Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Our World Tuesday- Wandering Minstrels

This man with the decorated bull stood at my gate a few days ago and went on playing lovely morning ragas on his pipe. He is a Kole Basava, a wandering minstrel. Music is his life. He ekes out his living by taking the bull from house to house and playing music. The bull sometimes answers questions in your mind by nodding or shaking his head. That is another income for the bull's owner.
Wandering minstrels were a common sight all over India 10 years ago. I saw this Baul with his stringed instrument at a temple in Assam last summer. He has become too old to wander. So he sits on the temple steps and sings .
My thanks to the team of Our World Tuesday for their wonderful meme.

11 comments:

  1. What a wonderful post for the day and a delightful look at your world! Love your captures, as always! Colorful and interesting! Hope your week goes well!

    Sylvia

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  2. Unique instruments. It's wonderful to have music in our surroundings ;-)

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  3. You have a photographer's eye! The color of flowers in the first photograph are matching beautifully with the colors on the Bull.

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  4. I enjoyed this post and the decorated bull. Interesting post and wonderful photos. Have a great day.

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  5. We don't have such colourful minstrels in our part of the world!! Great post!

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  6. We have this in AP also. And generally a person feeds the bull from his palm. It is the belief that as it licks the food of your palm, the lines on the palm shift thus changing your destiny for better!

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  7. Interesting, but seeminly a dying profession. Nice shots.

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  8. How lovely to live in a world with wandering minstrels!

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