The Honey Gatherers: Travels with The Bauls: The Wandering Minstrels of Rural India - Hardcover

Sen, Mimlu

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1846041899 ISBN 13: 9781846041891

Publisher: Rider, 2010

Synopsis

Mimlu Sen is living a bohemian life in Paris when she witnesses an electrifying performance by three wandering minstrels from rural India. They wear flowing, multicoloured robes and play frenetic rhythms on strange instruments made of wood and clay, capturing the many moods of nature and passion. After her turbulent past, including a year in a Calcutta jail, Mimlu instantly knows it is time to set off on the journey of her life. One of the minstrels, Paban Das Baul, is a gifted young musician with a growing international reputation. Mimlu defies prejudice to travel with him deep into the heart of Bengal, the rural hinterland behind Calcutta where few tourists ever go. In this fascinating and unusual book, she describes how they make their way across country, from shanty town to village, from monastery to festival, perched on the roofs of buses and squeezed inside trains, encountering tantrics and sages, exorcisms and witch sightings, catfish that climb trees and esoteric secrets - and fall in love. With Paban's encouragement, Mimlu too performs for alms - 'gathering honey' in the traditional Baul way - and is initiated into a hidden world of song, sensuality and adventure as wild and unpredictable as the landscape itself.

About this title

About the Author

Mimlu Sen is a translator, musician, producer and composer. She collaborates with Paban Das Baul on all his recordings, performing with and managing his group on their concert tours around the world. She has travelled, and worked, between India and France since 1969, and was born in Shillong. This is her first book.

Review

"A revelation...a keyhole to a living mystical world...remarkable for its wonderful prose" * William Dalrymple * "Brilliantly and honestly told, thrillingly evocative, this book is saturated in the sights, sounds and seasons of India" -- Michael Wood "Exceptional...The haunting music provides the narrative drive of this wonderful piece of writing, as Sen reveals a colourful and largely unknown world...An illuminating and inspiring story of adventure in a world that few of us will ever experience" * Daily Telegraph * "Joyfully written and very evocative of an esoteric, enchanted, chaotic world" * Times *

Edition details

• Publisher: Rider
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1846041899
• ISBN 13: 9781846041891
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256