Bindoo Babas
“Welcome to the Garden of Love, where every step is a dance and every word a song, where love flows free forever and everybody gets along”.
Bindoo Babas is a collective headed by Pranaji and me Mathura das. We have been friends since 1978 when we first met in Amsterdam in a spiritual community, while following the ancient Bhakti Yoga traditions of India. Since then I have been traveling in India for over 30 years, submerging myself in the Indian cultures of music and art, history and Philosophy.
Pranaji comes from a very different musical background and has been on his own journey through sound and song. For the last 25 years he has been a traveling troupador/ busker/performer throughout the major cities and resorts of Europe, Australasia and India. After meeting up at Mayapur on the banks of the River Ganges in Bengal, we decided to travel together in India with our cheap beaten up guitars and gradually a uniquely creative dynamic duo the ‘Bindoo Babas’ was formed.
When we returned to the UK in the summer of 98 we treated ourselves to two new ‘Tanglewood’ guitars, and songs just seemed to start flowing ; First ‘Jah Love’, then’ The Garden of Love’ and our classic ‘Oh India’ that we completed over three weeks on our return to India in 2000. Pranaji is a seasoned poet, singer/songwriter who was born to perform, but I was initially very shy. But after our first official gig in Macloud Ganj, Dharmshala in the Himalayas at the ‘Khaana Nirvana’ cafe open mike night, where we caused a storm and stole the show, I was primed and ready for action.
It took two years before Pranaji returned to London, where I had to stay due to my mothers ill health. When Pranaji returned from two years in India, things went up a gear. While he was away, I went on a parallel musical journey with Darren Evans at sangitasounds studio and his weekly Cosmic jam sessions in Wandsworth, after being introduced through our dearly departed friend James Style.
It was a wonderful connection with the Paice family [ Ian Paice, of Deep Purple], that would help us move on into the public domain via our first official recording of ‘Bindoo Babas’ material, with the kind help of Ian and Jackie’s son James, at their private studios at Hailywood in Henley. We were also extremely fortunate to have Paul Winterheart and Alonsa Bevan from Kulashaker as well as Niel Burgheart, Vuk Kracovitch, Achillies Anastasopulos, Phil Grafton, Tom Baker and Julie Ann Howard assisting us with quality music and singing.
But unfortunately weeks before our debut in Goa in 2004 our dear friend James passed away in a motor cycle accident in Anjuna Goa, leaving us in a deep mourning period where we created the ‘Ripening’ with Darren and friends at the Sangita Sounds Studios in Brixton.
For more more information, please contact the Bindoo babas..