Lalon also known as Lalon Sain or Lalon Shah or Lalon Fakir (c. 1774–1890) was a Bengali Baul saint, mystic, songwriter, social reformer and thinker.His poetry, articulated in songs, is considered classics of the Bengali language. Fakir Lalon Shah lived in the village of Cheuria in the area known as Nadia in the district of Kushtia in Bangladesh. He never revealed his social identity because of his consistent opposition against all forms of communal identity. He refused all his life to be trapped into the politics of identity of any kind. When people, particularly members of the urban the middle class who were already divided into Hindu and Muslim during colonial period, asked about his religion, Lalon mocked them. Many of his songs make mockery of those who degraded themselves to identity politics that divides a community, thereby creating conditions that generate communal conflict and violence. In Bengali culture he has become an icon of religious tolerance whose songs inspired and influenced many poets and social and religious thinkers including Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Allen Ginsberg - though, as he rejected all distinctions of caste and creed, he was both praised and criticized in his lifetime and after his death. His disciples mostly live in Bangladesh and West Bengal. He founded the institute known as Lalon Akhdah in Cheuriya, about 2 kilometers from Kushtia railway station. He is also regarded as the founder of the Baul music https://youtube/watch?v=9gUMgB_i7OQ
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 16:18:43 +0000
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