Rajan Parrikar Music Archive

Bakibab Borkar – A Remembrance

November 30 marks the birth anniversary of Balkrishna Bhagwant Borkar (1910-1984), affectionately known as Bakibab, the poetic genius from Goa.

Bakibab wrote in both his mother tongue Konkani and in Marathi. The slender, jejune entry devoted to him in Wikipedia makes you weep. (This is par for the course for Indians, the champions of bluster, wallowers in ignorance of their own traditions.)

I took the following photograph in Bakibab‘s village of Borim on a foggy morning earlier this year.

Bakibab Borkar memorial in Borim, Goa

Bakibab Borkar memorial in Borim, Goa
©Rajan P. Parrikar

 

In this video, another great Goan, Jitendra Abhisheki, remarks on Bakibab‘s romance with words and their intertwinement with music. He also speaks of their love of Goa.

 
 

A Bakibab classic, tuned in Raga Kalyan and rendered by Abhisheki.