Substack Live sucks when you are on the road. It is truly horrible. We have much to improve in India, no doubt, but we have good internet connection in most places. There can only be a problem with Substack, resulting in choppy connections.
There is a video!! You see me sitting with a man and a few of the women from the Santhal tribes. The Santhals consider themselves distinct from Bengalis and speak their own language. Thankfully, they also speak Bengali, so I sat with the women chatting in Bengali. My Bengali is not great but good enough to get by, with occasional lapses into Punjabi, Hindi and Chinese.
The men below are Baul singers - wandering mystic minstrels whose music blends mystical influences from Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sufism. The video below has horrible audio. I did not attach any audio enhancer to my phone, so I hope my GoPro recorded better audio. What does this mean? It means a YouTube video and a few posts will follow in due course.
This is not a hi-res video, to protect Substack’s servers!
There is also a short section showing you Rabindranath Tagore’s Family Home
Excellent post. The headgear that the women were is amazing. How light it must be and how strong the construction must also be. So, frustrating the sound quality especially since the picture quality is so excellent. The instruments are really interesting as they were actually strumming notes, but I didn't see how the notes or different notes were played. The singing was interesting too if only sound didn't keep going in and out. The cool thing is that we would never see these people unless you make these videos. Also, I liked the part of the video showing Rabindranath Tagore's house. That is quite a big house. Guess no one lives there now. Maybe it is sort of a museum. You are very intrepid with your travelogues. Looking forward to the next ones and hoping the sound can be sorted out.