Baiju Bawra

Yesterday Alka and I watched the old black-and-white Baiju Bawra together on an obscure Urdu channel I had chanced upon while trying to find some worth-watching channel (which, I never find!). Although I had seen the movie before, I watched to enjoy it with Alka and to listen to its classical based songs.

It is a story of an unknown singer who defeated Mia Tansen to take revenge for his father’s accidental death. Tansen is known to be the greatest classical vocalist ever to have existed in India. He was one of the nine jewels (Nau Ratnas of emperor Akbar’s court.

Nobody could sing in the city unless he or she could sing better than Tansen and if one sang without that, he or she was executed. So once, when Baiju Bawra was still a child, the sentry of Tansen tried to stop Baiju’s father from singing and in the ensuing scuffle, the father died. Before dying, he extracted a promise that Baiju would take revenge from Mia Tansen.

Baiju got shelter from a village priest and while growing up, fell in love with the boatman’s daughter, Gowri. He continued his musical education on his own. He got so enamoured by Gowri’s love that he forgot about the revenge.

Once a group of dacoits laid siege on the village. With his song, Baiju persuaded them against looting the village but the gang leader, who was a woman, fell in love with him and asked him to follow them as a condition for sparing the village. He went with her, leaving the crying Gowri behind.

In the fort, the gang leader, who was actually a princess living in exile, told him how her father’s serfdom had been usurped by someone and she was seeking revenge because the village too previously belonged to her father. The word “revenge” brought all the memories back. He left the fort in great agitation and the princess didn’t try to stop him.

He sneaked into Tansen’s palace, who was singing at that time. He was dumbstruck by the way Tansen sang, and somehow, the sword that was supposed to cut the maestro’s throat, fell on the musical instrument (Vina). This saddened Tansen a lot. He said he could only be killed by music, and the pain that accompanies it. “Dip your notes in melancholy and I’ll die on my own,” he said.

Baiju left the palace to learn the “real” music. He remembered when his father was killed, he was taking Baiju to Guru Ravidas (I’ve forgotten the actual name of the revered guru). He went there and asked the guru to teach him so that he could take revenge. The guru said he could not learn music while hatred resided in his heart because one has to love in order to be a genuine musician. Nonetheless, the guru gave him a vina and told him to first learn to tame his wild thoughts. Again, he started learning on his own, nurturing feelings a revenge all the time. He spent all his time in a Lord Shiva’s temple.

Once, when he went to see the guru, he learnt that the guru had fallen sick and couldn’t walk. Baiju sang a song. The song was so melodic that the guru gathered strength and started walking. When he saw Baiju, he said he had attained the true knowledge and was now ready to learn further.

In the meantime, when Gowri was about to consume poison in distress, the princess who had taken Baiju from the village went to her and told her that she knew where Baiju was. Gowri met Baiju and tried to take him back to the village so that they could get married. He refused to go because he said taking revenge was important than consummating their love because he needed to fulfil the promise he had given to his dying father. Events lead to the arrival of the guru. Baiju left the crying Gowri behind to receive his guru. The guru told Baiju he could only become a true singer if he could feel the real pain. Gowri heard that. She knew her death would cause immense pain to him and this way he would be able to defeat Tansen. She made a snake bite her.

When Baiju saw her, he lost all his senses. The princess arrived and tried to console him but he wouldn’t listen. He left everybody behind and ran to Lord Shiva’s statue to berate the god with a heart-wrenching song. Lord Shiva started crying.

In the deranged condition he reached the city where Tansen lived. Everybody called him Bawra there (an insane person) and hence the name, Baiju Bawra. As was the law, he was imprisoned and he could only be saved if he could defeat Tansen. But he was not in his senses. All the time he mumbled incoherently and said he’d go to Gowri very soon.

The princess attacked the prison to rescue him. She told him Gowri was alive. The poison was extracted before it could spread.

They got nabbed when they were about to escape. Now the only way out was to defeat Tansen. Emperor Akbar himself witnessed the competition. For a long time both the singers proved to be equally good. Then Akbar suggested whoever could melt a marble slab with his singing would be declared a winner, and Baiju did that. Tansen accepted his defeat graceful and in fact, he was more than happy to see someone better than him. Upon asked, Baiju asked for three wishes: that everybody could sing in the city, that the princess be freed along with her father’s serfdom, and Tansen shouldn’t be executed. All the wishes were granted.

Gowri’s father was deeply upset when he couldn’t locate Baiju. The entire village was by now making fun of Gowri’s and Baiju’s love affair. Her father warned either Baiju be found, or Gowri should marry a village money-lender and in case she refused, he would commit suicide. Gowri couldn’t divulge Baiju’s whereabouts because she didn’t want him to know that she was alive. So she agreed to marry the money-lender.

Baiju came to meet her while she was getting married, but he was on the other side of Yamuna River and the river was in flood. The boatman refused him to take him to the other side. Despite not knowing how to swim, Baiju pushed the boat into the raging waters and started towing it. He started singing a scale and Gowri heard it. She started running towards the bank and everybody ran behind her. When she saw Baiju struggling with the boat, since she knew how to swim, being a boatman’s daughter, she jumped into the water to rescue Baiju. The boat toppled over and after a lot of struggle Gowri reached him. He urged her to go back and leave him because she knew how to swim and he didn’t. Gowri replied that they had promised to be together in life and in death, and she would be content with dying with him. They both drowned.