Lalon Shah is a profound mystical poet and saint in 19th-century Bengal. His mystic songs have been transmitted through various forms of stage performances, translation, and film adaptation over the centuries to reach an urban audience and popular culture. This study examines the cultural transformation of Lalon Sangeet from an indigenous oral tradition to its contemporary manifestations in stage performance, popular music, and cinematic adaptation. Lalon Fakir’s Baul philosophy challenges caste hierarchy, religious orthodoxy, and social exclusion. Lalon’s songs, preserved through oral circulation rather than written archives, exemplify the resilience of subaltern knowledge systems sustained through collective memory and embodied performance.

The study pays particular attention to the contrast between the participatory ‘ashar’, a dialogic, non-hierarchical performance space central to Baul praxis, and modern mass-mediated platforms such as television, fusion music, and cinema, which reframe Lalon Geeti for urban and global audiences. While these mediated forms introduce aesthetic innovation, they also alter the intimate performer–audience relationship intrinsic to oral tradition.