Lalon
Fakir Lalon Shah (Bangla: ফকির লালন সাঁই), also known as Lalon Shah (c. 1774–1890), was a Bengali philosopher poet. His poetry, articulated in songs, are considered classics of the Bangla language. Fakir Lalon Shah lived in the village of Cheuria in the area known as Nadia in the Bengal Presidency of British India, corresponding to the district of Kushtia in present-day Bangladesh.
Lalon is said to be born in the year 1772 October'17 in Harishpur village, shoilkupa upazila in Jhenaidah district. He was buried sewria, kustia.
The details of Lalon's early life are made controversial mainly by urban-educated scholars representing communal tendencies among both Hindu and Muslim writers. Lalon also recorded very little information about himself. As a result, accounts of Lalon's life are sites of speculative communal claims that has remained till today contradictory and unverifiable. Depending on the source, some claim Lalon was born of Hindu Kayastha parents and during a pilgrimage to Murshidabad with other Bauls of his native village, he contracted a virulent type of small pox and was abandoned by his companions in a precarious condition on the banks of the Ganges. Another story claims that he is Muslim by birth and his village and family links are still traceable. However, it is true that a Muslim man of the weaver community, Malam Shah, and his wife Matijan took him to their home and nursed him back to life. It is clear, however, that 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. It is important that his intention is retained in any attempt to reconstruct a historiography of this great saint who even refused to be nationalist during the apex of the anti-colonial nationalist movements in the Indian subcontinent.Lalon Shah married a Muslim woman and set up his ashram in Cheurriya to compose and practise his songs. With regard to identity the following song is fairly well known among his many other similar articulations:
They are curious to know what Lalon's faith is,Says Lalon: The shape of religion eludes my vision.
Circumcision tells a Muslim from others,
But what is the mark of his woman?
The Brahman is known by his thread,
How do I tell who is a Brahmani?
The details of Lalon's early life are made controversial mainly by urban-educated scholars representing communal tendencies among both Hindu and Muslim writers. Lalon also recorded very little information about himself. As a result, accounts of Lalon's life are sites of speculative communal claims that has remained till today contradictory and unverifiable. Depending on the source, some claim Lalon was born of Hindu Kayastha parents and during a pilgrimage to Murshidabad with other Bauls of his native village, he contracted a virulent type of small pox and was abandoned by his companions in a precarious condition on the banks of the Ganges. Another story claims that he is Muslim by birth and his village and family links are still traceable. However, it is true that a Muslim man of the weaver community, Malam Shah, and his wife Matijan took him to their home and nursed him back to life. It is clear, however, that 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. It is important that his intention is retained in any attempt to reconstruct a historiography of this great saint who even refused to be nationalist during the apex of the anti-colonial nationalist movements in the Indian subcontinent.Lalon Shah married a Muslim woman and set up his ashram in Cheurriya to compose and practise his songs. With regard to identity the following song is fairly well known among his many other similar articulations:
They are curious to know what Lalon's faith is,Says Lalon: The shape of religion eludes my vision.
Circumcision tells a Muslim from others,
But what is the mark of his woman?
The Brahman is known by his thread,
How do I tell who is a Brahmani?
