara said, “People who dislike songs, flowers and children are not really human beings.” When I responded, “But Vaishnavas are supposed to refrain from having children,” her husband interposed, “That’s a different matter altogether. Vaishnavas love children. Just because they try not to engender children doesn’t mean that they dislike them. Vaishnavas love other people’s children.” Karun held his hand up into the air as if to hit me, asking, “If you see a child, would you strike it?” Shaking his head slowly, he said, “No you wouldn’t.” As to Papay, Tara said the reason why her son was delicate was because he was an only child; he had never learned to fend for himself and grown callous like his cousin who was working in the fields, but had been cuddled and looked after. One morning, returning home after having spent the night singing at a program, Tara told me that she was worried about Papay, whether he had slept alright, and had had enough to eat in her sisterin-law’s house. “This is why Bauls refrain from having children. If you worry (cinta kare), your singing is impaired. Your mind (man) wanders when uneasy.”

Rup Tara had described the intake of her first rup as an extraordinary occasion when she claimed that great sadhus had ventured to her guru’s ashram in order to ingest her flow (see Chapter 1). But months later, when I asked her who these sadhus were, she admitted that they consisted of her mother and her father, Dipa’s mother, her neighbor Jagadish and finally her guru. I asked, “But what about the other sadhus who attended?” to which she shyly stated that another sadhu had been present but that he died some time ago. Not wishing to embarrass her, I did not probe her further, but in glossing over their actual identity, she seemed to have been trying to represent her substance as extremely precious, something only fit for sadhus with an elevated level of spirituality. Neither Jagadish nor Dipa’s mother nor her parents conformed to her ideal concerning how a real sadhu should behave, which may have been the reason she was embarrassed. She viewed Jagadish as somewhat ignorant, and she was not on speaking terms with Dipa’s mother. She criticized her guru, calling him self-centered, and she described her parents as ungenerous and narrow-minded, which of course contradicted her assertion that drinking rup renders a person morally and spiritually superior. Muni Baba never mentioned the occasion when his daughter’s rup had been ingested, despite his daughter’s claim that he had been in charge of the event and had purchased the cloth to salvage her menarche, before he passed it on to Dayal guru. Nor did he mention his past or his relations with his family. With the exception of Bara Ma and Dayal guru, he tended to portray others in a derogatory light, most likely to discourage me from seeking out

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their company. So when I questioned him about the practice, he simply told me how it should be done, and that he, unlike Tara and the others, knew a lot and so he could teach me the correct procedure. He said, “They never see their guru; they do not acquire his prasad, and in consequence they do not learn from him.” We were seated on the porch alone when Muni Baba told me the correct procedure. He said the cotton cloth a woman wears when she has her period is rinsed with water to extract the drops of blood. The fluid is then collected in a coconut shell that signifies the female organ and the female breasts. Sugar can be added to sweeten the ingredients, but he replied in the negative when I asked him whether this is always done. When I asked him why the fluid is ingested, he said, “Your body will grow strong, your complexion will be radiant [golden was the word he used]; your voice improves, you grow intelligent, powers of memory and concentration are enhanced, and your whole being is infused with happiness (ananda), serenity (santi) and love (prem).”19 Muni Baba went on to say that a loss of seed gives rise to the opposite condition. His face took on a look of urgency: “You lose your ability to sing; dark circles appear beneath your eyes; your health deteriorates, you cannot concentrate and you become forgetful and absent-minded.” Then, smiling, he got up to show me how an absent-minded person acts. He placed his begging bag beside the hearth, then wandered to and fro, feigning bewilderment as to where he had left it, then he seated himself upon the porch again, saying that to ingest a woman’s monthly flow means that you are born anew. To emphasize this latter point, he repeated his earlier statement that the coconut vessel employed when ingesting body substances is like the female organ (yoni). As he spoke, Sunita, who had been bathing in the pond below the house, hastened by with a bundle of clothing. Panting, she flung the wet clothes on the clothesline, muttering that she was in a hurry; that she had to dress and eat before she went to work. Muni Baba looked at me significantly, and, nodding his chin in his wife’s direction, he lowered his voice and said, “She employs the vessel when she takes her water.” But Sunita on her part never suggested that she did so. As far as I was able to discern, she spent the larger part of her income on medication bought at a local pharmacy, and Dayal guru scolded her for this, saying that her own “water” would suffice.

At the ashram I observed the practice of ingesting urine once when, accompanied by Muni Baba, I traveled to Dayal guru’s ashram. Towards noon, Dayal guru told us to follow him into his sleeping quarters, where, holding a large coconut vessel, he crouched behind his platform bed and emptied his bladder. When he emerged, Rekha’s mother stepped forth with a flask of mustard oil in her hand, and began to pour its contents into Dayal guru’s coconut container. Then, using his right index finger, he proceeded to mix the urine and oil together till the substance yielded a creamy consistency bearing a light yellow

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hue. He portioned out a sample to each person present; they all extended their own smaller coconut vessels to receive a portion, which they rubbed on to their bodies, and then they left the courtyard to bathe in the pond across the road. As I watched them disappear, Rekha, the daughter of the woman who supplied the oil, motioned me to follow her to the floor above. There was a latrine molded from clay in the right-hand corner of the room, which appeared to be in use for the air bore a musty smell of urine. Rekha placed the vessel she had brought upon the floor; she carefully removed her blouse and sari, then she pulled her underskirt up between her legs, and after tucking it into her waist, she asked, “Do you drink water?” When I answered yes, she offered me a portion of Dayal guru’s urine, which I smeared upon my forehead, chest and arms, while she rubbed her entire body with the mixture. The occasion was a solemn one (both of us were shy), and except for calling what we did “good work” (bhalo kaj), she made no further comments. When I recounted this event to Tara on the morning after I returned, she explained to me that urine contains seed, and that absorbing it is known as jaler kaj (water deed or work). She said that feces should also be ingested. The name is mati (earth, soil) and she likened it to fertilizers. “When you mix feces into the soil, the rice and vegetables grow healthy, and if feces make the plants grow healthy, then one’s own body will also be regenerated if a portion of the feces you emit is reabsorbed.” Tara said, “There is life (jiban ache) in feces. You put it in the soil and the plants grow healthy. You put it in your body and your body becomes healthy. The same is true of urine. It is a healthy liquid; it may be rubbed on to your skin as a lotion or ingested orally.” While Tara spoke, she had been busy peeling potatoes, dousing them in water after she was done. Suddenly, she paused. Looking up at me, her face assumed a worried expression as if she wondered whether I would disapprove. “This is right talk, isn’t it?” she queried. Tara said that seed is found in all bodily secretions, including tears, saliva, sweat and mother’s milk, as well as plants, animals and insects. She said, “Everything has seed: fire, sound, water, smell,” then went on to say that seed contains a vivifying principle that bears the life force pran, serving to animate the body so that it stays alive. When a child is born, there will be insufficient quantities of seed. To promote its growth, the seed in food must nourish the seed within the body. It is only when a child reaches the age of twelve that the seed is properly developed. At that age, men acquire facial hair, while women start to menstruate and become self-conscious, gazing at their image in the mirror. In fact, Tara’s twelve-year-old son Papay often sat inside the hut, holding the mirror to his face, which irritated Kalpana who told him he was acting like a girl. Tara would often make fun of him, laugh at him goodnaturedly for showering in the nude instead of covering up his genitals. One day, while we were gathered in the courtyard, she flung the door of the latrine open, exposing his body, and laughingly called out, “Look, he’s not shy (lajja), still stupid (boka), no intelligence (gyan).” Giggling, Papay crouched upon the floor.

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When describing seed, Tara told me that it stems from nine different openings in the body. She recounted them as the eyes, nostrils, ears, mouth, genitals and anus. Another friend, the sadhu Pagal Das had also alerted me to these openings, naming each site, calling them doorways. Tara went on to say that seed also seeps through the pores in your skin when you perspire, adding, “Great sadhus can sweat, defecate and urinate without emitting seed. But if they want to, they are able to transmit their seed to others by giving them their leftover food or a portion of their urine.” On another occasion while the two of us were in the courtyard by ourselves, Tara suddenly exclaimed, “You are not a sadhu if you do not have a spouse. A lone person’s seed (bindu) goes bad when it trickles out of the body.” Referring to another Baul, she said, “She is not a sadhu. When she sleeps she dreams, and as a result her seed flows out. This is a mistake (dos). But if you practice sadhan-bhajan with your spouse, it won’t be lost,” thereby implying that women, like men, risk suffering involuntary seed loss when they sleep if they have not learned to practice self-restraint.20

Thoughts and emotions A drop of seed bears all the rudiments of a person – physical as well as psychological attributes, including what is known as man or “heart-mind” (maner manush). The phrase is often used to signify a friend, a lover or a spouse, someone you feel drawn to, and to whom you feel attuned.21 It also signifies the locus of one’s thoughts and feelings, the “I” of a person’s self. Tara said, “When you wonder what to cook, and think, ‘Shall I make a cabbage or a cauliflower curry?’ you are talking with your heart-mind. Or if you think, ‘I’m cold, perhaps I’ll wear a shawl,’ you are speaking with your heart-mind.” Karun called the mind the greatest thing of all (sabtheke bara man): “If your mind says, ‘I will not eat meat,’ then you will abstain. But if your mind says, ‘I will eat meat,’ then you act accordingly.” He called it the original bird (adhi pakhi), adding that it travels swiftly, faster than a bird or plane. “If you want to see your husband, your mind will go to Norway.”22 The following song was one of Tara’s favorites: My diamond mind, my bird My diamond soul, my bird Where do you reside? Everything is false I can’t depend on anything My hopes are all in vain I’m afraid a storm will shatter the dream house nest I built Everything is false Which forest will you fly to bird? Have you forgotten?

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Gardens of delight: food and yogic sex Do you remember? Everything is false You care so much you’re like a captive Engaged in play continuously The sun is sinking in the west The day is coming to an end Everything is false

Perception of the mind (man) as a feeling-thinking entity which is thought to be divine chimes with what Julia Leslie has referred to as the subtle body of the human frame, held to be the wellspring of a person’s emotional and mental processes.23 Khandelwal has noted that a person’s thoughts and feelings constitute a subtle body bearing the semblance of a kernel, which differs from the gross body, made of flesh and bones, and likened to a shell. Unlike the gross body, the subtle body has no weight, and as such it is intangible. Even so, it carries physical attributes – the color of one’s hair and skin, one’s genitals and other body parts are inscribed into the subtle body like a blueprint.24 The mind is also able to detach itself temporarily; it visits places when a person sleeps and dreams, or when engaged in meditation. Only when a person dies does it leave its corporeal shell behind forever.25 The ultimate aim of renunciation is to penetrate the body-mind complex by unraveling its outer layers, so that the soul can surface from its physical confinement. Once this aim has been achieved, the soul is able to obtain release (mukti) from its chain of constant rebirths (samsara).26 However, Tara and others never spoke of trying to “unearth” the soul, by peeling off the different layers encasing it through meditation (samadhi). Rather, they believed that meditation is a process that takes place when sadhus are seated in the grave (samadhi) after they are buried. They also scoffed at the third stage described in Vedic scriptures, conceived as the period when a man should leave his family to subsist on alms.27 Karun said, “Lots of people make up their minds to become a sadhu when they’re old. At first, they marry, work and raise a family. Then after their children have been married off, they take a sannyas mantra, but by that time it is too late, for their seed is already spent.” Tara added, “Sitting by yourself in a forest or a cemetery [without a spouse] will not lead to anything. The body is a flower garden.” And drawing an analogy between irrigating a field and nourishing the body by ingesting menses, she said, “If you want the flowers to grow, they must be watered. This is love” (prem). During our talks, Tara never said that male seed differs from female seed. She simply said that for a woman to conceive the two must mix, and when they do a portion of their love is lost. “All their love goes to their baby,” she said, pointing to the floor as if to an imaginary child. “Their love is ruined,” adding by way of explanation that this is why married couples often argue. She gave the example of Jagadish’s eldest daughter, Dipali: “She and her

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husband, Shubal, used to be in love, but as soon as Dipali conceived, the two began to fight. Soon their baby will be born, and then they will grow more and more apart, argue more and beat each other. The more children people conceive, the less love remains in their bodies and, as a result, they grow unhealthy. People should learn religious practice at an early age in order to retain their seed.”28

Performing songs While I lived with them, Tara, Karun and Kalpana did not alter their begging practices. Although I contributed money to household expenses, they told me that I would eventually leave. “If we stop singing on the trains, people will forget us,” Tara said, implying that they had to beg in order to ensure receiving alms from passengers in the future. So, every other day or so, bringing their instruments and begging bags, they left their house at dawn, returning home at noon, or, if the trains were late, in the afternoon. They often told me, “The life of a Baul is hard. We exert ourselves tremendously.” Their frequent evocation of this statement prompted me to query Tara, “Why does singing weaken you?” She paused in her act of cutting vegetables. Looking up at me, she said, “A melody contains a thing (jinish) that carries life” (ekta jiban ache, pran ache). She measured out a little space between her thumb and index finger. “The life is invisible, but is present in the song” (dekha jaina, kintu ganer bitare ache). Tara then added that the life expires if a song is not performed correctly. “Not everybody understands the nature of a song.” She elaborated, saying that the life should soar. If low, it will be ruined. “Good singers,” she continued, “sing in a piercing manner.” She described this type of voice as “thin” (sara) and called it sweet (mishthi). She said, “People prefer to listen to women since their voices are thinner and sweeter, although men can also sing in a piercing manner if their voice is good.”29 Tara’s statement brought to mind her husband’s style of singing for he would often slide and bend the notes in a graded fashion. I was also reminded of the fact that I had played a song that I recorded of her husband for a friend of mine in Norway, who thought the singer was a woman. When I related what my friend had said, Tara smilingly remarked, “My husband’s voice is good.” When I asked Muni Baba how a song should be performed, he made a tiny zig-zag pattern in my notebook, adding that the notes should be like little drops of dew (shishir), and by way of explanation he started singing, letting the melody meander, then suddenly he ceased, explaining that while singers are supposed to improvise, they must resume the melody.30 During the initial period of my fieldwork, Muni Baba took on the role of teaching me. When unhappy with the way I was progressing, he called, “Louder, louder.” He also said my throat should work, implying that I should sing in a graded fashion. The sessions took place in the evenings, during which Tara sat beside the hearth, beating her hand against her knee to help me keep the rhythm as I jingled a cluster of brass bells (nupur or gungur).

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Jagadish played the gab gubi, also called a khamak. Kalpana played the cymbals, while Karun played a drum (duggi) and ektara, a single-string instrument that gives off a droning sound when plucked. I was never told the name of the song that I should sing beforehand. Instead, Muni Baba plucked the introductory notes on his dotara (a lute-shaped wooden instrument), then nodded as a sign for me to start. If I failed to recognize the tune, he abruptly ceased his playing and then promptly told me to resume. I gradually developed a repertoire of ten different songs, though I could only muster three or four before my voice grew hoarse and cracked. During the first two concerts that we held, Muni Baba stood beside me on the stage as I sang into the microphone, but after he grew bedridden, Jagadish assumed this role. Jagadish had learned to play the dotara from Tara’s father, which perhaps explains the criticism he received, for Muni Baba told him that he sounded like a railway train, implying that he played too fast, compelling me to sing in the same rapid fashion, a style he discouraged. Whenever we performed, Jagadish was always the first one up to sing, followed by Karun, and then me, whereafter Tara delivered a song and then Kalpana concluded, before the cycle started up again. The sequence they employed corresponded with their view that Karun managed to sing in a piercing graded fashion, but that a female voice is better, which was why I sang when he was done. Although Tara’s voice was far superior to mine, Kalpana excelled. Jagadish made up for his deficiency by singing songs that were amusing and by dancing in the instrumental intervals, a practice commonly enacted by Baul singers. Although his steps were not considered graceful, it was his mode of singing that was criticized. When our evening practice sessions were completed, and as soon as Jagadish had left, Tara and her husband would comment on his singing style, saying that he did not understand the nature of a song. His voice is “fat,” they said, implying that his singing sounded coarse. They also said that his intelligence was “fat” (buddhi motha), meaning he was dimwitted. Once I asked them to elaborate; Kalpana replied that people with a “fat” intelligence speak without pondering an issue sufficiently beforehand, saying one thing then another. If they criticized Jagadish while he was present, an argument invariably ensued. One afternoon, when Muni Baba sternly told him to slow down, he rose, and called, “None of you can sing. All of you lack talent. Kalpana has some. If it weren’t for the fact that I smoke bidis and a little ganja, my voice would reign supreme.” Of course, the adamant opinion, expressed by Tara and her relatives, that a good voice has a “thin” or piercing quality may be idiosyncratic. Still, what is interesting to note is the belief that singing serves to empower others. Their descriptions bring to mind scholars’ explications of mantras as comprising potent syllables, generating energy of a substantial nature. According to Östör, because sounds have independent energy, they act independently, which means that they can influence an object or a subject without being aware of the process that takes place.31 Performing songs for alms, in which the former

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is made of a refined substance while the latter is made of a grosser material, also chimes with Marriott’s theory concerning inter-personal exchange, namely that people transmit their inner qualities to others through their fluid boundaries and in so doing the nature of the person is transformed.32 Once while we performed on stage before an audience, the flute player Hari took the opportunity to tell the audience that playing the flute is extremely taxing on one’s system, especially for a Brahman. When I brought the matter up the next day, Karun caustically remarked, “Because Hari is a Brahman, he thinks his suffering is greater,” adding, “A human being is a human being” (manushi manush).33 He conceded that Hari had been right in pointing out that playing the flute is difficult. “You exert yourself tremendously when breathing, but this holds true for every person regardless of their caste.” Karun said he used to play the flute during his childhood and teens while herding cows, but quit because the practice made him weak, more so than singing. Breathing hard and rapidly, which is necessary when you play the flute, means that your pran becomes depleted, and in consequence the body weakens (durbal).34 Weather conditions, such as the heat of the sun or the cold stemming from rain and dew, can also influence a person’s constitution. Karun told me, “The hot weather season (April, May and June) is bad. People get gas (ambal), throw up and suffer diarrhea. Many people omit hot foods from their diet. The cold season is better,” he said. But as the winter approached, he would remark, “Most people stay healthy in the winter, but I’m a contrary (ulta) person, for I’m always weak” (durbal).35 Since Karun had suffered from bronchitis just after he was married, he was apprehensive about contracting it again. To protect his voice, he wore a scarf throughout the winter season regardless of the temperature. He also usually refrained from showering during the winter, but when he did, he heated up the water, and afterwards Tara rubbed his chest and back with mustard oil in which garlic had been fried, both of which were heating. They held rice to be particularly cooling, so if I happened to sneeze, which I often did since I had polyps, Tara and her relatives invariably remarked that I was feeling cold because of the rice I had been eating, chiding me for not heeding their advice, telling me to wear a shawl. They said my frequent eye infections stemmed from my having been exposed to the hot coarse wind when traveling in a rickshaw to do a program, and then being subjected to the dew when singing songs at night. To regain my equilibrium, they told me to eat ratis, perceived as heating, and they also told me to refrain from pouring water on my head when showering. Tara and her husband also feared the cold during the hot weather season, when the heat could be oppressive. There was no fan, and since the water used for showering needed to be rationed, we only had one bucket filled with water that each of us could use per day. Pouring this over my head at noon was bliss, but then the stifling heat returned. Emerging from the bathroom into the glaring light, I crossed the road to hang my dripping sari on the

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clothesline, retreating quickly to the shady porch. The heat at night was likewise overwhelming. There was no breeze within our little walled-in courtyard. Under the cover of the dark, I carefully loosened my sari, keeping my underskirt and blouse in place, waving a palm-leaf fan in front of my face. When the cuckoos started calling, I quickly dressed and joined the others for a cup of tea, brushed my teeth and seated myself at the roadside, leafing through my notes, watching the men and women carry water. Seeing their little niece, Unan, skipping into our courtyard dressed in a shawl, I cried out in disbelief, and Tara laughingly explained that Unan had breakfasted on yesterday’s fermented rice (bijer bhat), believed to be extremely cooling, and to protect her little daughter, her mother, Chayna, wrapped her in a shawl. Both Tara and Karun sought to balance their diet according to changes in the weather. They also tried to compensate for vigor lost when singing by eating different types of foods, and by trying not to subject themselves to foods that were extremely heating. Tara explained that since body substances are heating in themselves, ingesting them necessitates a cooling diet. “You have to live exclusively on rice and milk for fifteen days beforehand if you take rup or mati” (menses or feces). She claimed that the only reason why Bara Ma was able to subsist on cooling foods was because she no longer sang, but subsisted on the alms received from madhukari (begging in villages): “If you sing, you need heating foods like onions, eggs and meat.” Like humans, deities require different types of food; some favor heating foodstuffs, while others favor cooling foods. To thank the deity Santasi for having helped him pass the radio audition in Kolkata, Karun had decided to carry out a puja for the goddess. We purchased two coconuts and a cluster of bananas, and since fruit is cheaper at the larger market, we walked the extra distance. On reaching the market, we passed the different stalls, where Tara happened to notice an orange plastic bowl, which she took a liking to (she loved the color orange), but then remembered that she had a bowl of brass at home suited for the puja. Next day, Karun said his body ached from trying to maintain his balance while singing in the moving train the day before, and that walking to the market had made matters worse, so Tara told him she would fast on his behalf. Surprised, I said, “But the puja is for Karun!” to which she answered, “He and I are one, so I can suffer for him. That way he will be spared. He’s frail; he might get ill if he refrains from eating.” Longing for some sweet and creamy yogurt, I said I wished to purchase a few bowls at the local market after we had worshiped the deity Santasi. But they immediately exclaimed that this would be preposterous since sour things are way too cold. Tara would not even utter Santasi’s name aloud, but kept saying, “That goddess disapproves,” which made Karun laugh because of what he took to be excessive piety on her part. Noting my confusion, he explained, “People eat yogurt during the hot season. It’s a hot country’s food, meaning it’s extremely cooling, much too cold for Santasi Ma.” Tara brought the red and white hibiscus flowers picked in her son’s tutor’s garden, while Kalpana carried the bowl of fruit. Both were in their bare feet.

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We seated ourselves amidst the other women, cross-legged on the ground. Kalpana handed our offerings to the priest, which he placed among the other bowls of fruit and sweets. Then, beginning the puja, he seized one bowl, asking who the bowl belonged to, to which the owner called, “It’s mine,” recounting the names of the various relatives on whose behalf the offerings were made. Kalpana gave Karun’s name, after which the priest then recited mantras, which we all repeated, before the flowers we had brought were strewn upon the fruit and sweets. We covered our feet with the edge of our saris when the coconuts were opened, so that the juice would not be dirtied, which would have been a sin, Tara said. While we had been gone, Karun cooked a pot of khichuri for us to eat on our return, a dish to the goddess’s liking, lacking in ingredients considered heating, such as onion and garlic, and the spice mixture made up of cloves, cinnamon and cardamom.36 Later in the day, after waking from our noonday nap, I took the opportunity to ask him about fasting, reminding him of how he had once warned the neighbor girls about the dangers of forgoing food. He said, “Fasting is an act of faith. If your stomach is full while Santasi Ma suffers, then your mind is altered.” He added, “Of course, your mind is God. Humans are gods. The goddess never said, ‘You must suffer for my sake.’ She never said anything to that effect. But showing your devotion through fasting is a way of showing faith in her.” He went on to say, “We received 120 rupees yesterday when singing on the trains. Santasi Ma realized that we were going to perform a puja on behalf of her, and to reward us she caused the passengers to give lavishly.” What he said suggested a fluid and pragmatic attitude towards religious practice (sadhana), not held to be at odds with image worship, and where food and medication figure prominently when trying to maintain a healthy constitution. If overheated or if weakened by the cold, different types of remedies were called for. Symptoms also varied by individual; some were prone to cold-related sickness, while others were susceptible to heat, or they might vacillate between these states. Despite the message of the dehatattva lyrics, ingesting body substances was not an option they resorted to. Tara’s mother, Sunita, took medication to relieve her symptoms, and so did Muni Baba when he had tuberculosis, and later, as he convalesced, he relied on heating foods, not bodily emissions, to restore his strength. When discussing sexual union, Karun said, “The female organ” (yoni) is a lower mouth (mukh) and the lower mouth is always open, craving food” (semen). He said, “If the male ejaculates, the yoni will devour it and as a result it will grow fat” (pregnant). He elaborated: “Your body has two mouths. Isn’t this correct? And when you lose your seed, isn’t this like throwing up,” by which he meant that seed and food are made of the same essential matter engaged in different stages of development.37 He said, “The body is a factory; when water passes through it, the urine is refined.”38 Occasionally, when waking up, Karun would remark, “Today I won’t take medicine, I will drink water (a euphemism for urine). But he replied in the negative whenever I asked him whether he had actually done so. By contrast, Dayal guru

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insisted that one should always take one’s body substances when feeling out of sorts. Each time he came to visit, Sunita invariably complained about her health, showing him the different pills that she had purchased at the pharmacy, to which Dayal guru countered that she should drink her urine (jal). “All the medicine you need is in your body,” he said, claiming that he himself had never taken store-bought medicine but that doctors sought him out to learn how to stay healthy.

Muni Baba suffers from tuberculosis When Muni Baba became bedridden, Tara initially said that singing on the trains had drained her father of vitality. Later, she reasoned that he had grown sick because he smoked. As such, it was his own fault (nijer dos), but then she added that singing had worsened his condition. When I first knew him, Muni Baba smoked a chillum of ganja in the morning when he had his tea with Durga’s father. He had another when waking from his noonday nap, yet another in the evening with a group of neighbors, and a final chillum just before he went to sleep. He told me he had followed this regime since he was fifteen, and so he could not quit, but he had to do so when he grew sick with tuberculosis. But as he started to grow weaker, Muni Baba went to see a doctor, returning home with cough syrup and a packet of pills that I was unable to identify. He said the doctor had informed him that he had caught a chill. “I don’t feel good,” he said, and began to cry. At this, Tara started crying too. Picking up a flask of mustard oil lying by the hearth, she began to rub her father’s back and chest, while Jagadish massaged his feet. I quietly slipped out to visit Kalpana, who sat grinding spices in the courtyard. “Why,” I asked her, “did the doctor give him cough syrup, when he is obviously quite ill?” She looked at me and said, “The medicine will put his mind at ease, and make him feel at peace” (santi). On the following morning I took him to a doctor. Looking worried, Muni Baba said that he had had some chilled water from a fridge when he had accompanied me during a visit to a friend of mine, another researcher, who had given him a glass of water from her fridge. Looking timid, Muni Baba asked the doctor whether this might be the cause of his condition. The doctor nodded his assent, saying that the water had given him a chill. But seeing Muni Baba grow weaker by the day, I made another visit, this time bringing Tara and her husband. We set off on foot, following the hard-packed ridges through the empty fields until we reached the town of our destination. The waiting room was filled with people. Tara left after twenty minutes, while Karun and I were finally admitted three hours later. Again the doctor told me that Muni Baba caught a chill from drinking cold water from the fridge. Returning, I found Muni Baba lying on the porch, whimpering, “I am dying. I can’t eat,” while Sunita sat behind him, agitated, making faces while gesticulating, saying, “I told him he should quit smoking, to which Muni Baba countered, ‘I will suffer, you don’t have to suffer.’” Then, hoisting

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himself into an upright position, and leaning against the wall, he clenched his fists and moaned, “My body, my body … ” The following day I took Muni Baba to the doctor, who took his blood pressure and pulse, and listened to his chest and back, while asking a number questions concerning the color of his urine and feces, if he had enough to eat and whether he had taken the medicine prescribed for him. Speaking in English, he turned to me, and said, “Lots of Santals and Vaishnavas get TB because they suffer from a lack of nourishment. What can you do?” Shaking his head, he said, “Medication is expensive. They are poor. They cannot afford it.” Somewhat puzzled, I told him I could pay, and realizing that I was in earnest, he wrote out a prescription for antibiotics. Taking a rickshaw, we stopped at a pharmacy, and once home Tara made arrangements for a nurse to administer the injection. Muni Baba kept clinging to his arm, crying, “Will I be all right,” while Karun told him, “Nothing’s going to happen, why should something happen?” As the days went by, Muni Baba started having difficulties breathing, which people took to be a sign that he was about to die, believing that death comes “when the breather’s breath leaves the body.”39 Friends and neighbors crowded round the porch, accepting the tea that Sunita poured out for them. His second wife also paid a visit. Surveying the premises, and observing me, she called to Sunita, who was busy making another round of tea, “I see you’re keeping company with wealthy folks.” Just then, an elderly well-dressed man arrived. Accepting the stool that Sunita offered and fixing his eyes on Muni Baba, he yelled, “Call the name of Ram,” which made Muni Baba scream with fright. Throughout the afternoon, a stream of visitors kept coming, most of whom sipped tea in silence, and when the last visitor was gone, Sunita collected the dirty cups, complained about the cost of tea and then began to weep, crying that she would go to Brindaban (Krishna’s dwelling place where he frolics with the milkmaid Radha and which is also a place of pilgrimage). During the days that followed, Muni Baba vomited and defecated. At first he spat his phlegm into the courtyard, but then as he grew too weak to rise, he spat the phlegm round his bedding. To clean the vomit and the phlegm, Sunita covered it with cow dung and some water – both considered pure and healthy substances – and using a broom she swept the mixture off the porch. But the globs accumulated, and once, when getting up to leave, I slipped and almost fell. I told Tara of the incident, after which she purchased a number of bowls made out of clay, stacking these beside her father’s bedding, exchanging one bowl for another as they gradually filled up. A couple of days later, while Tara and her brother sat beside him keeping watch, Muni Baba signed for them to pass him a bowl filled to the brim with the grey substance, which Tara said resembled flesh. They both hesitated, and later she jokingly remarked that her father’s gesture was a test of love. Everyone viewed his bodily emissions as contaminating, although, initially, fear of his imminent death overshadowed this. It was only when he started to grow stronger that people grew afraid of coming into contact with him. A

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separate plate and a goblet were employed when they gave him food. As a further precaution, family members refused to eat the curries that Tara’s mother made. Because she carried out her cooking near the hearth, which was close to Muni Baba’s bedding, they assumed that the food became contaminated. Each day, Tara’s mother brought a bowl of curry for us to have with our other dishes, and as soon as she had left, Karun threw it to the dogs. Muni Baba seemed to sense that they avoided him for I once observed him biting into a Marie biscuit and then offering the remaining half to a child standing by. Too young to understand what sharing food with him might mean, she accepted the biscuit, but when I told her to discard it, Muni Baba grew annoyed, perhaps because I thwarted his attempt to define himself as clean. Initially, Durga’s father, Santanu, came each morning to help Muni Baba defecate. Lifting him by the shoulders, he carried him out into the yard, where he defecated on some newspapers spread out upon the ground, which Santanu then disposed of in the pond. But then a few days later, Santanu sent a message through his daughter, Durga, informing us that taking care of Muni Baba was problematic. Muni Baba’s daughter Dipa was subsequently sent for, but shortly afterwards Dipa’s mother called her back. The messenger who came to fetch her said her mother-in-law was feeling ill and needed Dipa to help her carry out her chores. At this, Muni Baba said he wanted Bara Ma to care for him, but Tara said that Bara Ma had to beg for alms, and that laypeople would miss her if she stayed away too long. Eventually, after receiving regular shots of antibiotics, prescribed by a doctor, which I purchased at a pharmacy and which Tara had a nurse administer, Muni Baba’s health gradually began to improve. Having been bedridden for six weeks, his legs had grown feeble, so with the aid of a cane I made him practice walking on the porch. When he was stronger, he started seeking out people in the neighborhood, requesting eggs and meat. Mr. Mukherjee gave him money allowing him to purchase goat meat, as did each of Karun’s brothers, while Hari the flute player gave him a chicken. Muni Baba’s son gave him duck eggs, but then giving in to his father’s request he killed a duck and invited us over for the ensuing meal. Tara declined the invitation, saying that because the duck is the companion of the goddess Saraswati (patron of the arts), she was obliged to refrain from eating duck meat, and she suggested that I use the same excuse. The constant talk of meat and illness was making me feel a little queasy, so I was tempted. Still, not wishing to offend her brother, I joined Muni Baba for the meal. We were served seated on the ground outside his tiny hut of clay erected at the roadside, and as we ate, Muni Baba joyfully repeated, “I’m feeling better. My stomach is fine. I’ll eat more meat,” and urging me to follow his example, he repeatedly told me, “Eat meat.” Muni Baba’s frequent wanderings around the neighborhood requesting meat infuriated Sunita; she said she thought her husband had grown crazy (pagal). “He’s behaving like Putun,” she said, referring to the older neighbor woman, who also wandered round the neighborhood requesting food (see Chapter 2).

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Karun agreed. “Going without food has affected his ability to reason; his intelligence (gyan) has been diminished.” But Muni Baba seemed to thrive. One day he brought a small transistor radio over to the doorstep where I was seated. Standing before me, he hummed along to the well-known Baul song, “Unknown Bird” composed by Lalan Fakir. When it was over, he bent forward, shaping his words carefully to make sure that I would understand, “There is a bird within the body; this bird needs lots of different things to eat: milk and rice, but also eggs and meat. Could you give me money?” When I queried Tara as to whether heating foods were bad, she said that this was not the case, explaining that if someone suffers from a cold-related sickness, as her father did, large amounts of heating foods are called for. She said, “Dayal guru would not scold my father if he knew that he was eating meat.” A couple of days later, after shopping at the market, I asked Karun whether we had remembered to buy the snails that we were planning to eat at noon, cooking them up in a poppy seed sauce. He looked a bit embarrassed. We continued down the path, and as soon as we had reached the trail leading to our neighborhood, he told me not to call attention to the fact that we were eating snails or other foodstuffs such as crabs or eggs that were considered heating. “Laypersons,” he said, “believe that Vaishnavas live exclusively on cooling foods, which is why we purchase heating foods discreetly.” He recited the opening lines of a song he often sang about Krishna taking the form of a black cat: I do ekadosi (fasting by eating cooling foods) the whole year round The cat says; I won’t eat fish, I’ll go to Kasi (Banaras) Karun said, “The cat is obviously lying for all cats eat fish. Actually, the cat eats fish in secret. We behave like the cat when eating heating foods in secret. Only people who are ignorant think heating foods are bad.”

Notes 1 Salomon 1995: 195–6; Openshaw 2002: 220. 2 Capwell 1986: 24; Jha 1995: 100; McDaniel 1989: 180–1; Openshaw 2002: 216–9, 231; Salomon 1995: 195–6, 1991: 271. 3 Narayan’s interlocutors point out that singing songs of sorrow gives comfort to the singer. For instance, the woman Janaki-devi says, “You get some solace in your heart that there have been times like this for others in the past, that there were people with hearts like yours” (2016: 177). Another woman Mathura-devi said, “You can’t tell someone else what’s in your heart. But if there’s some pain, then it comes right out of your mouth in the form of a song” (2016: 180). 4 Cassaniti notes a similar theme in Buddhist traditions where a house also signifies corporeal existence. But her interpretation differs. When walls crumble, and the rafters break, one attains nirvana, i.e. release from the chain of perpetual rebirths (2015: 155). In the Baul song, however, the house coming apart signifies a person who has neglected to care for her body due to her failure to exercise sadhana (bodily self-discipline). 5 Khandelwal 2001: 166.

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6 Khandelwal 2001: 166–7. 7 Alter 1992: 130, 1997: 278, Daniel [1984] 1987: 166–8; Kakar [1978] 1994: 96. 8 Khandelwal 2001: 165–6. Openshaw makes a similar point when noting that scriptural sources used by renouncers, such as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, portray a woman as a “source of acute danger, a means to an end, a step on the path, a source of valuable substances to be stolen, or a life-source to be ‘killed’ that is vanquished” (Openshaw 2007: 322). 9 Khandelwal 2001: 167–8. 10 Cf. Daniel [1984] 1987; Alter 1992; Khandelwal 2001; Lamb 2000. 11 Narayan describes a somewhat similar situation. Speaking of her interlocutors, who divulged “unspeakeable family matters” having to do with child abuse, domestic violence and “unwanted sexual advances, she notes that, Rita and Anita were aware of the transgressive nature of their stories: this is why I was asked not to reveal these events within Kangra.” However, they were eager to have them published “in the wider social world” so that the truth would surface and be known. (2004: 242). 12 See Salomon 1991 for details of his life. 13 A Kabir song cited by Linda Hess also describes the body as sheltering the lord evidencing that this belief is not peculiar to Bauls (2015: 271). 14 Cf. Fruzetti 1982: 96, 97. 15 Knight cites a slightly different version of this song, pointing out that “three distinct ideas about women are expressed here: man transforming into woman, man having intercourse with woman, and woman as guru” (2011: 132, 134). 16 Hess cites a number of Kabir songs describing the body in similar terms, as filled with oceans, rivers and streams. She writes that songs like these are rarely sung because they are too complicated for the audiences to comprehend. Hess does not draw parallels to Tantric thought. Rather, her point is to say that the songs affirm the low-caste body as a thing of beauty and of value (2015: 170–1). 17 Daniel [1984] 1987: 106. 18 Alta is a red liquid used by women as a means of decoration by applying it along the edges of their feet. 19 His explication is virtually identical to that given by the Varanasi (also called Banaras) wrestlers that Alter worked with. He writes that the retention of semen yields “shining eyes, glowing cheeks, a melodious voice, and the ability to work hard, debate well, and redact wisely” (Alter 1997: 284) Yet, in sharp contrast to what Muni Baba said, the wrestlers with whom Alter spoke claimed that women are to be avoided, since their seductive powers lead men astray. 20 See Alter 1992: 132. Also, Openshaw points to a similarity between women’s and men’s bodily emissions when she writes that the clear fluids women secrete – sexual or otherwise – equals the clear fluid men emit after a lengthy period of coitus reservatus; also that a woman’s white vaginal discharge corresponds to a man’s white creamy semen. Because a woman menstruates, she is thought to be complete and self-perfected (siddha). In contrast to a man, she carries four distinct fluids: menses, white vaginal discharge, urine and feces, whereas a man has only three (Openshaw 2002: 215–6). However that may be, the conclusion one might draw is that since a woman’s sexual fluids are scant in comparison to what a man emits, the burden of retaining seed is largely shouldered by her partner. Even so, and as Tara’s and her husband’s demonstration indicates, a man should not spill his seed. His doing so would have dire consequences for a woman too in that pregnancies and giving birth inevitably entail that her body is depleted. 21 Openshaw in Knight 2011: 30. 22 Hess notes that Kabir songs speak of themes that are virtually identical: a bird wandering in the forest, the city in your body, the light or lord within. Some also ask, “Oh bird, my friend, why do you sit in the dark? In the temple of your body the light shines, the guru's teachings gleam.” (Hess 2015: 167).

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31 32 33 34

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Leslie in Khandelwal 2004: 176. Leslie in Khandelwal 2004: 176. Khandelwal 2004: 176; and in Daniel [1984] 1987: 286. Khandelwal 2004: 177; see also Hausner 2007: 48–9, 57. See Basham [1967] 1986: 159–60. In Bengal, there is no word corresponding to the word “emotion.” The closest equivalent would be “mood” (bhab or bhava), indicating an emotional state or sentiment (see Wulff 1995: 105). To say that one likes a given person’s mood is to imply that that particular person evokes a sentiment that one finds appealing, in which case the speaker would perhaps go on to specify the sentiment evoked. Writing of a Thai community, Julia Cassaniti suggests that since the word “mood” is used in place of the word “emotion,” Thai speakers may experience emotions differently to how English language speakers do (2015: 80; see also Derné 1995: 72; Shweder 1991). Cassaniti follows Richard Shweder who argues that emotions vary cross-culturally, i.e. that people everywhere are born with the same emotional register or keyboard, but that depending on the region in which she or he was raised only some keys are played (Shweder 1991: 7). The opinion that a voice should ideally be “thin” and piercing may, of course, be idiosyncratic. Knight notes that the celebrated Baul singer Nur Jahan was respected for her “deep soulful voice” (Knight 2006: 215). Citing Sterne when writing about the importance of oral culture, Hess notes: “Musical instruments and musical techniques were disciplines of the body that subordinated collective communication to abstract codes, even if they were not semantico-referential codes like those of writing” (Sterne in Hess 2015: 218). See Lambert 1997: 260; Lewis 1995: 227; Marriott 1976: 111; Östör 1980: 57. Marriott 1976: 111; see also Lamb 2000: 30–7. See Parish for a discussion of equality as constituting an alternative discourse on hierarchy (Parish 1996: 41, 42). The state of being weak (durbal) is a widespread condition in the Bengali-speaking region. Wilce interprets the phenomenon in terms of power relations between doctors and patients, especially female patients, arguing that the giving of this diagnosis serves to reinforce and reproduce the subordinate position held by women and men seeking medical assistance (Wilce 1997: 365). Although there is truth in Wilce’s contention that being told that one is weak may give rise to a sense of helplessness and powerlessness, the diagnosis is not merely symbolic. Nor does it necessarily reflect a defect of character insofar as feeling weak appeared to be the norm. As Sujatha notes, people strive to achieve a strong and healthy constitution by seeking to attain a balance between excessive states, but she emphasizes that this is an ideal, not possible to realize once and for all (Sujatha 2007). Citing Margaret Egnor Trawick, Kakar notes that in India, many people are concerned with the consistency of their feces; it should be somewhat runny. He adds that villagers believe that being constipated is a state they fear much like Westerners fear fevers (Kakar 1982: 269). Among the villagers with whom I worked, food and bodily emissions were common topics during conversation, but diarrhea and constipation were both believed to be a sign of illness, resulting from an inability to maintain a balance between hot and cold. Karun’s “cool” version of khichuri consisted of yellow mung beans, potatoes and white rice, with cauliflower, and the spices cumin, ginger, coriander and green chili. Cf. Alter 1997: 283; Marriott 1990: 17; O’Flaherty [1980] 1982: 26–7. A similar analogy is manifest in Hindu mythology, where a woman having sex consumes her spouse when she devours semen by means of her vagina, and where sexual intercourse is likened to a mother placing rice into her child’s mouth (O’Flaherty 1982:

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52–3). Daniel notes that food is believed to go into the bloodstream where its essence is absorbed by sexual fluids (Daniel [1984] 1987: 172; and in Jha 1995: 92–3). 38 Openshaw reports similar findings from the district of Murshidabad, where the sadhus that she spoke with implicitly compared body substances to food when drawing an analogy between the upper and the lower mouth (Openshaw 2002: 221). 39 Gold [1988] 1990: 59.

4

Begging and initiation

During the months I spent in Chilluri, beggars would pass by every other day or so, usually in the morning. Some of those who came were Vaishnava mendicants, who dressed in white or saffron and made their presence known by calling hari bal (say Hari, i.e. Krishna) as they walked into the courtyard. The majority, however, were laywomen and men. Eventually, I started to recognize their faces, but this took time for weeks might pass before they came around again. If Tara and her husband knew the beggar who stopped by, they would offer him or her a glass of water, a bowl of muri (puffed rice) or a meal. If they did not know the beggar, they simply fetched a coin or a handful of grains, handing it to the man or woman waiting at the doorway. Once as Karun placed a coin into a beggar’s hand, I overheard him saying, “I also beg.” I was struck by his remark, mainly because Karun and his wife were so intent on making it absolutely clear to me that they themselves were not ordinary beggars.1 They did not beg merely to get by.2 They told me they were sadhus (renouncers), and as evidence of this they said that they had taken bhek (Vaishnava renunciation). In trying to explain the meaning of this step, Karun said, “If you take bhek (sannyas), you are obliged to let your hair grow long, and you must wear ochre (geruya) clothes. You cannot dress in ordinary clothes. You cannot farm the land, nor can you hold an office job. You can only beg. Laypersons should see it as their duty to give alms to a sannyasin (sadhu). Not doing so is inauspicious (amangal). It is a sin (pap).” What Karun did not say is that most Vaishnava mendicants and Bauls have not acquired bhek but they still put on the colors of renunciation. To an outsider, this set of circumstances may appear confusing, yet what should be borne in mind is that there are no rules or regulations that prohibit men and women from wearing white and ochre robes. Anyone can wear these colors, and many Vaishnavas do so for pragmatic reasons. Since dressing in the colors of renunciation frames begging as a pious practice, doing so means that one’s chances of receiving alms will be increased.3 The majority of singers and mendicants acquire diksha, a mantra that simply means initiation. Some will follow up this move by taking siksha, which means learning, and which entitles those who take it to receive instruction in religious practice (sadhana).

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Laywomen and men who consider themselves householders, who neither beg nor dress in ochre clothes, are also welcome to take diksha followed by a siksha mantra if they show an interest in learning religious practice. A guru may have a range of different followers: householders including Muslims, mendicants and Bauls. As a teacher, the siksha guru is an object of devotion; the relationship between the siksha guru and his or her disciples should be close, which means that when a person speaks about her guru, it is usually the siksha guru she refers to.4 The final mantra, known as bhek, is usually taken as a couple in a ceremony that is often more elaborate than the other two rituals. In her description of a bhek (sannyas) ceremony that she observed, Openshaw points out that bystanders repeatedly cried out on the initiates’ behalf: “Give me alms, dwellers of the town, I shall go to fetch the black moon [a reference to Krishna].”5 As this chant suggests, taking bhek is a dramatic step, since in ideal terms the novice is supposed to lead a hand-to-mouth existence by subsisting on the alms bestowed by laypeople. Yet no matter what one’s level of initiation – that is, whether one has bhek or not – disciples are expected to provide their guru with material donations in recognition for the learning and affection that one’s guru gives. However, gifts given to one’s guru can be a source of conflict. That is, problems can arise if a guru starts requesting more donations since doing so evidences greed – that is, a lack of shame and modesty (lajja) – and hence a failure to temper one’s emotions, which is regarded as a chief feature of asceticism.6 In fact, ties forged with one’s guru can also come undone, in which case greed (lobh) is often cited as the very reason why relationships break down.7

Reciprocity Writing of the rise of Gauriya Vaishnavism in the seventeenth century, Chakrabarty notes that merchants, farmers, kings and high officials gave material support to Vaishnava mendicants.8 These relations of dependence were not peculiar to Bengal. Tracing the development of renunciation in postVedic India, Thapar writes that monasteries (ashrams) were customarily located near villages or towns and on major thoroughfares, and that renouncers living at these centers depended on patrons, kings and others for their livelihood.9 Addressing issues of renunciation from a contemporary perspective, Cort and Daniel Gold note that renouncers rely on householders for material support, but since many scholars have tended to portray them as autonomous and self-contained, these dimensions have not sufficiently been brought to our attention.10 Both Cort and Richard Burghart credit Dumont as being the most influential scholar arguing that renouncers are socially detached. Dumont’s ideas are eloquently formulated and should not be dismissed as erroneous, for they correspond to the portraits of renunciation conveyed by Hindu and Buddhist scriptures.11 Nevertheless, says Cort, there has been too much emphasis placed on renouncers as anti-social individuals.12 Recent contributions serve

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to modify such views showing that renouncers organize themselves in terms of kinship ties,13 that caste and gender continue to be relevant14 and that they depend on others for their livelihood.15 Tara often nostalgically evoked visions of a past (before she had been born) when the laity supported their local ashrams to a greater extent than they do now. She said, “Thirty-five years ago Vaishnavas received food and clothing from the villagers. Landowners gave them rice stalks (khar) from their fields, so that they could thatch their roofs. Others gave them milk, clothing and vegetables. Now everything is ulta (contradictory or topsy-turvy).” She specified, “The custom of giving (deber niyam) entailed that when a heifer calved, people would donate milk to the ashram first, whereafter they would drink what was left themselves,” adding by way of explanation that all householders used to have cows. “When the vegetables were harvested, the Vaishnava ashram would initially be given a share of the crops, and then the householders would eat themselves. People used to believe that patronizing ashrams in their village was a very sacred deed” (khub dharma). Aside from lamenting the current situation in which Vaishnavas do not receive adequate support, Tara’s description implies the assumption that the lives of Vaishnava mendicants and laypersons were attuned to one another. As Cort states of Shvetambar Jains, it would be slightly off the mark to say that they renounce the social world insofar as their interaction with the laity is conceived in terms of a ritual idiom.16 Instead of viewing them in isolation, they should be viewed against the backdrop of a wider social setting, where sadhus and laypersons benefit from one another.17 As to the mendicants that I discuss, their interaction with the laity involved singing in return for material donations. And since performing for a larger crowd is likely to ensure a larger income, most Bauls prefer to beg on trains. Older singers, such as Bara Ma, whose voices have grown feeble, have difficulties being heard through the din of vendors vying for attention. So, providing their legs can carry them, they beg for alms in villages. When explaining the significance of begging, Tara and her husband pointed out to me that begging for alms in villages is rule-bound, not only in the sense that Vaishnavas should be careful not to overtax people’s willingness to give, but they should also seek out different communities on prescribed days of the week. Vendors at the market should donate ten or twenty paisha every Friday. Householders should donate grains or cash on Sundays but they should refrain from giving alms on Thursdays since this specific day, called Lakshmiday (Lakshmi-bar), is devoted to worshiping the goddess Lakshmi.18 Since Lakshmi is a grain-giver, the rice should stay at home (not gifted to a beggar); by way of explanation, Tara added, “Otherwise the rice might leave the house,” implying that by not retaining what the goddess gives, she will cease ensuring it. The fear of causing one’s rice to vanish underlay Tara’s mother Sunita’s refusal to donate rice while her husband, Muni Baba, was bedridden with tuberculosis. He was lying on the porch breathing rapidly and moaning, as

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Sunita and I sat by the cooking fire. Whenever this particular Vaishnava beggar had entered the courtyard previously, Sunita would offer her a glass of water and a bidi, after which she served her food, but this time when she came, she told her, “My husband is sick, so I cannot give you rice. Will muri do instead?” Slipping into the house, she fetched a handful of puffed rice from a vessel, and then she placed the portion in the free end of the woman’s sari. The woman tied it up, tossed the bundle over her shoulder and without a word she hurriedly left the courtyard. Unlike muri, rice is a staple food and primary source of sustenance, which means that giving it away when a person is sick might worsen his or her condition.19 When describing the Vaishnava custom of begging, Karun said that while Hindus abstain from giving alms on Lakshmi-day, Muslims call it guru-day (guru-bar), which is why beggars seek out Muslim homes on Thursdays. To exemplify, he said, “Jagadish’s wife begs in Muslim neighborhoods on Thursdays. She goes to the market on Fridays, and to Hindu homes on Sundays.” Jagadish, who had entered the courtyard during this discussion (he was returning home after begging on the train), added, “My wife provides grains (cal), while I provide the vegetables and cooking oil,” implying that the cash that he collected when singing on the train enabled them to buy the other items needed to keep the household running. Tara described the grains obtained through begging (madhukari cal) as exceptionally good, a view confirmed by Dhiren Baba (their sadhu Vaishnava neighbor) who occasionally sold us a portion of the rice he had collected. At one point, he encouraged me to touch the rice, and as I let the grains run through my fingers, he told me that it comprised six different kinds: rahusal, kejurcari, ratna, basamanik, ayar and chris, adding, “When Vaishnavas eat this mixture, they call the act of eating seva, but householders do not appreciate its quality; they only buy it from mendicants because it’s cheaper than the rice sold at the market.” When speaking about begging, Tara said, “Dhiren Baba exerts himself tremendously when collecting grains to cover the expenses for a festival (mahatsab) that he hosts each spring. He erects a stage (pyandel) and provides microphones and amplifiers. He serves food to all the Bauls and sadhus who attend, and he also pays performing Bauls a fee” (dakshina). After one such occasion, I took Dhiren Baba’s picture as he posed before his hut, tears streaming down his face. Tara told me that he cried because of the excessive hardships he’d been through when collecting money through begging so that he could pay for his mahatsab. “Not only does he have to travel long distances by train and foot, he also has to listen to the foul things that people who dislike the act of begging voice.” Because of their diligence, however, Dhiren Baba and his wife had prospered. When I first knew them, their hut was small, consisting of a single room fronted by a tiny porch. Then during the seven years that followed, their quarters were expanded. Another room had been attached; they also had an upper story built, and electricity installed. Tara emphasized that begging rice grains and selling these to neighbors is a viable means of making a living.

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Smiling somewhat gleefully, she said that Dipa’s mother was the leader of a group of female beggars that included Dhiren Baba’s wife, his sister-in-law, Jagadish’s wife, as well as the crazy woman who had worked for Sunita. Dressed in white, this group of female mendicants went around in villages but also to the markets where they collected coins. “If a problem arises between the shopkeepers and beggars, Dipa’s mother settles the dispute.” Tara’s halfsister, Dipa, who came to visit us two days before, had laughingly told her that on a recent begging round, the crazy woman saw a coin lying on a counter. But instead of waiting for the shopkeeper to hand it to her, she seized the coin herself and as a result the shopkeeper grew angry. But her mother intervened and had managed to appease him. Dipa’s mother’s leadership qualities showed in other respects as well. She was in charge of a housing complex that she sublet to Vaishnava beggars, collecting the rent and passing this on to the owners who lived next door. As pointed out in Chapter 1, just after they were married, Tara and her husband lived in this particular housing complex, and this was also where Dipa had been raised, and where she settled after she was married, renting a room of their own. After they divorced, her husband moved away while Dipa remained, sharing her single room with her two young sons.

Singing on the trains Although Tara said she was too shy (lajja) to go begging at the market, she often said she wanted to beg in villages. She and others called this form of begging madhukari (honey gathering) where honey signifies the alms that mendicants collect when flitting from one household (flower) to the next.20 She regarded begging in a sentimental light. She said, “Bara Ma goes from house to house, beating her cymbals, crying hari bal (say Hari, i.e. Krishna). She’s such a loving person. Her mood (bhab) is so appealing that people want to give her things. When she comes to people’s doorsteps, they invite her in to sit with them and have a meal. They’re so fond of her, she cannot stay away too long.” Once, when the three of us had gone to Bolpur to fix Karun’s drum, we stopped by to visit. Bara Ma was not there when we arrived, but showed up an hour later, and told us she had been to three different households. And yet her bag was filled with rice grains, which were topped by four potatoes, an okra and coins amounting to five rupees. This also happened when she came to visit us. She was away about an hour, and she returned with her begging bag filled with rice grains, plus one banana and an eggplant. Impressed, Tara said, “Bara Ma has bhab (mood, as in heart, mind, spirit). This is why people give her food.” Unlike Tara, Karun preferred the trains, since this is much more lucrative. “You can go around in villages begging the entire day and all you get is three kilos of rice. If you sell it to your neighbors, you make eighteen rupees altogether. But you make twenty rupees singing four songs on the train.” But

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Tara kept complaining, saying that she was tired of singing. “It is too difficult. I can’t endure this hardship. I don’t want to count the money when returning home.” Because I was educated, Tara asked me to count the money, but she told me not to empty the bag entirely, for an empty begging bag is inauspicious. In accordance with her instructions, I therefore always left a coin inside. The amount of money they collected varied. Sometimes they got a hundred or a hundred and twenty rupees; at other times they made approximately half that sum. Generally speaking, they made between fifty and eighty rupees a day when singing on the trains. When I visited in 2012, they made approximately thirty rupees more. By contrast, Jagadish only managed to collect half that sum or less; the reason for this set of circumstances was that he took a very early morning train, and the passengers who traveled on this train were poor. A group of passengers had recently suggested that he take a later train. They said that after they had finished working in the fields, they had extra money to spare. “But,” said Jagadish, laughing, “I sing in the morning, not in the afternoon,” adding, “I have to take care of my cow later in the day, so I cannot go in the afternoon.” As soon as Jagadish had left, Tara remarked, “Poor farmers prefer spending the little money they make on tea and bidis. Besides, who wants to give money to a singer they listen to every single day?” Yet Tara often pointed out that because the passengers knew her, they were attached to her. She had been singing on the same train since she was a little girl. When she was about to marry Karun, a passenger had donated a brass water vessel as a contribution to her dowry. And after she had given birth, many of the passengers had offered to hold her baby while she sang.21 She said the local train was filled with poor people, and that most were Muslims, who, in contrast to the rich, gave lavishly. Bypassing their religious identity, she said, “Because the poor know what it’s like to experience hardships, they are much more generous.” Still, there were times when singing was unpleasant. Karun told me of an incident that exemplified this fact. He had just finished a song, and Tara was in the process of collecting money, holding out her begging bag to nearby passengers, when suddenly a man exclaimed, “What you are doing is wrong, singing and then collecting money.” Karun retorted, saying, “Are you a Muslim or a Hindu?” The man said, “Hindu,” to which Karun queried, “Do you have a diksha or a siksha mantra?” When the man said, “Neither,” Karun exclaimed, “So you are an animal.” Vexed, the passenger cried out, “You’re calling me an animal?” Karun persisted, “How many children do you have?” The man said, “Four,” to which Karun replied, “Well then, you are a pig for only pigs have four children.” Before the passenger had time to return the insult, another passenger cried out, “This is a good singer who is accustomed to singing on this train.” Another woman told him, “I’ll hit you for speaking like that to the singer.” At this, the offender looked at Karun and, clasping his hands in a gesture of pranam, said, “Please forgive me.”

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The guru–disciple bond Although Dhiren Baba was a Vaishnava sadhu, he was a Brahman by caste, which was why people often respectfully called him as Thakur rather than Baba. He hailed from a different village, but had settled in Chilluri when he received a plot of land as a donation from a wealthy Brahman follower. He now lived across the pond together with his wife, Gita, her widowed sister and her sister’s two daughters. Since Dhiren Baba had no children, some took this to mean that he was able to control his flow of seed, although Muni Baba questioned his capacity. He once remarked that the reason why Dhiren Baba was childless was because he had been sterilized, an accusation that is fairly common.22 Nevertheless, as a Brahman initiated into bhek, Dhiren Baba was considered eligible to give diksha as well as siksha. The ceremony carried out for me was a simple one conducted on Sunita and Muni Baba’s porch. Dhiren Baba came together with his wife Gita in the afternoon, and as soon as they arrived, he pulled a pair of rosaries from the pocket of his shirt, made from tiny beads of sandalwood, shaped like little rounded squares. Because the beads were new, they looked quite pale, though with time and by rubbing them with oil, the color of the beads would deepen slightly. Gita told me she had strung the rosaries together in a particular fashion to prevent the thread from breaking. As I lowered my head, her husband tied the beads around my neck, while his wife praised the result, and said the rosaries improved my looks. Dhiren Baba then proceeded to whisper mantras through my ears, the diksha through my right ear, and the siksha through my left ear. After this, he instructed me to bow down before Muni Baba and Sunita who were standing on the porch beside me. I touched their feet in a gesture of pranam and in so doing accepted Sunita as my guru ma and Muni Baba as my guru baba. Although Dhiren Baba carried out the ceremony, Muni Baba took on the role of teaching me. At the time this did not seem problematic because I assumed that in going through with the procedure I would be eligible to receive the information that would otherwise be kept from me. It was only in hindsight that I realized that Muni Baba appeared to have ulterior motives, expecting that I would support him financially because I was his student. Having a foreign student (shisya) was prestigious and I gradually realized that he thought his prestige would be enhanced if I also bestowed expensive gifts. When I first met Muni Baba and his wife, I did not fail to note that they were poor. The clothes they wore were tattered; the mosquito net was small and torn in several places. To improve their situation, I gave them clothing and a new mosquito net, and to return their hospitality, I invited Muni Baba and a friend of his to Norway in August 1992. During this visit, I arranged a number of concerts, enabling them to make some money to take home. As a result, Muni Baba was able to pay for a latrine that he installed behind his house so that he and his wife would not have to walk the long distance to the fields to relieve themselves. Part of the money was also spent in providing

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Bara Ma with a larger hut, for the hut in which she lived could not fit more than a single person and was not big enough to stand up in inside. His visit to Norway was much talked about, and when introducing me to others, Tara always said, “My father has been to my Kristin-di’s country.” A picture book containing photographs that I had taken while he was in Norway was locked into a metal chest along with his ticket stubs and passport, items that Muni Baba guarded like a treasure for they served as proof that he had been abroad. Aside from the prestige he gained in knowing me and in having been abroad, it is likely that he came to believe that our encounter marked the beginning of an escalating and ongoing flow of donations. When I returned in 1995 to carry out fieldwork for my dissertation, Tara told me that her father had announced to others that the tape recorder I had brought was a gift intended for him. He also said that I would buy a platform bed and have electricity installed. But as the days went by and nothing came of this, friends of his began to appear on the porch one by one while I sat with Sunita, keeping her company as she cooked. They started off by saying, “Muni Baba is your guru.” After a slight pause, one man continued, “He needs a platform bed. He needs electricity.” When I inquired whether Muni Baba had requested them to speak on his behalf, they nodded smilingly, but refrained from commenting, and after lingering for a few more minutes they left the premises. During these occasions, Sunita muttered in a tone of voice that conveyed her disapproval: “She already gave a lot.” As I have indicated, gurus are aware of the tendency on the part of their disciples to seek out other gurus if disillusioned with their conduct, and I suggest that Muni Baba’s attitude towards me is understandable in light of this. That I gradually began to spend more time with his daughter Tara and her husband seemed to arouse a fear in him that I would drop him as a source of knowledge, the result being that I would also cease conferring monetary help. To Muni Baba, other sadhus were his rivals. He often said that Jagadish was ignorant (boka) and that Dhiren Baba had been sterilized, implying that they could not retain their seed. In an effort to discourage me from spending time with Tara and her husband, he said, “I know everything. Tara and the others do not know.” When I raised questions about spiritual issues when Muni Baba and his daughter were together, a tension pervaded the atmosphere. Sensing their discomfort and reluctance to speak, I began to restrict my queries to the times when we were by ourselves, moving between the two households, posing questions to Tara and her husband, Karun, and then to her parents separately. Initially, Tara and Karun evaded my questions, saying, “I’m not quite certain. Ask Muni Baba.” Later, when he became bedridden with tuberculosis, I learned that he had ordered his daughter, and others too, not to divulge what they knew to me, for as my guru he considered himself the sole appropriate teacher. Thus, acquiring the mantras and accepting a guru, which at the outset seemed like a simple endeavor, and which I thought would be in keeping with anthropological ideals, turned out to have unexpected consequences, for I had not taken sufficient notice of

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pragmatic concerns such as the significance of alms giving, the rivalry that this practice may engender, and how it enters into the guru–disciple bond. People are attracted to particular gurus because they are viewed as spiritually insightful (gyani) and because they can mediate sacred power. As long as gurus give the impression that they have something to offer, devotees seek them out and donate alms as signs of their affection. If they suspect that their guru knows little or otherwise behaves displeasingly, they might go in search of another, as was the case of a laywoman I once met at Dayal guru’s ashram, whose former guru evidently acted badly towards her. She did not say what he had done, but told me that because of his behavior she sought out Dayal guru hoping that he would accept her as an adept, which he did. In making this step, her former guru would presumably lose a source of funding, since the alms she gave him would henceforth go to Dayal guru. There is an element of reciprocity built into these relationships; disciples do not give out of pure altruism, but because they expect some sort of return, a situation that is also true for gurus. The exchange, however, differs from commercial transactions insofar as material donations can never equal what a guru can bestow in the form of blessings and the sermons they provide. In ideal terms, gurus should take whatever they are offered, and if nothing is given, then this should also be accepted as a matter of course. When I put the question to Sunita as to how much a disciple should give, she shrugged as if the answer was self-evident, stating, “If you wish to give, you give. But if you have nothing to give, then what can you give?” Once when Dhiren Baba visited, he elaborated on the issue of donations from a guru’s point of view, stating, “If you gave me five thousand rupees and I responded saying, ‘Give me another five thousand rupees,’ that would be kam (desire). But if you gave me five rupees and told me that you would like to donate another five, and I replied by stating that, ‘What you gave is plenty,’ then that is nishkam (no desire). This is correct, isn’t it?” he concluded with a smile, implying that greed (lobh) and desire (kam) are frowned upon, and that although disciples are expected to provide donations, a guru should not seek to manipulate the situation in an effort to gain more, as Muni Baba sought to do. In ideal terms, a guru’s behavior should be motivated by love (prem) as opposed to lust and desire, since the latter are associated with attachment and self-interest.23 That love (prem) is a prominent dimension of the guru–disciple bond was evident in Muni Baba’s description of Dayal guru. In response to my question as to how he felt about him, he said, “My guru is a mother who gives food. He is a father who gives knowledge. He is a husband who gives seed (in the form of urine or saliva). He is a brother who shares his house with me. He is a friend who keeps me company and who travels around with me. My guru,” he concluded, “is everything to me.” Obviously, this rendition was phrased in ideal terms. Muni Baba described his guru as someone who possessed all the traits of a close (apon) friend, brother and husband. Moreover, the relationship was characterized by nurturance in his capacity as a mother, but also respect in view of the knowledge he

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bestowed as a father. As Khandelwal points out, it is this latter paternal role that has gained the widest currency in the literature addressing renunciation. Feminine traits have been downplayed, the result being that renouncers are portrayed as either neutral with respect to gender or as wholly masculine. She writes that such descriptions are rooted in Advaitic philosophy and Brahman ideology where women are perceived as threatening in view of their sexuality. Her findings show, however, that female renouncers value and enhance their feminine traits in which the ultimate female trait is that of feeding others. But motherhood is an important aspect to male renouncers too; by assuming maternal characteristics, a guru does not merely resemble a parent, but acts as a model for ideal behavior.24 Muni Baba’s description implied the message that a guru fulfills all the dimensions people need in order to lead satisfactory lives. Not only that, but his statement “My guru is everything to me” suggests total commitment and complete surrender to a being conceptualized as superior and therefore perfect like a god.25 When writing of devotional (bhakti) traditions, Murray Milner Jr. notes that the guru is perceived as a “direct mediating link with the divine,” which means that “by intimate association with the guru, one associates with the divine.”26 The act of connecting with the guru is accomplished in a number of ways – by gaze, touch or by absorbing a substance that has been in contact with the guru’s person. This substance is referred to as prasad, and although many authors tend to limit their description of prasad to food, it includes all that is passed on from a guru to a devotee.27 In my day-to-day experience, prasad referred to Dayal guru’s leftover food, the urine he emitted as well as the water used to rinse his feet, substances that devotees ingested to show their deference, but which also served as vehicles for assimilating their guru’s sacred and benign power.

Dayal guru Dayal guru looked sixty, but claimed to be eighty-one, a claim attesting to his skills on how to maintain a healthy constitution.28 He was a thickset man of medium height, with a quick, determined gait. His gray, thinning hair was wound into a topknot; his eyes were small and penetrating, and he had a shaggy beard and moustache as befits an older sadhu. Although his voice was sharp and loud, he spoke incessantly and also very rapidly, and so I found his speech quite difficult to follow. Moreover, much of what he said was phrased in terms of riddles, a common strategy employed by gurus as a means of trying to attract and retain disciples. For instance, during one of my visits to Dayal guru’s ashram, he put a box of matches on his head and then he queried, “What is this?” Posing the same question, he replaced the box of matches with a teacup, and then he stated that the two items were the same. Some of the questions were directed at me, such as “If you had two identical saris, black with a red border, then what would you think?” The sari I was wearing fitted this description and,

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somewhat baffled, I asked him to repeat the question. At this a lay disciple sitting by remarked, “He is very intelligent” (khub gyani). After a short interval, Dayal guru told me, “You won’t think anything for they are both the same.” He signaled for me to sit a little closer, then touched my right hand and inquired, “What is this?” I said, “My hand.” He pointed to his mouth, asking me to name it, which I did. His final question was “If you lack a hand, but wish to eat, then what will you do?” I said I would have trouble, to which he said, “You need your hand to feed yourself.” He abruptly got up to inquire whether tea would be served, and the conversation took a different turn. Whenever I saw him, Dayal guru tended to dominate the conversation, and as a result he remained in charge, which made the task of learning slightly harder and the process also slower, although his technique appeared to be deliberate. Because the knowledge that gurus bestow is not readily accessible, disclosing it bit by bit serves to underline this fact. Moreover, if a disciple’s curiosity is kindled during the learning process, the chances are that she or he will continue to seek out their guru in order to learn more, the result being that the ties between them are maintained. That knowledge may be hard to come by renders it all the more valuable. Indeed, saying little or nothing at all may be an indication of a guru’s superiority. When speaking about Bara Ma, Muni Baba described her as a sadhu who “knows a lot but nevertheless remains silent” (anek jane kintu cup-cyap thake). Still, the tendency to withhold information may have undesired consequences. For instance, Jagadish, who was often termed dimwitted by others, remained so, said Muni Baba (in a merry tone of voice), because his guru hardly spoke.

Substances exuded by the guru One day, while I was sitting on the porch conversing with Sunita about her health, Dayal guru suddenly appeared in the doorway of her courtyard. As he lifted his bicycle across the threshold, Sunita rose to meet him, running through the yard, exclaiming, “Jay guru, jay guru” (victory to the guru). Bending down before him, she clasped his feet in a gesture of pranam, then hurried indoors to fetch a mat for him to sit on. Soon after, Muni Baba, Tara and Karun entered the courtyard. One by one, they paid their respects by touching his feet, bringing their right hand to their forehead. Durga, who was sitting by the hearth, also rose to greet him, bending down awkwardly to emulate their behavior, then retreating bashfully to the hearth. Having offered their pranam, Sunita proceeded to rinse Dayal guru’s feet, which were covered with dust from his bicycle ride. She filled a vessel with clean water, and then she poured the water over his feet, letting the soiled water gather on an aluminum plate below, after which the plate was passed around so that each person could sip its contents. Muni Baba, Sunita, Tara and Karun collected the water in the palm of their right hand and swallowed some, before pouring the rest on to their foreheads. Sunita promptly carried the plate of water to the pond to dispose of its remains. Because the water

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had been consecrated through Dayal guru’s touch, the pond was an appropriate place, as was everything else considered sacred. Later in the afternoon, after Dayal guru had departed, Sunita did puja at the household shrine, seating herself on the mat that her guru had previously occupied, for it too had been consecrated through his touch, and as such it served to mediate her worship. Similar displays of devotion were directed at Dayal guru during the times I saw him at his ashram. When he received his visitors in the afternoon, he took his customary place on a pink pillow (the color pink or geruya is associated with Vaishnavas), while a young girl named Rekha (a lay disciple, dressed in an ordinary patterned sari) waved a fan to cool him down. As other lay disciples approached the porch, they kissed his feet, then touched themselves with their right hand, bringing it to their lips and forehead, before seating themselves on mats in a semicircle before him. When twilight started to set in, Rekha’s betrothed (also a lay disciple who made his living as a weaver) took over the job of fanning Dayal guru as his wife-to-be began her puja. She encircled him with incense and then went indoors to worship a large framed picture of the god-pair Radha and Krishna. As she passed me, she smilingly nudged her chin, indicating Dayal guru, and quietly said, “He is Krishna.” We had eaten his prasad earlier that day. Rekha’s mother (also a lay disciple) dished out a portion of the meal that she had cooked, but everyone present, including me, abstained from eating as we waited for Dayal guru to begin. As soon as he had popped a handful of rice into his mouth, we prostrated ourselves before him, keeping our foreheads to the ground, stretching our right palm towards him in a scoop-like fashion, so that he could portion out a sample of his food. Dayal guru ate his meal from a stone plate, the type of plate customarily employed when giving offerings to a deity or to the spirits of the dead (pret atma). When his meal was completed, he withdrew into his sleeping quarters, at which point Rekha’s mother pulled Dayal guru’s stone plate towards her, adding fresh portions of rice and curries to his leftovers. Then, kneading the ingredients together, she commenced to feed herself, ingesting his prasad. A similar behavioral pattern was enacted whenever tea was served. We waited, while Dayal guru took a sip, before administering a share into our cups. Although I refrained from smoking while conducting fieldwork, I was aware of the fact that people enjoy smoking foreign cigarettes, and consequently brought a pack of tobacco with me to his ashram. Unable to roll a cigarette, Dayal guru told me to put the cigarette together, but I was not to lick the paper. Instead, he asked me to extend it so that he could carry out the function, thus avoiding my saliva. We accepted his exudations, but the reverse was never true. He was great (bara), while we were small (choto). And while we employed the honorific second-person pronoun apni when addressing him, he used the non-honorific pronoun tui.29 Thus, what Tara said about the icons she worshiped at her shrine was also true of Dayal guru. It was through displaying our humility and love that we obtained his sacred

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offerings. In making ourselves small, we were able to partake in his divine, superior presence.

Greed and desire Yet, when speaking of her guru, Tara and her husband did not idealize him as Tara’s father did. They pointed out that he had taught them everything they knew, but although his mind (man) used to be benevolent and clean (parishkar), they said that it had changed. Karun told me that when he was sick with bronchitis, just after he and Tara were married, their guru came to visit them. Seeing the metal trunk they had received as a wedding gift from Karun’s maternal grandmother, Dayal guru told them to give it to him and then he carried it away. “Dayal guru only loves people who have money,” Karun said ironically, implying that this is a contradiction in terms, insofar as alms are given as signs of affection and should be accepted regardless of the sum. Also, if nothing is given, then this should also be accepted since people should give according to their means. Sunita once said, “Those who lack money are unable to bestow it.” In a similar vein, Karun said, “I know my Dayal guru wants money, but I have no money, so how can I give him money?” He remarked, “Dayal guru sends the money he receives to his wife and children in Murshidabad,” insinuating that his guru had engendered offspring, thereby casting doubt on his ability to retain his seed. As a further indication of his guru’s selfish conduct, Karun added, “When he comes to visit, he does not inquire about other people’s health. Pretending to be ignorant, he says, ‘I don’t know’ (ami jani na). He prefers to talk about his own constitution, exclaiming, ‘Look at my teeth, aren’t they nice? Look how strong my legs are.’ He wants money, and says, ‘Give, give’ (dao, dao), but I have no money. He knows this but pretends he doesn’t know. Dayal guru loves people who have money.” Karun went on to say that on one occasion when his guru came to visit, he saw their television set and told them that possessing one was not the way of sadhus, indicating that sadhus should live modestly. But Tara had retorted, “If your guru can purchase a motorcycle and still call himself a sadhu, then we can have a TV set.” Tara added that she and her husband once gave their guru a sacred neem tree, valued for its cooling traits. They also gave him four hundred rupees. Still, he continued to ask them for money, and because of his excessive greed, they seldom went to see him, and they also said they would procure a different guru for their son. Tara and Karun’s description of their guru chimed with my impressions. On one occasion, when I saw him at his ashram, he took me to a lay disciple, whom he described as a wealthy landowner, implying that he profited from his relationship to him in his capacity as teacher. Later, Dayal guru told me that doctors holding MD degrees often came to see him to learn how to attain a healthy constitution. When I gave him a leather bag which I had brought from Norway, he happily said, “Now I can carry all my books around,” and

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then he added, “I know all the different religions (dharma), Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Aul and Baul,” thus drawing attention to his spiritual insights. He also said that foreigners occasionally stopped by to learn from him. Recently, a couple from Japan had visited. Because they could not speak the language well, they asked him for permission to tape-record his sermon, but he had replied in the negative, explaining that because they lacked a siksha mantra, he could not teach them. He told me that his own guru had a large number of followers, some of whom were very rich, such as Sonia Gandhi. “If you ever feel compelled to see me, don’t hesitate to come.” Although Dayal guru never asked me outright to become his disciple, his statement about Sonia Gandhi reminded me of a similar comment made by a Brahman purohit who was Kalpana’s as well as Karun’s diksha guru. Wishing to perform a puja on behalf of her deceased mother’s soul, Karun’s sister-in-law, Chayna, residing in the house next door, had summoned this particular priest to carry out the ceremony. During the proceedings I sat beside the priest, writing down the details of the ritual. After a while, he turned to me and asked whether I would like to become his disciple. He said that he would teach me all the mantras needed to worship God, and the correct way of performing household pujas – that is, when and how to offer fruit and flowers to images of deities. “I have six thousand students (shisya) in lots of different districts.” To make his offer more alluring and because he knew that I was learning to sing Baul songs, he added that the famous Baul Purna Das was also his disciple. When I told him I already had acquired diksha, he pointed his finger at Kalpana seated beside me, and said, “The mantra I gave this girl differs from the one you have. Your guru does not know the right mantras.” That Dayal guru wished others to perceive him as prominent was something Tara drew attention to when she said that he had voted for the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party). “Dayal guru wants to be a sadhu king” (raja-sadhu), she said, adding that the two were incompatible, for politics (rajniti) were bad. I pointed out that she too had been involved in politics, albeit briefly, when the chairman Mr. Mukherjee had wanted her to run as a commissioner. But Tara countered that she was not a real sadhu. “There are no sadhus anymore,” she said. “They are all preoccupied with money, or they have children; they divorce their spouses and remarry; some drink alcohol (mad) and smoke ganja, while others have a vasectomy performed in order not to conceive.” Karun agreed, saying, “The worship of sadhus has no value” (kono dam nai). They used to be powerful beings, he said, and to exemplify he described the Tantric sadhu Bhama Kheppa, who once lived in Tarapith, a crossing place identified with the goddess Tara, where laypersons are burned and where sadhus are buried. In former times, Tarapith had been a village lacking temples, and Bhama Kheppa had been living on the cremation grounds alone. When troublemakers came to see him, he would say, “So you have come to kill me, and set fire to my house?” Then he struck them blind. They pleaded with him, saying, “How can we work if we cannot see?” At this, he restored their vision, whereupon they left.

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Karun then recounted another narrative about a woman who saw her child killed by lightning in a dream. After this she had another dream that showed her child poisoned by a snake. To seek protection, she brought her son to Bhama Kheppa’s hut. He proceeded to mark off an area and then he placed the child in the middle of the circle. When lightning struck, it did not hit the child who was safe within the demarcated space. Soon after, a snake appeared which bit Bhama Kheppa, but the goddess Tara promptly fed him milk, which served as an antidote to the poison. “This story is true,” said Karun, repeating, “There aren’t any sadhus like that anymore. Nowadays, they just stay at the burning grounds, drinking alcohol and smoking ganja.” That night, just before we went to bed, Karun resumed the subject, saying somewhat bitterly, “Everybody is their own king (sabai nijer raja). People do not ask me why I have a beard, why I wear a loincloth or why my clothes are red [ochre] instead of white. They are not curious, but simply think, ‘That man prefers to wear those things.’” To explain this set of circumstances, he said, “The majority of sadhus are ignorant. They dress in red, but even so they lie and cheat in order to get money. There is only one true sadhu in the entire district and that is Bara Ma.” Although Bara Ma’s visits were rare, she came to visit while Muni Baba was bedridden with tuberculosis. Once, just after she arrived, she took a bath to clean herself in preparation for the midday meal. Returning from the pond, she wrapped a clean white sari round her body, then, noting that the cloth was torn, she shrugged and said, “Someone gave it to me, but since I am a sadhu it does not matter.” Hearing Mr. Mukherjee’s voice out in the road, she said she wished to pay her respects to him. Stepping down from the porch, she slipped on a pair of sandals, and said, “These used to belong to someone else, they don’t fit me very well,” implying that she received them on her begging rounds. As she left, Karun exclaimed, “There is only one true sadhu, and that is Bara Ma,” meaning that she, as opposed to others, was not greedy, but accepted whatever laypeople deemed fit to offer, even a pair of sandals that had been worn by someone else.

Mantras and seed Yet, as I stated at the outset, despite the dismal view that Tara and her husband took, acquiring a guru capable of conferring the appropriate mantras was nevertheless regarded as a necessary step when seeking to gain insight about spiritual matters. Once, I asked Karun why mantras are needed in order to learn Vaishnava customs (niyam). He replied, “Receiving mantras means that your body undergoes a transformation.” At this, Tara volunteered, “People who lack mantras have bodies like jungles. They do not know anything. They do not know God’s name.” Noting my confusion, Karun interposed, “When you are in your mother’s belly, you repeat God’s mantra over and over. A child in the belly,” he said, “breathes twenty-one thousand, six hundred times a day. Each time the child in the womb inhales, the word sha is uttered. And

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whenever the breath is expelled, the word hang is uttered. This is God’s name. Repeating the mantra sha hang effects intoxication” (nesha hai), by which he was implying that the child in the womb is in a state of bliss. “But when you leave your mother’s belly, you forget the mantra, even though you thought you would always remember it. Having forgotten your mantra, your body becomes wild like a jungle. But those who get a diksha mantra change. Their bodies are transformed into flower gardens.” Pointing to a patch of dirt near the doorway where some marigolds were growing, Karun said, “If I see a little area where there is a flower, what happened to it?” He looked at me inquisitively and then continued, “Someone tilled the land and planted seeds (bij). The diksha mantra contains seed. By planting seed into a person’s body, it becomes a garden. When you receive a diksha mantra, your body (deha) becomes purified. It becomes a sacred place” (pabitra jayga). Tara’s mother invoked similar ideas about purity when she said that the acquisition of a diksha mantra purifies the body and serves to cool it down, adding that such people know how to conduct themselves appropriately – that is, a cool person has good manners. She said she would not let other people fetch water from the tube-well, unless they had this mantra, which was why she had imparted the syllable to Durga – her husband’s friend’s daughter – who helped her out with cooking and cleaning in return for food. But Tara grew embarrassed when I brought the matter up, “Yes, my mother is a guru ma,” she said, implying that she did not think her mother suited to this role. She also scoffed at her mother’s statement that diksha is required in order to fetch water, dismissing the claim as one of her mother’s quirks. When Durga was dismissed, a neighbor woman, affectionately called Khepi (crazy girl), was summoned to take Durga’s place. Sunita told me, “But Khepi lacks initiation into diksha, so I have to fetch the water by myself.” Struggling to and from the tube-well, spilling water on the ground, she huffed and puffed demonstratively until Kalpana managed to persuade her to let go of the vessel so that she could carry out the task for her. I do not know why Sunita refrained from giving diksha to Khepi. But granting that there is an element of logic to her reasoning, she might have thought that it would be in vain, since, being crazy, Khepi would be unable to recall the syllable. In fact, the woman who preceded Durga was also viewed as crazy. She had a diksha mantra (given by Dhiren Baba), which in Sunita’s thinking meant that she could carry water, but she kept chiding her for being unable to recall the syllable and she finally dismissed her because of her incompetence. Because crazy people do or say whatever comes to their mind, they lack the ability to discipline and monitor their their inclination. One morning, as Muni Baba lay whimpering in bed, Sunita stood crying by the hearth, dragging on her bidi, threatening to leave. “Where will you go?” I asked her. She said, “I’ll go wherever my mind goes, as if I’m crazy.”

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Red and white Like mantras, the clothing worn by sadhus, given by one’s guru, were also thought to influence the subjects wearing them. Tara said her red clothing kept away the ghosts (bhut) that appeared at dusk, lurking round the village border. Stray dogs never bark at her, and criminals too leave her in peace, the reason being that they value the color red. To exemplify, she said that the young men smoking ganja beneath the sacred bad tree by the station were friendly towards her. Every time she passed them, they greeted her and said, “How is the memsahib?” But she warned me not to pass them by myself since I did not dress in red.30 Orange, saffron, ochre, pink and yellow were conceptualized as different shades of red (lal), which represents a woman’s flow and connotes auspiciousness and femininity.31 The underlying meaning of these shades was brought home to me one day while shopping at the market. This was in November, when the evenings had started to grow chilly, so bringing Durga and Tara, I decided to purchase cardigans for us to wear during an upcoming program held to mark the end of the harvest season. Although Durga would not join us, I planned to buy some bangles and a cardigan for her as well, to compensate for my failure to provide her with a Norwegian sweater when I first arrived. (Her father had complained about this fact.) Because my sari would be yellow, I chose a jacket that was blue, but Tara who was with me, and who would be wearing ochre, continued searching through the stacks of clothing, looking for a pink one. Acting on my preconceived notions about what constitutes a sense of taste, I said “Pink does not go well with ochre,” but Tara said that pink, like red, represents a woman’s flow (rup), and so it looks pretty when the two are worn in combination. That the color red (pink and ochre) bears female connotations was also driven home to me when I gave Durga’s father a red Norwegian sweater. He was happy with the gift at first and wore the sweater daily until Ajit (our tabla player) pointed out that bright red (tak lal) is female. Initially, Durga’s father denied this claim, but I never saw him wear the sweater after this remark was made. Whereas red and ochre with a brownish shade are colors worn by Tantrics, Vaishnavas tend to dress in brighter shades of saffron, pink and yellow interspersed with white, though some Vaishnavas dress entirely in white. When I asked her why, Tara told me, “Sadhus wear the color donated by their guru. Or they wear the color donated by laypersons.” To exemplify, she said that Caitanya (the Vaishnava saint) is depicted wearing white because his devotion to God was so intense that he became unconscious (agyan). As a result of this exalted state, he ran about the village naked. Seeing him, the villagers grew bashful (lajja) and gave him clothes that happened to be white. When he regained his consciousness, however, he chided the villagers for providing him with white, saying, “Why did you give me white?” and then he changed back into red (ochre or geruya). Pausing slightly, Tara said, “I love the color red.”

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And then she added, “My Dayal guru often quarrels with Dhiren Baba, for while my guru says that red is the essential color, Dhiren Baba thinks that white is better.” Tara went on to say that there are no particular restrictions as to the putting on of white clothes, but only sadhus who have sannyas (bhek) feel free to dress entirely in red, and to exemplify she said that Jagadish always wears a red shirt (kurta), but because he lacks a bhek mantra, he would not dare to dye his undergarment red. In Tara’s view, then, the color red is valued for a host of different reasons. It represents the female flow. It signifies initiation into bhek. And it provides protection from criminals and ghosts. Also, in contrast to laywomen who dress in red to signify their married state, and who exchange this color for white clothing when they grow older, Vaishnava women wear the color given by her guru, and they persist in doing so even after their husbands pass away.32

Will Papay get a sannyas mantra? One of Tara’s chief concerns was procuring a “red” guru for her son Papay. He had reached the age of thirteen, an auspicious odd number appropriate for taking bhek. Tara told me, “We have to find a guru who wears red clothing (lal kapar). Since we wear red, Papay should wear red.” But she did not wish her Dayal guru to assume this role. After pondering the issue, she exclaimed, “Where shall we find a guru?” She decided to seek out Dhiren Baba to ask him to assist her, to inquire whether he might help her find a “red” sadhu willing to accept her son as a disciple. That evening, the two of us walked around the pond to visit Dhiren Baba. Removing our sandals, we stepped on to the porch where Dhiren Baba’s wife, Gita, and her sister (dressed in their customary white cotton saris) were cleaning lentils by the light of an oil lamp. Having exchanged greetings, Gita told us that her husband was away and would not return until the following afternoon. She put away the lentils and began to brew some tea. As she carried out this task, Tara stated her reason for coming, explaining that she was concerned about her son receiving a sannyas mantra. “My son is thirteen years old,” said Tara. At this, Gita replied that thirteen is a good age for receiving sannyas. “But our problem is this,” Tara continued. “We would like Papay to have a ‘red’ guru, not a ‘white’ one. It would be nice if he could wear the clothing that we have.” Gita said she did not know of any good “red” sadhus. The “red” sadhu who had come to their mahatsab (festival) two years earlier, whom Tara mentioned as appropriate, had passed away. “Perhaps Dhiren Baba knows someone. But why don’t you ask your Dayal guru? He wears red.” Tara told her she had discussed this prospect with her husband. “Maybe Dayal guru will suffice,” she said. “We must ask him whether he is willing to accept Papay as his student” (shisya). On returning home, Tara and her husband continued to talk about the forthcoming event. As they prepared the evening meal, Karun said a

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Brahman would be Papay’s diksha guru. “Tomorrow morning we will visit Dayal guru and on the following day we will see the Brahman.” Turning to me, Tara said, “The Brahman looks just like my husband. His name is Karun too, and he also sings.” She then began to tell me how the ceremony would be arranged. “We will have a stage (pyandel) in the road outside our house where Bauls will sing. It will be expensive since lots of people will attend.” Then she suddenly exclaimed, “What if our guru Baba tells us that he will not give Papay sannyas? I will not give him white clothing. If I cannot give him red clothing, I will not give him anything.” Papay, who had entered the courtyard while we had been talking, said he wanted red clothing and a dor-kaupin like his father’s. Tara said, “So you won’t wear a shirt and pants?” “No,” said Papay, “I’ll wear red clothing.” I asked him teasingly, “How will you manage to play cricket?” to which Tara laughingly remarked, “You will just wear your loincloth (kaupin-taupin), right?” As we ate our evening meal Tara continued the discussion, saying that young boys and girls look pretty when they are given sannyas. “Their hair is shorn. Their clothes are red, and because they have not yet gained intelligence (gyan), they are not bashful (lajja). It is beautiful to watch but also very sad. The guru cries and so do all the other people present; although they realize that the student (shisya) will continue to reside at home, they believe that she or he will leave, and this is why they cry. It is better for my son to acquire sannyas now.” She reasoned, “When he’s older, he’ll be shy (lajja). Besides, it will make my father happy seeing Papay get a sannyas mantra now. I want him to have it before my father dies.” That Tara thought the ceremony particularly beautiful if undergone when young was tied to her conception of beauty as a quality that evokes a state of graceful innocence and vulnerability. These traits are typical of children who have not yet acquired lajja, a term connoting shame and bashfulness, manifest in adolescence when teenagers become increasingly self-conscious, painfully aware of their appearance and of society’s evaluation of their looks and conduct.

Shame as a key emotion One reason why shame is positively valued is that its expression indicates that one has come of age. Describing women in Orissa, Susan Seymour notes that lajja arises when a girl begins to menstruate, whereafter she learns about her reproductive powers, the necessity of being modest and how to act in a mature fashion.33 Parish, who discusses lajja as understood among the Newar in Nepal, emphasizes the importance of control. Although men, like women, must learn to monitor their inclinations on entering adulthood, women are expected to exercise a greater measure of self-restraint. They should be less outgoing, daring and assertive than men are.34 Also, one of the women with whom Parish spoke likened lajja to a jewel, indicating that shame is tied to beauty.35

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That Tara said its absence is a mark of beauty too is somewhat surprising, but should be viewed against the backdrop of Vaishnava renunciation, where the taking of a bhek mantra is held to be a sign of courage, of not caring whether others disapprove of one’s decision to become a sadhu. Obviously, the courage children show when taking bhek stems from a lack of knowledge (gyan) concerning what the step involves. Children’s inexperience means that they have not yet internalized society’s conventions, and their innocence in this respect was something Tara found endearing. Still, once children reach adulthood, they are expected to exhibit lajja, as evident by the manner in which she sometimes treated her son. Because the door leading into the bathroom had a number of cracks, family members did not undress when they took a bath because someone might discern their figure through the cracks or enter inadvertently. Whenever I showered, I did so fully clothed, slipping off my wet sari while wrapping a new one round my body. But Papay neglected to conform to this convention. To instill appropriate behavior, Tara sometimes flung the door of the bathroom open, exposing his naked body to the people on the porch, crying goodnaturedly; “Look he’s naked. He’s stupid. He’s not bashful. His intelligence has not appeared. When will it occur? I don’t know!” And Papay giggled as he crouched upon the floor. By continuing in this fashion, then, she hoped to elicit the modest conduct she desired. Still, as the following example will illustrate, being too shy is frowned upon. When Jagadish’s daughter married the neighbor boy called Shubal, he came by a few weeks later to pay a visit, accompanied by Jagadish’s sister. Because he had married a close relation, for Tara stood in a relationship of classificatory maternal niece to Jagadish, Shubal was shy with us, so he concealed his face from view by holding up a basket. Kalpana teased him, saying, “What did you eat today?” He mumbled from behind the basket, “I can’t remember.” Kalpana kept teasing him, “What did you say, you can’t remember?” Shubal muttered, “No, I can’t.” Affecting genuine concern, she asked, “You must have had your meal a very long time ago?” The exchange continued for a while, during which everyone present laughed, but Tara later told me, “Showing too much shame (lajja) is not good. His behavior is annoying.” As I pointed out in the previous chapter, emotional and mental activity spring from seed embedded in a person’s body substances, yet they must be checked, modified and kept in balance. Although emotions such as love and anger, fear and shame develop gradually, their full impact is not felt until the seed within has ripened, at which point children are expected to temper their emotions. Emotions, then, are subject to control, a technique that is acquired. And since their expression can be learned, they can also be unlearned. Much of what Tara and others said regarding lajja suggested that its absence is characteristic of a sadhu. For instance, recall the statement cited in Chapter 1 when Tara said that, in the past, her father sought to have her triumph over this emotion when he made fun of her by saying she was shy, thus encouraging her to sing in public no matter how the audience might evaluate

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her performance. Tara also told me that kids in her neighborhood would mock her because she wore a mala, a rosary made from strings of tulsi (basil) beads which Vaishnavas and the elderly habitually wear. “Many people feel shy (lajja) wearing one,” she said. Another woman, Tuni, living at the ashram were Bara Ma resided, also told me this. On seeing the rosary adorning my neck, she said she was impressed, and then she told me that she used to have one too, but the other kids her age made fun of her. They called, “What’s happening? Have you become a sadhu?” and she grew embarrassed and removed it. When I recounted this exchange, Tara told me, “Wearing a rosary entails that you cannot feel shame (lajja), aversion (grinha) or fear (bhay). These three things must go.”36 She continued, “Do you know why sadhus cannot feel aversion?” I shook my head, and she responded, “Sadhus do jaler-matir kaj,” by which she was implying that they reabsorb part of their urine and their feces, a statement indicating that they must unlearn what they have previously been taught: that bodily emissions are dirty. Also, because they have to beg, they must cease feeling embarrassed (lajja), for otherwise requesting alms would be near impossible. Nor can they feel fear (bhay. for they must leave their homes to interact with strangers when they beg. Tara often said, “I used to feel shy. I don’t anymore.” Another mendicant I met at Dayal guru’s ashram proudly told me, “I was shy before, but I’m not anymore.” Not everyone is able to muster up the courage to go begging. One morning, Sunita and I were seated on the porch with Durga and her father. Sunita began to complain about her work, and I impulsively inquired why she didn’t quit: “You’re a Vaishnava, you can beg.” She giggled, and then Durga’s father intervened, “She’s much too shy (lajja) to beg. She would be afraid. She’s not accustomed to it.” His daughter, Durga, added, “Besides, she would miss her income if she quit.” While Vaishnava mendicants and Bauls should be able to defy normative conventions, they do have other norms that they should follow. For instance, a person who takes bhek (sannyas), yet continues to bear children transgresses the norms of the sadhu social order, known as the community or society of sadhus (sadhu samaj). Karun often told me that if he continued to father children, great sadhus would not eat with him. In distancing themselves, great sadhus would signal that he was inferior. To convey their disapproval, they would say that he was shameless. Obviously, Tara’s statement “Sadhus do not feel shame, disgust or fear” should be viewed in context. Vaishnva sadhus should strive to conquer or suppress feelings of embarrassment (lajja) when interacting with the laity during their begging rounds, but they must exhibit it in other situations by proving their ability to abstain from bearing progeny vis-à-vis sadhu society. Shame is not simplistically perceived as the opposite of honor. Rather, showing lajja (shame) is a means of deferring to society. Put differently, by subduing personal desire through a show of lajja, one honors the collective of which one is a part.

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Fear of losing face, of being reprimanded or made the butt of ridicule are influential factors that figure as a motivating force when exercising selfrestraint. As such, what Parish writes – that “self control requires the capacity to experience lajja” – is instructive.37 However, the experience of lajja hinges on the acquisition of sufficient mental skills (gyan) – the ability to reason, reflect and understand. The ignorant, including children and the mentally unstable, are neither able nor expected to distinguish right from wrong, nor to act according to conventions. Similarly, devotees stricken mad (pagal) with love for the Supreme grow temporarily unconscious (agyan) and lose their inhibitions.38 But as Tara’s narrative about Caitanya indicates, the bystanders who saw him grew bashful (lajja) and gave him clothes to cover up his nudity. Obviously, Papay differed from the saint; he was neither crazy with devotion nor mentally unstable. Instead, his lack of lajja was a sign of insufficient gyan (knowledge or intelligence), which suggested that he was still behaving like a child despite his adolescence. Knowledge is supposed to come with puberty – hence Tara’s friendly taunting: “When will his intelligence appear?” In teasing him she was attempting to stir his consciousness so as to ease the path for him, calling his attention to the necessity of having to conform. Heeding social norms stems in part from social pressure and fear of being ostracized.39 Knight writes that lajja may be likened to a shield or veil serving to protect one’s reputation. It is a feeling that arises when others evaluate your past and present conduct.40 As such, feeling shy, embarrassed or ashamed is premised on the acquisition of sufficient gyan (knowledge or intelligence), a quality that comes with age but one that varies individually. In this sense, violating social standards, which implies a lack of lajja, is not always glossed as wrong, nor does it necessarily imply a loss of social self or lack of manners, as others have suggested.41 Rather, transcending lajja can also be a sign of strength – a means of showing that one dares to differ, is capable of challenging mainstream norms and expectations – as when Tara wore a rosary despite the fact that the other kids in the neighborhood would tease her.42 Knight writes that “there are for all women [and men] contexts and situations when they do not need to overtly display shame or purdah.”43 But even in settings where expressing shame is proper, its display should not be exaggerated, as evidenced by people’s reaction to Shubal’s conduct cited above. Displaying lajja signifies one’s capacity for self-restraint, but showing this emotion should not be excessive nor should it be completely absent. The statement “Mendicants cannot feel bashful or ashamed” (lajja) should therefore not be taken literally. The crazy woman Khepi went too far when picking up the coin that lay upon the counter; she should have shown herself to be modest by waiting for the shopkeeper to hand it to her. Likewise, Muni Baba showed a lack of shame (lajja) when seeking monetary gains from me after taking on the role of preceptor. His daughter said, “My father has no boundaries” (map nai). Muni Baba voiced a similar sentiment when he said that Durga’s father acted shamelessly when hovering around the porch, telling me reproachfully that I had failed to give his daughter a Norwegian sweater.

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Tara and her husband also spoke about their guru as a greedy shameless person, who took their only valuable possession, their trunk, and then continued to demand material donations. But for all his shortcomings, he was in fact the sadhu that they turned when they decided to have their son initiated into bhek.

Visiting Dayal guru Having made our decision to visit Dayal guru to inquire whether Papay could have bhek, we rose before dawn, dressed in the dark and followed the path across the field leading to the station. A goat, tied to a peg in the ground, had dragged the rope across the path, and seeing this, Karun made a detour, explaining, “On this day, it is important to make sure that the work we carry out at Dayal guru’s ashram will be favorable.” To step across the rope would be inauspicious and might jeopardize our quest. Tara and Karun were apprehensive about going. Four years had passed since they last went to see their guru. To justify their absence, Karun said, “Our guru Baba is a very greedy (lobhi) person, always asking us to give him things.” He then repeated the story about how he had been sick with bronchitis, and that despite his being ill, Dayal guru had seized their metal trunk, their only valuable possession. We walked on in silence when Karun suddenly exclaimed, “Dayal guru is probably angry because we have not sung at his mahatsab, but he never gives us proper food. Singing makes you weak (durbal). The only food he serves is khichuri (a dish he made from ingredients perceived as cooling). And if we decline the khichuri, he serves us muri and a chili. Such food does not make up for the strength you lose when singing.” We took a bus to Gavindapur, passing the ashram where Karun had received his sannyas mantra, at which point Tara remarked that Dayal guru would probably forget to give us food, being too preoccupied with chiding them because they had not been to see him, so after disembarking we had some muri at a tea stall. When finished, Karun began to negotiate with the rickshaw peddlers, chose one and then signaled for us to climb into the vehicle. Soon after, we were out of Gavindapur, following the road to Dayal guru’s village. We passed the ashram where Tara had received her sannyas mantra: a small adobe house, its roof made out of tin. To its left were a couple of pale blue tombstones indicating graves of Vaishnava sadhus. Flat fields surrounded the ashram on all sides. “Dayal guru used to live here,” Tara said. “This is a good place, an empty place (phyaka jayga).44 Vaishnavas have a different dharma, they do matir, jaler kaj” (soil-water work, a euphemism for absorbing feces and urine). Tara said, “Regular people (emni lok) would be disgusted if they knew. This is why sadhus settle at a distance, on the village boundaries.” The driver peddled through the center, and then continued to the far end of the village where we stopped, and as Karun paid the driver, I followed Tara through the doorway leading into Dayal guru’s spacious courtyard.

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Rekha’s mother greeted us, providing mats for us to sit on, and then she served us each a glass of water and a plate of sugar. Her husband emerged from the kitchen quarters to tell us that Dayal guru was away, begging alms from door to door. Seconds later, he arrived, shouting, “What? No tea? Hurry, hurry,” which made the others present laugh. Walking briskly through the courtyard, he removed his red shirt, hung it on the clothesline, slipped off his plastic sandals, fetched his box of bidis and settled on his red pillow on the porch. I gave him a one-hundred-rupee note and a pack of foreign cigarettes. “The money is for the midday meal,” I told him. He dispatched his instruction to Rekha’s father as to what we needed at the market, and then he started talking of his health, stating that his body had grown weak (durbal). “I have never in my life taken medicine,” he told me. “Now I have to take it.” He fetched his X-ray from his room, explaining that a doctor he had visited had told him that he had “bronchitis-pneumonia,” widely held to signify the first and second stages of tuberculosis. Hearing this, Karun advised him to stop smoking bidis. “Little by little you can cut it out.” After a slight pause, Tara began to state our reasons for coming: that her son was getting older. “He has reached the age of thirteen and so we thought he should have sannyas. But,” she said, “we want him to have a ‘red’ guru, not a ‘white’ one. This is the reason for our visit. We would like you to accept Papay as a student (shisya).” Tara continued, “Since Kalpana lacks a sannyas mantra, it would be good if Papay and Kalpana could take bhek together.” Dayal guru listened as Tara spoke, and then, as soon as she had finished, he rose and disappeared into his sleeping quarters, returning with a stack of books. He chose one, put it on his lap, then carefully placed his spectacles upon his nose and started leafing through its pages. Finding an appropriate passage, he read it silently, tracing the lines with his finger. Suddenly, he slapped the book shut and, fixing his eyes on Tara, he said, “To do tyag is to break off your relations” (sambandho). He paused a while, and then continued, “Papay is a young boy. He lacks intelligence (gyan). We do not know whether he will be able to live like a sadhu. It is better to wait. If he wishes to do tyag when he grows older, I will give him sannyas, but right now your son is much too young.” He added, “As for Kalpana, she is unmarried, so why should she do tyag?” implying that because she was a single woman, she did not need to learn religious practice in order to retain her seed. The subject was dismissed. He took his stack of books back to his room, and then he left to bathe in the pond across the road. In the evening back at home, after we had had our meal, and as Karun was adjusting our bedding, he said that Dayal guru made the right decision. “If we give Papay a sannyas mantra now while he is still a child, he might regret the act, throw his loincloth in the pond, and marry and have children. Then everything will be in vain. It is better to wait and see what he would like to do himself. This will be Papay’s decision.” In closing this chapter, I am reminded of an incident that took place one early morning in March 2006. Tara, Karun, Papay and I were waiting for a train. Our destination was a temple dedicated to the goddess Durga. Tara

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went to purchase tickets, while the three of us remained seated on a bench when a tea vendor approached us. We bought three cups of tea, and as we sipped it, the vendor, eyeing Karun, inquired whether Papay was his only child. When Karun answered yes, the vendor queried, “So you have been sterilized?” Raising his voice, Karun said, “We’re taking this memsahib to see a temple,” and then he walked away. Tara and her husband frequently complained that most laypeople do not recognize the value of their path: “They do not show an interest in Vaishnava customs, the significance of wearing white and ochre clothes, the importance of initiation, and the underlying meaning of our songs.” At the same time, the vendor may have struck a nerve for, despite the importance given to religious practice, many Vaishnava sadhus do have children. Frustrated, Tara once remarked, “There are no sadhus anymore. There may be some in the Himalayas, but all the sadhus here are fakes.” When the train arrived, we boarded, and after settling down, a passenger handed Karun a ten-rupee note requesting him to sing, and as he did, I noticed that the other passengers were listening too. The train halted at the next station, where a vendor smilingly came over to our window to pour out some tea for Tara who held out her glass for him, and then he offered us some tea for free as well. Later in the day, when returning home, having visited the temple, another vendor gave us slices of cucumber with chili powder as refreshments. After disembarking, we met the blind harmonium master, seated on the platform floor. We talked a bit while waiting for the rain to stop, and then continued home. The impression I was left with was that to be a mendicant and singer could also be quite pleasant.

Notes 1 In his account about a Tamil Brahmin (and other people living in a leprosy colony), James Staples writes that “begging in some ways remains more taboo than leprosy itself.” Several people that he knew admitted to their relatives that they had leprosy, but did not disclose that they derived their livelihood from begging (2014: 67). 2 Gold 2011: 92. 3 Knight 2011: 148; Openshaw 2002: 135–7. 4 Openshaw 2002: 142; and in Denton 2004: 64. 5 Openshaw 2002: 132. 6 Khandelwal 2001: 167. 7 Vaishnavas are supposed to acquire the capacity to rise above petty hankering for riches by exercising self-restraint, thus harnessing the six vices that humans must contend with, which include greed (lobh), desire (kam), jealousy (hingsa), anger (krodh), pride (ahamkar) and affectionate attachment (maya) (Lamb 2000: 116–7; and in Capwell 1986: 86). As Lamb points out, the latter word maya is a multivalent term that in colloquial Bengali connotes “affectionate attachment” and “illusion” (ibid.). Equated with compassion (sneha) and with love (bhalobasa), maya signifies the multiple strands of relatedness that human beings grow entangled with during their span of life. People may feel maya for “a tiny calf bleating for its mother,” for the trees growing in their garden (ibid.), or, as Tara once

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remarked when speaking of her father, passengers feel maya for an old Baul singer whose feeble voice attests to years of singing songs for alms. Although classifying maya as a vice (along with greed, desire, pride, jealousy and anger) may seem peculiar, it reflects Bengali understandings of emotional attachment as deceptive when taken to extremes, that excessive maya blinds people to the existential truth that human beings must eventually detach by cutting ties of maya when they leave the world behind. Chakrabarty 2006: 59. Thapar 1979: 62, 64. Cort 1999: 89; Gold 1999: 68–9. Burghart 1983: 635; Cort 1999: 89–90. Cort 1999: 90. Hausner 2007: 64, 74–7; Knight 2011: 141; Openshaw 1993: 154; 1998: 6. Kasturi 2009; Khandelwal 1997: 85; Knight 2006: 216; 2011: 141; Narayan 1989: 74–5. Cort 1999: 95; Kasturi 2009. Cort 1999: 90. Cort 1999: 90, 103; Hausner 2007: 51. Openshaw notes that one should not beg for alms on Thursdays, known as “guru day” nor on the day of the full moon, the new moon or the eleventh lunar day. Houses where people are arguing or where a child is crying should also be avoided (Openshaw 2002: 134). See Parry 1985: 613. Tara and other Bauls did not use the phrase madhukari when speaking about singing on the trains. They simply said, “we go on the train” (laine jai). To put Tara’s statement in perspective, I should add that it is not uncommon for a passenger to hold a woman’s baby to relieve her burden if the mother does not have access to a seat. Also see Knight 2011: 75. Khandelwal 1997: 97–8. Khandelwal 1997: 83, 86, 96–7. Milner 1994: 198. Hausner, who worked with Shaiva sadhus of the Dasanami order, similarly notes, “The importance of the relationship a sadhu has with his or her guru or gurus cannot be overestimated.” … “Gurus are completely realized beings, incapable of human error.” … “They represent the highest transcendental plane” (Hausner 2007: 73). See also Narayan 1989: 82. Milner 1994. Khandelwal writes that sadhus who look young despite their age are thought to embody “spiritual power” (2004: 82). This form of address, however, did not imply cold distance. The young display their love and honor those of a higher status by treating them respectfully. Mines writes that “rank difference may indeed entail affection of a kind,” and is appropriate in contexts when juniors interact with seniors (Mines 2005: 95). In my observation, seniors can display respect towards juniors as well. For instance, Kalpana once told me that her sister-in-law Mira’s mother (living in Kolkata) addressed her as “apni.” This, she said, evidenced her “cool” polite manners. When I saw Mira’s mother in Kolkata (I traveled there with Mira’s husband), she touched my feet in a gesture of pranam, again not to indicate submission but to be polite. Knight likewise notes that renunciation serves as protection against male harassment (cf. Knight 2011: 143). Cf. Holland, Skinner and Cain 1998: 257. Knight describes a similar scenario: parents crying as they watch their daughter taking bhek (sannyas) despite knowing that initiation does not involve a final break

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with home and family (Knight 2011: 141). Openshaw, who witnessed several sannyas ceremonies, notes that the step is closely tied to parting and sorrow (Openshaw 2007: 325). It is a theme vividly evoked in a popular poster showing Caitanya’s mother, who, clutching her son’s sandals, is overcome by grief at his departure. In her discussion of the meaning of renunciation and why some Bauls choose to take it, Knight notes that renunciation can either permit non-normative behavior, or enable women to lead lives that Hindus and Muslims from the larger society find acceptable. Baul women, whether widowed, divorced, married or single, may take renunciation to acquire freedom, establish respect, rebuild their status and/or to signal their commitment to their path (2011: 139-78). Seymour 1999: 253. In a similar vein, McGilvray states that the onset of menstruation is equated with the period when a woman becomes knowledgeable and therefore cooked (McGilvray 1982: 34). Parish 1994: 199, 203; see also Obeyesekere 1981 [1984]: 122; Shweder 2003. Parish 1994: 199, 203; see also Shweder who notes that lajja may be likened to a “gorgeous garment worn by women” (2003: 1125). Cf. Openshaw 1993: 209. Parish 1994: 200. Knight describes the female singer Nur Jahan who when speaking of her past portrayed herself as pagal, and therefore unable to distinguish between good and bad or vice and virtue because of her exalted state (Knight 2006: 212). Derné 1995: 72–3. Knight 2011: 109. Cf. Parish 1994: 209; Shweder 1991: 260. See Knight 2011: 91, 109; and Simon 2005: 497. Knight 2011: 66. Charles Malamoud writes that the region outside the village may be defined as the area external to it; also that, whether a desert or a forest, its principal feature is that it is conceived of as an “empty interstitial space” (Malamoud 1996: 76). The fields that Tara was referring to were tilled, yet because they were uninhabited, she defined them as empty. Malamoud, who bases his analysis on scriptures, notes that “the wild forest” is identified with renouncers, and that their level of spirituality means that they are naturalized. Renouncers obtain a state of harmony with nature and as a result wild animals are not afraid but graze peacefully beside the ashrams (Malamoud 1996: 88). What Tara and her husband said, however, indicates the opposite: namely, that because renouncers cultivate their bodies, they also cultivate or temper the wild and malignant forces of animals and criminals, who, instead of growing violent, grow happy, calm and loving when in the presence of renouncers.

5

Festivals and programs

Many tourists traveling to West Bengal take the opportunity to visit Jay Deb, a festival unfolding every year in Kenduli during the winter season. I was no exception. But my trajectory was perhaps unusual, for the very first time I heard Bauls sing was at a festival of poetry in Oslo. One performing Baul, who made his living as a tea merchant, invited me to visit him in Burdwan town to stay with his extended family. A lover of Baul songs, the patriarch (my friend’s father) would bring his family to the mela every year. Come midJanuary, the old man closed his two adjacent shops of kitchenware and tea. His son, the singer I met in Oslo, would put on ochre clothes and wrap a turban round his head before he sang, while his friend (another tea merchant) accompanied him on the tabla. Then, when he was through, his father sent a grandchild up on to the stage to pin a rupee note upon his son’s chest to honor his performance. Only later did I learn that other singers called my friend a “business Baul.” A shopkeeper and part-time Baul, he did not sing for alms. He only sang at festivals and functions. Years later, when I had settled in with Tara and her husband, I looked forward to another visit to Jay Deb since, after all, this mela is thought to be the highpoint of the year, attracting people from near and far and different walks of life: sadhus and lay pilgrims as well as tourists and people from the upper-middle-class elite (bhadralok). But Tara and her husband were reluctant to take part in the event. The hubbub of the festival did not appeal to them. The lack of sleep was disconcerting. They knew plenty of Baul singers; they met them on the trains when singing songs for alms, and they teamed up with singers and musicians when they performed at smaller festivals and functions. But comparatively speaking, they were quiet and reserved. They were not given to impulsive shouts for joy, of loudly crying jay guru and hari bal (“victory to the guru,” and “say God”), common exclamations uttered when Baul singers meet. And they were highly uncomfortable with the quantities of ganja smoked openly at festival events. Harvest celebrations were a different matter. As the fall progressed, Tara, her husband and his sister looked forward to the month of Paus, the time when villagers arrange pujas to celebrate the deities Kartik, Lakshmi and Annapurna. These deities are grain-givers. They are equated with prosperity

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and wealth; they should be honored when the harvest is completed, and arranging a concert (program) with Baul singers is an appropriate conclusion of these celebrations. Speaking of an upcoming event, Kalpana remarked, “Actually, all these autumn pujas are carried out to honor Lakshmi. It is an Indian custom” (niyam). And since we had just been discussing issues of caste, she added as an afterthought, “A long time ago, Brahmans introduced it,” meaning that the rites of lay society are structured and defined by Brahmans who hold a privileged position, a situation she resented (see Chapter 2). Nevertheless, she looked forward to the prospect of singing at these celebrations. Not only is the income greater than what they manage to collect when singing on the trains, but performing on a stage is a festive activity where, accompanied by musicians and aided by speakers, they sing uninterrupted for hours at a time for an audience intent on hearing their performance.

Women’s dress and comportment That white and ochre robes are worn to signal piety and modesty was brought home to me one day when I had lunch with Dipa, Tara’s younger half-sister, Muni Baba’s daughter by his second wife. A Vaishnava mendicant (she learned to sing when she was young but gave it up because her mother disapproved), Dipa resided with her two young sons in a compound managed by her mother. It consisted of two rows of single walled-off tiny rooms, ten in all, each fronted by a little porch – all made out of clay – which Dipa’s mother sublet to Vaishnava beggars.1 I arrived at noon with Muni Baba on the appointed day, the time when mendicants complete their morning rounds. Seated on the porch with Dipa as she cooked, I saw the other beggars entering the premises in groups of three or more. They all removed their white cotton attire (none of them wore ochre) and then they showered in the courtyard using water from the pump. The men changed into blue-checkered lungis, while the women put on patterned saris. Ignoring my presence, one young woman, who was seated on the adjoining porch right next to Dipa’s, put on a violet printed sari and applied pink lipstick to her mouth, and then she snapped her mirror shut, fetched her leather purse and left the compound with her husband. Obviously, to wear a violet sari and lipstick and to bring a purse is not appropriate when begging since mendicants and singers should represent themselves as pious, modest devotees when they beg for alms. They should not show an interest in fashion and in riches. Still, much like the white-clad widows Lamb describes, who cultivate detachment even as they frequently give in to the temptation of eating yet another mango, or attending yet another wedding, many mendicants and singers wear printed saris and even make-up when they are not begging for alms.2 Tara and her sister in-law wore white or ochre saris when going out to beg, removing their wrist watches, bangles and the dot between their eyes, sticking the latter to their chest

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beneath their blouse, before they left their house. And then, when they returned home, they changed back into multicolored printed saris. But they did not consistently wear printed saris when at home; they seemed to value printed saris for sentimental reasons – perhaps to highlight their identities as young attractive women? For instance, they wore printed saris when shopping at the market or when embarking on a pleasure trip – when going for a picnic by a river, or when visiting a friend – and when these saris were worn out, they were used around the house. The same was true of ochre saris. They were turned into useful rags when they grew old and tattered. But when singing on a stage, they dressed in saris that were stiff from starch in brighter shades of orange, pink or yellow. Stored away in trunks, kept beneath the platform bed, they wore their festive Baul attire whenever we performed at festivals and other programs. If the place where we were going to sing was at a distance, we brought an extra set of clothes along, since to wear them when you travel – on a train, bus or rickshaw – means that they will lose their stiffness, and if it rains they will be smudged. Carrying our instruments as well as several travel bags, neighbors standing in their doorways would nod and comment as we passed them on the lane: “So, you’re off to do a program.” Perhaps they felt a twinge of envy as they watched us going by? In the eyes of neighbors, to be the center of attraction performing songs on stage in a distant place might seem like an alluring venture, especially when viewed against the backdrop of everyday routine behavior marking life at home. When nothing else was going on, I spent my time seated in Tara’s or her mother’s courtyard, or conversing with the neighbor women in the roadside after we had had our tea in the afternoon. Tara and Kalpana encouraged this behavior. They told me I should tie my sari in a fashion suitable for women of a higher social standing, not to tie it in the village style they themselves adopted when at home. (I tried it once but Mr. Mukherjee admonished them.) To convey respect, they consistently avoided the familiar term tumi, addressing me as apni, and they always handed me a saucer with my teacup, giving me two biscuits rather than a single one. When I protested at this deferential treatment, Kalpana would smile and say, “Because you are a memsahib.” Being fond of cooking, I enjoyed noting down the ingredients going into the different dishes Karun made. I was particularly fond of chutney, made from tomatoes in the fall, cilantro in the winter and green mangoes in the spring. “Everyone likes chutney,” Karun said. Then one day he seemed to sense that I was bored, for he suddenly suggested that we all go for a walk, and have some fragrant milky tea served in clay cups at the station. I eagerly assented, putting on a fresh sari. Perhaps I seemed more animated after we returned because Karun said, “Going out is good for the mind.” Puja celebrations, seeking out a shrine to hear a katha or visiting a local mela were a welcome change, and this was true for harvest celebrations too. Being in the public eye when singing on a stage holds the

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promise of adventure. Neighbors would invariably pop by to ask questions about the programs we had the next day. Since most took place at night, they could be quite exhausting. Returning home one day towards noon, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, my sari crumpled from the journey, a passer-by came up to me and said, “You have lost your glamour.” After crossing the threshold of our courtyard, we rinsed our feet, changed into everyday saris and had some tea and muri, before the daily chores began. The courtyard needed to be swept, the floor and porch had to be swept and washed with cow dung. Water needed to be fetched, and our clothes were left to soak in soapy water in buckets near the doorway. It was only after we had showered and finished eating lunch that we lay down to take some rest. Then, on waking up an hour later, we had another cup of tea, before we settled in the roadside to chat with neighbors, and then another round of chores began. Their sister-in-law, Chayna – a tall, skinny woman married to Karun’s middle brother, Gopal – eyed me from a distance, as I chatted with the women about the different courses they had made for lunch. Mala (who lived across the road from us) said she appreciated my trying to make conversation, remarking, “The other mems and sahbibs are only interested in Bauls.” I thought of the American couple, Ruth and Stephen, who had arrived one evening unexpectedly some days before. They had come in the company of a gentleman (bhadralok) who, as far I could tell, worked for an NGO. I introduced myself, and so did they, as they smilingly took their place among the family members seated upon burlap mats upon the floor. Karun sent for his younger brother who promptly came to accompany them on the tabla as they sang. Kalpana served tea. Ruth and Stephen were intrigued, “They’re so sweet. I hope we’re not disturbing them.” After they had gone, Kalpana remarked that they should have left some money. A hundred rupees would have been appropriate. “Of course, the foreigners were not at fault,” she said, “but the bhadralok who brought them should have let them know.” Their middle brother’s wife, Chayna, seemed to view me as a stranger passing through, another Ruth and Stephen. Being shy, she kept her distance. Occasionally, she came to watch TV, but stood up to leave when the movie ended. It was only after I observed a ceremony carried out for her mother’s soul that Chayna beckoned me over to her house to offer me a bowl of lentil soup that she had made, which seemed to be a means of trying to incorporate me in a web of generosity and reciprocity. Her daughters wandered in and out. The youngest stood leaning up against the doorway, gazing at us silently. Karun teased her. He made faces at her, trying to elicit a response, and she smiled back cautiously. In the evenings, as we practiced for the upcoming festivities, neighbors, mostly children, quietly slipped in, settling down upon the floor within the courtyard, moving out again when we had finished singing. One evening, a neighbor, living on a different block from ours, asked me to her home to sing for her. Seeing this as an opportunity for us to practice, Tara, Kalpana, Karun and also Jagadish and Ajit came along. Expressing admiration for my efforts, the older woman said, “She sings so prettily, and

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she wears a mala (rosary) round her neck,” implying that to wear one was a sign of piety. A few days later, when walking to the market, an older man living in a neighborhood bordering on ours stopped us in the road to tell us that his son had just been hurt while riding on his motorbike. He had been taken to the hospital. Touching his shoulder, Karun gently told him not to worry, and said his fate remained in God’s hands. Then, three days later, the old man sent for us to mourn his son’s demise. His daughter-in-law, a woman in her early thirties, showed us to the porch where we settled down amidst their relatives and neighbors. Consonant with widowhood, she was dressed in white. Her marriage bangles were removed,3 and she no longer wore vermillion in the parting of her hair although its henna-colored sheen betrayed her sudden status as a widow. Bowing down before each person present, she dipped a marigold flower into a paste made out of sandalwood and water, and as she pressed it to our foreheads, Kalpana began chanting hari krishna while beating a pair of cymbals vigorously. Tara, Kalpana and I each performed a song, while the men, Karun and the tabla player Swapan, did four. The old man turned to Kalpana, requesting her to sing another. She quickly looked at Tara who nodded her approval, and when she had finished we rose to take our leave. I’ve opened the cage There is nothing more to say Go if you’re going Go if you will Go flying towards the blue skies Cut your ties of maya In this life you can’t remain I know your love will not remain

The festival called Paus Tara and her husband were reluctant to visit Paus. They eventually consented, but said they only went to help me with my research. Because the four of us (including Kalpana) would spend the night with Bara Ma in Bolpur, we were ensured sufficient rest. Still, Karun worried that we would not find a place to move our bowels, although his anxieties turned out to be unfounded for makeshift bathrooms had been set up along a road. Fold-up chairs had also been arranged in rows before the stage, where the audience, comprised of bhadralok, were seated as they watched the performances unfold. When we arrived at the site, a number of Bauls had already lined up to give their names. Others were seated on the ground beneath a plastic covering on the left-hand side beside the stage, watching the performances take place. Surveying the area, I happened to notice a friend of ours, a Bolpur Baul, arriving in a rickshaw. He disembarked, paid the driver and then stalked over to the

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site where we were grouped, angrily exclaiming that the money he would get for his performance barely covered the expenses for the rickshaw he had taken from the station.4 When the concert was completed, we were served a meal of rice, but instead of being served seated on the ground in the customary fashion, the food was dished out in a student cafeteria, and it included boiled eggs, a type of food classified as hot (amish), which Vaishnavas should not eat, which seemed to indicate a lack of understanding as to what their customs are. Karun remarked that since there are no free communal feasts served in Paus, the poor see no reason to attend. There was a market, but the various stalls assembled featured books and textiles in patterns of batik, products that cater to the tastes of the educated classes, rather than the rural poor. An atmosphere of discontent was quite pervasive. No one uttered shouts of joy; they all looked somewhat glum, waiting patiently for their turn to sing on stage. Describing Paus, Charles Capwell writes that the motive of this festival is to create and represent an essentialist Bengali culture to the middle-class elite arriving for a day’s outing from Kolkata to see Bauls and Kirtan singers, as well as Santali dancers, enact a folkloristic heritage.5 In this sense, the festival called Paus assumes the characteristics of a trope, one that frames performing Bauls as carriers of rural life, a life that urban intellectuals associate with bygone days, but which also constitutes a refuge viewed as static and unchanging as well as somewhat backward.6 Capwell notes that despite their lack of competence and grace, two laymen sang on stage when he was present.7 But they were prohibited from doing so when I was present ten years after his book was published. In the intervening years, a controversy surfaced when Maki, the Japanese Baul woman, dressed in an ochre sari tied in the rural style, wished to play the ektara and sing before the audience, a request she was denied on the grounds that only real Baul singers are permitted to perform. Apparently, her being Japanese disrupted middle-class illusions concerning authenticity, foiling their romantic search for pristine rural innocence and harmony identified with Bauls.8 Of course, Bauls also distinguish between part-time and full-time Bauls – those committed to a life of singing songs for alms and those who do not commit. To some extent, part-time Bauls – like my Brahman friend from Burdwan who made his living as a shopkeeper – were regarded as a threat. For instance, Tara turned down a request from a young man, dressed in a pair of jeans and leather sandals who wished to sing with them during an upcoming puja celebration. The two were standing in the road, speaking out of hearing distance, but I could tell by her expression that she was distressed. After he had left, she said, “Really, he’s a good singer. But he’s not a Baul. He doesn’t beg. If people like him get hired, what will we do? How will we live?” implying that “real” Bauls with a genuine commitment would be ignored, while part-time Bauls would take their place, enjoying the excitement of the limelight. A few days later, after we returned home, a Bolpur Baul, the father of the singer whom Tara’s father had wanted her to marry (see Chapter 1), made an

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unexpected visit. Seated on the mat that Tara handed him, he unpacked his tape recorder, explaining that he wished to carry out an interview with Jagadish and Karun. He told us he was interviewing all the Bauls who had attended Paus, and that he would send the cassette he was making to the festival committee. He said the way that Paus had been arranged was not in accordance with Tagore’s original intentions. At this, Kalpana chimed in, saying, “When Tagore arranged the festival he ate the food that Bauls were served. The food that we were fed is only fit for cows. In those days too, Bauls sang beneath the trees, not on a stage.” Our visitor accepted the cup of tea that Tara offered, but he politely declined her invitation to have supper. He told us that before the festival began a layperson had climbed up on to the stage, and, displaying a check, he had informed the audience and singers that 15.000 rupees would be donated to the performing Bauls. Shaking his head, he told us that Bolpur Bauls were only given 10 rupees each. Then, switching on his tape recorder and holding out the microphone, he asked Jagadish to introduce himself. He promptly gave his name and address, adding that he had received the sum of twenty-five rupees. Tara, Kalpana and Karun told him they were given 50 rupees each. Rising, our visitor declared that he wished to have a saffron banner made with writing on it protesting the way that Bauls were treated. Clasping his hands in a gesture of pranam, he said, “If we all stand together, we will be heard.” I do not know whether his plans were realized, and, if so, whether they bore fruit. Tara and her husband showed no interest in the matter. Had I not been present, it is unlikely that they would have gone, for Paus was not a festival to which they journeyed much, and they were not attached to the Bauls in Bolpur. The local trains they traveled on to sing went in the opposite direction. Occasionally, they went to Bolpur to fix Karun’s duggi (drum), and twice I tagged along, during which we took the opportunity to visit Bara Ma. We also spent the night with her when we attended Paus, and as Karun spread the blankets we had brought upon the floor, he sang two stanzas from a song that Muni Baba often sang: This Baul life We go to sleep wherever and whenever it gets dark Some people understand my virtues Others disapprove and keep their distance On the surface, the lyrics seem consistent with bhadralok ideals, namely that Bauls are spiritually enlightened vagabonds who sleep out in the open, beneath the trees or in the fields. But listening to Karun sing, the lines took on a somewhat different meaning: that if the place where they perform is far away, singers have no choice but to spend the night away from home, and that this is what the life of a performing Baul entails. Bauls are conscious of the fact that many laypeople appreciate their music, while many others treat them condescendingly. Their discontent with Paus and the displeasure that our

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visitor from Bolpur vented seemed to stem from their assessment that they were not treated with respect. Only later did I learn that many bhadralok had also tired of this mela.

The festival called Shaktighar in Kolkata I was staying with a friend in Kolkata in January 2012, and he suggested that we visit a festival called Shaktighar in Jadabpur, which, like Paus, is organized by bhadralok. Describing how it came about, my friend said that many people had grown disenchanted with the increasing mass of plastic trinkets sold at Paus, and had finally decided to establish a brand-new festival in Kolkata in 2006. Like Paus, there was a single tent housing the performances, and fold-up chairs had been provided. Also, the various stalls outside the venue sold snacks and tea. But otherwise the items available for purchase were limited to books, DVDs and CDs of Baul music. Having lost track of my friend while listening to the music inside the tent, I began to wander round the premises, searching for my friend, and then by chance struck up a conversation with some middle-class people grouped outside the venue. Avoiding the floodlights, they were discreetly smoking cigarettes and sipping rum while discussing the performances. One man exclaimed, “What I do not like is when they lapse into folksongs” (lokgiti). A woman mused, “But what is a Baul?” to which a man replied didactically, “A Baul must have a guru. If you do not have a guru, you are not Baul.” Leaving them, I met two Baul singers that I knew from Bolpur; both looked stately in their ochre robes. The singer who had carried out the interview in Chilluri embraced me, something he had never done when I had met him in the company of Tara and her husband. When I passed him later in the evening, he was posing with a long-haired foreigner as another “hippie” took their picture. Still searching for my friend, I proceeded down a lane, and noticing a group of men and women clustered round the entrance of a building, I climbed the steps and entered a room where some singers, mostly white-clad Fakir Bauls, were giving an impromptu concert without the aid of microphones. Standing up while singing, they were surrounded by a small enthusiastic audience consisting of Bengali intellectuals and foreigners, men as well as women, some of whom were sipping rum and inhaling ganja from the chillums being passed around. As I settled down upon the floor, I heard a man repeatedly requesting an ochre-clad Bolpur Baul to sing the wellknown song about twelve-year-old flowers blossoming in Brindaban, where blooming flowers signify young women who have just begun to menstruate (see Chapter 3). What I witnessed was very much in keeping with Knight’s observations; that bhadralok perceive Bauls through the lens of Other, as an exotic contrast, not subjected to the rules and regulations of normative society. Rather, Bauls are sexually unencumbered and free to smoke and drink. But Bauls in turn hold similar perceptions of bhadralok and foreigners.9 I also found that,

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consonant with Knight’s observations, Baul women play a minor role in middle-class imaginaries of the category Baul. Only one Baul woman sang on stage while I was present, and none participated in the singing that took place in the informal back-stage venues.10 The first evening featured white-clad Fakir Bauls from Sylhet in Bangladesh, while the second evening featured Vaishnava Bauls predominantly from the area of Bolpur-Santiniketan. I left at dawn the next day, traveling back to Chilluri, where Tara told me she had learned about my presence at the festival from two singers that she knew who had seen me in the audience. They themselves were not invited, but had gone out of curiosity. The impression I was left with was that the festival had been a gesture on the part of bhadralok to give honor to the Bolpur Bauls they patronized. That Fakir (Muslim) Bauls had been invited to the venue was perhaps a means of acknowledging the fact that the Baul tradition is composed of singers with a Hindu and a Muslim Sufi orientation. Inviting Fakir Bauls from Bangladesh (rather than limiting their invitations to local Fakir singers) served as a reminder that West Bengal and Bangladesh were united before the region was partitioned along religious and political lines. People from the middleclass elite are of the view that since Baul lyrics do not always fit a system of beliefs easily defined as unambiguously Hindu or as Muslim, their songs can serve the function of transcending communal boundaries.

The festival called Jay Deb The festival called Jay Deb differs markedly from those arranged by bhadralok which are secular in nature. Spatially and socially, it constitutes a crossing place or tirtha where an interchange takes place, “not only between the heavenly and earthly realms, but also between large cross-sections of humanity.”11 Jay Deb teems with people during the three-day period while the festival unfolds. People come to listen to the music, but also to purchase goods. Numerous paths wind their way between countless stalls selling household wares, clothes, bangles, religious booklets, as well as images of Krishna as a toddler or as a handsome shepherd poised with flute in hand beside his lover, Radha. There are food stalls, teashops and Ferris wheels that operate during the day. Performances begin when darkness falls. Singers and musicians usually take care to arrive a day before the festival commences to secure a place within the ashram of their choice, by spreading their mats upon the floor. The sadhu responsible for setting up the ashram remains before the dhuni fire burning near the stage, but may also walk around the premises chatting with bystanders, making sure that everyone is comfortable and taking care to straighten out petty disagreements that invariably arise when people gather in large numbers. Sunita enjoyed the festival immensely. Every year she sent a messenger to her superiors at the detention facility to say that she was ill. I went to see her just before she left. Seated on the porch, she had already put on her ochre sari, and she was holding a mirror in her hand, carefully tracing a white

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streak made of sandal paste along the bridge of her nose. Speaking of her boss, she said, “If you tell him you are sick, he gives you two or three days off. But if you tell the truth, he won’t give you a holiday. Troublemaker!” She slipped into her hut, plucked a small, framed picture of Caitanya from her shrine and put it in her begging bag, “I want him to hear the music too.” Because Muni Baba had to stay at home – he was still recuperating from tuberculosis – Sunita decided to make the journey with her son instead. He and his wife and daughters traveled to the festival each year to sell the milky tea he brewed. They slept beneath a plastic covering set up along a path, while Sunita would seek out the ashram where she and her husband habitually stayed, and where I had stayed when I visited the festival with them two years before. It had taken quite some coaxing on my part to convince Tara and her husband that going would be fun. Because performances take place at night, and since recordings of Hindi and Bengali movie songs are played at a tremendous volume in the day, sleep is difficult. “Sleep is like a juice” (ras), said Karun, implying that it keeps the body healthy. “If I go, my eyes will disappear into my head, never to emerge. My head will end up looking like a scull.” Sighing, he remarked that people who take alcohol and ganja have a pleasant time: “They fall asleep despite the cold and noise.” As the festival drew near, he feigned a feeble cough, saying he had caught a cold, and that he doubted that our going would be feasible. To some extent I shared his apprehension. Two years before, when I had gone with Tara’s parents, bringing Durga and her mother and grandmother along, I had, like my traveling companions, bathed in the river after defecating on its sandy banks amidst the crowd of other pilgrims, only covered by my sari, and changed into a new one, but without recourse to a private room. Chillums of ganja were passed around, and people were constantly waking each other up, to offer their friend a toke or just to say hello. It rained intermittently, and I awoke one morning when drops of water trickled through the cracks of the plastic ceiling on to my forehead, and returned to Chilluri with a fever and a cold sore on my upper lip. That their guest, a memsahib, was taken ill triggered some distress. But in the end we all agreed that the cold sore was a “prize,” a token of my participation. Karun did eventually consent to visit Jay Deb, but he said he only went to help me with my research. We set off at dawn, arriving early in the day to give us time to search around for rented rooms. Worried that my being foreign might drive the prices up, I was told to stay behind with Kalpana. But their attempts proved unsuccessful. Deeming the amount charged for a single room too high, they decided we should stay at Beni Madab’s ashram. To contribute to the meals served on the premises, Tara told me to donate 100 rupees to the ashram. I handed Beni Madab the hundred-rupee note. He quickly touched it to his forehead, and then continued to dispatch instructions. Lamps bearing green fluorescent light were hung above the stage where the singers would perform, and garlands of marigolds were strung along the

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walls. Also, a large framed picture of Krishna was erected just behind the dunhi (fire pit) where Beni Madab would be seated as the festival unfolded. He wore long white robes, and long black hair attesting to his status as a fullfledged sadhu, while his disciples were dressed in blue-checkered lungis and multi-patterned shirts. Throughout the festival they were preoccupied with brewing tea, and cooking up gigantic pots of rice and curries served to pilgrims and performing Bauls. The food was cooling (niramish), lacking in ingredients considered heating (amish) such as garlic and onions as well as spices such as cardamom, cinnamon and cloves. At noon we were given lentil soup, cabbage curry and tomato chutney. We were also given milky sweets, while in the evening we were fed potato curry and fried breads (luchis). Just before each meal, mendicants and pilgrims lined up outside the tent, and as soon as we were seated, Beni Madab swiftly moved along the aisle, waving sticks of incense to consecrate the meal. He himself refrained from eating. Sunita explained that his fasting was a means of undergoing hardship (kasta) for our sake. Forgoing food is indicative of self-restraint, showing his ability to satisfy the needs of others, rather than his own, which was a sign of his devotion to the people that he served. Just before we started eating, we laughingly called out hari bal in unison, and when the meal had been completed we shouted hari bal again before we rose to make room for the next party to attend. Towards evening, the singers started to put on their festive clothing. The women dressed in saris, while men wore tunics reaching to the ground with sashes round their waists. Some also wrapped a turban round their topknots, and put white tilak marks upon their foreheads. As the festival unfolded, we chatted with a number of other singers. We performed in several different makeshift ashrams, moving from one stage to another. But we took our meals where we were staying. All day and all night, Beni Madab sat before the dhuni fire burning near the stage, drinking tea and smoking ganja, and sprinkling water on the fire to control it, which generated smoke. Kalpana received a prize, and members of the audience also pinned some rupee notes on to my chest. A journalist approached me for an interview, and then arranged for me to have my picture taken with the Japanese Baul singer Maki. The picture appeared the following day, after we returned to Chilluri. Her Baul companion was seated on a wall of stone behind us, posing with his instrument in hand, while Jagadish and Karun were excluded from the frame. My name had been misspelled, but so was Maki’s, which Muni Baba said was only fair, but in a tone of voice suggesting that he saw her as my rival. Perhaps he had been hoping that I would gain the fame that Maki had achieved and that this in turn might reflect on him. Tara and her husband seemed to share his aspirations, believing that my being foreign lent a touch of éclat to our stage performances. I myself harbored no ambition to acquire fame as a foreign Baul. I had learned the songs in part to show my appreciation for the music. When they encouraged me to sing, I impulsively joined in, thinking that performing

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songs on stage would be a means of delving deeply into “others’ worlds,” allowing me to grasp more fully what being a performing Baul is like.12 Not wishing to appear ridiculous, I practiced diligently, and because I was a foreigner, my singing did not go unnoticed. Rupee notes were pinned upon my chest, and once a person handed me a slip of paper addressing me respectfully as “older sister” (didi), thanking me for having learned Bengali songs. Feeling shy, I did not raise my arms up into the air when I performed, and instead of wearing ochre, I wore a yellow cotton sari trimmed with red and gold. Kalpana and I received approximately thirty rupees each, but these were honorary gestures. Our monetary gains were meager compared with the village programs that we held. Also, the fact that Tara and her husband did not receive a prize may have been one reason why the two were disinclined to visit larger melas, for they are less lucrative than puja celebrations. Although connections may be made with people from the middle-class elite (bhadralok) and foreigners, who might organize a function either abroad or in a larger town or city on the subcontinent, still only one educated person invited us to sing at a forthcoming event. Karun handed him his card but we never heard from him again. Next day, having tea at home, Jagadish laughingly remarked that he did not go to Jay Deb for the money, but for the fun of socializing. It made him happy to hook up with friends and old acquaintances.13

Singing in villages The second program I took part in was in the village of Dusna. This was in the month of Agrahani, when grains are harvested. Karun explained, “Villages organize a puja to thank the Goddess Annu (the grain-giver), and they need singers to mark the celebration.14 My singing on the trains will be a form of advertising. This time of year, farmers travel on the train, bringing their produce to the market. I’ll sing a song, have a cup of tea, talk and walk around a bit. Maybe something will turn up.” Two weeks later, a passenger approached him on the train. Karun told him to meet him at his home to negotiate a contract. The man arrived a few days later in the company of another person from his village. Because the costs of organizing programs are covered through collections, the two began by stating that the village residents were poor, not able to afford large amounts of money. Karun countered this by stating that he would bring a number of musicians, a flutist, a tabla player and a harmonium player, and that they all needed to be paid, and they also had to pay for their train tickets. At this, the elder of the two exclaimed, “But you are beggars, you travel for free!” Karun said, “We have to rest in preparation for the upcoming event. We can’t sing during the journey. Also, we will be carrying lots of travel bags, so we won’t be able to pass as beggars.” To make the prospect more alluring, Karun told the two men that I would also sing, that this would be an extra bonus. But they were not impressed. Glancing at me skeptically, one man said, “How do we know whether she can

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sing? Besides, the songs she knows are different.” The remainder of the conversation revolved around the timing of the concert, the number of musicians we would bring and the amount of money they would pay. During this discussion, Tara quietly served tea and biscuits. About an hour later, when the deal was settled, Kalpana came over to the corner of the porch where I was seated watching the proceedings, and she smilingly whispered, “There will be a program.” A contract was drawn up that stated that a program would be held on November 8 for the sum of one thousand, four hundred and fifty rupees. The two men signed it, and then paid out one hundred rupees in advance, handing it to Karun. To avoid the heat of the noonday sun, we left at dawn on the appointed day. There were eight of us in all, Tara, Karun, Jagadish, Kalpana and me, a flute player (Hari) and the tabla player Ajit who brought a friend who simply came along for fun. No one came to meet us at the station, and so we spent an hour negotiating with the rickshaw peddlers, two of whom finally agreed to take us as far as the road would carry us before turning in another direction. Once we reached this site, they pointed to the village of our destination, a cluster of tiny mud-walled houses barely visible in the distance. As they peddled back, we picked up our luggage and followed the path winding its way through the empty fields till we finally entered Dusna. Nobody met us in Dusna either, which was unexpected and somewhat disconcerting. A group of men and children gathered around us, gazing at us silently. Perhaps we looked strange surrounded by luggage, dressed in ochre clothes, scanning the area in search of a familiar face. The children giggled, and the men started to ask us where we had come from, and why we had come. Karun said that we were giving a concert, had traveled a long way, were tired and needed to rest. At this, one man said, “You cannot stay at my place.” Karun replied, “What kind of a greeting is that?” They started arguing, but finally a man appeared who said he wanted us to start at ten o’clock that evening, which Tara said was much too late, but she eventually complied, saying we could sing from ten o’clock till two a.m. We were escorted to the upper story of a mud-walled house, and after hours of waiting, drinking tea and eating muri, which our host kept serving us, we changed into our festive clothing, drawing streaks of sandal paste upon our foreheads. But we remained secluded in the hut, waiting for the stage and amplifiers to be set up. At ten o’clock we left, proceeding through the crowds of people waiting for the concert to begin. As we stepped on to the stage, we touched it with our right hand, and then brought our hand to our foreheads. Tara stuck a bunch of incense sticks into the cracks in the stage. She lit them and the breeze carried the fragrant smoke away. I seated myself at the back of the stage, observing the audience gather. The women and children settled on the ground just in front of the stage and to the left, while the men gathered on the right-hand side. All were wrapped in shawls and busy chatting. The first one up was Jagadish. He sang two amusing songs (maja gan) and did a hop-like dance, which made the audience laugh. Next was Karun who

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started by stating that the song he was about to sing was not merely entertaining but also spiritual (adhyatmik). After he had finished, he introduced me as a foreigner from Norway. Because my throat was sore, Tara gave me cloves to clear my voice, and hot milk to strengthen me. Looking at the audience, I whispered to Tara that I was feeling nervous, and she sternly whispered back, “Don’t think of them as people. They’re all trees.” I positioned myself before the microphone and told Karun and Jagadish that I would sing the song about mosquitoes, a euphemism for a husband. It describes how the singer wraps herself in blankets in order to prevent them from boring into her, and then she fills the room with smoke so as to be left in peace. When these attempts prove futile, she seeks refuge in her natal village, crying, “Where is the talk of love?” Relieved to see the women giggle, I jingled the cluster of bells I held more forcefully, and made a little twirl during the instrumental interval during which Hari played his flute, showing off by blowing through his nostrils. Tara rose to sing two songs, and then Kalpana delivered two. This cycle was repeated over and over until we prepared to leave, at which point three men, clearly drunk, staggered up on to the stage, requesting that we keep on singing. Karun did a few more numbers, but the men demanded more despite the fact that it was almost dawn. In an effort to appease them, we did another round. The crowd eventually dispersed. We were fed a meal of rice, before we were escorted back into the upper story of the house where we lay down to rest. It was not until the moment of departure at seven in the morning that we received our payment. The experience was unpleasant. Karun continued to have difficulties dealing with the villagers who had begun to haggle. Frustrated, he turned to me and said, “These people are totally illiterate.” Turning back, he detailed the discomfort that we had endured, of having to sing the entire night, which meant not getting sufficient rest once the concert was completed. Also, the food that we were served had been inadequate, just vegetable curries, not fish, with our rice. After paying the other three musicians, Karun was left with six hundred and fifty rupees, which he said entailed a hundred and twenty rupees less than what they had agreed to pay when the contract was drawn up. A year later, a similar incident occurred when we sang at a mahatsab (a small Vaishnava festival) organized by Lakshan, another Baul. This time when we were leaving, we had already boarded the bullock cart; we were midway through the fields (our hosts were in a separate cart) before we got our money. During our bumpy ride, Tara anxiously called out to Karun asking whether we had gotten dakshina, which was when I realized that the fee received for stage performances is referred to by this name. The carts were halted. We all climbed out, then Lakshan handed me a twenty-rupee note, saying, “You can buy some sweets.” Karun said, “What’s happening? You’re making trouble. Why?” More haggling ensued. Finally, Lakshan placed the proper sum of dakshina into Karun’s hand. We all climbed back into the bullock carts and proceeded through the fields until we reached the highway where we

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hailed a rickshaw that took us to a junction, from which point we continued home by bus.

Money and food: dakshina and seva In his work on villagers residing in a coastal town in Orissa in Eastern India, Jens Lerche notes that the sum called dakshina constitutes a fee given to a guru or a Brahman purohit (priest) as payment for the services that they provide. It should be given when a ceremony is completed – if not immediately, at least on the same day.15 Describing how the fee is viewed in Pahansu, Uttar Pradesh, in northern India, Raheja notes that villagers did not attach much meaning to what is known as dakshina. Rather, dakshina was thought to be a type of dan. The gift called dan is made up of grains and clothing that people from the landholding caste provide to those who stand in a relationship of servitude to them: priests, barbers, water carriers and others. But the dan that servant castes receive is not entirely benevolent. Rather, the dan carries inauspicious substances considered harmful, as if small amounts of poison are contained within the gift, which are then transmitted to recipients. Raheja writes that people from the landholding caste possess the right to donate dan, and that servant castes see it as their duty to accept what they are offered. But in so doing they absorb the harmful substances embedded in the gift. Raheja further notes that villagers did not perceive dakshina to be significant, but they suggested that dakshina resembles dan – that is, that it too constitutes a vehicle for transmitting inauspicious substances from donors to recipients.16 Having read Raheja’s overview before undertaking fieldwork, I was expecting Tara and others to hold similar views, but they had a different take, claiming that dakshina is not a conduit for inauspicious substances. Instead, dakshina constitutes a gift of parting that figures in conjunction with what is known as seva, understood as “service,” but which in Vaishnava terminology also signifies a meal of rice. Service or seva is typically performed for figures of authority, a guru, an older family member or a deity.17 Lamb writes that senior relatives are treated as deities, and that junior relatives are supposed to convey respect and love to older kin in a variety of ways: their legs should be massaged, their bodies oiled, their hair combed; they should be fed and, if need be, medicine should be provided.18 Emphasizing seva as an act of selfless devotion, Antoinette DeNapoli points out that seva demonstrates one’s “love for God and others … a voluntary act of charity and service.”19 To give seva is a means of showing submission, humility, devotion and respect. For instance, Sunita and Bara Ma did seva for the pictures of the deities that hung upon their walls. And in the chilly winter months they pressed strips of cotton cloth against the glass to protect them from the cold. Bara Ma would also feed the images a portion of her rice and curries before sitting down to eat herself. Emphasizing seva as an act of feeding, Tara said, “When someone asks a Vaishnava to sit down to take a meal, the person will not say, ‘Will you eat

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rice?’ She says, ‘Will you do seva?’” She tried to clarify its meaning, explaining that when sadhus do seva they are practicing a form of worship known as bartaman, a type of worship that differs from the kind of worship laypeople conduct called anuman. Jagadish, seated with us on the porch, broke in and said, “Anuman means this: ‘I haven’t seen it with my own eyes. I only base myself on what I hear.’” In other words, what they were implying was that anuman constitutes a form of worship based on faith and scriptures conducted for images of deities, whereas bartaman by contrast is carried out for human beings. The often-heard statement that “humans are gods” (manussi bhagavan) conveys the message that humans should be worshiped and treated like a god.20 Within this framework, serving others food (seva) is held to be the quintessential means of showing love and deference because it involves the laborious preparation of various dishes that are then served for free.21 Vaishnavas think of seva in the light of hospitality; it is given to express communion, during which people remain seated in a circle on the ground while partaking in the meal, and they all rise up in unison when the meal has been completed. Although the fee called dakshina appears in conjunction with the meal (seva), it is actually quite distinct insofar as dakshina is treated as a gift of parting, serving to divide. When we visited Dayal guru at his ashram to inquire whether Papay could have bhek (see Chapter 4), I asked him to explain the meaning of the term, and he immediately responded, “If people come to visit, you give them seva (a meal of rice), but if you omit the dakshina, seva has not been concluded, and your guests will not be able to depart.” As it happened, I witnessed the custom shortly after I returned from Dayal guru’s ashram. We had been invited for seva to the home of an elderly couple, a Baul singer and his wife. Ramsundar (the name of Muni Baba’s friend) chuckled when he told us what he would be serving. “Fruit from the river Ganges,” he said, explaining for my benefit that this is a Vaishnava euphemism for chicken, but since Kalpana would also go, and she did not eat meat, he decided to serve fish instead. After disembarking from the train, we took a rickshaw, since walking to his house would have taken us approximately forty minutes, a trip that Ramsundar took nearly every day to reach the nearest station where he would board a train to sing. On arriving, we were told to go upstairs where we remained drinking tea and taking turns singing. Muni Baba made me sing five songs altogether. And then when Ramsundar inquired whether Kalpana could sing, Muni Baba said, “We’ve heard one woman. It’s enough.” Not that Kalpana cared, but Ramsundar may have been somewhat disappointed. We took our bath in the pond below the house wearing our saris, and changed into another, letting our wet saris dry on the clothesline. The water was tepid but clean, unlike the pond at home in Chilluri which was green with algae, and smelled of sewage. After we had eaten and had had our nap, and just as were about to leave, Lakshmi placed a ten-rupee note into Muni Baba’s hand, and in answer to my question said that this was dakshina.

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Not all mendicants are familiar with the custom. When I visited in 2012, a couple (dressed in ochre) came to visit. Both did madhukhari (begging from door to door in villages and from shopkeepers in markets). The husband, Gopal, also played the flute, and had joined us on two previous occasions during puja celebrations. They told me they had run into Dhiren Baba’s wife while begging at the market, and she suggested that they visit me. Josna (Gopal’s wife) was suffering from kidney trouble, and they were hoping I could assist them with some money. I gave her a sizeable sum, and then Tara invited them to stay for seva. The food was sumptuous: lentil soup, fried eggplant, cauliflower curry, tomato chutney and papad. As the guests got up to leave, Tara handed Josna ten-rupees. A look of bewilderment crossed her face; she backed away as if to say, “Haven’t we received enough?” But Tara stroked her arm and smilingly pleaded with her to accept the note: “This is dakshina. It’s a Vaishnava custom.” Later, when explaining its significance to me, Tara said, “A long time ago, before money was employed, cowry shells (kairi) were given in the place of coins.”22 As evidence of this, she pointed to a cowry shell and coin, fastened at the base of her husband’s ektara, attached to keep the single string in place. She explained that cowry shells are still given when Vaishnava sadhus die. When the body has been placed into the grave (samadhi), and just before the cavity is filled with dirt, a begging bag containing dried fruit (hartik), dried rice (cire) and cowry shells (kairi) is fastened to the left shoulder of the deceased. She said, “The fruit (hartik) signifies an invitation for a meal, while the cire designates the meal itself, and the dakshina as cowry shells allows the soul (pran) to take its leave.” People believe that the dead person’s soul (pran) lingers in the body, and that the food provided serves to sustain it. Receiving food entails a mixing of bodily substances, an act that draws the feeder and the fed together.23 But the gift of parting (dakshina) serves a different purpose. In light of Dayal guru’s statement, it enables recipients to extricate themselves from people they have meshed with when partaking in a meal of rice. The fee signifies a separation, sending recipients off on a journey, and since dakshina is given in order to divide, it occurred to me that the fee might be malignant, that it might resemble dan, as explicated by Raheja – that is, a vehicle for transmitting inauspicious substances from donors to recipients.24 But when I queried them about this matter, Tara and others said that they did not receive the gift termed dan. Also, they replied in the negative when I asked them whether dakshina is laden with inauspicious substances, and they insisted that the fee does not contain impurities or sins serving to blacken the recipient.25 Still, they seemed to view the gift with some ambivalence for, initially, whenever I brought the matter up, they were amused, wondering why I kept prodding them about this issue until finally they related a story concerning its significance. Tara said, “Once, a woman and her child attended a wedding celebration. After a while, the wedding food was served, consisting of spinach and potato

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sticks, lentil soup and vegetable curries, fish as well as chutney, curds and sweets. Their bellies were filled and the child wanted to leave the premises, but her mother continued to linger, anticipating a treat. Finally, the host and hostess hit the woman and her daughter with a stick to drive the two away. At this the child told her mother, ‘Now we can depart, for we’ve been given dakshina.’” Smiling, Tara said, “The story is not spiritual (adhyvatmik) but told in jest by householders.” Dhiren Baba, seated beside us in the courtyard, laughingly agreed, but then he assumed a serious expression. He said, “The spiritual meaning is this; if people come to visit, they might stay a couple of days or more.” Then he added, smiling widely, “And if you can’t afford to feed them anymore, you give them dakshina to make them leave.” Later in the day, as Papay sat moping because he had to stay indoors since it might rain, Tara yelled at him for whining, “Hey, you can’t go out. None of the other boys are playing in the fields. The sky is dark and cloudy!” When he continued sulking, she raised her hand as if to hit him, saying, “Do you want some dakshina?” Turning to me, she said, “I’m asking if he wants a beating.” “Yes,” I said, “the blows will be his dakshina,” and Karun said, “Now she understands its meaning.” Obviously, their statements were ironic, but even so they indicate that dakshina may have negative connotations not in the sense of being laden with impurities or sins or inauspiciousness, but because it signifies a breach of togetherness established through the sharing of a meal (seva). As Jens Lerche notes, dakshina marks the conclusion of a ceremonial procedure – in this case, the conclusion of a celebration. He writes that the fee is often accompanied by haggling, which would render it an instance of negative reciprocity.26 But haggling is frowned upon. It indicates a lack of manners. Nor is haggling the rule. Another concert that we held, prior to the one in Dusna, took place in a village where many residents were milkmen. Because milkmen are associated with Krishna and with milk and curds, Tara and her husband looked forward to singing in this particular village. The experience turned out to be congenial. Our hosts greeted us at the station, and paid the expenses for the rickshaw we had taken. Because the evening was chilly, Karun said he worried that he would catch a cold, and our thermoses were promptly filled with warm milk, which we sipped during our performance. When the program was completed, the food that we were served was nourishing and lavish, and also quite in keeping with Vaishnava dietary guidelines: rice, fish and vegetable curries, followed by curds, all perceived as cooling as well as invigorating. When we had finished eating, we were shown into a courtyard, where an elderly gray-haired woman smilingly rose from the porch, and showed us the mats she had laid out for us to sleep on. Having been up since dawn, I immediately fell asleep, despite sharing a narrow cot with Kalpana. We rose at six to take our tea and muri, and then at seven in the morning, right before we took our leave, the dakshina was given according to the sum previously agreed upon. The fee paid out concluded a sacred celebration. But nothing inauspicious or impure had been transmitted in the process.

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And yet the gift appears to carry an air of negativity. For unlike seva, which is entirely benevolent, dakshina constitutes a gift of parting and as such it signifies a rupture. Also, dakshina is often subject to negotiations, even haggling, which means that accepting it can be humiliating, not unlike the beating received by the woman in the story Tara told. They joked about dakshina, but this was not the case regarding seva. For instance, once, when seated in the roadside in the early morning sun, we had been singing at an utsab the night before, and were waiting for the others in our troupe to finish packing, Tara voiced her disapproval with the meager meal we had been served. She said, “The dakshina may not amount to much, but the seva given should be ample.” She and her husband emphasized the value of modesty and piety, perhaps to manifest their unconcern for greed (lobh), implicit in the statement that the dakshina need not be copious. A few years later, when we sang at a village puja in 2006, we arrived at the site of our performance with a chauffeur in a car that their friend and tabla player Swapan had rented for this purpose. This surprised me for when Mr. Mukherjee had wanted us to rent a car, Tara had said no, and she had also put her foot down when Muni Baba stated that we should travel in a car to Jay Deb festival, saying that this would be excessive. “My father has no boundaries,” she told me. Her refusal was perhaps fueled by a need to represent herself to me as modest, so that I would realize that she differed from her father. But now that a relationship of trust had been established, she had no qualms about traveling in style. Besides, since a relative of his worked as a mechanic, Swapan could rent a car quite cheaply. Our journey to the venue only took about an hour, and after disembarking we made our way directly to the stage. Still, the glamour of the car was somewhat tempered by the other singers and musicians in our troupe whose faded dhotis, dabbed with holes from burning bidis, conveyed their low-class status. Tara also had her hands full keeping them in line, trying to prevent them from drinking alcohol off stage, telling them to do so when at home, safe from the gaze of strangers. Her stance towards alcohol and ganja did give rise to friction. Two days after we performed, Jagadish told Karun, “You forbid us to take alcohol when we perform, but one day someone will strike you if you try to stop us.” Silence ensued, and then he stomped away. By this time, in January 2006, Kalpana had ceased singing altogether. Despite my pleading with her, she refused to sing for me. And she refused to tell me why she did not beg or give performances. Twice, when overhearing my asking Kalpana to sing, Tara called, “Why not? Why can’t you sing?” But Kalpana remained silent. Then one morning, when we were by ourselves – Tara and her husband had gone begging – Kalpana quietly insisted that she was content. But her next remarks suggested otherwise. She said, “It is important to laugh and to be cheerful. If your mind sours, people get concerned; they ask, ‘Is something wrong? Why are you feeling bad?’ And then if you continue to complain and to be grumpy, they will not love you anymore.” She said, “Everybody loves me,” adding, “When I visit Rekha and her husband (a couple

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in the neighborhood), they grab my arm and say, ‘Stay. Stay. Don’t leave. Is it because you have so many children to look after you that you do not come around more frequently?’” (They were teasing her, of course, for Kalpana did not have children.) But that night, just before we went to sleep, she spoke into the dark from under her mosquito net. “I’m a wooden girl. I feel no sadness, no anger, no hardships, no nothing.” Clearly, Kalpana missed singing. In putting on a cheerful and serene exterior, her feelings of sadness and disappointment were concealed and her relations with others seemed harmonious and “cool.” But for her to give up singing must have been a sacrifice because she was known to be a gifted singer. Whenever the four of us performed, people invariably requested her to do an encore. Was Tara jealous of her sister-in-law’s talent? Once I overheard her saying to her husband (seeking his assurance) that she herself lacked talent, and that Kalpana was obviously a better singer, to which he soothingly replied, “You can sing. Why shouldn’t you?” It was only when I stayed with them in 2012 that Kalpana confided that a tumor had developed in her breast. After having it removed, the doctor who had treated her had said that she was cured, and that she could resume her singing. Still, Tara told her to desist for she believed that singing might bring the tumor back. Smiling, Kalpana serenely told me, “My older sister has forbidden me to sing.” She beckoned me into their empty courtyard where she removed her blouse to reveal the scar that ran across her chest. I asked her if she missed singing, but she claimed that she did not. Then a few days later, as we prepared to leave to sing at a function held to honor Dr. Ambedkar,27 I put on a nice fresh sari and a dot between my eyes, before I hurriedly crossed the road to say goodbye to Sunita. Then on returning second later, I climbed into the rickshaw peddled by our flute player, to seat myself beside Tara and her husband, which was when I overheard Kalpana tell Mira (her sister-in-law), “I will only do the household chores.” Alan Roland writes that for women in South Asia, pursuing a career or a vocation is fundamentally a family affair; that women depend on relatives in order to succeed.28 Kalpana may have lacked the necessary courage to break away and manage on her own. Perhaps she needed the support of her brother and his wife. After all, when singing songs on stage, Bauls do not act alone, but are supported by other singers as well as lay musicians who accompany them on the flute, harmonium and tabla. They must also network with potential sponsors. Whatever the reason, knowing that she had cancer allowed Kalpana to redefine her situation in a way that could be read as positive. She stopped singing not because of jealousy on Tara’s part; rather, she stopped because Tara worried that the cancer would recur, which could be read as a sign of her sister-in-law’s affection. She trusted her doctor, but deferred to her sister-in-law, and as a result the tension between the two was somewhat eased. But this was only on the surface. Her statement that she felt no anger, sorrow or hardships had a hollow ring to it, and she spoke into the dark as if she were alone, suggesting that she was unhappy.29

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Despite his feeling weak, Muni Baba stubbornly insisted on us taking him along to programs. Karun said, “He won’t admit that he is old.” We had been asked to celebrate the inauguration of a new commissioner in a nearby town, and Muni Baba came along. Karun introduced him as an artist (silpi) who was getting on in years, and then, alluding to his former grandeur, he told the audience that Muni Baba had been abroad, at which point Muni Baba slowly rose from the floor where he was seated, and proceeded towards the microphone. Standing on the stage, he looked frail and small. He did not raise his voice to sing the high-pitched notes while singing, and he made no attempt to dance.

Lack of patrons Tara and her husband claimed that people from the educated classes (shikshitalok) fail to provide Bauls with adequate support, a statement that conveyed a sense of having been abandoned, that their songs were not sufficiently appreciated. When we had visited the scholar that I knew in Santiniketan, Karun had remarked that people such as him should hire them to sing. This was also what I had imagined when I started fieldwork. I had thought they would be asked to sing for people from the upper echelons. I also thought that other Bauls would be stopping by, perhaps not every day, but at least two or three times a week. But those who sought them out were from the lower classes, or the lower middle classes: an electrician and his wife Rekha, a train driver, a shopkeeper from the market and two street cobblers. One day two students came to visit. Some of those who visited came to learn to sing or play an instrument. But most came to pass the evenings talking about everyday affairs. Once in a while we were invited to their homes for a meal of rice, and twice we stayed on to watch a movie. A Muslim couple came to talk about the house that they were building in a swampy field that needed to be drained. Ajit’s mother – a widowed nurse – spoke about the difficulties of finding a suitable bride for her son. Still another woman, fond of singing Rabindrashangit, came to visit with her husband. She suffered from fatigue and talked about her yoga classes, which she hoped might alleviate her troubles. In return, Tara, Kalpana and Karun described the concerts that we held, the kindness shown by those who welcomed us in Jendhur who gave us milk during our performance, and fish and curds when we had finished. One sunny winter’s day we all went for a picnic, joined by Ajit and his mother as well as Mr. Mukherjee. Bringing fish and vegetables, we cooked our curries in the fields. Their interactions with others attested to the ties that they were able to create. Quite unlike the residents in Naples that Thomas Belmonte has described in his work about the poor and very poor, they were not determined by their position at the bottom of the social order; they did not “exclusively befriend … their own kind.”30 Articulate, well mannered and taking care to keep their house and courtyard clean and tidy, they befriended people they regarded as

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respectable, though obviously their overall success rested on their musical abilities and good manners. Karun said, “People come to visit us to hear us sing and talk, while those who visit Muni Baba do so to smoke ganja.” Tara’s parents did not nurture friendships with people aspiring to be middle-class. Although Muni Baba had befriended the “business Baul” in Burdwan – he was his guru by virtue of his having taught him songs – he was meek and deferential when in the presence of his Burdwan friend and other comparatively wealthy people, “showing respect by not speaking unless spoken to [and] sitting at a distance,” a manner of comportment that reflected his lower-caste identity.31 The same was true of Sunita; she grew quiet and subdued, smiling nervously and shyly whenever “big people” like Mr. Mukherjee or their Burdawn friend stopped by. They also kept apart from Tara and her husband’s middle-class connections. Their circle of acquaintances was limited to low-class neighbors and other mendicants and singers belonging to the same social echelon that they themselves belonged to. But Tara and her husband were not consistent in their wish to keep apart from those whose habits might reflect on them, a stance that would be difficult since many of the singers and musicians were not averse to alcohol and ganja. 32 Relaxing their attitude, they once consented to cooking up a pot of chicken curry served up with alcohol when we were close enough to home to allow us to return after our concert was completed. An outbreak of bird flu had recently occurred, which meant that the price of chicken had gone down, and so the flute player Gopal suggested that we buy some alcohol and meat and have a feast after we had finished singing.33 But while Tara and her husband shared in the chicken curry (Kalpana did not eat meat), they refrained from drinking alcohol. Meat and alcohol are substances considered heating (amish). To ingest them would not be consonant with Vaishnava dietary principles. To ensure that neighbors would not see us, Tara locked the door leading into their courtyard.

Concluding remarks Tara claimed that love and devotion pervade the ties between mendicants and laypersons, established through the sharing of a meal (seva), and loosened through the fee called dakshina, perceived to be a gift of parting, allowing singers and musicians, treated as respected guests, to start their journey home. The symbolic connotations of the gift called dakshina would seem to render its transaction above commercial gains. And this is true in situations when mendicants invite one another for a meal of rice (seva), in which case the small amount of money ceremoniously concludes their visit. But when Bauls perform on stage they cannot afford to treat the sum symbolically. If those who hire them to sing do not pay up, they are compelled to haggle, and may find themselves entangled in a process by which they are, in Parry’s words, “subverting the ethic of ‘pure’ gift by treating such transactions as a species of commerce.”34

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Feeling awkward in the presence of the well-to-do and educated, Tara and her husband did not sing on the express trains on which the wealthy travel, but preferred the local trains heading towards Bihar where passengers are poor, and where fewer singers vie for attention. They told me that another Baul they knew how to communicate with “big people.” He had once been able to negotiate a contract with a businessman from Assam, inviting Tara, her husband, Kalpana and Hari to come along. They only stayed four days. “Why?” I asked them. Hari smiled and said, “When you’re in a foreign place, you start to miss the things you’re used to, like potatoes cooked with poppy seeds.” But concerts in neighboring villages or in distant places were few and far between. To make ends meet, they were obliged to beg several times a week. And since begging drained them of vitality, making them weak, they were looking for other sources of subsistence. They talked about the possibility of raising goats, and then selling these to laypeople for the meat that goats provide. One evening, Kalpana and I walked around the pond to see a neighbor, and as Kalpana sat stroking the little kid the goat had just delivered, the neighbor woman spoke about the price a goat would fetch. Later, as we proceeded home, Kalpana said they had discussed the matter, but on hearing of their plans, Dayal guru sternly told them that raising goats is not appropriate; that meat, which is a heating (amish) substance, should not be ingested and much less sold by Vaishnavas who should keep a cooling diet. He had suggested that they raise cows instead and sell the milk, and I supported them in this by sending them sufficient money after I returned to Norway. But at the time of which I write, begging was still their major source of livelihood, and since it drained them of vitality, it was a constant source of worry. It could also be degrading. At home, Muni Baba spent most of his time seated in the roadside on his haunches, opposite our house, examining his arm, lamenting his wrinkled skin, and complaining of the fact that he had difficulties breathing. Towards noon, he took a walk around the pond to visit Durga’s father. He still went begging on the trains so as to earn a little extra money to supplement his small pension, and in order to connect with other Bauls. One day, when returning home after singing on the train, he entered Tara’s courtyard, and taking his seat on the little stool, he timidly remarked that after finishing a song, a passenger had asked him to perform another. Then when he was through, the man had only given him two rupees. Muni Baba looked dejected. Tara said, “That man was disrespecting you.” Later, she confided that she and her husband had had similar experiences when singing for alms. A week ago, they had boarded an express train rather than the local train they were accustomed to. “The train was filled with wealthy people.” Speaking of her husband, she said, “He was making such an effort but the passengers ignored him. Not to give is fine, but people should at least listen to the melodies, and try to grasp the meaning of the lyrics.” Jagadish was having trouble too. He stopped by one day on his way home after begging on the train. Seating himself on the little stool in the courtyard, he flatly said, “I need some rest.”

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Taking part in festivals and harvest celebrations is prestigious, but singing in a foreign country is particularly so. I knew that they were hoping that I would arrange for them to go to Norway to perform. Tara once remarked, “Will it ever happen?” Later, when the trip was finally arranged, she told me that her father boarded a train and traveled towards Bolpur telling all the singers and musicians he met that his daughter and her husband were about to go abroad. Laughing, she said, “I was so embarrassed. What if the trip gets cancelled?” During their stay, I organized a number of performances. Then ten days later, on the eve of their departure, when I handed Tara and her husband the lavish sum I had collected, Tara cringed and queried shyly, “Did you tell the audiences to ‘give in that direction’?” Ever conscious of their lowercaste identity, she worried that the stigma of poverty and untouchability had followed them abroad; that people offered money not because they were delighted and impressed with the songs that they performed, but because they thought of them as low-caste beggars needing monetary assistance.

Notes 1 Tara and her husband had settled here just after they were married (see Chapter 1). 2 Lamb 2000: 139. 3 A red bangle made from plastic and another white one made from conch shell. 4 Knight makes a similar point, that the sums that Bauls receive at Paus are small and that the primary motive for taking part is networking (Knight 2011: 17). 5 Capwell 1986: 67. 6 Ashish Nandy notes that, in the eyes of the middle-class elite, the imaginary village evokes a sense of loss of self and nation (Indian and Bengali), where to journey from the city to the village is “a journey into the self, into memory, or into an idealized past that would be cast into a utopian future” (Nandy in Mines and Yazgi 2010: 19). Knight reports that when she visited the US embassy in Dhaka, she learned that city people appreciate Baul songs, that they remind them of a life that they have left behind but which they continue to feel strongly connected to, as they still have ties to the village where their ancestors were born and raised (Knight 2011: 42; Openshaw 2002: 79). Since Bauls figure as folkloristic emblems of tradition, it is not surprising that some middle-class women and men believe that they will lose their popularity, that Baul songs will be replaced by modern film music. This topic would at times crop up in conversations that I had with middle-class passengers when traveling on the train. Glossing them as non-modern, what they were implying was that Baul songs will lose their relevance and force, sentiments that echo Nandy’s view that villagers – including Bauls – tend to be regarded as backward targets for development, who, while mired in religion and superstition, are also represented as innocent and pure (Nandy 2001: 13, 14). 7 Capwell 1986: 68. 8 Knight notes that Sudhir Chakrabarti argues that Maki “is the real deal” (cf. Knight 2011: 192n). 9 Knight 2011: 49. 10 Cf. Knight 2011: 48. 11 Hausner 2007: 105. 12 Emerson, Fretz and Shaw 1995: 2. 13 See Hausner 2007: 137, Knight 2011: 17.

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Kalpana remarked that Annu was really Lakshmi. Raheja 1988: 113, 218–9; Lerche 1993: 245. Ibid.; Parry 1994: 126, 127. Lamb 2000: 59–66. Lamb 2000: 60. DeNapoli 2014: 105, 106; see also Gold 2007: 104. DeNapoli 2014: 274. DeNapoli 2014: 106. Cowry shells were used as money in the fourteenth century when paddy was exported to the Maldives in exchange for cowries (van Schendel 2009: 40–1). They were also used in the Bengali-speaking region in the eighteenth century (Cederlöf: 2014: 45). Cf. Marriott 1976; Trawick 1990: 99. Raheja 1988: 218–9. Raheja’s findings are supported by Parry’s observations in Banaras where the Brahman “priest (and the wife-taking affine who demands exorbitant dowries) are seen as subverting the ethic of the ‘pure’ gift by treating such transactions as a species of commerce” rather than as gestures of benevolence (Parry 1989: 88). Cf. Parry 1994: 126–7. Lerche 1993: 245; see also Parry 1989: 88. Dr. Ambedkar, the respected leader of depressed castes formerly known as “untouchables” and now termed Dalits (downtrodden). Roland [1988] 1989: 205. Interestingly, however, Khandelwal writes that women renouncers defy normative roles and expectations when they decide to become sadhus rather than marry and raise children. But her findings also show that their decisions to become sadhus are accepted by some. The sadhu Bajji received support from her parents when, as a young girl, she told them that she wanted to take up the path of renunciation (2004: 81–2). Another sadhu Anandamata took up the path against the wishes of her near relations, but in the end, after heated debates, they accepted her decision and offered their blessings (2004: 50). Jackson notes that achieving a sense of balance between one’s own and other people’s needs is probably a universal central human concern (1998: 19). Cassaniti describes similar processes of trying to acquire a balance in a town in Thailand, where being calm and cool entails “a softening of sentiments, a move towards equilibrium” (2015: 77). Still, her description does not indicate that people experience the process as a form of self-discipline. Belmonte [1979] 2005: 40. Ruud 2003: 144. Other people in the neighborhood would also drink. Occasionally a neighbor – obviously drunk – would stumble into Tara and her husband’s courtyard as we practiced singing in the evening, and once when getting up to leave, he missed the door and staggered into their latrine. Having grown up with people who indulged – for Kalpana and Karun’s uncle smoked ganja every evening when singing with Tara’s father – they were used to seeing relatives and neighbors drink and smoke. But the intake of alcohol and ganja was something they associated with the lower classes, a sign of uncouth behavior, something that they were ashamed of. This was in the month of February in 2006. Parry 1989: 88.

6

Death in the family

One hot afternoon in May, a slight breeze broke my sleep. Tara was sitting next to me, waving a palm-leaf fan. Seeing that I was awake, she told me that Chayna’s mother had died, adding that her body was still at the hospital. I then became aware of a woman wailing in the distance. I rose, and as I straightened out my sari, Tara explained that Chayna’s nephew had left the village to notify her other sisters. But she said, “Two of them live in Bihar. They will not reach our village in time to view the body. The type of funeral given is uncertain. Chayna and her relatives are Vaishnava householders (grihastha), not sadhus. So who knows whether they will burn their mother’s body or bury her?” Up until that day I had not realized that Chayna (Tara’s sister-in-law) and her natal family were initiated into bhek (Vaishnava renunciation). There were no outward signs indicating they had done so. Chayna’s mother lived across the pond, right next to Dhiren Baba. But her white sari and cropped hair indicated widowhood, rather than renunciation. Chayna’s sisters dressed in printed saris, and her only brother wore a shirt and pair of jeans, clothes that I associated with laypeople. Also, neither Chayna nor others in her natal family begged for alms, and I had not noticed them at Vaishnava celebrations, such as the utsab that Dhiren Baba organized, nor did they stop by to visit during other kinds of celebrations. As with the Naths in Rajastan that Gold describes, Bengali Vaishnavas are roughly divided into two: some are considered householders (grihastas), while others are considered sadhus. Gold writes that some sadhu Naths regard Naths classified as householders as fallen ascetics who occupy an ambiguous position in caste society. Gold, however, notes that the two categories should not be regarded as distinct for they bear many traits is common. Both carry out death rites that involve burying their dead near their homes, rather than cremating them. Also, both receive Gaytri mantras, and mark their grave stones which are termed samadhis.1 As I note below, this is also true for Bengali Vaishnavas. Tara explained their situation thus: “A long time ago, Mahaprabhu [saint Caitanya] gave bhek to his disciples. Some of these had children, and when their children came of age, they took bhek as well, and so on through the

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generations.” She said that Chayna’s family members were of this category. Despite their taking bhek, they had not committed to their path by practicing sadhana. Since their position was ambiguous, Tara did not know whether Chayna and her siblings would carry out a Vaishnava sadhu burial, or cremate their mother as a householder, although, as will shortly become clear, they did decide to have a Vaishnava burial performed. Eyewitness accounts of Vaishnava burials are few; none have been offered by anthropologists. As such, the ethnography provided in this chapter fills a gap. By contrast, mortuary rites for laypersons have been richly documented,2 and further explications would appear unnecessary. Still, my reason for including them is to show that the meaning of each is clearer when viewed in light of the other. As I elaborate below, the initial aim of mortuary rites carried out for householders is to prevent the soul (atma) of the deceased from turning into a disembodied ghost (pret). A second aim is to extend the family line by establishing relations with prior generations through the offering of pinda – rice balls fed to ancestors.3 But these offerings of pinda are conspicuously absent in burials performed for Vaishnava sadhus, the reason being that sadhus are supposed to disrupt the family line, rather than extend it.

The mouth fire ceremony While I had been sleeping, Karun had gone to purchase second-hand books for Papay who would resume school in a couple of weeks. When he returned, Tara made some tea, and we brought our teacups to the doorstep. From where we were sitting, I could see our neighbor, Hira’s grandfather, who lived across the road, lying on the floor within his hut. A daughter-in-law was fanning him as he lay breathing heavily. They were expecting him to die within a day or so. In the distance by the pond, I discerned a group of people standing in front of Chayna’s mother’s house, and Tara told me they had come to view the body delivered from the hospital. She motioned me to follow her. We passed Chayna on our way, lying on the ground, rolling in the dust, her face, feet and hands white from the powdered dirt. By now her voice was hoarse from wailing. I pushed my way gently through the crowd to view Chayna’s mother’s body, laid upon a bier constructed out of bamboo poles, fixed together with rope. The face was exposed, and a white sheet that had been sprinkled with red vermillion covered her frame. The women grouped around the body were weeping openly, their cheeks streaked with tears. Hearing someone crying hari bal, I looked up and noticed Phelu – a neighbor boy – walking briskly towards us, and as soon as he was close enough he started throwing puffed grains (khai) upon the body. At this, the men picked up the bier, while the women raised their hands as if to prevent the body from departing. Then, as the procession disappeared from view, the crowd dispersed, while Chayna remained outside rolling in the dust, tearing at her hair, crying, “Mother, mother.”

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As we proceeded home, Tara started to explain what would happen next. “The men will carry Chayna’s mother to the outskirts of the village where Nirmal (Chayna’s brother) will touch his mother’s mouth with fire.” Karun added, “After bringing the body to the village boundary, they will take a little ball of cotton, flatten it out to make a wick, and insert it into an oil lamp.” He fetched a lamp (pradip), and then he straightened out a strip of cotton cloth to show me how a wick is made. He said, “A Brahman priest will light the lamp, and afterwards he’ll give it to the oldest son. But since the son is not supposed to view his parent’s face, he must avert his gaze as the priest directs his hand (holding the burning wick) towards his parent’s mouth. After this the son goes home to sit quietly alone, and later when the stars begin to shine he’ll have some popped rice (khai) mixed with molasses, while his younger brothers will proceed directly to the burning ground to cremate the body.” At the time of which I write we did not know whether Chayna’s mother’s body would in fact be buried or cremated. Either way, I assumed that I would be able to take part, and that Tara and her husband would accompany me. But while I had been viewing Chayna’s mother’s body, Tara’s father, Muni Baba, and two sisters living near us, Biseka and Suleka, had come over for a visit. On returning home, I found them seated on the porch discussing whether it was appropriate for me, a memsahib, to observe the mortuary rites. Their apprehension was based on the fact that men commonly drink alcohol when disposing of the dead. As their Brahman friend and tabla player Ajit later pointed out, “People drink in order to make merry, but if the person who has died is young, they feel too devastated by their loss to drink,” a statement that makes sense in view of Gold’s description of mortuary rites in Rajasthan. She writes that those who die when in their prime, leaving their children and spouse behind, “evoke the most heartfelt sorrow.” People mourn the demise of an elderly person too, but the event is also celebrated for when older people pass away their death is viewed as timely for their lives have been fulfilled.4 Although Vaishnavas should abstain from drinking alcohol when disposing of a body, many do, which was why Muni Baba and the sisters, Biseka and Suleka, did not want me to attend. Muni Baba said, “The men will drink and grab you, touch your hair and light complexion.” The sisters nodded solemnly. I said it was important for my research to see in practice what had been described to me in words. But Muni Baba countered, “Women should not venture to the burning grounds at night. If the arrangements had been made during the day, it would be fine. In the day the place is full of people, men as well as women. But at night, there are no women, only men, and because you are a memsahib the men will pester you.” I rose and entered the hut, pulling off my fresh sari, wrapping the old one around me, and then, stepping back on to the porch, I told Tara that if nothing else I would at least like to see the mouth fire rite being performed.

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She immediately assented, and we hurried towards the village boundary where the body had been laid. A man who saw us coming stepped aside to tell us that Chayna’s brother Nirmal wished to have a burial (samadhi) performed. We hurried home. Muni Baba and the neighbor sisters had departed. Instead, we found Jagadish and Karun seated on the doorstep. When we told them what would happen, Karun said, “Let’s go. These people are our own village people. Nothing bad will happen.” So Tara and I changed back into fresh saris and proceeded to the station where we took an auto-rickshaw to the burial grounds.

The Jat Vaishnava burial The body was going to be buried in an area reserved for Vaishnavas, set apart from the place where Tantrics lie buried and the main grounds where cremations for laypeople are carried out. Because these sites are sacred, we removed our sandals before entering the premises. The earth felt firmly packed and smooth, covered by a filmy dust. Little mounds of dirt indicated sites where other Vaishnava sadhus had been buried. Finding a suitable spot, we spread the blankets we had brought upon the ground. Turning around, I saw a tiny hut of clay, its door made out of biscuit tins. Light emerged from the numerous cracks, and we could hear someone pottering around inside. Soon after, the person living there emerged. He was a Tantric sadhu and he seemed to have just finished eating. Seating himself on his haunches with his back turned towards the diggers, he started cleaning dishes. Chayna’s mother’s body was still lying on the bier covered by the white shroud, her feet pointing towards the cavity that was being dug. Because it was extremely hot, the men had all removed their shirts and pulled their lunghis up between their legs. Sweat was streaming down their bodies, gleaming in the candlelight. To get a better view, I walked over to the site, where one man stepped aside and, smiling, handed me his sandals, telling me to make myself comfortable. Seating myself upon them, I watched Durga’s father telling the other diggers how they should proceed, but all the diggers had their own opinions concerning how the cavity should be constructed. Taking charge, Karun walked over to tell them how large the grave should be. After he finished giving his instructions, I followed him back to sit with Tara who was listening to Nirmal (the son of the deceased) iterating the items he had brought. Nirmal said, “I will give her a bath, and then I will dress her up in a new sari and paint a white tilak mark upon her forehead. Is this okay?” Tara and her husband nodded, saying, “Yes. That will be fine.” Pausing slightly, Karun then explained that initiation into bhek involves three different mantras. “You receive a mantra through your right ear, another through your left ear, and finally a mantra through your forehead. All of them are different.” He queried, “Do you have bekh?” Nirmal nodded. Then, rising, he walked back to the digging site. Tara whispered, “Nirmal is a householder (grihastha). He knows nothing about Vaishnava customs.”

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Turning back to watch the diggers, I noticed that the cavity had grown quite large, so we all went over to the site and Karun ordered them to stop. He said, “The hole need not be deeper than four arms. What you must do now is to carve out a space in the wall. You must make a small room for her to sit in.” The men proceeded to make an insertion, arguing all the while about its size. Durga’s father began removing dirt from the upper part of the interior, but the others yelled, “No, no, below, below.” Uncertain, Durga’s father asked, “Should I remove the dirt down here?” to which men shouted, “Yes, that’s right.” But Tara and Karun shook their heads, saying, “They do not know.” After the small room had been carved out, the body had to be washed and dressed, so we shifted to the site where the body lay. Karun explained to Nirmal that he would make a loincloth (dor and kaupin) to be wound around the body’s head. Turning to me, he asked whether I had brought a pair of scissors, which I had not. So, using the end of a pole from the bier, he tore off a strip of cloth, and then measured out two strips of clothing fist by fist. I had seen him do this once before when purchasing the cloth for his own loincloth at the market. At the time he had explained to me that the kaupin, tucked around the genitals, should be fourteen fists long, and that its breadth should match the space between the nipples of one’s chest. The other piece of clothing, known as dor and tied around one’s waist, should likewise measure fourteen fists. But its breadth should not exceed the distance from one nipple to the middle of one’s chest. Having measured out the strips of cloth, Karun turned to Nirmal and instructed him to oil the body’s limbs. As it turned out, Nirmal had not brought the necessary oil but ghee instead. At this, Tara told him, “This is not the Vaishnava custom. You’re supposed to use turmeric and mustard oil,” adding, “Actually, you should rub the body with this mixture before proceeding to the gravesite. Everybody does this.” She turned to me and whispered, “Everything is upside down.” Worried that the limbs might have grown stiff, she rubbed the legs with ghee, bending them to gauge whether she could seat the body in an upright posture. As this proved possible, Nirmal and his nephew prepared to wash it. Picking up the bier, they carried the body some distance away, before dousing it with water from a clay pot they had brought. Fetching a new white sari from his bag, Nirmal wrapped it round his mother’s body, pulling off the old sari, but taking care not to expose his mother’s body parts, commenting that, as she was a woman, dressing her was difficult. When done, he ground the sandal paste that would be smeared on to his mother’s forehead, but, unaccustomed to this task, he added too much water. Tara exclaimed, “The paste will be too thin; this will not do.” Karun took over, grinding the bits of sandalwood with water. “Beautiful,” said Tara. Using the tip of his index finger, Karun traced a line from the parting of the hair down the bridge of the nose as Tara gave directions. “Smear a mark at the bottom of the throat, one on each shoulder, and then put a mark on each side of the waist.” Dabbing the paste at these various places, Karun fastened

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the dor and kaupin to the body’s head, winding the narrow strip of clothing (dor) round the head, after which he stretched the broad strip (kaupin) across the crown and then tied it at the nape of the neck. Because the head kept rolling to and fro, he struggled with this task. But Tara praised his efforts, saying, “Beautiful, beautiful.” Once this step had been accomplished, Karun questioned Nirmal about the wording of the bhek (sannyas) mantra. Hesitating and uneasy, Nirmal asked, “Is it Radha-Krishna?” to which Karun resolutely stated, “No, it’s not, so I will have to give it.” His lips almost touched the body’s forehead while delivering the mantra without uttering a sound. Leaning back, he told Nirmal to place some honey into the body’s mouth. As I prepared to take a picture, Tara suddenly cried out that they must close the eyelids properly. The right eye had popped open. Nirmal closed the eyelid and then I took a picture of the body with Nirmal at its side. Tara then began to bend and cross its legs, hoisting it into a sitting posture. Four men came forth to bring the body to the gravesite, lowering it into the cavity, easing it into the tomb that had been carved out from the interior. The men stepped back, but then the head fell forward. Durga’s father suggested that he pile up some dirt around its neck; as he did so, Nirmal fetched a small bag made of cloth, the type that Vaishnava mendicants employ when begging. He opened a paper bag and displayed its contents to Tara and her husband who nodded approvingly, instructing him to fill the begging bag with the various ingredients he had brought: dried rice (cire), cowry shells (kairi) and little pieces of dried fruit (hartik). As Nirmal carried out this task, the body’s head fell down once more. Durga’s father set it right, piling more dirt upon its shoulders. The begging bag was fastened to the left shoulder, whereupon I took another picture of the deceased flanked by Nirmal and his nephew. The rest of the digging troupe jumped in and crowded round the body as I took a final picture of them all together. Nirmal hurried off to fetch a bag of salt. Tara called, “Place the salt on top of the head, the feet and the rest of the body.” The rest was scattered on the body’s lap and feet. In keeping with Tara’s directions, the men then took the bier apart, driving the bamboo poles into the ground in front of the small insertion the tomb where Chayna’s mother’s body had been placed. Seated in an upright posture, behind the bamboo poles, legs crossed and fully clothed, she looked as though she were alive. After gazing at her for a while, the men shouted hari bal three times in unison, whereafter Nirmal draped the shroud across the poles thus concealing the body from view, and then the grave was filled with dirt. Having made a mound out of the surplus dirt, Nirmal lit a bunch of incense sticks, placing these before the mound, after which he stuck a candle in the mound itself, its flame casting a yellow glow upon the freshly packed soil. The diggers made three final cries of hari bal, and exited the premises by way of the burning ground to start their journey back on foot, while we proceeded to the station to take an auto-rickshaw home. As we left the gravesite, Tara turned her head, glancing at the little hut, now completely dark, remarking that the sadhu living there was brave.

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By now, the village was almost deserted. Only two auto-rickshaws were at the bus stand, both drivers asleep. We called out to one of them, and he immediately got up to start his engine. The breeze felt cooling to the skin as we sped along the empty roads. After getting off some distance from our neighborhood, we proceeded home. Jagadish went back to his house at the village boundary, while Chayna’s husband, Gopal, disappeared into his house next door. Entering our courtyard, we removed our clothes, being careful not to let our garments touch our fresh clothes. Everything I brought had to be washed – my sari, underskirt, blouse, hair band, and finally my handbag, which I left in a pile on the ground near the latrine. Tara said, “Since we’ve touched a dead person, we are dirty (nungra) now. We can’t enter the house until we’ve had a bath.” Dressed in fresh saris, we seated ourselves upon the mats that Kalpana spread out in the road for us, where we had some tea and muri. Two of Chayna’s children emerged from their house around the corner, sleepy-eyed and yawning, probing us about the night’s events. The male kin of Hira’s grandfather, our neighbor who was dying, were in the road as well, stirring beneath their mosquito nets. We could see the old man through the doorway, heaving his chest and wheezing as a daughter-inlaw sat fanning him. When Tara popped her head in to ask how he was doing, the woman stopped her fanning for a moment, looked at him and said: “This is how he is.”

Honey in the mouth of the dead Next morning, while seated in the doorway drinking tea, Tara joined me. Smiling proudly, she asked me to query her about the burial. But before I had time to shape a question, she said, “Vaishnavas do not dip flames into the mouth of the deceased as Nirmal did. Instead, you place a little honey in their mouths,” adding, “You give honey to a newborn baby, and since dying is a form of birth, you should give honey to the dead.”5 I asked her to disclose the meaning of the items that had been placed into the begging bag, which included pieces of dried fruit (hartik), cooked dried rice (chire) and cowry shells (dakshina). She said, “The fruit signifies an invitation. In the past, this was what people handed out when inviting others to their home. Now written invitations are employed instead, but the fruit is still provided in Vaishnava burials.” She proceeded to explain that dried rice (chire) had been given to sustain the soul of the deceased as it lingered in the grave, adding that she wasn’t quite sure about the meaning of the cowry shells called dakshina. “Vaishnavas customarily provide this gift after they have fed their guests. Not everybody knows this,” she added. Because we would be visiting her guru the following morning, she suggested that I query him. So, next day, at Dayal guru’s ashram, I asked him why the gift should be provided. He responded, “When people come to visit you, you feed them a meal of rice (seva), but if you do not give them dakshina after the meal has been completed, your guests will not be able to depart.”

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As discussed in the previous chapter, dakshina is given to divide people who are joined through processes of mixing, where sharing food creates relatedness. As with the Rajasthani villagers that Helen Lambert has described, people see themselves as more or less attached, where being close or distant is a question of degree, rather than of kind. The minimal form of relatedness occurs when people share the same locality, subsisting on the village water and the crops grown in the fields. The strongest tie, however, is the mother–infant bond, for the mother feeds her child from the food emanating from her body. Because body substances and food are made out of the same essential matter, sharing them effects mixing and connectedness among people “who are, or can be, kin.”6 In the context of Vaishnava burials, the soul (pran) dwelling in the flesh is treated like an honored guest whose visit has been temporary. The food serves to sustain it, while the dakshina as cowry shells prompts the soul to loosen ties of maya created with the living so that it can obtain release. While seated in the grave or tomb (samadhi), the soul (atma) is engaged in meditation (samadhi), trying to detach and thus obtain release (mukti) from its material entrapment. When visiting her guru shortly after the burial had been performed, Tara told him that Nirmal did not know the wording of the sannyas mantra, nor did he know when or where to give it. Hearing this, Dayal guru chuckled. When Tara said that Nirmal thought the mantra should be whispered through the body’s ear, Dayal guru sternly countered, “Does a dead person hear? No, you cannot speak to a dead person. But the heart-mind (man) is still alive, which is why you give the mantra through the body’s forehead.” As this and other statements noted previously imply (see Chapter 3), the heart-mind (man) and soul (pran) are attached to one another, yet distinct. While the heart-mind is comprised of mental and emotional phenomena defined as physical, the soul is immaterial, perceived to be eternal and identified with the Supreme (brahman). It is a split that posits a distinction between the material mind and body on the one hand, and the transcendent spirit on the other.7 Because breath constitutes the vehicle for governing the flow of seed (bij) in which the soul enveloped by the heart-mind dwells, it is conceived to be the chief feature of a living person. Thus, when Tara’s father, Muni Baba, had tuberculosis, his rapid breathing was taken as an indication that he was going to die, and friends, relatives and neighbors ventured to his home to bid farewell. Yet, as Gold points out, “For Hindus, the end of life in the fleshy body, although it is certainly recognized and ritually marked as a significant passage, is by no means the end of existence for the ‘spirit’ that was embodied.”8 Sadhus seated in the grave make an effort to facilitate their soul’s union with the Supreme, the overriding aim being to break the cycle of samsara. In the burial conducted for Chayna’s mother, the tomb constructed, the clothing worn and the posture adopted all indicated that the heart-mind was engaged in meditation, focusing its efforts on acquiring release from the cyclic transmigration of the soul. As I note below, the soul’s passage from one state to another is conceived as gradual; it is envisioned as a journey and likened to a birth.9

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Salting the body of the dead Several months prior to the death of Chayna’s mother, Karun had recounted how a sadhu should be buried. In the case of males, the dor and kaupin should be wound around the waist and genitals, whereas a turban should be wound around their heads. But since women do not wear turbans, they wear a loincloth (dor and kaupin) round their heads. Men as well as women receive a rosary (mala) placed into their right hand to facilitate their worship, while a begging bag is fastened to their left shoulder. To keep the limbs supple, the body as a whole is anointed with turmeric and mustard oil. Later, when the body has been seated in the grave, an earthen vessel (malsa) filled with salt is placed upon the head. Karun said the vessel made of clay should be raw (kacha) so that it will dissolve. “At first the salt remains within the vessel, but eventually it penetrates the clay and starts seeping into the body’s head. As a result, the head turns liquid (gole jabe). The rest of the body also gradually disintegrates, until it attains the consistency of mud (kada). Although the body is initially seated in a room apart, separated from the soil as Chayna’s mother was, the soil will eventually penetrate the bamboo poles and cotton clothing. The salt too seeps through the vessel placed upon the head of the deceased so that the flesh disintegrates. And when the body and the soil merge, the soul rises and departs.”10 Muni Baba gave a similar rendition of how a burial should be performed, but added that if the sadhu who had died smoked ganja while alive, then a chillum and some marijuana should be placed into the begging bag. A little gold and silver should also be provided. But when I told Tara and her husband what Muni Baba said, they claimed that gold and silver are unnecessary. And on hearing that a sadhu should be given ganja, Tara ironically exclaimed that she would provide her father with a range of intoxicants when the time came for him to die since this was what he craved. She discouraged the consumption of intoxicants, claiming that it was unhealthy, insisting that in death as in life Vaishnava sadhus should avoid ingesting substances serving to impair one’s constitution.

Are Jat Vaishnava ignorant? Because Tara and Karun had been in charge, the burial was carried out in a manner they thought suitable, a point they emphasized repeatedly. What they found disturbing was that Chayna’s mother and her children had acquired bhek, but had made no attempt to commit to the ideals of renunciation. Karun turned to me and said, “Chayna’s family are not sadhus. Despite their having taken bhek, they are householders (grihastha). How could this have happened?” Pausing slightly, he proceeded to explain. “One day,” he said, “Chayna’s grandfather, decided to take bhek, and sought a guru willing to confer it. He received a mantra and a loincloth, signifying that he had acquired knowledge. He wore this loincloth for a while,

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but eventually he threw it in a pond, married and had children. Later, when his children came of age, they too received a mantra and a loincloth, threw the loincloth in the pond, after which they settled down to marry and have children. This meant that the knowledge (gyan) that they acquired through their taking bhek (sannyas) was gradually depleted before it vanished altogether.” Karun went on to say that Chayna’s mother had conceived seven children altogether, six of whom were daughters, adding that the names she had given them indicated that she dreaded the arrival of these baby girls. Laughing, he said the first daughter’s name was “hope” (asha), a name suggesting that her mother hoped to have a son when she gave birth again. She named the second daughter “without hope” (nirasha), while the third received the name “not wanted” (chaina), a deliberate distortion on Karun’s part since “not wanted” has a different spelling than the name. Laughing, Karun said that the third daughter’s name means “complete,” suggesting that she wished to stop having daughters. She did eventually give birth to Nirmal, a name that means “spotless, pure and free from filth,” yet two more daughters followed. The names of Chayna’s elder sisters, Kakuti and Minuti, signify the act of soliciting or requesting something in a manner that connotes humility and grace, but which Karun laughingly remarked was Chayna’s mother’s means of begging God for mercy, asking that the stream of baby girls should cease. When speaking of the widespread preference for sons, Kalpana once pointed out that people commonly crave sons, not daughters, since daughters move away when they have married. Because sons remain at home, parents think that they will care for them when they grow old and weak, not realizing that sons do not always fulfill their parents’ expectations. As it turned out, Nirmal was subjected to criticism of this kind. As Karun finished speaking, we heard a woman sobbing in the distance, and surmised that this was one of Chayna’s older sisters from Bihar who had come too late to view her mother’s body. Soon after, Chayna started wailing too. When I stepped outside the courtyard, I saw her seated on a stool beside the tube-well, accusing her brother Nirmal of not having sufficiently looked after their mother. Neighbors stopped to listen. Some spoke to her soothingly, although Chayna continued sobbing, crying that Nirmal had not fed their mother adequately, nor had he given their mother proper clothes to wear, and he had failed to stay at home during the evenings to look after her. Later in the day, Tara told me that because of Chayna’s accusations, her brother had decided not to invite her to the mortuary banquet (bhoj), which meant that she would have to organize a banquet on her own. She was going to hire a Brahman priest to conduct a puja to the god Narayan. Tara exclaimed, “Nirmal is a householder. He has arranged a mortuary banquet (bhoj) to calm his mother’s soul. But now Chayna will not be able to do the work (kriya) required of her. The ceremony will not be properly completed. How will Chayna’s mother’s soul (pran) be able to find peace when her children argue so? Nirmal does not think of that!” We spent the rest of the day at

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home. Because of the increasing heat, Papay was not allowed to play cricket in the fields. Unable to watch TV because the set was broken, he sat upon the porch sulking. Towards noon, I hung my newly washed sari on the clothesline in the road. The ground burned my feet and the glaring sunlight hurt my eyes, so I quickly returned to the shady porch where I continued fleshing out my notes of the burial performed the night before. Shortly after, Chayna came to borrow chili peppers. Standing in the doorway, she resembled Nirmal. Her tall, skinny frame seemed taller still since she had piled the free end of her sari in layers upon her head to protect herself against the sun. Her voice was weak and hoarse from crying. As Kalpana handed her the chilies, she gently told her to get some rest.

Jat Vaishnava self-control Tara and Karun would not join me for the ensuing ceremonies carried out for Chayna’s mother. Perhaps our lengthy discussions concerning the burial accounted for this shift in attitude, for they repeatedly said that Chayna and her family members were not sadhus, which was why they wished to keep apart. Kalpana said she could join me, and we decided to tell Nirmal and his relatives that Tara and her husband were unwell. Chayna’s sisters made room for us as we stepped on to the porch, entering the house where a Brahman purohit was seated, surrounded by the items to be offered on behalf of the deceased. These included fruit, clothing, flowers and sticks of incense. The various ingredients were all laid out on the floor. A brass tray with sandalwood and a burning oil lamp (pradip) had been placed on the floor before the priest. On his left-hand side was a black stone plate on which slices of banana and mango had been placed. On his right-hand side was a banana leaf on which darbha grass, flowers and a heap of tulsi leaves were placed. Beside it was another leaf containing mounds of grains, lentils, an eggplant and a summer vegetable called patal. Seven mango leaves lined the edges of an earthen vessel in which a coconut, a towel (kapar) and a sacred thread were placed. Dhiren Baba entered and proudly directed my attention to the dhotis, five in all, lining the wall to the left of the priest, and told me that all would be given to a sadhu, which was why they had been cut in half. I asked him if the sadhu he referred to was himself, to which he nodded, smiling broadly. Then, pointing to the garments, he explained that one of these represented Caitanya Dev, while the other four represented Caitanya’s companions: Nityananda, Advaita, Shrivasa and Gadadhara.11 An additional dhoti, placed at a distance from the rest, represented Chayna’s mother’s guru who had been responsible for giving her a loincloth and initiation into bhek. Dhiren Baba signaled for me to move a little closer so that I could view the items he had placed upon the dhotis. These included betel nuts, pan leaves, bananas, a loincloth, dried fruit (hartik), white sugar cakes (batasha), tulsi

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leaves and darbha grass. Pink, white and yellow flowers had been scattered on the offerings. As additional offerings, he had placed five earthen pots filled with various foodstuffs before the garments representing the five Vaishnava saints. The offerings consisted of cooked dried rice (chire) mixed with brown sugar, yogurt, ghee, honey, lentils (kalai), sugar cakes, cow’s milk, Ganga water, tulsi leaves, as well as mango and apple slices. Having carefully noted down the various items in my notebook, Dhiren Baba told me that he would now divulge a mantra, informing Kalpana and me that only those initiated into bhek are able to perform this act. He knelt before the offerings, uttering the kam bij, kam gaytri syllables aloud, which I recognized as those making up the siksha mantra. We stepped out on to the porch, and then Dhiren Baba closed the door. Pausing, he snapped his fingers three times before re-entering the room. As he carried out this act, I remained outside with Chayna’s relatives all crowded on the tiny porch and on the ground below, waiting for the ceremony to begin. A white sari and a photograph of Chayna’s mother had been placed upon a wooden chair, and on the ground before it stood an earthen vessel filled with curds and turmeric. Stepping out on to the porch, Dhiren Baba descended the stairs and immediately began to play his cymbals, singing mournfully and slowly, at which point Chayna’s sisters started weeping. Dhiren Baba circled the offerings, walking counter-clockwise seven times before retreating to the porch. At this point, one of Chayna’s sisters seized the pot with turmeric and curds and smashed it on the ground. Then one after another, the mourners rolled upon the fragments. The children followed suit and finally they all threw coins (dakshina) on to the fragments. As I stood there watching, Kalpana tapped my shoulder, reminding me that we were supposed to view the mortuary rites carried out for Hira’s grandfather who had died two days before. As we proceeded to the site where the rites would be conducted, Kalpana explained that the point of rolling on the broken pottery is to inflict pain upon the mourners, that the suffering endured appeases the soul, allowing it to leave without regrets. But later in the day, Tara gave a different reading. She said, “Householders usually request Vaishnavas to perform this ceremony,” adding that her guru had forbidden them to do so. She said, “When you circle the vessel of turmeric and curds, you entreat Caitanya to come and eat the offerings. And then when the saint arrives, you smash the vessel just as he’s about to eat. The mourners may suffer, but you shouldn’t make Caitanya suffer.” She clarified, “When you worship saints and deities you make yourself humble, thinking, I ‘am small’ (choto) in relationship to them. But to inflict pain upon a being who is superior is to treat that being as inferior.” Of course, Dhiren Baba may have held a different view. Also, in carrying out this rite, he would receive a fee. Assuming the role of a religious expert in the mortuary celebrations allowed him to parade his knowledge, which lent prestige to his position as a Vaishnava sadhu. Pressed for time, I was not able to attend the puja that the Brahman priest conducted on behalf of Chayna’s mother. But in summoning the priest, Chayna’s brother Nirmal seemed to

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draw upon the various sources of religious expertise available to him: a Brahman priest and a Vaishnava sadhu. His concerns appeared pragmatic: he wanted to make sure that all the relevant ceremonies were carried out so that his mother’s soul would be able to find peace. Later that day, Papay and I took part in the mortuary banquet held for Chayna’s mother. We dressed up for the occasion. I put on a turquoise sari, while Papay dressed in white. Lining the walls of the interior were tables and benches occupied by village neighbors. Nirmal served the food, which consisted of spinach, lentil soup, potato sticks, as well as a separate curry made from vegetables, but also sweet rice pudding and other types of sweets and yogurt. The meal was eaten hastily in the customary sequence before we rose to make room for the next party to attend. But on arriving home, Karun stated flatly that the way in which the eating quarters had been arranged was not in keeping with Vaishnava customs. “Vaishnavas sit on the ground” he said, adding, “You should always invite sadhus initiated into sannyas to the funerary meal, and you should always serve them first.” Karun then recounted Chayna’s family history again, stating, “After Chayna’s mother had a dor kaupin bestowed, she threw it in the pond, and then gave birth to ten children” (an obvious exaggeration, since Chayna’s mother actually gave birth to seven children). His point, however, was to emphasize what Dhiren Baba stated previously: that Chayna and her relatives were not karmik, meaning that they were not committed to the path. Karun said, “They are different, they are householders.”

The demise of Hira’s grandfather: a layman’s death Our neighbor, Hira’s grandfather, passed away the day after Chayna’s mother had been buried. We had been up all night observing the burial of Chayna’s mother, but even so I could not nap because of the tremendous heat. While having tea, a repairman came to fix the television set, which was when a woman started moaning from across the road. She was addressing Hira’s grandfather, crying, “My boy was going to give you a lunghi. Who will give it to you now? You always slept on a soft blanket. Now where will you sleep?” Speaking out of hearing distance, Karun said that they were putting on a show of grief. Suddenly, the sky turned black and the increasing wind whirled up the dust. Lightning struck, then thunder sounded, followed by a brief shower. As soon as it had cleared, Siksha, Hira’s little sister, knocked on our door requesting tulsi leaves to be placed near the dead man’s head and feet. As the wailing from across the road increased, I followed Tara to the doorway, just in time to see the body being carried into the road. Hira’s grandfather was on a mat and blanket, clad in a blue-checkered lunghi and a white T-shirt. His body was placed on to the bier and then secured with rope. A white shroud was stretched across it, while small red flags were stuck into its corners, and finally a string of marigolds was wound around the body’s neck. During these proceedings, the female relatives

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staggered into the road. One fell into the mud where she remained as if in a stupor, though shooting me a quick glance as if to check that I was watching. Another woman clutched her child, wailing, while still another woman lay sobbing in the mud. Meanwhile a drummer and three cymbal players made their way between the people gathered round the body. On reaching the bier they halted but kept beating out the rhythm. I recognized the young man Phelu, who initiated yesterday’s procession, approaching from a distance, crying hari bal and throwing khai (popped rice) upon the bier when he got close enough. Six men carried the bier. The women followed. Some touched the dead man’s feet, while others flung a bunch of coins and cowry shells on to the body (dakshina), but they all stopped running when the procession turned the corner and disappeared from view. As on the previous day, the women stayed behind. This time, no one would accompany me. Tara shook her head, saying she was way too tired. Jagadish was tired, too. Karun said he knew all there is to know about burials and cremations; “I was in charge when my mother, father, uncle and also when my younger brother died, so I can tell you what you need to know. They will carry the body to the village boundary where they will perform the mouth-fire rite (mukhagni). After this, they will proceed directly to the burning grounds at Bamkatala,” (where there is a shrine dedicated to the goddess Kali, situated by a river), just beyond the rice fields, an hour and a half away on foot. Towards dawn, before the cuckoos started calling, I heard the men returning from the burning ground. Shortly after, Hira’s mother knocked on our door requesting puffed rice (muri). Kalpana rose to unhook the latch, fetched the muri, then left to help her portion out the snacks. Shortly after, Tara and her husband went to the market to buy vegetables, while I remained at home with Kalpana, seated with my back against a bamboo post, watching her peeling potatoes and then cutting them into sticks to fry. As she carried out her task, she spoke of Hari, the flute player. “Two weeks ago,” said Kalpana, “Hari’s father went to the pond near the village to fish. After catching one, he started home. Twilight had set in when suddenly a ghost appeared, blocking his way in the road. Hari’s father tried to pass, but the ghost took hold of the fish that he was carrying. Clutching it, he managed to tear himself away, running back to the village. He cooked the fish, but since the ghost had touched it, its sweetness had departed.” Kalpana remarked, “People believe that the souls of the dead (pret atma) linger at the village border. They pester people walking in the dusk. When a person dies, you must perform a number of tasks to prevent the person’s soul (pret) from turning into a ghost” (bhut). Pausing briefly, she continued, “The work (kaj) that will be performed by Hira’s family is carried out to prevent the old man from becoming a ghost.” What she said implied that not only should the mourners show affection and respect for the deceased, they should also love and honor one another. To quarrel, as Nirmal and his sister Chayna did, creates a lack of unity, and if the mourners are upset, the soul will not achieve

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the necessary state of peace (santi), but will become a ghost, hovering around the village border, disturbing its inhabitants and turning that which should be sweet and amiable, such as Hari’s father’s fish, into something disagreeable. In order to promote tranquility and goodwill so that the soul will reach its proper destination, mortuary rites involving hardships (kasta) are performed.

Village border ceremonies (ghather shraddha) Leaving the Vaishnava mortuary rites, Kalpana and I proceeded directly to the pond at the outskirts of the village. This is where the first set of mortuary rites known as ghather shraddha would be carried out. The village boundary is where foreign substances are thought to enter, where criminals and ghosts are lurking, and where deities arrive by way of streams and rivers.12 Since ponds are likened to a river, they also constitute a crossing place by which the soul of the deceased travels to the ancestral realm. Arriving at the pond, we found a priest seated on his haunches, inserting blades of bena grass (verbena) and sticks of incense into a mound of earth. Beside it was a black stone plate, the kind employed when offering food to deities or to one’s guru. Near it stood an oil lamp containing ghee, and also some smaller vessels made of brass containing honey, cow’s milk, water from the river Ganges and black lentils. On the ground beside the plate were three banana stems (dabh); their curved shape made them look like vessels. As we neared the site, Kalpana whispered that the priest belonged to the CPI(M), and that because she was a member of the Congress Party they were not on speaking terms. Now she would appease him by lending him her black umbrella to protect him from the sun. The priest greeted me politely when Kalpana explained why we had come, and smilingly accepted her umbrella. What we were about to witness was the offering of pinda dan – literally, a gift of food made over to the dead, which also constitutes a temporary shelter for the disembodied soul, serving as a vehicle by which the soul merges with its ancestors (pitr lok) in the ancestral realm.13 The chief mourner, Shantu (the youngest son of the deceased), repeated the round of Sanskrit verses recited by the priest, before he tossed a bunch of tulsi leaves and flowers on the blades of the verbena grass stuck into the mound. Telling Shantu what to do, the priest said, “Pick up the tulsi leaves. Now toss the flowers,” explaining for my benefit that he was telling the soul (pret atma) to travel to the sun and stars, which he identified as heaven. Once the sequence was completed, the priest instructed Shantu to fashion balls of pinda from the mixture, after which he placed five rupee coins as dakshina beside it, which the priest put in his pocket, a gesture that concluded this sequence of the rite,14 but which also served to loosen bonds with the deceased.15 The second step was immediately enacted. Following the priest’s instructions, Shantu plucked some of the verbena grass, placed these blades into a vessel, and then he distributed a ball of pinda into a second vessel (comprised of parched rice, lentils, sugar, sesame oil, camphor, cow’s milk, clarified

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butter, honey and water from the river Ganges). The remaining ingredients were placed into a third vessel, whereafter all three vessels were set afloat upon the pond. A break followed. The priest lit a bidi, and then retreated to the shade beneath a tree, at which point Kalpana said she would make another effort to appease the priest by giving him a cup of tea, which she would bring from Jagadish who lived nearby. We could see his orange apparition in the distance standing near his cow. When she returned, we sipped the tea she brought while watching the mourners take their bath. The son-in-law (jamai) of the deceased was the first to wade into the pond. When the water reached his waist, he submerged his head completely. Rising, he proceeded to the mound, then scattered lentils on it, returning to the pond to fill his vessel up with water which he poured on to the mound. He carried out this task ten times and then his mortuary work (kriya) was done; he gave the priest five rupees to signify that his work was over.16 Leaning towards me, Kalpana explained that since out-marrying daughters and their husbands belong to a different family line, they complete their work within a single day. By contrast, sons and their wives must perform this task every single day throughout the ten-day mourning period. “Their ties are greater and so they suffer more.” Once their tasks were finished, the priest gave Shantu an iron key, the purpose of which was to ward off ghosts.17

Fasting for the dead That day, at noon, the mourners had their meal behind closed doors. Karun explained that, according to lay customs, a meal should be arranged on the third, the seventh and the tenth day after a cremation, and that those partaking in the meal should comprise an odd number. He said, “The cook remains silent as he prepares the meal, and the meal itself should also be consumed in silence. If you happen to eat a pebble or an empty husk of rice, you immediately stop eating. You should remain seated until everyone has finished. The food consists of boiled rice and boiled potatoes. No spices should be added, and you must also drink the water in which the rice was cooked” (a liquid held to be extremely cooling). Karun said, “When the meal is over, you take the earthen pot in which the meal was cooked and submerge it in the pond. After this you take a bath, and then you rest.”18 As Karun finished speaking, one of Hira’s uncles left the house, obviously upset, yelling as he stomped away. Shortly after, the rest of the family crossed the threshold. Shantu led the way, dressed in white, carrying an earthen pot with the leftover food above his head. Two of his brothers carried additional pots, and the rest followed behind. When they returned, Hira laughingly explained that her uncle had grown angry when her little cousin ran away to play during the meal. Since those who remained comprised an even number, her uncle said that somebody should fetch the child, but this entailed that the silence had been broken, and so they had to cease eating. The incident upset him, which was why he left. Two days later a similar incident occurred.

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Worried that the meal might cease before she had been satiated, Hira’s mother hurriedly gobbled down the food. The mourners burst out laughing, and so the meal was finished prematurely again. We were still seated in the roadside when Hira’s father sauntered down the path, the water dripping from his hair. Addressing me, he called, “Now you see what kind of hardships (kasta) we endure!” Tara grinned and called, “If this had been the winter season, you would have had a hard time, but since the days are hot, it’s not difficult to bathe.”19 Ten days later, Kalpana and I proceeded to the outskirts of the village to watch the final ceremony at the pond. A barber (Napit) was shaving the relatives of the deceased, and the large earthen pot that had covered the verbena grass had been removed so that the blades were now exposed, looking pale from lack of sun. An oil lamp and incense sticks were burning on the mound. Shantu was seated in front of it, repeating the Sanskrit verses uttered by the priest. When done, he fashioned three pinda balls from the various ingredients laid out before him: parched rice, lentils, sugar, sesame oil, camphor, cow’s milk, clarified butter, honey and water from the river Ganges. And when this task was finished, he picked some verbena grass, placing it into a vessel, and then distributed the remaining pinda balls into the other two vessels before setting all of them afloat in the pond below. During these proceedings his relatives had had their hair shorn, (the women only cut a lock), and the mourners had begun filing to the pond where they ducked their head into the water. Rising, one after another filled a vessel with water, and then proceeded towards the mound, where, cradling their right elbow in their left hand, they offered sugar cakes and lentils, after which they poured the water over the verbena grass, a sequence they repeated a total of ten times. Finally, the mourners had another bath, lathering their bodies with the soap that they had brought, and then they put on a brand-new set of white clothing that was stiff from starch. Having finished this sequence of ceremonial tasks, Shantu submerged the entire mound in the pond, after which he fetched the clay pot and, crushing it, left the shards upon the bank. He gave the iron key back to the priest who cut the string, threw it in the pond and put the key back in his pocket.

Pinda offerings to the deceased The next set of rites was conducted in the home of the deceased. A different Brahman priest was hired to consecrate the offerings made over to the soul (pret), and these were given to sustain it on its journey to the ancestral realm. Since these rites were carried out at our neighbor’s home, I did not need to be chaperoned and Kalpana could remain at home. On entering their house, I found the priest busy laying out a narrow piece of plastic covering upon the floor. A lively, energetic man, he was making conversation as he darted to and fro, explaining that he had often gone to Jay Deb to cook for devotees. He covered up the piece of plastic with a dhoti, and then decked out the

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offerings upon the cloth. These included a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, an umbrella, a pair of sandals, a tray of fruit and a smaller tray containing gold, silver and camphor, a basket of vegetables, another basket filled with flowers, two sacred threads, some mats, towels and a dhoti. When he had finished, he stood up to place a photograph of the deceased upon a chair, tucking a little pillow underneath it, and then he spread a tiny blanket over the photograph, explaining that the soul or atma – represented by the photograph – was resting on the bed. Hira’s mother handed him a flower garland, which he draped beneath the photograph, and then he placed a tray below it bearing sugar cakes and slices of bananas. Gradually, the room filled up with relatives waiting for the puja to begin. The chief mourner Shantu sat down upon a bunch of kush grass, slipped a ring, also made from kush grass, on to his middle finger, while the priest laid out a number of offerings on to vessels made from banana stems, which included rice grains, a pan leaf, black sesame seeds and coins. After sprinkling water on the vessels, he started to recite Sanskrit verses, reading from a handbook, which Shantu then repeated. When the first round was over, the priest directed Shantu to place some rice grass in a vessel and then to move it to and fro between the other vessels while repeating Sanskrit verses. Then when he had finished, Shantu was instructed to smash an earthen pot, and to scatter coins and lentils on the fragments. The shards were placed into the vessels, after which Shantu was told to sprinkle them with water. He removed the coins, set aside the vessels and threw the broken pottery and lentils in the pond below the house. Next, the priest handed Shantu a bag of sesame seeds, telling him to sprinkle seeds on to a towel and then to place a sacred thread upon it. He continued to recite Sanskrit verses, which Shantu then repeated. Each item to be offered received the same treatment; water and flowers were scattered on top of the copy of the Bhagavad Gita, the umbrella, the pair of sandals, the different vegetables and flowers, fruit, mats, the towels, the sacred thread and finally the tray containing camphor, gold and silver. At one point, Shantu was instructed to step into the yard to greet the sun as he clasped his hands in a gesture of pranam. Returning, he sat down in front of the picture of his father, and then continued to consecrate the different offerings in accordance with the priest’s directions. The day was hot and the children were screaming, running about beside the offerings. There was also a truck in the road, delivering water for the ensuing banquet, which created an additional racket. At one point the priest leaned towards me, shouting through the clamor that he had told the women to place some snuff (khoini) beside the photograph of the deceased. “He was very fond of snuff. Some people like bidis, while others prefer alcohol. Everyone has a favorite intoxicant (nesha). We give them what they like.” The priest abruptly changed the subject to the task at hand, requesting leaf plates from the women. Mounds of salt, rice, potatoes, biuli lentils and green vegetables (patol) were placed on one banana leaf, additional biuli lentils on

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another, and chili peppers as well as another heap of salt upon the remaining leaf. When done, the priest told Shantu to rub Ganges soil on his forehead, neck, chest, elbows and back. He resumed reciting verses, while Shantu scattered additional coins, water and flowers on to the items in accordance with the priest’s directions, a task that took about an hour. Finally, the women seated themselves before the photograph of the deceased to offer flowers on behalf of the bereaved. Hira’s mother called out the name of each relative, while the priest recited Sanskrit verses, which the women then repeated before they tossed their flowers on the photograph representing the deceased. When done, the women clasped their hands in a gesture of respect (pranam), and then we all got up and walked into the cowshed where we settled down to watch another round of pinda offerings being performed.

House ceremonies (gharer shraddha) The priest who led the ceremonies at the pond was summoned for this final sequence. He placed rice grass, cooked rice (etap chal), a towel and a sacred thread into the three banana-stem vessels, then recited Sanskrit verses, reading from a book. Having finished the initial round, rice grains and rice grass were placed into the three vessels. Next, Shantu sprinkled water and flower petals on the offerings, concluding this initial task by clasping his palms in a gesture of pranam. After this, the priest placed a new banana leaf upon the ground, decking it out with the ingredients that would constitute the pinda: cooked rice, sesame seeds, sugar cakes and slices of banana. Finally, ghee, honey and cow’s milk were poured on the ingredients. Following the priest’s instructions, Shantu kneaded the ingredients together, then made three balls of pinda. He placed rice grass on the ground then sprinkled Ganges water on it. Next, he tossed some flower petals on the grass, sprinkled them with Ganges water, then made a gesture of pranam, clasping his palms, and then clenching his fists while keeping his thumbs extended. When he had finished, he scooped up a ball of pinda, adopting the gesture conventionally employed when conducting pujas at the household shrine, repeating the verses uttered by the younger priest, ending each sequence crying hari bal hari. He placed a second ball of pinda on the grass, sprinkled it with water and flower petals, and then, keeping the same posture, he picked the pinda up, repeating the verses uttered by the priest, before placing it upon the grass. Finally, he scooped up the remains, repeated another round of verses before placing this third and final ball of pinda on the grass. Then, holding a vessel of cow’s milk between his palms, Shantu proceeded to move the vessel towards the balls of pinda, all the while repeating the Sanskrit verses chanted by the priest before emptying the milk on to the pinda. He resumed reciting verses as he touched them with his right hand. Then he removed the ring of rice grass from his middle finger placing it into an empty vessel along with a piece of clothing and some coins. Finally, the three balls of pinda were mixed into a single unit and then placed on a banana leaf. Shantu left to dispose of

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the pinda balls, while the two priests wrapped the offerings made over to his father’s soul into towels to take home. The mortuary banquet (mora bhoj) was held at noon, the same day, soon after the offerings were completed. I was asked to join the children, which was an honor because children are served first, which means that the food is still fresh and the amount is also ample. We all sat in a semi-circle in the yard as Hira’s father served us: potato sticks, spinach, fish and vegetable curries, chutney, pudding as well as milky sweets. The meal served out was the first non-vegetarian meal that the pret took part in. It was composed of heating and connective foods, such as onion, spices and boiled rice. Just before we rose, the sister-in-law of the deceased poked her head out through the window that opened out into the yard where we were seated, telling Papay what he was supposed to do. Shantu stepped into the semi-circle, collected leftovers from three different plates, and kneading these into a single unit he held it out to Papay, asking; “May I have prasad (consecrated leftovers)?” to which Papay answered; “It’s not wrong” (nai dos), meaning, “You have fasted ten days. You have refrained from eating eggs, meat, spices as well as other heating (amish) foods. You have done good, not wrong, so go ahead and eat.” The question and response were uttered thrice before Shantu swallowed the ball of leftovers, and then we all cried hari bal and rose. In eating them, he absorbed the sins (pap) of the deceased. Later, as we talked about the pinda, Tara shuddered as she told me that certain Brahman priests – known as agradani – willingly ingest the pinda, which means that they assimilate the impurities of the deceased.20

Keeping apart Not once did Tara and her husband accept an invitation to take part in funerary feasts during the months I spent with them. Nor did they participate in wedding banquets, since here too elaborate pinda rites are carried out, where ancestors are summoned to attend the feast and to bestow their blessings. Weddings, of course, have the added attraction of being somewhat glamorous. If the match made is between a bride and groom hailing from different villages or towns, the occasion bears an atmosphere of wistful anticipation. Young guests have the opportunity to meet, albeit briefly, persons of their own age whom they have never seen before, so they make sure they look their best, displaying their jewelry and glittering saris. Older women playfully poke fun at the prospective, usually quite bashful, groom. At one banquet I attended, Kalpana performed the role of teasing the groom, seating herself amidst a group of married women posing questions to the young groom, while the unmarried sisters, Biseka and Suleka, moved about self-consciously in their sparkling gold-embroidered saris. Less glamorous than weddings, riches and abundance are central themes in death rites too. Lamb writes that an elderly woman she knew proudly asserted that her death would be “a very big deal,” alluding to the ample food that

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would be gifted to her soul (pret atma) and to the numerous guests that would be present at her banquet, for she was a prosperous, respected person with a host of offspring. But other villagers complained of this woman’s “excess of attachment”; that she lent money to the poor for which she collected interest, and that she also ate expensive foods – cottage cheese and mangoes – actions that ran counter to their views of how a pious older man or woman should behave – that is, fostering modesty when nearing death by exercising selfrestraint to loosen ties of love (maya).21 The necessity of loosening ties of maya continues when a person dies, but at this point kin of the deceased assume the burden of exercising self-restraint. Hungry for affection and loath to leave the living, the soul of the deceased lingers near its home, and relatives in turn manifest their love for the deceased by exercising self-restraint so as to soften the pains of separation. When the rites performed for Hira’s grandfather had been concluded, I questioned mourners as to what would happen to the soul. One of Hira’s aunts stated vaguely that it would go to heaven (svarga), while another aunt said the soul would be united with the god-pair Narayan and Lakshmi, after which it would be born anew. As with the villagers in Rajasthan that Gold describes, their immediate concern was to assist the soul in its attempt to achieve “a liberation from the state of hovering, malevolent, and disembodied ghosthood in order to assume a new birth – preferably a human birth, thus ensuring that the soul would venture without effort from one mode of existence to the next.”22 Undergoing hardships so as to show one’s love and grief for the deceased conveys the message that the soul can leave in peace. The food offerings serve to sustain it on its voyage to the ancestral realm (pitr lok). Once its passage is achieved, it will bestow its blessings, bringing fortune to its living kin. In the Vaishnava burial, the gift of dakshina was given to loosen ties with the deceased, but neither the services of Brahman priests nor those of other castes had been required. Mourning kin did not need to have their hair shorn by a barber, nor did a drummer beat his drum when the body had been carried off, and there were no basket weavers at the burial grounds who took the bier apart. Instead, all the paraphernalia needed to bury Chayna’s mother had been placed into the tomb: the bamboo poles making up the bier were stuck into the cavity in a row before the body, and the shroud employed to cover Chayna’s mother’s body was draped across the poles before the grave was filled with dirt. As with Hira’s grandfather, food had been provided, but this was given to sustain the embodied soul seated in the grave engaged in meditation (samadhi). Also, mourning kin were not required to carry out feats of self-restraint on the soul’s behalf, perhaps since takers of a bhek mantra are supposed to acquire liberation from the cycle of samsara, an aim that they accomplish on their own without the aid of kin. Ideally at least, renouncers do not run the risk of becoming a malignant ghost. The morning after the banquet had been held, a Vaishnava rite identical to the one performed for Chayna’s mother was carried out for Hira’s

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grandfather’s deceased soul. Muni Baba and a neighbor joined Dhiren Baba as he sang and played the cymbals. Tara remarked, “The man lives nearby and likes to sing at these events.” The three solemnly circled the pot of curds and turmeric, which were then smashed upon the ground after which the mourning relatives took turns rolling on the fragments. When done, they all threw coins (dakshina) upon the shards. Our neighbor Sudhir also threw some coins upon the shards, crying as he did so. Later in the evening, while sitting in the roadside, Karun teased him, saying, “He thinks the old man will become a ghost (bhut). He lives next door. That’s why he’s afraid.” Embarrassed, Sudhir laughed and countered, “No, no, no, he was an old man, he will not return!”

Concluding remarks Since takers of a sannyas (bhek) mantra should strive to break their family line, they should abstain from eating pinda. In consequence, they cannot attend a wedding or a mortuary banquet where pinda offerings are made. But banquets where pinda offerings are lacking do not pose a problem. For example, when the much-loved stray dog, Bagha, died, a burial was given and an ensuing funeral meal arranged. Tara’s mother donated ten heads of cabbage. Mr. Mukherjee supplied a vast number of sweets, and others offered rice, lentils, eggplants and tomatoes. Karun cooked a pot of cauliflower curry and tomato chutney. More than a hundred villagers attended. But Chayna’s husband, Gopal, drunk, yelled, “I will not eat a dog’s mortuary food!” Although the pinda rites had been omitted, to his inebriated mind partaking in the food meant establishing communion with Bagha’s dead soul. A similar logic underlay Tara and her husband’s refusal to take part in the banquet (bhoj) held for Hira’s grandfather. Tara said they could not do so because they had a bhek mantra. To check how strong her feelings were, I prodded her by asking, “Suppose your father had not acquired bhek, would you eat the meal served at his funeral?” She said, “My brother, Mahabhir, would offer pinda and then partake in the funerary meal. I would help him cook the meal but I would not eat it.” I pressed her, saying, “Suppose your brother also had a sannyas mantra, then how would you conduct the ceremony?” She said, “In that case I would bury my father in a manner appropriate for laypersons (i.e. naked in a supine position), then I would cook a meal and eat.” Raising her voice and drawing back, she cried, “I will not do pinda!” Then, relaxing, she said, “But I can eat the uncooked vegetables (sidhe). Whenever a death or marriage feast is held, sidhe should be given to the sadhus in the village,” implying that accepting these from mourners does not involve contact with the dead. Still, I could not help but wonder why the abstention from pinda was so important. Why was her refusal so emotionally charged? I think the matter is in part a question of prestige. Tara’s smile, radiant with pride, after carrying out the burial for Chayna’s mother suggested satisfaction with her feat: that she and her husband had set themselves apart as religious experts. Her refusal

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to eat pinda was a statement about purity as well. As Vaishnava sadhus, they were not implicated in the sins, pollution and inauspiciousness arising through the summoning of ancestors, where the act of making and ingesting pinda would hamper their ability to acquire liberation from the cycle of rebirths. The question that remains is whether others in the village recognized their efforts to dissociate themselves from pinda rites. Judging from the number of invitations they received from neighbors to take part in wedding and mortuary banquets, it seemed that they did not. Not wishing to offend them, Tara and her husband sent their son, Kalpana or me over to represent our family, but on hearing us say that Tara and her husband were unwell and so unable to attend, they would look bewildered, which to me suggested that they did not really understand why Tara and her husband had declined their invitation, that taking part would have been at odds with renunciate ideals. In fact, during one wedding I attended, I noticed Jagadish among the guests. But when I saw him later, he brushed the matter off when I remarked that I had seen him at the banquet. Grinning, he said that he had only had a tiny portion. Three days later, he revised his story slightly when, again grinning, he insisted that he only had a little bit of bread and curry, implying that as long as he did not eat rice, he was not affected by the pinda offerings. In his analysis of mortuary rites performed for laypersons, Parry writes that people from divergent castes (barbers, priests, potters, drummers and basket weavers) are summoned to eliminate the sins and impurities generated by a death, and that performing the cremation correctly “holds out the promise of a renewed existence.”23 That caste specialists are lacking in Vaishnava rites might lead one to conclude that takers of a bhek mantra aim to oppose as well as break away from rather than uphold the caste-based moral order pervading lay society, which defines people with a lower caste identity as ritually unclean. Still, opposition to society was not what Tara and her husband emphasized to me when explaining the different sets of ritual procedures. Their concern was pointing to the fact that Vaishnavas have their own life cycle rites, and that when seated in the grave, they concentrate their efforts on attaining liberation (mukti) from the cycle of samsara. But, Karun added, no one can state with certainty what lies in store for them, and that what happens when you die ultimately hinges on the deeds that you perform while living. Since Chayna’s mother failed to live according to the standards appropriate for those initiated into bhek, I queried Tara as to how her soul (atma) would fare. Shrugging, she remarked that the work performed for Chayna’s mother was like the work performed for householders: “Her soul will journey to the ancestral realm and then eventually be born anew. Only at some later point in time will Chayna’s mother’s soul acquire liberation.”

Notes 1 Gold 1992: 48–9. 2 See e.g. Clark-Decès 2007; Gold 1988; Lamb 2000; Parry 1994.

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3 See Gold 1988; Hanchett 1988: 207; Lamb 2000. 4 Gold 1988: 60; see also Lamb 2000: 149. 5 Her statement recalls widespread understandings of death as a transition, ritually marked through symbols representing birth (cf. Metcalf and Huntington 1991: 129; Openshaw 2007: 323). Significantly too, as Lamb points out, mortuary rites do not merely represent transition but facilitate the passage of the soul from one plane to the next (Lamb 2000: 169). Vaishnavas with a bhek mantra should attempt to break away from the cycle of samsara (the chain of constant rebirths), which means that the soul’s stay within the grave or tomb is only temporary. 6 Lambert 2000: 94–5. 7 Khandelwal 2004: 176; Hausner 2007: 55. 8 Gold 1988: 59–60. 9 The flesh ceases to be animated, but the soul continues to exist. To demarcate the difference between a dead and living person’s soul, the latter is termed pran, while the soul of the deceased is called pran atma or pret atma. 10 Karun added that the salt acts as a preservative preventing insects from consuming the flesh of the deceased. Also, in contrast to cremations, the decomposition of the flesh is slow. 11 Tony K. Stewart notes that these Vaishnava saints are Caitanya’s four key devotees (2010: 128). 12 Cf. Daniel [1984] 1987: 77; Lamb 2000: 163. 13 Cf. Gold 1988: 89–90; Lamb 2000: 169–76; Mines 2005: 70; Parry [1982] 1999: 84 and 1994: 75. 14 Cf. Lerche 1993: 245. 15 Cf. Lamb 2000: 169. 16 Lerche notes that the giving of dakshina serves to conclude a ceremonial procedure (1993: 245), although, as I argued in the preceding chapter, it also serves to sever ties with people, dead or living, enabling them to take their leave. 17 Citing Brahman informants, Lamb writes that Shudras are required to wear an iron key because their bodies are more heating than those with a Brahman caste identity who are not required to wear iron. “Heat,” writes Lamb, “opens the body to a ghost's invasion” (2000: 167). 18 If a woman has an abortion, she must fast for ten days. Also, if her child dies, the body is buried and relatives must fast for a ten-day period, although, in this latter case, mourners do not offer pinda. 19 Fasting and bathing are means of undergoing hardships for the sake of the deceased, whereby the soul will be appeased and in consequence detach from the realm of the living. 20 Cf. Lamb 2000: 172, 174. 21 Lamb 2000: 140–2. 22 Gold 1988: 234; see also Clark-Decès 2007: 92. 23 Parry [1982] 1999: 75.

Conclusion

Muni Baba died in September 2012. The last time we met, seven months prior to his death, he spent the afternoons seated at the roadside in the mild winter sun. He held an inhaler in his hand, and complained about his trouble breathing, and that no Bauls came to see how he was doing. He scrutinized his arm, stretching it out for me to see his dry and wrinkled skin, and then he touched his chest, breathing rapidly to demonstrate his difficulties breathing while looking at me mournfully. “The final stages of my life will be hard,” he said. “My chest hurts. My back hurts. How many days will I have left? I am suffering (amar kasta khub). Kristin, you understand. I will die. It will happen. They will make a grave (samadhi) for me in Tarapith” (where Chayna’s mother had been buried). In August, Tara tried to call me several times to tell me that her father had become bedridden. But I was away, visiting a summer cottage two hours south of Oslo, and I did not have a phone. On coming home, I learned that she had tried to reach me, and so I left a message with her friend and neighbor, the owner of the cell phone Tara used. She returned the call the morning after, saying that her father passed away the day before. Sobbing, she said, “Father’s gone, he’s gone, seeing him again will never happen. You were not there when he departed.” Then Kalpana took over, explaining in a calm, collected voice how hard his death had been, and how terrified he was of dying. I pictured him upon the porch, his face turned to the wall, crying out with fright as he had done when I was present the first time he was bedridden, when everyone had thought that he would die. Tara said that they had made a grave (samadhi) for him in Bamkatala, not far from where they lived. I had been to Bamkatala several times. It is a sacred crossing place. A river runs through it, and beside it is a Kali shrine. Mr. Mukherjee’s father used to arrange a festival each year, during which Bauls, including Bara Ma and Muni Baba, had performed. Last time, when Tara and I had visited the shrine, she had noted that all the sadhus present were worshipers of Kali, and she lamented the fact that there were hardly any Vaishnava sadhus there. Tara recounted the way in which the mortuary rites conducted for her father had been carried out: “Our Dayal guru came. He brought a number of Vaishnavas to assist him. We rubbed my father’s limbs with turmeric and

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mustard oil. There were so many customs. Kristin-di, you would have spent hours writing in you notebook.” But explaining all the details of the burial proved somewhat awkward. She cut herself short, saying, “I cannot tell you on the phone.” The second time she called, she sounded calmer. She said, “A constant stream of Vaishnavas are arriving every day to give their condolences.” She started laughing as she told me how her mother was complaining of the cost of tea that she was serving to the visitors. (This had been her mother’s chief complaint when Muni Baba had been ill before, when visitors believed he was about to die and had come to bid farewell.) Tara’s husband, Karun, took the phone to tell me they were going to arrange a sadhu seva (meal for renouncers) to honor Muni Baba. He said, “One month from now, two different meals will be arranged; one for Vaishnava sadhus, and then on the following day another meal will be arranged for Bauls. We will make a stage for them to sing. Will you come?” I told him I would try, although I knew it would be difficult for me to make the journey. Finding that the flights to Kolkata did not correspond, and that the voyage would take approximately thirty hours, I opted to stay home. I sent them money to assist them with the cost of paying for the funerary meal (seva), and setting up a stage and tent (pyandal) that would accommodate the singers. On the night of the performances, Tara called me, giving me the name of each performing Baul, holding out the phone so that I could hear the music. She said, “I’m so happy, I’m so very happy. And everyone is asking, ‘Where is the memsahib? Hasn’t she arrived?’ I’ve told them that your health is bad, and that the journey would have been too strenuous for you.” I had been ill for many years, suffering from an autoimmune disorder known as Sjögren’s syndrome, which is a diagnosis that I received in 2000 when I was writing up my dissertation. After I began to teach, I kept up my correspondence with Tara and her parents. I described my symptoms in my letter (I made pictures of my swollen glands), and wrote that I was working, and since I also suffered from fatigue, it was hard for me to visit. My being ill, however, only grew apparent when we met again in 2006. That winter, I was unemployed and so I took the opportunity to visit. Because telegrams were no longer possible to send, and since Tara and her family did not have a cell phone, I had no means of telling them of my arrival, so I turned up unexpectedly at dusk at Tara’s and her husband’s doorstep. Of course, they were surprised. But Tara also seemed a bit perturbed, asking why I had not written them to say that I was coming. My arriving unexpectedly meant that they had not been able to spread the news of my impending visit, to meet me at the airport and to celebrate my visit with a sumptuous meal. Their courtyard quickly filled with neighbors, all gazing at me, smiling shyly. Tara’s parents were away. Sunita was working at the detention facility, while Muni Baba was at a rehabilitation center for tuberculosis. My Bengali had grown rusty; just telling them about my journey seemed overwhelming. Karun helped me piece together a comprehensive narrative describing the sequence of events during my

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journey. Tara handed me a bowl of muri mixed with mustard oil, and when I had finished eating she gave me a sari to put on despite Papay’s eager protests. He wanted me to wear my jeans and T-shirt. As I stepped into the hut to change, Karun placed my backpack on the platform bed, which now stood on the porch outside the hut rather than inside. Other changes had been made during my lengthy absence. A separate kitchen had been built on the adjoining porch. But since the ceiling was quite low, you needed to stay seated on your haunches when entering the room, and since there was no chimney, I realized that the room would fill with smoke rising from the hearth when cooking. Walking through the neighborhood the morning after, I noted that nearly all the houses on the block had had a walled-in kitchen hut installed, either on the porch itself or in the courtyard. After I had changed into a sari, we all sat down to have our evening meal, huddled together on the porch beside the platform bed. They told me that Papay, who was twenty, needed privacy, which was why he occupied their only room. Dismissing my attempts to help him, Karun fastened my mosquito net. Once the cotton blankets covering the bed had been arranged, Kalpana put up her own mosquito net and bedded down beside me on the floor, while Tara and her husband retired to the cow shed just across the road. The shed stood on the plot of land where Mr. Mukherjee’s office quarters used to stand. Tara and her husband were still paying down the loan that they had taken when they bought it. The cost was twenty-five thousand rupees, of which eighteen thousand rupees remained to be paid. The reason why they slept in the shed was to prevent the cows from being stolen. A month ago, she said, a stranger made his way into the shed. On hearing him, Tara hollered “thief, thief” and the neighbors had come running. She said, “I hit him, Karun hit him, Hira’s father hit him. Chayna’s son and daughter, and the neighbor Phelu hit him. We hit him in the face, legs, and arms, whichever body part we happened to get hold of. The thief was in a hospital for fifteen days before he was sent to jail.” Kalpana stayed home, trembling and afraid, she told me. During the days that followed, I surveyed the block on which we lived. The idyllic pastoral scenery that I was accustomed to was gone. The neighborhood looked like an urban slum. New houses had been built to accommodate the growing population. A brick and salmon-colored two-story building stood further down the road, quite conspicuous between the brown adobe houses. The fields around the village had grown smaller, and because it had expanded, the pond where the mortuary rites for Hira’s grandfather had been performed no longer marked the village boundary. Some (such as Durga’s family members and Chayna’s family) were still defecating in the fields, but finding a suitable spot now required a fifteen-minute walk. Most houses along the road had had a latrine installed, but the sewage system was inadequate. The open drains leading to the pond gave off a nasty smell. And because there was a water shortage, people were compelled to clean their clothes and dishes in the murky water from the pond, drops of which would cling to the dishes in which tea and food were served, and this had a negative effect on me. The

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symptoms of Sjögren’s syndrome (dry mouth and eyes) made me susceptible to infections stemming from the bacteria in the dirty water. I awoke next day with swollen glands, but assured them that this was not cause for concern. Tara straightened out the creases in my sari and then she combed my hair and made a knot, remarking that she was showing her affection. We talked while drinking tea. I learned that Bara Ma had died from cancer two years earlier. At first she had been staying with Tara’s parents, but an argument arose between Sunita and Bara Ma, so Bara Ma went back to Bolpur. She couldn’t stay with Tara since there was not sufficient space. A picture of Bara Ma stood on the household shrine, so that they could do puja to her. I also learned that Dhiren Baba perished from a stroke the year before, and Hari, who had played the flute, had hanged himself in late October, three months ago. I met his brother accidentally while passing through the railway station a few days later. Looking agitated, almost angry, he said that Hari had been stupid for committing suicide. On the day after my arrival, I wrote a letter to Muni Baba to tell him I had come. On receiving it, he must have decided to leave the sanatorium where he was staying and return to Chilluri immediately. He showed up at midnight two days later. I heard him in the road calling Tara’s name in a loud commanding voice. Seconds later, Tara spoke, confirming that I had arrived. Next morning, Muni Baba beckoned me over to his house. Sunita made tea. I had already learned from Tara that she and her mother were not on speaking terms, and that the reason for their quarrel was that Swapan (their friend who played the tabla) had remarked that the festival called Jay Deb is a dirty place, alluding to the crowds of people who soil the area. This had angered Tara’s mother. As we sipped our tea, she told me she resented Swapan’s remark. “Jay Deb is a Vaishnava place, where Bauls and sadhus gather. He should not call it dirty.” I tried to reason with her, saying, “He was probably alluding to the crowds of pilgrims gathering at Jay Deb, who for lack of better facilities defecate along the riverbanks. Surely,” I said, “he was only making fun.” But she turned a deaf ear to this explanation, and did not visit Tara’s household for the remainder of my stay. Because she would not visit us, I had to visit her. I also had to take my meal with Tara’s parents every other day or so. Caught in the middle, I shuttled back and forth between the two households. Each morning when I rose, I had a cup of tea in Tara’s courtyard. Then, shortly after, Tara’s father would stick his head in through the doorway entreating me to have another cup with him. Chewing on his gums, he sat beside the mango tree, waiting as I finished up some task that I was doing, such as writing up my field notes or fixing up my hair. Then, later in the day, the situation would repeat itself. Lying on the cot in Tara’s courtyard, just after napping, eyes half closed, I would discern his figure hovering near the doorway, and then as soon as I sat up, he quickly crossed the threshold, asking in an urgent tone of voice, speaking slowly while smiling in an effort to appear amiable, “Would you like a cup of tea?” Once, he simply uttered, “Tea?” leading Kalpana to query teasingly, “Is that your name? Tea?” Once,

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when visiting with Mira in the afternoon, Muni Baba entered her courtyard and asked me to come and have my tea with him. Mira objected, saying, “She’s having tea with me,” to which Muni Baba replied, “I have to do some errands. She can have her tea with you when she’s finished having tea with me.” Soon Papay started to imitate his grandfather’s behavior, hobbling towards me as he slowly shaped the question, “Would you like some tea?” and then bursting into laughter, while casting each of us a quick glance to make sure we didn’t disapprove. The neighbors also gave me a knowing smile each time I passed them on the road on my way to visit Tara’s parents. These visits could be somewhat unpleasant. Sometimes Sunita grew angry with her husband for failing to place the cups that he had rinsed closer to the hearth, shouting, “Don’t you know I need them!” She also raised her voice at me, sounding slightly hostile; “Isn’t this your house? Tell me! You didn’t come last evening. Isn’t this your house?” Once I countered, “Why don’t you come to visit us?” She answered, “I will never ever visit them again.” But she invariably calmed down, after which she started to iterate her troubles, complaining of the long hours spent at the detention facility and the pain that she experienced resulting from her hardships. As I listened, I attempted to console her, and I massaged her legs to show my sympathy. At other times, however, I was so fatigued that I simply fell asleep. When I awoke and got up to leave, Sunita would position herself in the doorway, wave and giggle as she called “ta-ta” (bye-bye) watching as I crossed the road and entered Tara’s courtyard. One evening, while seated by myself on Tara’s doorstep, I spotted Durga’s grandfather sobbing as he passed me in the dark. I called for him to stop, and invited him in to sit with us. Accepting the stool that Kalpana offered, he told us why he was upset. He said that Sunita possessed some very nice cassettes (religious music called kirtan) that he liked to listen to. I knew that Sunita was fond of kirtan. Every once in a while two or three elderly neighbors – including Durga’s grandfather – would come to listen to the music. They would sit upon her porch, wrapped in dark grey shawls, wiggling their heads in appreciation of the lyrics, while Sunita served tea. Now Durga’s grandfather told us he had stopped coming, the reason being that Sunita and Muni Baba had insulted him. He still continued his walks around the neighborhood, but on this particular evening, as he passed their house, Sunita had come to the doorway of her courtyard and called out to him, asking why he had stopped coming over to listen to her cassettes. Replying, he had told her that Muni Baba had insulted him. He had said, “You come over to our house in the evenings to drink tea, but you never chip in to cover the expenses.” Muni Baba had also told him, “Your daughter-in-law keeps a flock of ducks and sells the eggs. Why don’t you bring us an egg or two in return for the tea you drink at our house?” Durga’s father went on to say that, relating this exchange to Sunita, he expected her to sympathize, but he was astounded when she had sided with Muni Baba, saying, “What my husband told you is correct.”

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Seated on the stool, tears streaming down his face, the old man said, “We keep ducks so we can sell the eggs and buy potatoes. That way more people can eat. We are poor. Sunita knows this, so why does she insult me? Muni Baba comes to see us every single day; we give him tea so why won’t he give tea to me?” Tara said, “They disrespected you (apamanito kare). They’re troublemakers,” meaning that her parents acted out of spite. When I queried Tara as to why her mother seemed so hostile, she said, “She’s a little crazy, but this isn’t new to you. You know this already.” Coming home from work, Sunita would round the corner into our road, puffing up her cheeks and wiggling her head as she proceeded towards us. Karun would remark, “Look, she feels like quarreling.” Once, Tara, standing by the tube-well, queried, “How are you?” to which she responded in a loud and hostile manner, emphasizing each syllable, “Ve-ry well.” At other times, Tara turned her head away when her mother passed. Later, when I went to visit her, she brightened up a little, but then her mood would sour. She said, “I went to all this trouble of bringing up my son and daughter. Now they refuse to see me. And my daughter has forbidden her son to visit me.” One day, she stood yelling across the wall to the neighbors, “I do all the housework, and I pay all the bills. He gives me six hundred rupees a month. The rest is in the bank.” Tara supported Sunita in this: “He never gives her a sari, nor did he give me one.” Sunita’s dark moods and her being ill were in part related to the fact that her husband did not care for her. She also mourned the fact that she was not entitled to a pension from the detention facility. Several years before, during my first fieldwork, I suggested that she could quit her job and do madhukari (begging). But Durga, who was seated on the porch with us, chimed in, saying this would mean a loss of income. Durga’s father, who was also seated on the porch, had smilingly remarked, “She’s much too shy to beg.” Giggling, Sunita agreed. On another occasion, while I was at the roadside sitting on a mat (Sunita was working), I asked Mira (she was married to Karun’s younger brother) why Sunita was angry and unwell. Mira said, “She’s grown used to the idea that she suffers from some malady. She keeps wondering, ‘Is there something wrong? What is wrong with me? Am I ill?’ This has become a habit with her.” Muni Baba worried about his health as well, but he was also preoccupied with matters relating to the house. When seated with him on the porch, he pointed out to me the work that needed to be done. The walls of their storage room were crumbling, and the turf roof had to be replaced with one made out of tin. He had voiced similar concerns before when asking neighbors to convey to me his wish to have electricity installed. As I discussed in Chapter 4, I believe he wanted to become my guru because he thought that this would make me feel obliged to support him financially. Now it seemed he sought to cultivate this role for when I visited in 2006, he appeared to have adopted the style reminiscent of his own guru. For instance, once, when I was seated with him in the morning, Muni Baba queried, “How do you know?” I replied, “What do you mean?” He said,

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“You’re cycling down a road, having so much fun, what fun you’re having, when suddenly a person steps into the road. You brake. How did you avoid the accident? What made you brake?” I looked at him inquisitively, and he triumphantly replied, “Intelligence.” Tara told me that her father had been doing this a lot recently. “He walks up to anyone who happens to be near. When he’s at the railway station, he will stop before a street vendor, grab his hand and ask him, ‘How do you know?’ My father wants to be a guru baba. I’m so embarrassed.” Their friend Swapan agreed. Nodding his chin in the direction of her parents’ house, he said, “They’re both mad.” No doubt, Muni Baba realized that his trajectory as a singer was coming to a close. He looked smaller now, more fragile than he did before. Perhaps he thought his acting like a guru was appropriate now that he could no longer sing the way he used to. Yet a guru does not generally pose riddles to people on the street; they teach their students at their ashrams. According to Tara, his conduct made him seem ridiculous. When I had first asked Muni Baba to explain the meaning of Baul lyrics, he did not elaborate. Expounding on the underlying messages communicated by the songs was not his specialty. He excelled as a performer. He would thrive when on a stage, twirling about without effort, raising his voice and singing the high-pitched melodies with seeming ease. He played a range of instruments – the ektara and dugi, the flute, the dotara and khamak. And he proudly wore the various accessories identified with Bauls: a patchwork vest, a turban, and multicolored beaded necklaces of glass. Now that his health was failing and his voice was frail, laypeople did not seek him out to sing at different types of celebrations, nor did other Bauls ask him to join them during performances. He also faulted Tara and her husband for not taking him along whenever they were hired out to sing. When I sat with Muni Baba in the mornings, he would repeatedly point out to me how superior he was to Tara and the other members of her household. He told me he had taught them all the songs they knew, and how did they repay him? He was totally alone. He said, “Everybody loves me. I am rich but they are poor. My mind is great but theirs are small.” He said he knew that he was getting on in years. He only managed to get by because I sent him money from abroad. He said that Sunita was also growing old: “Soon she will be forced to quit her job. Then how will we survive? The two of us will suffer. We will go around in villages together doing madhukari” (begging for alms). But Tara claimed her father would not admit to being old. “He thinks he’s sixty and my mother thinks she’s forty-eight. He wants to sing with us when we perform. But he walks too slowly, his voice is frail, and he always gets annoyed if the meal (seva) is not served up immediately after we have finished singing.” Muni Baba sang with us on one occasion. A young man – he had recently won the election as a commissioner in a nearby town – sought Tara and her husband out to ask them whether they could sing on stage to celebrate his new position. He stopped by twice to negotiate the fee and to discuss the

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number of musicians we would bring. They turned out to be a flute player (Tara’s non-Baul cousin) from her father’s natal village, and a tabla player, Swapan (a non-Baul neighbor). On the eve of our performance, Tara notified her father that he could also come along. We took turns singing, and when Muni Baba’s time came to perform, he rose from the floor looking frail and timid as he approached the microphone. Karun introduced him as an artist (silpi) who was getting on in years, but he made a point of stating that Muni Baba had performed abroad, a fact that attested to his former glory as a Baul performer. Now he was old and weak, he kept a low register, and he did not dance during the intervals. Despite his frailty, Muni Baba still went singing on the trains. Wanting to hook up with other Bauls, he boarded an express train going south to Bolpur/ Santiniketan. Yet, since an ever-growing number of Baul singers have settled in this area, the competition on this stretch is greater. So I was surprised to learn that Muni Baba did quite well collecting alms. Tara said, “Passengers feel pity (maya) for an old Baul singer, which is why he gets a hundred rupees in a day.” But she and her husband still went in the opposite direction, traveling towards Bihar rather than to Bolpur. Sometimes they crossed the border. She believed the lack of Bauls in those parts means that passengers appreciate Baul singers, and that in consequence their income is much greater than what it might have been if they gone towards Bolpur. Whenever she left her house to beg, Tara brought her harmonium along, a gift from me, tucked into a cotton bag, died an ochre hue (geruya), which she carried on her back the way one would a rucksack. She had learned a new song; one that seemed popular with other singers too for it was the first I heard when traveling on the train to Chilluri after landing in Kolkata. A Baul couple had quietly sat down on the seat opposite to mine, and as the train sped through the countryside, the woman’s voice rang out into the halfempty train car as her husband, looking just as solemn, his face raised to the window, strummed the khamak. Two weeks later, Muni Baba met the couple on the train when he went begging on the stretch going to Bolpur. Returning home, he sought me out directly to say that the couple told him that the memsahib had given them a fifty-rupee note. I felt a twinge of guilt. Perhaps I should have given more? As discussed in Chapter 4, assessing what is suitable to give to Bauls and other villagers (such as Durga’s family) was difficult; Muni Baba kept requesting money for himself, but he also sought to monitor what I would give to others. Tara said he overdid it. “He is greedy like our guru. He has no boundaries.” I saw Dayal guru last in 2012 when I traveled to his ashram with Tara, Sunita and Rina. Rina was the new woman assisting Sunita with household chores. Prior to this she had been doing madhukari with Khepi and the other Vaishnava women. Using her son’s phone, Tara called Dayal guru in advance to tell him that we were coming. I watched her as she spoke, twisting her face in a series of grimaces as she answered Dayal guru’s questions. She said, “Yes, I will tell her. Yes, yes. She will bring it.” Putting down the phone, she gave

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me an exasperated look, saying, “All he wants is money!” Next morning, as we neared his ashram, we met Dayal guru in the road who, on seeing us, immediately exclaimed, “Look how strong my teeth are,” and flexing his muscles he smilingly said, “I’m okay. I’m fit.” We entered the courtyard of his ashram, where Tara and I took the dust off his feet, and then Sunita and Rina each bowed down before him, lingering on the ground in an attitude of submission and respect. We were then taken on a tour around the premises, where Dayal guru pointed out the various improvements he had made, explaining that the new brick building would be painted “ochre” (geruya) and that he would do it single-handedly. A pail of dye stood on the ground next to the adobe wall. We continued to circle the premises, when suddenly he turned to face us. Shaking his head from side to side, he said, “Muni Baba’s health is bad. He brought this sickness on himself.” Clucking her tongue, Sunita chimed in, “chi-chi-chi, it’s true, it’s true.” Alluding to the practice of ingesting body substances – urine (water) and feces (soil) – Dayal guru lamented, “Had he heeded my advice and done ‘water-soil’ work, he would never have grown weak.” Fixing his eyes on me, he hollered, “Do you do water-soil work?” Tara laughingly interjected, “She takes her water, but she won’t do soil work.” Ignoring her, he demanded, “Give me two thousand rupees.” Although Tara had instructed me to bring one thousand rupees, I suspected that he might ask for more, so I had doubled the amount, and handed him the sum that I had brought. As he pocketed the money, I asked him, “How many siksha students do you have? Do you have one hundred?” He immediately retorted, “One hundred thousand!” In the afternoon as we traveled home, Tara said, “He doesn’t have a hundred thousand students; perhaps he has five hundred. A lot of them are Muslims. He knows a lot, that’s why people seek him out.” While we stayed at Dayal guru’s ashram, Rekha’s mother served us rice and fish with vegetable curries on the side. I remarked upon the fact that she and her husband now dressed entirely in ochre (geruya). Rekha’s mother told me that they had taken bhek the year before. I pointed out that, counting Tara and her husband, Dayal guru now had four bhek students altogether. Before we left, we chatted for a while about the work involved in raising cows, during which Dayal guru urged Karun to accept a tool for cutting fodder. As a final gesture of goodbye, Tara and her bhek sister hugged each other three times in the customary Vaishnava fashion (alingdar), concluding their embrace by bringing their palms together in a gesture of pranam. We took the dust off Dayal guru’s feet, and then turned to leave the courtyard where we hailed a rickshaw that took us to the bus stop from which point we traveled home by bus. That night I grew feverish, and then, on waking in the morning, I found that my glands had swelled to the point where I had trouble opening my mouth. I rescheduled my flight and then flew back to Hyderabad where I had been staying with a friend. As I packed my bags to leave, Tara complained of the fact that she was unable to assist me; that she was illiterate and did not

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know how to communicate with “big people.” Kalpana and Papay stayed behind, while Tara and her husband accompanied me to Kolkata, bidding me farewell at the taxi stand at Howrah station. This turned out to be my last visit to Tara’s family. My health continued to decline, and then two years later I was taken to the hospital with kidney, heart and lung failure, and eventually diagnosed with lupus. When I was discharged, the doctors bluntly told me that fieldwork in a village slum was not advisable, that it might bring on a new attack. Nine months before, Jagadish had called me to say that he was terminally ill, suffering from kidney failure, and that he had sold his two cows to pay for medication. In the months that followed, I called Tara regularly to find out how his illness was progressing. He had lost his appetite and was losing weight, becoming weaker by the day. The medicine he bought with the money I had sent after I received his call had ceased to be effective. Now he was confined to bed and he was also having trouble speaking, although he did express a wish to be taken to a hospital in Kolkata. “But,” said Tara, “how will this be feasible when he cannot walk?” Realizing that he was dying, Jagadish had asked his guru to give him sannyas (bhek). Tara said he wanted to have the kind of mortuary preparations that had been arranged for Muni Baba, which are considered appropriate for sadhus. Then when his guru turned him down, Jagadish had sent for Dayal guru whose immediate response had been: “This must be a joke. Taking bhek now just when he’s about to die. What would be the point?” And indeed, what is the point of taking bhek? Why was Jagadish’s request denied? Why did he not take bhek before? When I lived in Tara’s household, several years prior to his death, Jagadish once told me, “A lot of people go to Jay Deb (a Vaishnava festival where sadhus and Bauls gather) to find a guru willing to give bhek. After having it conferred, they simply eat some sweets to celebrate.” Laughing, he said, “It’s nothing, it’s unimportant.” At that time he saw no reason to take bhek. But then he changed his mind. His wanting to take bhek may have been about identity. After all, Jagadish had been a Baul since his early twenties, doing what Bauls are known to do; he had dressed in white and ochre robes, boarded trains to sing for alms, performed at functions, engaged in networking with other Bauls and Vaishnava mendicants and sadhus. Also, he had sung at melas and mahatsabs. He had even been abroad performing songs. Having lived like a Baul, he may have wanted to be buried the way a Baul with bhek is buried, the way Muni Baba had been buried. His wanting to take bhek may have also been about prestige. Perhaps he wanted to be honored like a sadhu, seated in the grave with his turban wrapped around his head, wearing ochre clothes. Perhaps too he hoped that a mahatsab would be arranged for him after the mortuary rites had been completed, as it had been for Muni Baba during which a pyandal (stage) had been erected, where Bauls performed their songs to honor him. But Jagadish’s request had not been granted, and he was cremated like a layperson. No

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sadhus came to partake in the meal (boj) arranged after the cremation. As a layperson, his pret atma (soul) would be united with his ancestors in the ancestral realm, which means that to join in the meal would have meant having contact with the dead. Also, no Baul singers came to perform their songs to honor him since a mahatsab (communal meal for sadhus) was not arranged. Jackson stresses the necessity of exploring the pragmatic, immediate concerns that people deal with in the everyday when attempting to make sense of other people’s life worlds. He writes, “Rather than examine the epistemological status of beliefs it is more important to explore their existential uses and consequences.”1 “Truth,” he writes, “is not an intrinsic property of a belief. Truth is what happens to a belief when it is invoked, activated, put to work and realized in the life world.”2 In keeping with his insight, I suggest that rather than trying to ascertain whether bhek is an essential step for Bauls or not, we should turn our gaze to what this rite is made to mean by those who use renunciation. In the eyes of Tara and her husband, taking bhek brings about a transformation, during which the novice is reborn a full-fledged sadhu, deemed ritually pure on a par with Brahmans. They also claimed that the step is about commitment. True, many takers of a bhek mantra do not meet the standards of Vaishnava renunciation by engaging in sadhana (religious practice) and keeping a cooling diet. Still, to commit when you are about to die, as Jagadish had wanted, would be absurd, which is probably why his request had been denied. I do not know whether Papay (Tara and her husband’s son) will eventually take bhek. He married in January 2015. The ceremony was conducted by a Brahman purohit, and two months later his wife conceived. Although Tara knew that I was ill and that it was unlikely that I would be able to undertake the journey, she nevertheless called to invite me to the wedding. As we talked, she told me that the new wife (bou) was from a village that lacked electricity, which she believed indicated that she was hardworking, not corrupted by urban ways. Tara had already told me that her son had begun to dress in ochre clothes and had started singing on the trains. His initial dream had been to work with computers. He attended two years of college, but realizing that his dream would not be fulfilled, he took a job working as an errand boy. One day he hurt his foot. He had to stay at home to rest, and during his absence he was replaced. When I visited in 2012, I had noticed a slip of paper, torn in half, lying on the platform bed on which I slept. I picked it up, and on closer inspection found that it was a job application. The space where applicants should write what kind of work that they are seeking had been filled but not by Papay, for the handwriting was legible and clear, and it said “sweeper.” I was not able to question them about the form. The day after, I was taken seriously ill and had to leave the village to get medical care, after which I returned to Norway. In retrospect, however, it seems that Papay chose to become a Baul because there were no other options available that seemed attractive. After all, the

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Baul vocation was familiar, a viable path. His parents, aunt and grandfather had all pursued this path, so learning a repertoire of songs would not be difficult. Speaking with Tara on the phone from Norway, I asked her how her son sounded. She said, “Really, his voice isn’t too bad. He practices a lot. He’s gradually improving.” When Papay married, I sent money to help cover the expenses of the wedding and the food that would be served. Tara called to tell me of the different dishes they had cooked: lentil soup, potatoes, cauliflower curry, fish curry, tomato chutney, sweets and yogurt. In answer to my question, she said that a Brahman priest had conducted the ceremony because neither Papay nor his wife had bhek. Although I knew it was a touchy issue, I pressed her, asking which caste the bride belonged to. At once her voice grew small. She said, “She is a Muchi” (leatherworker). Silence ensued. I asked, “Is she a Vaishnava too? Not yet,” she said. And then her buoyancy returned, “But it will happen.”

Notes 1 Jackson 1996: 6. 2 Jackson 1996: 11; see also Sanders 2008: 22, 23).

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Index

adolescence, and initiation, 126, 127, and becoming self-conscious, 126, 127, 128, 129, Alter, Joseph S., 17 n11, 46 n8, 47 n12, 106 n7, n10, n19, n20, 107 n37, anuman, 151, anger, among relations, 22, 44, 188, resulting from heat, 79 n13, as a vice, 133 n7, agency, 3, 20, Arnold & Blackburn, 20, 46 n4, n5, 47 n15, 48 n17, atma, 162, 168, 184 n10, see soul, attachment, 117, 133 n7, loosening of ties, 181, Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar, 18 n30, Bardhan, Kalpana, 3, 18 n20, bartaman, 151, Basham, A.L. 107 n27, Basu, Helen, 79 n13, Bauls, and authenticity, 141, 143, Beatty, Andrew, 47 n11, begging, 44, 48 n19, 49 n29, 112, 158, and affection, 44, 46, 113, 114, 157, 192, and bhek, 34, 109–10, and clothing, 6, 109, 137–8, the custom of, 111–14, 152, and disrespect, 71, 114, 133, 158, and piety, 6, 48 n19, 109, 137–8, and shame, 45, 71, 129, 190, learning to sing on trains, 28–9, 134 n20, in villages, 123, Belmonte, Thomas, 156, 160 n30, bhadralok, as patrons, 139, 142, 147, 156, and views of Bauls 141, 143–4, 159n6 Bennet, Lynn, 48, n20, bhek, and birth, 34–5, 48 n25, and Brahmans, 72, 74–5, 77, 196, and death, 171, 194–5, and dress, 34, 45,

109, 126, 161, 193, ceremonial initiation, and pinda, 162, 180, 182, sadhus, 173, versus lay society 72, 182, 183, brahmans, and dishonorable behavior, 56–7, pride in being, 58–9, body, and boundaries, 33, and complexion, 93, imagery in song, 84–9, and pregnancy, 106 n20, and strength, 45, and weakness, 81–4, 97, 99, 101–2, and weather, 99–100, and women, 91–2, body substances, 33, 81, 84, 93–4, 101–2, 106 n20, 129, as harmful, 83–4, 100, Bourdieu, Pierre, 2, 17 n9, breath, and body substances, 81, 90, and death, 168, and flute, 99, and vitality, 99, 103, Buckley, Thomas and Alma Gottlieb, 48 n23, Cassaniti, Julia, 105 n4, 107 n28, 160 n29, Caitanya, 4, 5, 26, 82, 125, 130, 134–5 n32, and bhek 161, worship of 145, in mortuary ritual 171–2, 184 n12, caste, 57, 63, and honor and devotion, 63–5, and suffering, 65–7, and untouchability, 62, 71, Capwell, Charles, 17 n1, 18 n36, 105 n2, 133 n7, 141, 159 n5, n7, Cederlöf, Gunnel, 160 n22, Chakrabarti, Ramakanta, 18 n22, n26, n34, n37, Chatterjee, Kumkum, 18 n23, n24, n25, n26, Chatterjee, Partha, 17 n9, n11, n13, 18 n34, n37,

210

Index

children, not having, 28, 34, 87, love for, 92, Clark-Decès, Isabelle, 183 n2, 184 n3, n23, class, lower, 4–5, 57, 67, 69–70, 160 n32, middle classes, 156–7, clothing, and authenticity, and Bauls, 136, and gender, 125–6, and marker of piety, 137–8, and renunciation (bhek), 42, 109, 193, and Vaishnavas, 109–10, cold, and health, 83, 99–102, 105, 107 n35, Cort, John E., 80 n15, 110, 111, 134 n10, n11, n12, n15, n16, n17, cowry shells, as representing money, 152, 160 n22, Csordas, Thomas J., 17 n10, dakshina, as gift of parting, 149–4, 157, 167–8, and maya, 168, 182, as a fee, 112, 149, 175, 184 n17, Dalit, 20, defined, 160 n27, dan, 150, 152, Daniel, E.V., 18 n43, 48 n24, 106 n7, n10, n17, 107–8 n37, 184 n13, death, and soul, 96, 152, 169–70, 174–5, 180–3, 184 n5, n10, n20, 195, DeNapoli, Elizabeth Antoinette, 17 n16, 150, 160 n19, n20, 21, Denton, Lynn Teskey, 133 n4, Derné, Steve, 107 n28, detachment, 137, and maya, 133–4 n7, 168, and dying, 184 n20, and renouncers, 110, diksha, defined, 109, the taking of 85, 115, 127, and purity 124, Dimock, Edward C., 17 n1, 18 n23, n35, Douglas, Mary, 2, 17 n5, 33, 48 n21, Dube, Saurabh, 55, 79 n8, Dumont, Louis, 54–5, 79 n3, 110, Doniger O’Flaherty, Wendy, 107 n37, Dundes, Alan, 55, 79 n7, Eaton, Richard, 4, 18 n22, Emerson, Fretz and Shaw, 159 n12, emotions, 133 n7, 134 n29, and body fluids, 91, 93, 96–7, fasting, and self-restraint, 68–9, 101, feces, see body substances, food, and ascetic austerity, 80 n15, and body substances, 101, 107–8 n37, n38, cooling, 83–4, 100, connective, 168, 183, heating, 58, 79 n13, 100, 105,

180, and mentality, 84, 105, mortuary meal, 170, 180–3, as prasad, 58, 73, 77, 93, 118, 120, 180, Fruzetti, Lina M., 106 n14, Frøystad, Kathinka, 78 n2, Ganges river, 33–4, 63, 66, 75, 77, 82, 88, 151, 172, 175–9, Gardner, Katy, 47 n11, geruya, see red, ghosts, 125, 162, 174–5, 176, 126, 181, 182, gift, dan, 150, 152, dakshina, 112, 149–54, 157, 167–8, 172, 174–5, 181–2, 184 n17, Gold, Ann Grodzins, 17 n14, 18 n43, 49 n30, 66, 79 n10, 133 n2, 160 n19, 161, 80 n17, 183 n1, n2, 184 n3, n4, n9, n14, n23, Gold, Ann Grodzins and Ram Bohju Gujar 3, 17 n14, 66, 79 n10, 80 n17, Gold, Daniel, 110, 134 n10, Grima, Benedicte, 47 n11, Gross, Robert Lewis, 47 n13, 49 n33, Guha, Ranajit, 49 n30, guru, and bhek and siksha, 34–6, 75, 110, 126–7, 131–2, devotion to, 83, 117–8, 120, 134 n25, 150, criticism of, 121, 131, gifts to, 110, 116, 117, initiator, 14, as a model, 48 n17, 117–8, 134 n25, religious expert, 6, 32–3, 42–3, 46–7 n10, 85, 87, 88–9, 92, 93, 101–2, 119, 158, 168, 185–6, as woman, 27, 91, 106 n15, 117–8, and greed 110, 117, 121, 123, 131, and Brahmans, 56, as a vice, 133–4 n7, 154, 192, Grover, Shalini, 48–9 n27, Hansen, Kathryn, 48 n19, 80 n21, Hausner, Sondra, 47 n13, 48 n18, 49 n33, 107 n26, 134 n13, n17, n25, 159 n11, n13, 184 n8, Hayes, Glen A., 18 n31, n32, n33, n35, Hess, Linda, 2, 17 n11, n12, 106 n13, n16, n22, 107 n30, Hodge, Frederick Webb, 46 n7, Hollan, Douglas, 17 n3, Holland and Skinner, 134 n31, householder society, as opposed to sadhu society, 73, 161, honey, at death, 166–7, 176–7, 179, initiation, and birth, see bhek, diksha, 40, 85, 109–10, 114–5, 122, 124, 127,

Index siksha, 71–2, 85, 109–10, 114–5, 122, 172, 193, sannyas, see bhek, Jackson, Michael, 17 n2, 160 n29, 195, 196 n1, n2, jealousy, 133–4 n7, 155, Jha, Shakti Nath, 105 n2, 107–8 n37, Kakar, Sudhir, 48 n20, 106 n7, 107 n35, Kasturi, Malavika, 134 n14, n15 Khandelwal, Meena, 45, 47 n13, 48 n27, 49 n32, 84, 96, 105 n5, 106 n6, n8, n9, n10, n24, n25, n26, 118, 133 n6, 134 n14, n23, n24, n28, 160 n28, 184 n8, Knight, Lisa I., 6, 17 n1, 18 n17, n37, n39, 19, 24, 46 n2, 47 n14, 48 n18, n19, n26, 49 n32, n34, 106 n15, n21, 107 n29, 130, 133 n3, 134 n13, n14, n22, n30, n32, 135 n32, n38, n40, n43, 143–4, 159 n4, n6, n8, n9, n10, n13, Krishna, and begging, 110, 113, as a guru, 120, as a model, 37, 49 27n, 91, in song lyrics, 37, 89, 105, and Vaishnavism, 6, 15, and worship of, 4, 27, 49, 63, 82, Langness and Frank, 46 n7, 47–8 n16, Laidlaw, James, 80 n15, lajja, see shame, Lamb, Sarah, 15, 17 10n, 18 n41, 48 n22, 79 n13, 106 n10, 107 n32, 133 n7, 137, 150, 159 n2, 160 n17, n18, 180–1, 183 n2, 184 n3, n4, n5, n6, n7, n13, n14, n16, n18, n21, n22, Lambert, Helen, 107 31n, 168, 184 leatherworker, see Muchi, Lerche, Jens, 150, 153, 160 n15, n26, 184 n15, n17, Lewis, Oscar, 20, 46 n9, life stories, and accuracy, 27, 47 n15, 48 n17, the extraordinary versus the ordinary, 20, 24, 47 n12, 47–8 n16, love, and body substances, 96, 97, 128, marriage, 48–9 n27, n28, 50, pregnancy, 34, 96–7, Mahmood, Saba, 3, 17 n10, n15, 18 n18, Malamoud, Charles, 135 n44, mantra, 98, 124, Marriage ceremony, arranged marriages 35, lay marriages, 180, 183, love marriage 48–9 n27, Vaishnava and Baul, 36–7, 42–3, 196,

211

Marriott, McKim, 79 n5, 80 n14, 99, 107 n31, n32, n37, 160 n23, mati, see feces, see also body substances, maya, as affectionate attachment 14, 25, 133 n7, 140, 168, 181, 192, as illusion, 133–4 n7, McDaniel, June, 105 n2, McGilvray, D.B., 135 n33, McGuire, Meredith Lindsay, 17 n8, n9, menarche, 32–4, see also body substances, menstrual blood, 32–4, 45, 90–4, 106 n20, 127, and imagery in songs, 88–9, 143, ingestion of, 33, 92–3, as primordial, 33–4, representations of, 125–6, see also body substances, mind, and body, 93, 95, 96, 97, 168, and consciousness, 93, 95–6, 123, as divine, 101, in death, 168, and knowledge, 77, 96, in life, 101, and lack of discipline, 92, 93, 124, Mines, Diane P., 134 n29, 159 n6, 184 n14, Mintz, Sidney, 20, 46 n1, n3, n8, n10, 47 n15, 49 n31, Metcalf, Peter and Richard Huntington, 184, modesty, see shame, Moffatt, Michael, 79 n12, moon as euphemism for body substances, 2, 91, Muchi, narratives, 63–66, and occupation, 1, 25, 43, 51, 196, mukti, 60, 96, 168, 183, moksha, see mukti nirban, see mukti Nandy, Ashish, 159 n6, Narayan, Kirin, 18 n43, 47 n11, n15, 105 n3, 106 n11, 134 n14, n26, narrative, 3, 24–5, 30, 46 n7, n8, 47 n11, 48–9 n27, 63–6, 122–3, 130, Nityananda, 4, 171, Obeyesekere, Gananath, 17 n3, 48 n20, 135 n34, Offerings to the dead, see pinda Osella, Filipo & Caroline Osella, 80 n18, Östör, Akas´, 98, 107 n31, Openshaw, Jeanne, 17 n1, 18 n35, n36, 47 n14, 48 n25, 49 n29, n32, 80 n19, 105 n1, n2, 106 n8, n20, n21, 108, n38, 133 n3, n4, n5, 134 n13, n18, 134–5 n32, 135 n36, 159 n6, 184 n5,

212

Index

Parish, Steven M., 79 n9, 127, 130, 135 n34, n35, n37, n41, Parry, Jonathan, 134 n19, 157, 160 n16, n24, n25, n26, n34, 183, 183 n2, 184 n14, n24, patriarchal values, 48 n19, patronizing Bauls, 50, 139, pinda, 162, 175, 177, 179–80, 182–3, 184 n19, pollution, 1, 2, 33, 54, 60–2, 65, 66, 69–71, 103, 183, poverty, and begging, 13, 29, 49 n29, 111, 191, and stigma, 69, 70, 133n1, and suffering, 61–69, pran, as life force, 94, 99, as soul, 97, 152, 168, 170, 184 n10, see also soul, prasad, 58, 73, 77, 93, 118, 120, 180, pregnancy, 44–5, 86, 91, 96, 101, 106 n20, 123, and failure to conceive, 28, pret, 162, pret atma 120, 174, 175, 177, 180, 181, 183, 184 n10, 195, puja, 15, 40, 50, 53, 59, 76, 77, 147, by Brahmans, 60, 72–4, 100–101, 120, 122, 136–7, 172–3, 178, 179, and household pujas, 63, 82, 188, and purity, 76, 79 n10, n13, Quigley, Declan, 79 n4, Racin, Josiane and Jean-Luc, 46 n8, Radin, Paul, 20, Radha, 1, 3, 4, 6, 15, 30, 36, 37, 42, 48–9 n27, 82, 89, 91, 103, 120, 144, Raheja, Gloria Goodwyn, on caste, 55, 79 n4, n5, n6, on dakshina 150, 152, 160 n15, n24, Rai Das, 61, 62, ras, 93–5, 101–2, 106 n20, 117–8, 129, 131, 193, see also body substances, red, (pink, ochre, orange), and authenticity, 141, and female seed, 33, 125–6, and fondness for, 100, 125–6, and initiation, 34, 75, identified with women, 125, marker of sectarian identity, 6, 120, 123, 125–7, 133, of bhek, 126, and performances, 136, 138, 143, and piety, 137, as protective, 125, and widowhood, 91, 126, religious practice, see sadhana, renouncers, versus lay society, 109–11, and wandering, 46, 142, rice, connective, 112, 182–3, Roland, Alan, 155, 160 n28,

Roy, Manisha, 46–7 n10, Ruud, Arild Engelsen, 160 n31, rup, see menstrual blood, sadhana, 18 n35, 81, 84–5, 90–1, 95, 101–2, 105 4n, sadhu, and sadhu society, 129, Salomon, Carol, 3, 17 n1, 18 n19, n35, 81, 105 n1, n2, 106 n12, samadhi, 96, 152, 161, 164–6, 181, 185, samsara, 89, 96, 168, 181, 183, 184 n5, sannyas, see bhek, Santasi, worship of, 26–7, 68, 72, 100–101, seed, and depletion of, 86, 93, 95, 97, in body substances, 86, 88–9, 94, 96, in mantras, 124, in menses, 88, 91, 92, 95, retention of, 91, 93, 95, self, as locus of subjectivity, 95, self-discipline, and dietary regulations, 27, 30, 84, 101, 105, 146, and emotions, 133n7, semen, male seed, 84, 86, 91, 106 n19, n20, opposed to female seed, 84, 91, seva, 112, 150–4, 157, 167, 186, Seymour, Susan C., 127, 135 n33, shakti, 65, 84, shame, and adolescence, 94, 129, 130, and beauty, 127–8, and children, 127–8, 130, excess of, 128, and honor, 129, as key emotion, 14, 127–31, and men, 130–1, and deferring to society, 129–30, sadhus, 129, tied to self-restraint, 130, and women, 47 n11, 129–30, Shore, Bradd, 18 n40, Shweder, Richard, 107 n28, 135 n34, n35, n41, siksha, see initiation, Simon, Gregory M., 135 n42, singing, and performances, 87, 98, 136–9, 141–7, 153–6, 97, as a source of livelihood, on trains, 36, 44, 46, 114, 192, and weakness, 83, 97, 131, 158, soul, in relation to mind, 96, 168, in melodies, 97, see also pran, and pret atma, Staples, James, 46 n8, 133 n1, Stoller, Paul, 18 n40, suffering, and mortuary rites, 175, 177, 181, and poverty, 63–9, and self-restraint, 63–9, 146, and women versus men, 68, Sujatha, V., 107 n34, Stewart, Tony K., 184 n12,

Index Tagore, Rabindranath, 17 n1, 142, Thapar, Romila, 18 n22, 110, 134 n9, Trawick, Margaret Egnor, 18 n41, 48 n20, 65, 80 n16, 107 n35, 160 n23, tuberculosis, 102–5, Urban, Hugh B., 17 n1, n9, 18 n35, n36, urine, see ras, see also body substances, Vaishnavism, opposite to Brahmans and lay society, 45, 46 n10, 80 n20, similar to Brahmanism, 14, 74–76, Valpey, Kenneth, 18 n26, van Gennep, 34, 48 n25, van Schendel, 160 n22, Waldrop, Anne, 49 n27, wandering, 46, 142, Wardlow, Holly, 48 n19,

213

wedding, Vaishnava, 36, 42–3, Weidman, Amanda, 17 n9, whiteness, and body substances, 33, 106 n20, and burials (samadhi), 35, 165, marker of Vaishnava renunciation, 6, 109, 113, 125–6, 133, 137, 145–6, marker of widowhood, 140, 161, Wilce, James, 47 n11, 107 n34, women, and career, 155, and critique of patriarchy 29, 36, junior household members,155, and power, 65, 66, 68, 84, and pregnancy, 28, 96–7, 106 n20, and singing, 97, and suffering, 65, 68, single, 40, 132, 155, widows, 48 n19, 91, 140, 161, and worship on behalf of husband, 68, Wulff, Donna, 4, 18 n21, n23, n29, Yalman, Nur, 48 n20,

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