Bhai phonta

It is always nice to return to Kolkata. It’s nicer if the month is November. The weather is magical during the four months of winter here. The clear blue sky and the mild chill in the air … Plus, friends and close relations who are parts of oneself.

Last night, we went to my sister’s home for a family festival called bhai phonta. In Bangla, bhai means brother and phonta means dot. However, my attempts to translate the phrase into English produces a rather ridiculous string of words, every time. So, I would just try to describe what this function is all about. (I am sure many of you can produce a lovely translation of bhai-phonta in English. Please share it with me. I will be happy to steal your words.)

In the function, the sister puts a tilak on her brothers’ forehead and chants a short mantra to ward off evils lurking for them in dark alleys and other such perilous places. The precise mantra varies depending on what district of Bengal the family originally came from, but these six lines – I believe – are common to all. These are also the most touching lines I have ever heard, and have been fortunate to hear almost every year since I was little.

স্বর্গে হুলুস্থুল, মর্ত্যে জোকার
না যাইও ভাই যম দুয়ার।
যম দুয়ারে দিয়ে কাঁটা
বোনে দেয় ভাইরে ফোঁটা।
যমুনায় দেয় যমরে ফোঁটা
আমি দেই আমার ভাইরে ফোঁটা।

There’s great commotion in heaven
And through the world ululations spread.
Please brother, never go to the land of the dead.
I bar your entry to the Kingdom of Yama.
Saying this, I put a dot on your forehead.
Yamuna puts a dot on Yama’s forehead,
And I put one on my brother’s

Yama, as you know, is the king of the world below, where everyone of us has to go for their records to be checked by a chap called Chitragupta, who is endowed with infinite memory, or as our Hindu revivalist friends would love to claim, the first super computer. Anyway, once your records are put before him, Yama takes a call on whether you could move on to heaven, or serve your time in the nether land, being deep-fried in a cauldron for 5000 years, or hung upside down in company of poisonous snakes or ….

Yesterday my sister barred my entry to court of Yama. But what takes the cake is invoking Yama’s sister, Yamuna, in this highly optimistic business. Linguists tell us that that is how the term “emotional blackmail” originated.

Sorry about the digression. My sister and every other sister chants the mantra three times and with her ring finger, puts a dot with sandalwood paste on her sibling’s forehead. Curiously, she uses her left hand for younger bros, and the right for older ones.

Bhai phonta is different from rakhi of North India as it puts women on stronger ground. While in rakhi, the sister ties a rakhi on the forearm of the brother to renew a bond that will protect her, in bhai phonta, she is in the driver’s seat. It is she who takes on the responsibility of protecting her bros, although not directly, but by invoking the good offices of supernatural powers.

Before I wrap up, a significant difference between English and our Indian languages is that our languages don’t have a word for “cousin”. For us, cousins are not gender-neutral; they are either sisters or brothers. Last night, my sister invited, besides me, the only other male cousin of hers who is in town.

As I write this, I recall my sisters who I might not meet for years, but who I am sure – given a chance – would stop me from getting into the Kingdom of Yama.

Keep well, dear sisters, all of you.

10 Nov 2018

Fragments of an Unbroken Mirror: I. It’s Yesterday Once Again

In my solitude, I have clearly seen things that are not real.  – Antonio Machado

The nature of my work being what it is, I didn’t see the setting sun for quite some time. Until today.

This afternoon, when I left my workplace, the bloodless winter sun was hanging near the horizon behind a veil of fog and dust.  On the other side of the road, boys were playing cricket in the big park that’s called Park Circus Maidan. Dust kicked up by cricketers hung like an ochre blanket over the field, around which elderly trees stood like disinterested spectators. The trees, many of them barren, and all of them heavy with undisturbed dust of many rainless months, were desperately waiting for a shower.  

For some reasons, there were just a few people on the pavements and hardly any vehicles on the carriageway. The men with broken cheeks in shabby shirts and short dhotis selling bhelpuris and pani puris at the park entrance had no customers. … Although the city has changed inexorably over the past fifty years, neither the taste of pani puris, nor the look of the men who sell them has changed. 

My friend Jyoti lived near the Park Circus Maidan when we were in school. Jyoti and I spent many afternoons in this park, chatting and eyeing up girls, me smoking a secret cigarette and Jyoti – he had all the makings of the teetotaller he is today – looking at me disapprovingly. 

Today, a relentless winter breeze has been blowing since morning. A mild shiver passes through my spine as I wait at the bus stop.  Suddenly, I am gripped by a mildly intoxicating fear. The place is far too quiet, far too empty, it feels almost surreal.  And the city looks different in the magical yellow light of the setting sun. I stand flabbergasted on the eerily quiet road and try to figure out what has been happening. 

It is perhaps the perfect setting for a double-decker bus to arrive … the red Leyland double-decker with the proud head of a Royal Bengal tiger stencilled on its side … the double-decker that has been discarded long ago by administrators who has no sense of urban poetry … the double-decker without which the story of my childhood, which I am going to tell you in a moment, would be incomplete. 

And it must have been a special day for me, or the world. The front seats on the upper deck of the bus are unoccupied … I recall, there was a time when I would exchange anything for a front seat which allowed me a panoramic view of the road ahead. 

As our bus moves along, as buildings, trees, and lamp posts march backward, the roads become emptier and the evening light mellower. The two men who were arguing noisily behind me fall silent. 

A translucent canopy of stillness hangs over the world as we go along familiar roads past familiar structures like the new shopping mall on Amir Ali Avenue, the perpetually grey façade of the Modern High School, Calcutta Cricket and Football Club, and along familiar flyovers.  Yet, the sparse pedestrians seem far away and the place looks different from the humdrum metropolis I saw just hours earlier. It seems unreal, more like a faded sepia picture stuck with corner hinges in a photo album with thick black pages, an album that had been lost long ago. 

The bus goes on a journey more in time than space. The Kolkata of the twenty-first century fades away from before my believing eyes and a similar but very different conurbation from a different millennium takes its place.


It’s yesterday once again.

[This is the first chapter of my memoir Fragments of an Unbroken Mirror, which I dream will become a much-loved book.]

Let ME TOO speak out!

Over the last few days, women victims in India have been breaking down the Chinese Wall of shame and coming out against sexual assaults. We always knew there were sexual predators everywhere, including at workplaces, but the extent of the evil, now that it’s being spoken about, is more than horrifying.

It would be safe to think that for every woman who has chosen to go public with her protest, there are many more who haven’t. So far in India, women have come out only from two fields: the entertainment industry and the media. It would be laughable to think that men in other professions would be any better. So, what we see now is the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

It is deeply disturbing. I salute the women who have come out. They deserve immense respect because they must be going through intense pain while reliving in public what they have suffered in private till now.

I do hope the society will treat the victims with the respect and sensitivity they deserve. I do hope the criminals will be called out, and at least some big fish will go to jail. But it won’t be easy.

In November 2013, Tarun Tejpal, a high-profile editor, sexually assaulted a colleague, who happened to be his daughter’s friend, on a lift in a Goa hotel. When the details, including CCTV footage came out, it seemed to be an open and shut case. But after five years, the man is out on bail, and the victim would have been dragged to courts repeatedly, adding societal insult to her personal injury. And it doesn't happen in India alone.

Recently, US senators chose to ignore Dr Christine Blasey Ford’s moving testimony against a sexual predator who shows no sign of remorse. Promoting an accused predator to the Supreme Court of the United States after a sham of an investigation was a public indictment of a completely credible victim.

But I do hope ultimately, the Me-Too movement in India will lead to a more civilised workplace for women in a country where lots of men bow before clay images of women, but grope them and rape them when they are in flesh and blood.

Thursday, 11 October 2018

A Tribute to the Father of the Nation on his 149th Birthday

Photograph courtesy The Hndu

The Hindu reports that five men were arrested in Delhi yesterday for cheating. But cheating is no big deal, people cheat one another all the time. You are short-changed when you buy beer; the doctor you pay for his service prescribes tests that have nothing to do with your problems. You pay a hefty sum to improve your spoken English, and when you go into the classroom, the teacher needs your help to complete the first English sentence she says. Cheating has been a way of life in India for as long as I can remember, which happens to be a pretty long time! So, for that, please don’t blame the BJP government even if you were an Urban Maoist. Contrarily, if you happened to drink cow’s urine for breakfast, please don’t blame Nehru for the scourge of rampant frauds in India. Accept that it is in our DNA.

Yesterday, I read an anecdote in William Dalrymple’s The City of Djinns. Dalrymple happens to be an authentic sahib, that is, he’s not of the brown variety. After relocating to India as a young man, he didn’t run away. I personally think the reasons (for not running away) should be looked into by the CBI, but that is besides the point.

Once Dalrymple wished to visit Pakistan, and after a lot of efforts with the Indian Immigration, he managed to obtain a temporary exit permit. At the emigration desk in the New Delhi airport, a customs officer asked him to produce his computer, music system, and electric kettle, which he had brought into the country, and had been dutifully noted down in some corner of his passport. A flummoxed Dalrymple protested. He was leaving India for only five days, and nobody carries an electric kettle or music system while on a short visit.

However, poor Dalrymple didn’t know that the conscientious customs official’s forefathers had been trained by Dalrymple’s own forefathers once upon a time. The man in white uniform said, ‘What is the guarantee that you are not already selling your articles to a sleazy shopkeeper near Jumma Masjid? Come on, Sahib, I am not being able to stamp your passport; kindly fuck off!’ (Or something to that effect.)

Happily, the sahib could ultimately make the trip. He rushed back to his home, gathered the stuff, and returned to the airport to deposit the said objects in a custom’s strong room. (This shows that Dalrymple shares my philosophy of reaching the airport at least four hours before any flight.) Anyway, the twist in the tail would come when he would return from Pakistan.

The same custom’s officer, as he was handing back the stuff, ran his hand on the music system softly and looked at it like a teenaged lover. Then he whispered, ‘Sahib, will you like to sell it for a good price?’

Coming back to my original point, we have grown up hearing stories like this. They no longer excite us. They are like pulp fiction, you know what will happen next. But rarely, we come across a fraudster who astonish us with their originality or organisational skills. Like the “CBI officer” who recruited 26 men and women and conducted a “raid” on a jeweller in Opera House, Mumbai in 1987. Never to be seen again!

Like Akshay Kumar in the film Special 26, the protagonists of the Hindu story today, that is, Shekhar Tyagi (25), Neeraj (25), Tanvir (28), Amit Kundu (28) and Sandeep Kumar (29) attract my attention for several reasons.

First, they are all young men in their twenties, who have seen through the sham of what has been proposed by our prime minister to unemployed young men. They have cleverly calculated that if every unemployed young man/woman begin to sell pakodas, there would be no young men/woman left to buy them. So, they ditched the pakoda route to prosperity.

The second thing that impressed me was the secular nature of the enterprise. It’s lovely to see young men rise above religions, castes, and linguistic groups to set up a collaborative venture.

Also, one of them is an engineer, and another is doing Masters. Clearly, they have used the knowledge gathered at college quite creatively.

Finally, who would not salute them for their managerial expertise? The Hindu says:

“They had registered various fake companies and used a call centre-like set-up to cheat people. … They had registered various fake tele-calling companies with government departments and used those to dupe people, the police said.”

The police got into the case when one Ashok Kumar Poddar told them that he was “induced into transferring nearly Rs. 1 crore into the bank accounts of various tele-calling companies for the services of facilitating refund of amount of his dormant insurance policies.” said Deputy Commissioner of Police, Anto Alphonse. (One crore! OMG!)

The police discovered that the fake callers would tell potential victims that their company had decided to renew their insurance policies and pay the maturity amounts. They would then ask the targets to deposit money into (fake) bank accounts so that their claims could be processed. While the target waited for the cheque with dreamy eyes, the insurance company would vamoose.

Mr. Alphonse added, “The various fake companies, registered by the gang, offered services like job placements, tour operation, business support. While the companies registered with government departments only existed on papers, the accounts were opened in the name of non-existent IDs.”

Despite my sneaking admiration for the fraudsters, I take my hats off to Delhi Police for catching them. But what can we do to the beer-seller, the doctor, or the cheater teacher?

Bengaluru

Monday, 01 October 2018

The Faithless Have-nots

To The Faithless Have-nots
Sunil Ganguli
==========

The wife of a close friend of mine,

She’s decked herself for visiting our home

But she won’t dine with us tonight,

She’s on fast, for an unknown goddess.

If I’d been young, 

I would have pulled her legs; 

But now, just a wry smile crosses my face

One shouldn’t hurt other people’s faith.

Another friend, 

Who introduced me to Left politics – 

I saw a ring with a gemstone on his finger.

He noticed my raised eyebrows

And said in a feeble voice,

‘I’ve been going through a bad patch of poor health.

Mother-in-law suggested that I put this on.

It’s a moonstone, couldn’t say “No.”’

I thought 

It was my personal defeat.

I sometimes visit a revered professor,

There’s so much to learn even now.

Today, for the first time

I saw a Ganesha hanging above his door.

Didn’t ask him, he came out on his own,

‘My son brought it from South India,

Isn’t it a remarkable piece of art?’

‘If indeed it was work of art, 

Why isn’t it in the shelf instead of above the door?’

No, I didn’t ask him,

I am too old to play these little games!

I’m getting on in years,

I am being defeated,

Being defeated every day.

One shouldn’t hurt another’s faith …

One shouldn’t hurt another’s faith …

There’s so much faith around us, and

Growing every day in so many shapes and sizes.

The saffron goon who has decided 

That the child of another faith

Must bleed to death,

And stray dogs should lick his blood,

He too is a man with an immutable faith.

The guardian of a religion who believes

A woman should be beheaded

If she wanted to sing,

And if she wished to play tennis 

She ought to be in a burqa …

He too is a creature of robust faith.

The man who’s just going to kill,

With deadly explosive hidden in his belt

He who is flexing his muscles 

And trying, with a crooked smile on his face,

To get the whole world under his feet,

They all belong to the school of faithful people.

Every one of them is faithful, faithful, faithful …

At times, I wish to scream out,

‘Stand up, 

Those who are not faithful,

Faithless have-nots of the world

Unite!’

Translated on 21 September 2018

সর্বহারা_অবিশ্বাসী
-সুনীল গঙ্গোপাধ্যায়
============

আমার ঘনিষ্ঠ বন্ধুর স্ত্রী
বেশ সেজেগুজে এসেছে,
কিন্তু আমাদের সঙ্গে খেতে বসবে না,
আজ তার নীলষষ্ঠী ।
যৌবন বয়েসে এই নিয়ে
কত না চটুল রঙ্গ করতাম,
এখন শুধু একটা পাতলা হাসি
অন্যের বিশ্বাসে নাকি
আঘাত দিতে নেই ।

আর এক বন্ধু
যে প্রথম আমায়
ছাত্র রাজনীতিতে টেনেছিল,
তার আঙুলে দেখি
একটা নতুন পাথর বসানো আংটি,
আমার কুঞ্চিত ভুরু দেখে
সে দুর্বল গলায় বলল -
শরীরটা ভালো যাচ্ছে না
তাই শাশুড়ি এটা পরতে বললেন,
মুনস্টোন, না বলা যায় না ।
আমার মনে হল
এ যেন আমারই নিজস্ব পরাজয় !

শ্রদ্ধেয় অধ্যাপকের বাড়ি, মাঝে মাঝে তাঁর আলাপচারিতা শুনতে...
এখনও কত কিছু শেখার আছে
আজই প্রথম দেখলাম,
তাঁর দরজার পেছন দিকে
গণেশের মূর্তি আটকানো ।
প্রশ্ন করিনি, তিনি নিজেই জানালেন
দক্ষিণ ভারত থেকে ছেলে এনেছে,
কী দারুণ কাজ না ?
সুন্দর মূর্তির স্থান
শো-কেসের বদলে
দরজার ওপরে কেন,
বলিনি সে কথা -
সেই ফক্কুড়ির বয়েস আর নেই ।

বয়েস হয়েছে তাই হেরে যাচ্ছি
অনবরত হেরে যাচ্ছি,
অন্যের বিশ্বাসে আঘাত দিতে নেই...
অন্যের বিশ্বাসে আঘাত দিতে নেই...
চতুর্দিকে এত বিশ্বাস
দিনদিন বেড়ে যাচ্ছে,
কত রকম বিশ্বাস...
যে গেরুয়াবাদী ঠিক করেছে,
পরধর্মের শিশুর রক্ত গড়াবে মাটিতে,
চাটবে কুকুরে
সেটাও তার দৃঢ় বিশ্বাস ।

ধর্মের যে ধ্বজাধারী মনে করে,
মেয়েরা গান গাইলে
গলার নলি কেটে দেওয়া হবে,
টেনিস খেলতে চাইলেও
পরতে হবে বোরখা,
সেটাও তার দৃঢ় বিশ্বাস ।

যে পেটে বোমা বেঁধে
যাচ্ছে ধ্বংসের দিকে,
যে পেশি ফুলিয়ে, দেঁতো হাসি হেসে
পদানত করতে চাইছে গোটা বিশ্বকে,
এরা সবাইতো বিশ্বাসীর দল ।
সবাই বিশ্বাসী, বিশ্বাসী, বিশ্বাসী
এক-একবার ভাঙা গলায়
বলতে ইচ্ছে করে
অবিশ্বাসীর দল জাগো,
দুনিয়ার সর্বহারা অবিশ্বাসীরা
এক হও !

Nobody Kills Anybody in India Today

An alumnus of IIT and Harvard, and a minister of the Government of India, Jayant Sinha has recently courted infamy by garlanding members of a lynch mob that beat to death 52-year-old Alimuddin Ansari in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. What is not so widely known is the fact that the minister had organised legal defence for the accused and personally paid for the legal costs. So, the brouhaha over a few garlands is pointless.

Although a lower court had sentenced the eight men to life imprisonment based on pictures apparently circulated by the murderers themselves, just THREE MONTHS after the conviction, on 29 June, 2018, the Jharkhand High Court suspended the life sentence of BJP leader, Nityananda Mahto and 7 Others, and let them free on bail.

Sabrang India reports that after the convictions, Alimuddin’s widow Mariam Ansari made headlines when she had said ‘she was against the death penalty’ for the killers of her husband. But such headlines and noble sentiments are not even a footnote in an India where hatred is the currency of political exchange.

A lawyer representing the convicts was quoted by New York Times saying, “… yes, the mob had roughed up Mr. Ansari but that it was actually police officers who beat him to death, in custody.” The lawyer pointed to photos that have been circulating on social media that show Mr. Ansari looking alert and apparently not badly injured as officers led him away from the mob.

Fast forward to the night of 20-21 July ignoring everything else, another innocent Muslim, Rakbar Khan, was brutally murdered by a mob of cow vigilantes in a village in Alwar, Rajasthan while he was taking home two cows he had purchased.

Strange, strange things happen after the vigilantes accost Rakbar.

1. One of the men in the mob, Naval Kishore, calls up the police at 12.41 AM. From the events that follow, Naval Kishore seems to be small-time big gun among the cow goons, a minor politician from the ruling party, who is a major power in rural pockets.

2. The policemen pick up a grievously injured Rakbar at 1.15-1.20.

3. They provide no medical aid to Rakbar.

4. They make absolutely no attempt to arrest his attackers.

5. They wash Rakbar in custody and dress him up in rather jazzy borrowed clothes.

6. They allow people to photograph Rakbar, who happily upload his pics on the social media.

7. They take the victim to Naval Kishore’s home to arrange – hold your breath – transport for the two cows to a shelter. Later, one of Kishore’s relatives, Maya, tells NDTV that she saw “a policeman beating the man inside the vehicle and abusing him.” Asked if the man was still alive, she says yes.

8. The policemen and Naval Kishore drink tea at a tea stall while the victim is dying on the floor of the police vehicle.

9. After accomplishing the task of sending the cows to the shelter and having refreshments, the policemen start for the nearest hospital.

10. Finally, after more than three hours, they cover the distance of one kilometre between the police station and the hospital at 4 AM. By then, Rakbar Khan is dead.

If you think the revolting chain of atrocious events stopped after Rakbar’s death, you do not know what India has become after four years of glorious saffron rule.

On 25 July, Hindustan Times reported, Rajasthan’s home minister Gulab Chand Kataria, (who defended the new breed of cowboys earlier too), said that Rakbar died in police custody. To quote the shameless minister: “According to the evidence we have collected, it looks like a custodial death.” The not-so-hidden message is that the vigilantes didn’t kill.

Alimuddin Ansari’s killers enjoy their freedom today because identical arguments were used to protect his murderers. Naval Kishore’s relative Maya started the process, the home minister continues with the fibbing. It would be safe to anticipate that Rakbar’s killers too will go out scot free, to be garlanded by some other luminary. This wretched government will find a judge or two who would buy their nonsensical stories. (Why not? Ordinary people wait for justice for years, sometimes decades; tens of thousands of undertrial prisoners rot in Indian prisons for years, but how long did it take to free the saffron murderers?)

If this is a template to save people who murder innocents in for no reason except out of sheer hatred, can you imagine what kind of cold-blooded cunning criminals are ruling us from Rajasthan to Jharkhand?

Secondly, there is a bigger moral of this sordid story, if you sell your soul to a dangerous ideology that sanctifies hatred, you won’t be able to think straight. It doesn’t matter whether you are a semi-educated village politico, or a Harvard Educated former consultant at McKinsey & Company. I would appeal to my friends who still are Modi Bhakts, "Please thiink, if you still can."

These days, my blood boils when I read newspapers. Does yours?

Thursday, 26 July 2018

[Picture of Rakbar Khan's family is from the website of NDTV 24X7]

Those who read books

Bhabatosh Dutta, eminent economist and teacher, wrote about an unlikely scholar, Nirmal Chandra Maitra. Maitra was a sub-deputy collector in Chattagram when Dutta began his teaching career there two years after the raid on the armoury. Forty to fifty years later, Dutta wrote, “I have not come across another person with such immeasurable knowledge: he went to the very depth of literature, history, philosophy and political science.” After retirement, Maitra wanted to teach at a college. Bhabatosh Dutta dissuaded him because he felt such an erudite person wouldn’t be able to endure the ignorance of college teachers of the time.

Another economist, Ashoke Mitra writes in his autobiography that shortly after completing school, he made friends with an older man, Suranjan Sarkar, who lived elsewhere. He worked with the Customs and shared Ashoke Mitra’s passion for literature. Suranjan wrote brilliant letters about the fiction and biographies he had just read and quoted extensively from poems.

Sunanda Sikdar’s Dayamayeer Katha is a beautiful memoir about her early childhood in a remote East Bengal village in the 1950s. Sunanda writes that an illiterate farmhand, Majom Sheikh, used to walk long distances on empty stomach to listen to books being read aloud. Once, little Sunanda asked Majom, what he had told Allah during a prayer. Majom replied, “I said, ‘Lord! Please give rain and rice to those you have sent to the world. Keep their children in good health. Make all men, animals, insects, plants and trees happy.’”

The thread that connects the two government officials and the wise unlettered farmer is their love for written words. They read without expecting material benefit and didn’t gain anything by reading except, to paraphrase Russell’s words, becoming better human beings. Such people have become almost extinct, but in olden days, we met them at times. Here are a few more true stories from my unwritten diary.

A colleague of my mother was trapped in an unhappy marriage. Her husband was cruel, but she suffered him as divorce was unthinkable for middleclass Indian women then. But one day, her patience ran out and she went to a nearby police station in Kolkata to lodge a complaint. The sub-inspector on duty asked her if she had a child. She had a son. What subjects did she teach at school? English. The policeman then said, “Madam, I can start a case against your husband. But will that solve your problems?”

As she pondered in silence, the sub-inspector said, “Please recall Tennyson’s Home they brought their warrior dead: ‘Rose a nurse of ninety years, / Set his child upon her knee-- / Like summer tempest came her tears-- / “Sweet my child, I live for thee.’ I would advise you to live for your child.”

After my daughter was born, it was a big task to locate the office that would issue a birth certificate. After visits to several municipality offices, I discovered the right place: a dimly lit room in a medical college building. A lone clerk in a shabby shirt sat behind a desk, reading a Bangla newspaper and smoking a bidi. There was stubble on his face, and arrogance. After waiting for some time, I pulled a chair and sat down across the table, but the man continued to ignore me. As I had nothing else to do, I too started reading. After a long time, he looked up and noticed the book in my hand. Then suddenly, his face lit up. Putting down the paper, he said, “For whom the bell tolls? I love Hemingway. Do you know who Robert Jordan was? People say Hemmingway modelled him on Christopher Caudwell, the British essayist who died in the early days of the Spanish Civil War.” 

I said I had once tried to read Caudwell but gave up because he went over my head. The man continued, “Caudwell was badly hurt. He lay down with a machine gun as his Republican comrades retreated, just like Robert Jordan. He was not even thirty. All his books came out after his death. His first book, Illusion and reality is a masterpiece. Please read it.”

My work was done immediately while I wondered about the difference between illusion and reality.

Postscript: Robert Jordan may not have been Christopher Caudwell in real life. Wikipedia says he was possibly an American academic, Robert Merriman.

7 April 2010

My Cursed Homeland

Rabindra Nath Tagore

[I know that my translation doesn’t capture even a fraction of the infinite beauty or cadence of the original. But still, I am sharing this because we must remind ourselves of the message every day … and also, must realise that little has changed in the last 100 years.]

My cursed Homeland, those you have debased

You’ll be debased just like them

Those you have denied their natural rights,

Those you looked at but didn’t cradle in your arms

You will be demeaned, just like them.

By repelling human touch

You have been hateful to the God within

You will have to face His wrath

As famine spreads

You will share their meagre morsels.

You will be demeaned, just like them.

…

Those who you have crushed below, they tie you down,

Those who you have left behind pull you back.

Those you have consigned

To the darkness of ignorance

They’re widening the chasm, eclipsing your happiness

You will be demeaned, just like them.

For many millennia, you have been crowned with insults,

Yet you do not bow to the Divinity within men.

You don’t look down

And notice

The God of small men crushed below.

You will be demeaned, just like them.

Don’t you see Death’s messenger standing at your door?

He has just written a curse on your conceited sense of caste.

If you didn’t call them all,

If you still kept them away

And kept yourself shackled with hubris,

The embers of your bones would meet theirs

When you both are dead and burnt.

(Translated on 23/06/2018)

হে মোর দুর্ভাগা দেশ

================

হে মোর দুর্ভাগা দেশ, যাদের করেছ অপমান,

অপমানে হতে হবে তাহাদের সবার সমান!

             মানুষের অধিকারে

             বঞ্চিত করেছ যারে,

সম্মুখে দাঁড়ায়ে রেখে তবু কোলে দাও নাই স্থান,

অপমানে হতে হবে তাহাদের সবার সমান।

মানুষের পরশেরে প্রতিদিন ঠেকাইয়া দূরে

ঘৃণা করিয়াছ তুমি মানুষের প্রাণের ঠাকুরে।

              বিধাতার রুদ্ররোষে

              দুর্ভিক্ষের দ্বারে বসে

ভাগ করে খেতে হবে সকলের সাথে অন্নপান।

অপমানে হতে হবে তাহাদের সবার সমান।   

তোমার আসন হতে যেথায় তাদের দিলে ঠেলে

সেথায় শক্তিরে তব নির্বাসন দিলে অবহেলে।

              চরণে দলিত হয়ে

              ধুলায় সে যায় বয়ে

সে নিম্নে নেমে এসো, নহিলে নাহি রে পরিত্রাণ।

অপমানে হতে হবে আজি তোরে সবার সমান।     

যারে তুমি নীচে ফেল সে তোমারে বাঁধিবে যে নীচে

পশ্চাতে রেখেছ যারে সে তোমারে পশ্চাতে টানিছে।

              অজ্ঞানের অন্ধকারে

              আড়ালে ঢাকিছ যারে

তোমার মঙ্গল ঢাকি গড়িছে সে ঘোর ব্যবধান।

অপমানে হতে হবে তাহাদের সবার সমান।   

শতেক শতাব্দী ধরে নামে শিরে অসম্মানভার,

মানুষের নারায়ণে তবুও কর না নমস্কার।

              তবু নত করি আঁখি

              দেখিবারে পাও না কি

নেমেছে ধুলার তলে হীন পতিতের ভগবান,

অপমানে হতে হবে সেথা তোরে সবার সমান।

দেখিতে পাও না তুমি মৃত্যুদূত দাঁড়ায়েছে দ্বারে,

অভিশাপ আঁকি দিল তোমার জাতির অহংকারে।

              সবারে না যদি ডাক',

              এখনো সরিয়া থাক',

আপনারে বেঁধে রাখ' চৌদিকে জড়ায়ে অভিমান--

মৃত্যুমাঝে হবে তবে চিতাভস্মে সবার সমান।

  ২০ আষাঢ়, ১৩১৭

My two-penny philosophy

Idle musings
=========

Let me share with you a few lines from a folk song that have been going through my head repeatedly over the last few days. The original lines that we get to hear (by the lovable Bengali Pakistani pop singer Alamgir, and the equally lovable Bangladeshi Md. Badiuzzaman) are both in Bangla in Hindi.

আমায় ভাসাইলি রে, আমায় ডুবাইলি রে,
অকূল দরিয়ার বুঝি কূল নাইরে।
কূল নাই, কিনার নাই
নাইকো দরিয়ার পাড়ি
সাবধানে চালাইয়ো মাঝি,
আমার ভাঙ্গা তরী।

চাহে আন্ধি আয়ে রে
চাহে মেঘা ছায়ে রে
হামে তু উস পার লেকে
যানা মাঝিরে।

"You've drowned me in, you've pulled me up
On this immense river that seems to have no sides
You don't see the banks, there's no end,
Please sail carefully, Boatman,
My vessel is old and crumbling.

“Let there be clouds
Let there be tempests
Boatman, please do take me home”

*

Some people have a permanent boatman at their service, like a personal gym trainer. For people like me who are not that fortunate, it’s not completely hopeless. He emerges from within.

Give yourself a chance. Live well, as long as you have to.

06 May 2018

ধারাপাতের বর্ণমালা

অক্তাভিও পাজ

===========

আমার কথা শোন, যেমন করে বৃষ্টির শব্দ শোনে মানুষ।
মনোযোগ না দিয়ে,

অথচ উপেক্ষাভরেও নয়,
হাল্কা পায়ের শব্দ, ঝিরঝিরে জলের ধারা,
জলের যে ফোঁটা গুলি বাতাসের পরমাণু,

যে বাতাস নিরন্তর সময়,
দিবালোক বিদায় নিচ্ছে,

কিন্তু রাত্রি এখনও বহু দূরে,
দেখ ঐ কোনে কুয়াশার মূর্তি,
আর চেয়ে দেখ এই সময়ান্তরের বাঁকে

দাঁড়িয়ে রয়েছে অনন্তকাল।

আমার কথা শোন, যেমন করে বৃষ্টির শব্দ শোনে মানুষ।

কান না পেতেই শোন আমার কথা

চোখ খুলে রাখ অন্তরমুখী

ঘুমের মধ্যে, কিন্তু তোমার পাঁচটি ইন্দ্রিয় থাকুক সজাগ।

বৃষ্টি পড়ছে, হাল্কা পায়ের শব্দ, অক্ষরের মর্মরধ্বনি

জল, আকাশ, আর অবয়বহীন বর্ণমালা

আমরা, এবং দিবারাত্রি, দীর্ঘ সময়কাল অথবা একটি মুহূর্ত

বায়বীয় সময় আর অনন্ত বিষাদ

আমার কথা শোন, যেমন করে বৃষ্টির শব্দ শোনে মানুষ।

ঝকঝক করছে অ‍্যাস্ফলটের ভিজে রাস্তা,

জলের বাষ্প ভেসে উঠছে, মিলিয়ে যাচ্ছে,

রাত্রি মেলে ধরছে নিজেকে, দেখছে আমায়,

তুমি, তোমার বাষ্পীয় শরীর

তুমি আর তোমার রাত্রির মুখ

আকাশ ও জলধারা, অবয়বহীন বর্ণমালা

তুমি আর তোমার কেশরাশি, ধীর লয়ে বজ্রপাত,

তুমি রাস্তা পার হয়ে এসে আমার কপালের মধ্যে এসো

জলের পায়ের চিহ্ন আমার চোখে

আমার কথা শোন, যেমন করে বৃষ্টির শব্দ শোনে মানুষ।

ঝকঝক করছে অ‍্যাস্ফলট, তুমি আসছ ওপার থেকে

কুয়াশা ভেসে যায় রাত্রির আকাশে

আর রাত্রি নিদ্রামগ্ন তোমার বিছানায়

তোমার প্রশ্বাসে সমুদ্রের তরঙ্গমালা

তোমার জলের আঙ্গুল ভিজিয়ে দিচ্ছে আমার কপাল

তোমার অগ্নিময় আঙ্গুল পুড়িয়ে দিচ্ছে আমার চোখ

তোমার বাতাসের আঙ্গুল খুলে দিচ্ছে সময়ের আঁখি পল্লব

উৎসারিত স্বপ্ন আর পুনর্জন্ম

আমার কথা শোন, যেমন করে বৃষ্টির শব্দ শোনে মানুষ।

সৌরবর্ষ চলে যায়, ফিরে আসে মুহূর্ত

তুমি কি শুনতে পাচ্ছ, কেউ হাঁটছে পাশের ঘরে?

এখানে নয়, অন্য কোথাও নয়, কেউ হেঁটে গেছে অন্য কোন কালে

যে কাল বর্তমান সময়

কান পেতে শোন সময়ের পদধ্বনি

সময়, যে খুঁজে পেয়েছে অবয়বহীন দিকশুন্যপুর

শোন ছাদের উপর বয়ে যাচ্ছে বৃষ্টিধারা

রাত্রি আরও গভীর হল বনাঞ্চলে

গাছের পাতায় লীন হয়ে আছে বজ্রনির্ঘোষ

তুমি যাও

ভেসে যাওয়া অস্থির পথহারা উদ্যানে,

তোমার ছায়া ঢেকে দিক আমার কবিতা

অনুবাদ

কলকাতা / বেঙ্গালুরু

২৯ এপ্রিল, ২০১৮