LALON

Lalon (Bengali: লালন) also Lalon Sain, Lalon Shah, Lalon Fakir or Mahatma Lalon Fakir; (c. 1774–1890), was a Bengali Baul saint, mystic, songwriter, social reformer and secular thinker. In Bengali culture he has become an icon of religious tolerance and secularism whose songs inspired and influenced many poets and social and religious thinkers including Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam,  and Allen Ginsberg - though, as he "rejected all distinctions of caste and creed", he was both praised and criticized in his lifetime and after his death. His disciples mostly live in Bangladesh and West Bengal. He founded the institute known as Lalon Akhdah in Cheuriya, about 2 km. from Kushtia railway station. He is also regarded as the founder of the Baul music.