Of Lalon

Sarah-Jane Saltmarsh
Nov 5 · 7 min read

Note: I am a native English speaker, but learning Bengali, so this is written as I speak - in a mix of both languages. There is a glossary at the end.

Where heaven is wrapped in kola pata.
Tiny tubes of kulfi,
home-made,
by milk delivered by hand that morning.
The kulfi-wallah gives you an ice cube to wash your hands with,
the fragrance of the elach stays in your mouth for days.

Mizan bhai, the kulfi-wallah with the smile that felt like sunshine

Where the tube-well water is cold, and comes out like crystals and tastes like crystals
and the daal and rice have more flavour than a whole table of dishes in the city.
Where people look at you unflinchingly. Their eyes big and open and accepting.

Their eyes speaking conviction.
Empathy.
Presence.

A wave of humanity washing over you,
Engulfing you, bathing you.
Through the eyes of one person.

A spa for a soul.

Eyes so young and so old.
The curiosity of children. The wisdom of grandparents.

An energy that stems from authenticity. All at once entrancing, all at once welcoming, all at once unconditional. So powerful and yet so simple that it makes you feel uncomfortable. Am I worthy of this?

We arrived in Kushtia, into Lalon mela, at 2am.
20,000 men.
A sea of ego with many imported, uninvited sharks.

Visited small akhras.
Less people, more women.
Life chasing death.
Instead of death chasing life.

Met a khomok, befriended a tabla, reunited with a dotara.
Remembered that the world fades away when the music is good enough.

Slept with the Kali Ganga, woke up with the soothing lows of cows, soft kichuri on the table, a rocking chair on the balcony. The breeze kissed our foreheads, and brought the first song sung that morning.

“Sohoj manush, bhoje dekh na re mon, dibbo gyane! Pabi re omullyo nidhi bortomane”
“Worship the simple man, with common sense. Keep your mind open and think deeply. You will find infinite value in the present.”

Back to the mela. Got lost in a sea of beads, rings and bangles.

Sat with Bauls under a tree with yellow-brown leaves.
The breeze plucked the leaves from the tree and the leaves fell onto the Bauls and onto the ground.
The Bauls picked up their pipes, and smoke rose, and the smoke danced with the wind and the leaves, and the world turned golden for a while.

A crowd gathered.

“Kon desh? Bidesh. Saiji bolechhen sob manush-e soman, unader ke alada kore dekhar kee achhe?”
“Which country? A foreign country. Everyone is equal. What is the point of treating her differently?”

Common question.
Uncommon answer.

We left the golden Bauls, relieving them of the crowd like Pied Pipers.

The sun burnt.
We drank coconuts and ate kulfi and jilapi.

Another, older Baul wandered up;

“Apni eka eka khaben?”
“Are you eating alone?”

Small thought.
Big thought.

We bought more and shared, and the second round was sweeter.

Paddy fields in rural Kushtia — an ocean of green

We left the mela and went to Poran Fakir’s home, Rob Fakir’s resting place.
Rob’s wife wore all white but every katha she stitched was bursting with colour.
She had the temperament of both a buffalo and a baby goat.
Her throne was made of green plastic chairs.

We watched the orange sun set over bright green dhan khet.

Embraced shiddhi, as Rob Fakir called it.
Got high on human connection.

The clock at the entrance of Crack International Art Camp

Wandered into an art camp.
A clock welcomed us, resting on a tree, hugged in place by leafy vines.
It read 9pm, and did not tick.
Perhaps it was always 9pm in the camp.
We had fallen down an Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole.
People and animals watched from every corner, none of them having moved, ever.
No one and nothing wore a watch.

A platform over the water in the art camp

Sat on a platform of bamboo over the water, surrounded by old songs and old souls and smoke and sculptures.

Peeped into rooms with art stacked up upon art on top of art against art.

Rooms that were art.

Every child is an artist’ — written on the wall. What happened to so many of us?

When did we start wearing watches?

A group we sat with for a few songs in the art camp

Sat in a circle.
Playing, singing, smoking.

Strangers by head, siblings by heart.

A shiny vest in a gold watch joined.
Spewing words of hate and aggression, in a fury, into the soft candlelight in the circle.
The rhythm sped up until he could no longer keep up.
He left.

We left the circle, and floated out on a khal.
On a nouka, under a moon that danced gleefully on the water.

The only light from the glowing shiddhi, the only sound from the dotara.
Glided through the water, occasionally brushing against grass, the beat in rhythm with the waves lapping against the sides of the boat.
Looked up at the stars and down at the water and got lost in the night.

Suddenly, someone fell sick.
We headed to the ghat.
Everyone became ants. Climbing, cooperating, helping. No one watching.

The moonlight lit up small circles of people in bamboo huts.
Haunting voices and trance-like percussion floated on the wind.
Harmoniums humming, mandiras chanting into intoxication.
Gurus drunk on dialogues of resistance.

Should we join?

“Mon chaile haat emni cholbe”
“If your mind wants, your fingers will follow”

We sat down, felt instantly welcomed and were offered everything everyone had.

A door to a different world silently opened.

An original circular economy, where everything was reused, recycled, communal.

We sang, we played, we tapped, we swayed, and watched the mela unfold through the night from the best seat in the house — across the river.

Soft, white cotton, and thick brown beads.
Hair like vines, hands and feet like roots.
People-trees.

No clapping — because no one was there to entertain.
A festival never meant for festival-goers.

The road was long and winding, with many bumps.
Green oceans stretched out on both sides.
Colourful laundry relaxed in the sun and grass sunbaked.
Trees hugged across the highway.

We reached the riverbank, watched the mighty Modhumoti and the restless Padma make furious love.

Climbed the stairs of Kuthibari, pausing at these words from Tagore to Nazrul;

আয় চলে আয়, রে ধূমকেতু, আঁধারে বাঁধ্‌ অগ্নিসেতু, দুর্দিনের এই দুর্গশিরে উড়িয়ে দে তোর বিজয়-কেতন!
অলক্ষণের তিলক-রেখা রাতের ভালে হোক-না লেখা, জাগিয়ে দে রে চমক মেরে’ আছে যারা অর্ধচেতন!
“Come, my comet. Build a bridge of fire across the dark. Let your banner fly in triumph. Over the fortress of gloom. Be the night ever so full. Of dark portents. Come, rouse those who live half asleep. That they make wake up with a
start”

Time stretched.

“Jat gelo jat gelo bole. Eki ajob karkhana! Soitto kaje keo noy raji. Sobi dekhi ta na na na!”
People lament here for lost honour like a lost child. What is honour if not the pursuit of truth? Yet, they trapeze around this strange circus, a caricature of truth.

Freedom in discipline. No calculations. Absolute trust. Few words, endless meaning. Complexity within simplicity.

The meaning of freedom — to do what you want, when you want.

A glimpse, in a weekend, from a rat in a cage, of Arshi Nogor.

A weekend to remember

Shout out to Anusheh Anadil for making everything in Kushtia happen.

And to Mohammad Tauheed for making me write :)

Kola pata | Banana leaf, used to wrap food. Traditional sustainable packaging option.
Kulfi | Homemade ice-cream, made of cream, sugar and cardamon. Heaven on a hot day.
Kulfi-wallah | Roadside seller of kulfi. Often smiling.
Elach | Cardamom. Great in tea.
Daal |
Soupy cooked lentils. Always with rice.
Lalon Mela | One of the two annual festivals celebrating Lalon, a mystic poet and philosopher.
Akhra | Arena.
Fakir | Sufi ascetic.
Khomok |
Tension drum. Wild sound.
Tabla |
Percussion instrument. Addictive and magical.
Dotara |
Stringed folk musical instrument. Enchanting.
Kali Ganga
| A branch of the Ganges River.
Baul | Mystic minstrel. Also describes a way of life/belief system.
Jilapi | A little piece of sugary heaven. Best to try it.
Katha | Beautifully hand-stitched traditional piece of art made of upcycled sarees.
Dhan khet | Paddy field. The ubiquitous image of rural Bangladesh.
Shiddhi | Nirvana. A combination of unprocessed tobacco leaves and marijuana.
Khal | Water canal. In the world’s biggest delta though, it can be the size of a lake/river.
Nouka | Traditional wooden boat. Good for fishing.
Ghat | Series of steps leading down to a body of water.
Modhumoti |A distributary of the Ganges.
Parma |The Ganges, once it crosses the border into Bangladesh and after it meets the Brahmaputra River.
Kuthibari |Rabindranath Tagore’s historic country house.
Arshi Nogor |
The City of Reflection, in Lalon philosophy.

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