Bauls usually dress in orange or saffron, to show their
association with the religious life. Men wear thealkhalla, a robe of coarse cloth, small bells at the ankles,
long hair (often in a topknot), and beards, and sometimes rudraksha beads (sacred to the
god Shiva). Women may wear
simple white or saffron saris and no jewellery.
Baul singers
are usually men, and they play a variety of instruments to accompany the songs. Bauls use a variety of
indigenous musical instruments to embellish their compositions. The
"ektara," a one-stringed drone instrument, is the common instrument
of a Baul singer. It is the carved from the epicarp of a gourd and made of bamboo and goatskin.
Other commonly
used musical paraphernalia include " dotara," a multi-stringed
instrument made of the wood of a jackfruit or neem tree; "dugi," a small hand-held earthen drum;
leather instruments like "dhol," "khol" and
"goba"; chime tools like "ghungur," "nupur,"
small cymbals called "kartal" and "mandira," and the bamboo
flute. 
The ektara is more popular in Western Bengal, while the dotara seems to
be a preferred instrument in Bangladesh and the eastern and northern districts
of West Bengal. Bauls often dance while they sing: swirling in wild abandon or
keeping time with simple yet distinctive steps. To accentuate these movements,
they wear ghungur (bells) or nupur (anklets) around their ankles.
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