3rd round of talent hunt for top 10 bauls

The third round of the contest of 'Talent Hunt Top Ten Baul' was held at Shawkat Osman Auditorium of the Public Library in the capital on June 14. The German Embassy supported the baul talent hunt contest. From the beginning 40 bauls were selected out of 210 bauls across the country. Of them, 34 bauls participated in the second round. Twenty-eight bauls will compete in the next round as 6 of them were disqualified on the previous round. the next round will be held on July 1 at the same venue.

Ferdousi Nazma, President of PBSUS, said, "The new generation is practicing baul songs with using local and traditional instruments - dhol, flute, sarinda, ektara, khamak and others. To encourage themselves the PBSUS organised the event to promote themselves in future." "Today our new generation did now about the baul songs or they have no idea about this type of songs. But it has a tradition of our Bangali culture, which does not lose. For the survival of these songs the PBSUS organises the contest," she also said.

These songs are the roots of our culture. For the survival of these songs this type of arrangement should continue in the long run, she added. The official of the German Embassy Semon Kowlich, Porimol K Bhattacharya, former Director General of Shilpakala Academy Mobarak Hossain Khan, poet Asad Chowdhury among others, spoke in the contest. Baul Abdul Latif, baul Akmal Shah, baul Aleya Begum among others, were judges in the contest.

In the contest, participants rendered songs of Lalon Sai, Bijoy Sarkar, Duddu Shah, Panju Shah, Kalu Shah Fakir, Manmohon Dutta, Radha Raman, Hasan Raza, Durbeen Shah, Arkum Shah, Baul Karim, Jalal Uddin Khan, Kwari Ameer Uddin and others. For the survival of our cultural tradition, this type of contest should continue in the long run so that the new generation would be eager to know about baul songs and its rich historical background.