In my great timeworn country

In my great timeworn country

Of ancient wisdom and modern idiocy

The rich somehow get richer

But the poor succeed better

As more people join their ranks.

Social equity is our mantra

But we sell healthcare to the highest bidder,

We have five-star hospitals

But millions die like flies.

Our education gets costlier

And bungalows, air tickets cheaper.

We’ve more shopping malls than before

But fewer primary schools,

Some of the finest colleges in the world

And more illiterates than anywhere else.

We call our politicians crooks

But happily, elect them again and again.

We always loved two-faced leaders

But of late, we’ve started adoring

Monks who talk like thugs,

Leaders who kill.

When we stand before the mirror

We don’t see the cheat

Who would bribe the police

Or any babu when it suits them.

Deep down, we admire suited robbers

Who often live in South Mumbai

And make their piles bigger

As a forgotten Mahatma smiles

His toothless smile of approval.

In my great timeworn country

Of ancient wisdom and modern stupidity …

30 December 2019

Through the eyes of a child

The world has changed beyond recognition in the last 60 years or a little more. The Malabar coast of today is vastly different from what it was in Raja Rao's Kanthapura in the 1930s. It could not have been a perfect world then, but one cannot but feel that in many ways, it was indeed better and more humane than the world today in which a relentless pursuit of creature comforts outweighs everything else. It was a time when a trader would rather give away a truckload of oranges for free rather than sell them at a distress price and get cheated in the process. It was also a time when when an elderly chess player would allow himself to be cheated so that the "game could go on".

Malabar Musings are stories of the eternal childhood as seen through the eyes of a child. A world in which children in a village uninitiated to factory-made toys would turn dappled sunlight seeping in through gaps in the thatched roof of the classroom into eggs and have a competition in catching them, leading, sometimes, to strange consequences. These are simple, beautiful stories narrated in exquisite English.

I was fortunate because the author, my friend Ktr KT Rajagopalan​ shared the manuscript with me. Loved reading every page of the book, and as I read, I couldn't but reflect on how the world has changed in our lifetime.

I also bought the Kindle edition of the book just now. If you have a smartphone, I would strongly recommend that you buy it too from Amazon.in. My only regret is that a hard copy of the book is not yet available and therefore, I am denied of the pleasure of holding this wonderful book in my hands.

22 December 2019

Straws in the wind?

The Legend of Bhagat Singh star, Sushant Singh has recently said, "I am very disturbed, especially with the way students are being treated. First, it happened with JNU, where doctored videos were circulated, and they were given the tag of Tukde Tukde Gang. No one apologised to them, and they are still called by the same name. Similarly, the Jamia kids were not involved in any kind of violence, and the police even clarified the same. Even then, we all know what happened with them. It’s so strange that there’s footage of the bus burning but no visual of who lit it? There has been a constant effort to bring down one community and students’ voices. They are our future, and we cannot stay silent over this."

Kankana Sen Sharma and Swara Bhaskar are old sinners, but sadly, a constellation of stars like Anurag Kashyap, Sushant Singh, Tapsi Pannu, Manoj Bajpai, and Rajkumar Rao have joined the ranks of anti-national Pakistan lovers and the infamous tukde-tukde gang. Anurag Kashyap has written, quite khullam khulla, "This has gone too far.. can’t stay silent any longer. This government is clearly fascist .. and it makes me angry to see voices that can actually make a difference stay quiet."

A star from from the South, Siddharth has gone beyond the limit. He has the temerity to speak against the two men who are tirelessly working -- one of them hardly sleeps, as you know -- to Make India Great Again (MIGA). Siddharth tweeted, “These two are not Krishna and Arjuna. They are Shakuni and Duryodhana. Stop attacking #universities! Stop assaulting #students! #JamiaMilia #JamiaProtest.”

After watching videos of police beating up Jamia students mercilessly, actor Taapsee Pannu, the brave girl from Pink, tweeted, “Wonder if this is a start or the end. Whatever it is, this is surely writing new rules of the land and those who don’t fit in can very well see the consequences. This video breaks heart and hopes all together. Irreversible damage, and I’m not talking about just the life and property,”

Manoj Bajpai, the ever so resilient man, says, "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. With the students and their democratic rights to protest ! I condemn violence against protesting students!!!!!"

These are high stake individuals. The government can make their life miserable. But can it, now? If there was an IT raid in Anurag Kashyap's house tomorrow, you would know that the government is shaking. It would be the end of the beginning.

Hats off, My Dear Wonderful People! You have the guts to speak out knowing well that the cost could be high. The Kauravas will try to see that you don't get another contract, just as they have made sure that Karan Thapar or Barkha Dutt doesn't get another job. (Sushant Singh's contract as the host of the TV show Savdhaan India has been terminated immediately after he took part in a protest against CAA.)

You have shown that you are not just cardboard heroes. From you, we have learned that even the screen image of Bhagat Singh cannot lick the boots of third-rate rulers. You, Tapsi Pannu, have shown that your struggle against crass misogynistic masculinity was not just acting. In fact, metaphorically speaking, through your tweet, you have broken a bottle on the collective head of countless bastards.

Let me end this brief write-up with another quote from the star of The Legend of Bhagat Singh: “As for fear of losing work, I cannot comment on others’ choices. But for me, I have a very simple principle. I sell my talent, not my conscience. When my kids grow up and ask me what I was doing when students were being tortured, I should have an answer”

Will you have an answer, Dear Reader?

[Information sourced from two reports published in the Indian Express today.

All the pictures courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

18 Dec 2019

Anuttam

The rainy season wasn’t gone, but that evening, there were no clouds in the sky. As we trudged along, we didn’t feel the sultry Bengal summer. The kash hadn’t arrived on the fields yet, but there was a hint of autumn in the air. For as far as we could see, the flat plains were washed by a soft but unusually bright moonlight seen when the sky clears after rains. A full moon was high up in the sky, it was beyond midnight in the sleeping villages around.

Three of us, Anuttam, Shyam, and I walked grimly along the uneven village path behind the bullock cart. A kerosene lantern was tied under the carriage. Working like a projector lamp, it threw mysterious long images of the wheels one moment, and in the next, as it swung the other way, the abstract figure of light and shade on the ground became short. The mythical little movie went on as none of us talked. Absolute stillness reigned, except for the monotonous grind of the wooden wheels without bearings.

We didn’t wish to talk possibly because all of us were thinking – in our own different ways – about the only passenger on the cart, a beautiful girl of around fifteen in a cotton sari, sitting with her head on her folded knees. Shyam’s younger sister.

She would die soon. She had been discharged from a hospital a few days before; there was no cure for her condition those days. Why Anuttam and I were accompanying her on her last journey in this world is another story. Maybe, I will come back to it some other time, but today, I am trying to write about Anuttam. …

Minutes after we crossed Goalpara, we could see the River Kopai at a distance. For most of the year, Kopai has ankle deep waters. But that evening, she was a wide brimming stream of molten silver shining under the full moon. In that out-of-the-world evening, Anuttam sang the Manna Dey song,

আমি যামিনী, তুমি শশী হে, ভাতিছ গগন মাঝে
মম সরসীতে তব উজল প্রভা বিম্বিত যেন লাজে

I’m the night, you’re the moon
Shining in the sky,
Your image on my crystal mirror
Is trembling, blushing shy.

We had originally planned to bid goodbye to Shyam and his sister from this side of the river. But Anuttam, immersed in his song, kept walking across, following the cart. I joined him. The water rose almost to our chest and then fell.

Anuttam’s mellifluous voice overflowed two sides of the river; spread beyond the horizons in moon light … and added another intriguing layer to the magical evening. As Anuttam sang, the thought crossed my mind that I had never experienced anything like that ever.

I was young then. I didn’t know that such ethereal moments came but once in our lifetime if we were fortunate. “এ পৃথিবী একবার পায় তারে, পায়নাকো আর।” This world comes across her only once, never again.

*

If you asked me to make a list of the most unusual, special men and women I have come across in life, Anuttam Biswas would definitely be in it. My friend for over fifty years, Anuttam passed away on 10 August 2019. So, he would have been just over 70. His brother Gautam, younger than him by a few years, died maybe, a decade ago. The brothers, different as they were, were both unusual, fascinating specimens of humans. Both would often sing aloud as happiness overflowed their souls. Neither of them would pick up an argument with anyone. They never had an enemy. Rather, they were two people who were loved by all who knew them.

Anuttam had an unusual pet name, Bhondul, which in Bangla means topsy-turvy. I bow to the prescience of the person who named him Bhondul. He did look at the world differently, he followed his own rules and perhaps had the insight to see how confused and upside down the real world was. Once, I spent a day at his home in a small market town in rural Bengal. He taught at the only college there.

Both Anuttam and Sreela sang and we talked nineteen to the dozen. In the evening, the men felt a drop or two would make the evening even nicer. However, in that hypocritical small town it was unthinkable that a college prof would buy drinks from the only liquor shop in the town in full public view. Anuttam told me, ‘No problem, come with me.’

He took me along to the only bookshop there and, after handing over a small chit to its owner, he said, ‘Please see if you could get this book.’

‘Yes, Sir’, said the bookseller deferentially, ‘of course.’

The name of the book was “A Bottle of Old Monk”. It was faithfully delivered to the professor’s home a little later.

*

The child of a broken family, Anuttam had no home to go during college holidays. He used to stay at our hostel and eat wherever he could. We spent a lot of time together, we were in a hostel that had just ten rooms around a courtyard. His songs were captivating, and he wrote some of the most beautiful poems I have read. There was a time when I could recite a few of his poems, but now, only isolated lines come to the surface of my cluttered mind. Perhaps he got his literary genes from his grandma on the mother’s side, who was one of the first Bengali women to have published a novel. The elderly lady used to visit our hostel from time to time. A sanyasin, she wore saffron. Her older grandson too was weary of worldly attachments.

Anuttam was both exceedingly popular among friends and at the same time, a loner. The combination is not easy to handle, but Anuttam wore both the hats effortlessly. At least once he ran away from home; the loner in him perhaps had got the better of him.

As I have said, Anuttam did not, at least tried not to, follow given patterns in life. He was not someone who would go out of his way to keep in touch with friends or send new-year cards. Neither am I good at it. So, from time to time, we were out of touch for years together. But when we met, we picked up the threads as if we were meeting after a week. The last time we met, it was by pure chance.

Arundhati and I discovered him at a toy store in a shopping mall four years ago. Anuttam had come to look for a specific board game for his grandson. The way he was talking to the storekeeper, it seemed they were old friends. They possibly were. Anuttam made friends easily, and people fell in love with him perhaps even more easily.

Following the chance meeting, he and Sreela came home and we spent a glorious day together. It happened on 27 April 2015. I can tell you the date because my phone, quite unemotionally, recorded the date when I took a few pictures that afternoon. We parted with promises to meet soon and with lots of plans. …

Anuttam was diagnosed with brain tumour in 2016. He would be no more in three years’ time.

Anuttam’s death didn’t bring tears to my eyes. His passing means I will have a void, a dull pain buried deep in some corner of my being for as long as I live.

If you are fortunate, you come across someone like Anuttam only once in your lifetime, never again.

Bangalore
Thursday, 24 October 2019

Another narrative

Abhijit Banerjee, the recipient of the Eco Nobel in 2019, is a serial offender.

Please make no mistake about it. After studying at two of the worst institutes in India infested with communist rats, namely, Presidency and JNU, like most other morally ambivalent unprincipled good students, he went to the decadent West for his Ph.D., ignoring the enormous wellspring of native wisdom in India (which, incidentally, would be freely available on WhatsApp in a few decades). His ethical duplicity was established beyond the faintest shadow of doubt when he accepted a prof’s chair carrying the name of – can you beat it? – Ford Foundation, an old bugbear for his commie comrades since Lord Ram’s glory days, besides being an arm of the CIA in the 1970s, as we all know.

It hurts me to trash a fellow Bong. But can I ignore what he did in March 2019? Can I ignore that the said Abhijit Banerjee was the fifth signatory amongst 108 economists / social scientists who claimed that the economic data gathering infrastructure (CSO, NSSO, etc.) in India was screwed under the much-loved and widely-hugged crusader for truth who removes plastic from beaches in his spare time? I was so bloody upset to read the news that day! … I wondered why the community of Indian economists was so f****ing anti-national! (Please count the asterisks, I didn’t mean what you think.) Why didn’t even one of them stand up and call the bluff of this horrible hundred-and-eight? Fortunately, soon, as many as 131 pro-national chartered accountants put their head above the parapet to declare that the 108 were talking bullshit. That settled the issue. Nationalist beat libtards 131-108. Period.

Let me also recall, this blabbering Banerjee was a paid agent of a political party lead by an Italian Catholic! Banerjee authored the NYunyatam Aay Yojana or the NYAY, a scheme for guaranteeing minimum wage across poverty-stricken India. The hopeless semi-Italian political party went to town before the 2019 general elections tom-tomming the bizarre idea that NYAY would solve our poverty issues once and for all and be a game changer for the poor. Fortunately, we Indians saw through their dirty design and re-elected a government that has been producing the largest number of Indian billionaires every year since 2014. Many more than any previous government had had. Poverty be dammed.

However, as I pen these lines in deep sorrow, a freaking question is niggling me!  The Hindu today reports in page 11 that our honourable Prime Minister has congratulated Banerjee for “notable contributions”?

Why Sir, why? Or, is it fake news?

Tuesday, 15 October 2019

[The picture file used here is under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.]        

Faith

Sunil Gangopadhyay

The wife of a close friend
Has decked herself up carefully,
But she won’t join us for dinner tonight.
She’s on fast, it’s Neel Shashti today.
When I was young, I used to make

Much flippant fun at times like this.
Now I just give her a hollow smile.
One mustn’t hurt anyone’s faith.

Another friend,

Who first dragged me into Left politics,
Has a new ring with a gemstone.
As he saw me frown, he said weakly,
‘Haven’t been keeping well of late;

So, mom-in-law asked me to wear this,

A moonstone, couldn’t say, “No”.’

I thought it was my personal defeat.

At times I visit the home

Of a revered professor

To listen to his thoughts.

There’s so much to learn even now.

Today, for the first time I saw

A figurine of Ganesha

Fixed on the other side of his door.

I didn’t ask, but he came out on his own,

‘My son has brought it from South India,

It’s a lovely work of art, isn’t it?’

I didn’t question why

A lovely sculpture

Should be on a door instead of in a cabinet.

It would have been frivolous at my age.

I’m getting on in years,

And I am being defeated,

Defeated again and again.

One mustn’t hurt anyone’s faith,

One mustn’t hurt anyone’s faith,

All around there’s so much of faith,

And faith is spreading

Like wildfire.

When a saffron believer

Decides that the blood of an infant

From another religion

Must flow down the road

To be licked by stray dogs,

That too is deep faith.

The flag-bearer of religion who thinks

That people should slash the throat

Of the girl who sings

And she should put on a burqa

Even when she plays tennis,

That too is deep faith.

Those who are marching towards destruction

With bombs strapped to their bodies,

Flexing muscles, smiling toothy smiles,

Trying to put the world under their feet,

They all belong to the league of the faithful.

Everyone is a faithful, faithful, faithful …

At times I feel like shouting out in my broken voice

Wake up, Unfaithful People of the world!

The faithless have-nots of the world, Unite!

Translated on 25 September 2019

[Photo Courtesy Wikipedia © Biswarup Ganguli]

The original poem in Bangla:

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

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

শ্রদ্ধেয় অধ্যাপকের বাড়ি,
মাঝে মাঝে তাঁর আলাপচারী শুনতে যাই
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,
কি দারুণ কাজ না?
সুন্দর মূর্তির স্থান
শো-কেসের বদলে দরজার উপরে কেন
বলিনি সে কথা
সেই ফক্কুড়ির বয়স আর নেই
বয়স 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 নলী কেটে দেওয়া হবে,
টেনিস খেলতে চাইলেও পরতে হবে বোরখা,
সেটাও তার দৃঢ় বিশ্বাস।

যে পেটে বোমা বেঁধে যাচ্ছে ধ্বংসের দিকে,
যে পেশী ফুলিয়ে, দেঁতো হাসি হেসে
পদানত করতে চাইছে গোটা বিশ্বকে,
এরা সবাই তো বিশ্বাসীর দলা।

সবাই বিশ্বাসী, বিশ্বাসী, বিশ্বাসী....
এক-একবার ভাঙা গলায় বলতে ইচ্ছে করে,
অবিশ্বাসীর দল জাগো
দুনিয়ার সর্বহারা অবিশ্বাসীরা এক হও।

সুনীল গঙ্গোপাধ্যায়

The Golden Treasury

I wouldn’t say Palgrave’s Golden Treasury was a constant companion of my father. But surely it was the book he would read most often after the eight-volume leather-bound set with the expository title Book of Knowledge, and the 28-volume Encyclopedia Americana, which was the biggest investment in his lifetime. (He couldn’t afford to buy The Encyclopaedia Britannica.) His library was an eclectic mix of books of poetry to religious texts to biographies to history to popular science, and quite a few tomes on Gandhi. However, for some reasons, he never touched fiction.

For long, I preserved my father’s torn and profusely underlined hardbound volume of The Golden Treasury, but I cannot find it now. However, this morning, I found another copy of the same treasure, a later and fatter edition. The book was gifted to my daughter by her pishidida, that is, my pishi (my dad’s sister).

As I leafed through the book, I found a note written by aunt.

Dear …,

It was perhaps over sixty years ago when we, girls and boys, sat enchanted as some poems were recited in class. Even now I can feel traces of that sense of enchantment.

I am giving the poems for you to read. And I have marked in pencil some of the lines that I loved; I still do.

Hope you will like them.

Affectionately,

Pishidida

If I am not a complete ignoramus, it is primarily because I was born in a family that valued literature in particular and knowledge in general. I have always felt – forgive me if I sound snooty – that those who’ve never read literature haven’t seen perhaps the second most beautiful facet of life after Nature. And also, those who read are somewhat different from those who don’t.

If you are a young man or woman who reads only on the social media, I would request you to read serious literature. You will never look back. Trust me!

How do you know what is serious literature and what isn’t? There’s a simple way not to get cheated. Read any book that was published 50 years ago or earlier and which is still available in the market.

As I secretly bowed to the men and women who kindled in me a love for reading, I flipped through the Golden Treasury and randomly opened a page to find these lines by Percy Bysshe Shelley (To a Skylark) marked on the side in pencil:

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of the saddest thought.

12 September 2019

Pulayathara: It’s all about a home …

Normally, it wouldn’t take me more than two days to read a book running into 200 pages. Since I read Pulayathara, I have been thinking why it took me more than a month. The usual suspect, that is, the language, could not have been the offender here. This translation of the Malayalam novel by Paul Chirakkarode is in a simple, unadorned English that reminds you of the sparkling, unhurried streams of Kerala before they merge into a backwater lake. In fact, as I read the book, I was often captivated by the prose, like in the passage I am quoting below:

“Everyone chewed betel, spat the juice, and left. Night had fallen. Thevan spread a woven-leaf mat on the floor and lay down to sleep, but sleep evaded him. An overpowering loneliness filled his heart. That night Thevan longed for a companion in his life. A month later he got married.” (p6)

Rarely do you come across more articulate sentences with so few words. In fact, after I began writing this, I opened the book randomly and I found these lines:

“Thoma drew near. He had changed. He was no longer the handsome young man he used to be. The time when he had thick curly hair and an ink-black body, when he wore a checked mundu that was not smeared with mud, was gone. He looked wild. His hair would no longer lie neatly, even if patted down. Thin and haggard, his bones protruded. Life had appeared before him in its truest colour.” (p171)

It is a simple tale of the Dalit on the one hand and the ruthless hypocrisy of the upper-caste in the Indian society on the other. As you have seen, in this story, the journey between a young man’s longing for a partner and finding her has been told in two adjoining sentences. This simple tale narrates the simple, uncomplicated mind of the Pulayar, a Dalit caste of Kerala. And it had to be told in the simplest language.

A little digression into the caste dynamics in India may not be out of place here. Modern historians say that the Hindu period and Muslim period of our history are figments of the colonial imagination. The so-called Hindu Period was hardly a religious monolith, India was actually fragmented into many kingdoms that quarrelled and cooperated among themselves. If any stratification has been constant in the Indian society, it has been the caste.

The importance of caste is often not recognised, more so, in these desperate times of looking at everything as the Hindu versus the rest. Recently, I read the Bangla autobiography of a political activist, Santosh Rana (রাজনীতির এক জীবন). He says that in rural Bengal, an upper-caste landless labourer is often stronger than a Dalit land-owner. Romila Thapar said in one of her speeches that two Muslim sects respectively from Gujarat and Kerala were originally the same community in Arabia. But thanks to India’s all-embracing caste system, they no longer inter-marry; they now belong to different “castes”. Well-off Bengali Muslims in Bangladesh like to believe they are of Persian descent, and are at a higher plain than the riff-raff Muslims who had converted from the so-called “lower castes”.

It is no wonder then that Christianity too lost its egalitarian values on the tropical plains and low hills of Kerala. The story of two generations of Pulayars, Thevan and Thoma are almost identical stories of being dominated by Hindu and Christian upper castes. Thoma had converted himself to Christianity, and was baptised with a Biblical name, but he didn’t even get the whole of a “Thomas”. Not that it made any difference to him, but the irony of his deprived existence which extended even to the name he got cannot be missed.

The translator, Catherine Thankamma tells us in an insightful introduction that “thara” in Malayalam can mean various things such as home, platform, foundation, and floor. And pulyathara roughly translates into a Dalit home or just a raised platform covered by a rudimentary shanty made of bamboo slats and woven coconut sheaves. And the human being who starts off for a thara, any thara, ends up in a gloomy unending struggle from that basic burrow.

It is struggle almost without any hope. And this book is as fascinating as it is oppressive. If I took time to read it – I believe the reason was personal – it was for the same reason for which I don’t watch TV or read newspapers these days.

Truth can be suffocating at times.

*

If I may end on a personal note, this wonderful translation (published by Oxford University Press) has been done by Catherine, a good friend of Arundhati and me. Her husband, Joe, a literature aficionado and brilliant wit, was one of my closest friends who passed away much before it was necessary. I wish Joe was there to read this translation.

But I do hope this translation will win the second Crossword Translation Award for Catherine, and maybe, much more.

Tuesday, 03 September 2019

Lambu: A Blast from the Past

After many years, in fact, after decades, I saw a packet of lamboos in Pintur Dokan, that is, Pintu’s street-corner grocery near our home. It took me down a rather long memory lane.

My academic career being as unspectacular as it was, I do not expect any of my teachers or profs to remember me. I was neither brilliant, nor hard-working, and I didn’t even fail an exam. Recently at a party, I met one of our several marvellous physics professors, who happened to be an exceedingly handsome young man when we were students. He was a minor hero for us boys, and a major heartthrob for girls, much to our irritation at times. (Why are contests in life so bloody unequal?) Anyway, to cut a long story short, when I introduced myself in the gathering, my former teacher looked at me so helplessly that I felt sorry for him. I ought not to have revealed my identity and challenged his memory cells so bluntly.

Although my academic accomplishments – as I have said without false modesty – were seriously unglamorous, my years at our university campus was by far the most gorgeous period of my life, although it was not devoid of minor deprivations, naturally. We lived in spacious rooms practically for free and although our hostel kitchen provided two large meals for an entire month in exchange of 65 to 75 paper-gold rupees, we had to fend for the breakfast and afternoon snacks ourselves. We managed the breakfast somehow, stuffed ourselves during lunch, but would invariably feel famished by four in the afternoon.

If I may share with you a bit about our financial situation, we used to invest a sizable chunk of our meagre allowance on the two local cinemas, cups of tea, and packets of Charminar (possibly the strongest cigarette in the world without the embellishment of a filter, not even the American Camel was nearly as harsh). Consequently, we often found our rather healthy afternoon appetite an insurmountable budget deficit.

On days we were lucky, we would find one of our distant girlfriends in the university cafeteria, and for our generation, it was an immense good fortune that girls didn’t smoke then. So, they always had something to spare, and would often volunteer to keep us alive by offering a samosa or two.

But on days we were not lucky, we had to eat something after classes. After long and painful research, I finally found out the most cost-effective snack, which would be cheaper than twenty-five paise.

It was the LAMBOO!

Now, what is a lamboo? If you have a nodding acquaintance with Hindi or Bangla, you would be aware that a tall lad is often called a Lamboo in these languages. Amitabh Bachchan was the reigning Lamboo in his spectacular film career. In Bengal, no one qualified for the sobriquet as there were no tall heroes in Bangla films. The greatest Bengali matinee idol for the past and future sixty years, Uttam Kumar, was five seven.

Therefore, I will die without solving the mystery how the rotund stuff, the picture of which you see here, came to be known as "lamboo".

Lamboo is neither biscuit nor cake. Genetically, I believe, it is closer to the popular Bihari / Jharkhandi snack litthi, which has a hard central-core and an even harder shell. Woe betide the fool who try to bite a lamboo with less than healthy teeth. But that was only a minor problem for indigent lamboo eaters like us.

More importantly, the lamboo would be baked with the cheapest fat available in the market. Most likely, it would have been animal fat discarded by butchers. Therefore, as you ate it, a fatty layer got smudged to the inside of your mouth. But that too is a minor irritant. Have a lamboo and wash it down with a glass of water, and you won’t have to eat anything in the next four hours. Maa kasam!

The packet of lamboos in Pintu’s grocery brought back all this in a flash. I couldn’t but buy one and taste it. It was like yesterday once more.

Believe me, the lamboo hasn’t changed one bit. The same hardness, same lingering fatty taste, the same earthy granules which wouldn’t be mentioned in the recipe. … It was perfect.

I can safely skip lunch today!

Kolkata
Wednesday, 28 August 2019, 10 AM.

কলকাতা ৪৬

বেশ একটু গর্বের সঙ্গে আপনাদের জানাতে পারি যে এই পুঁথিটির লেখিকা স্বয়ং বেশ কয়েকবার আমাদের হাজরা মোড়ের বাড়িতে এসেছেন।

সে সময় তাঁর বয়েস আট কি নয়। আমাদের বাড়িতে তাঁর চেয়ে দু-চার বছরের ছোট দুটি শিশু ছিল; তাদের নিয়ে তাঁর আহ্লাদের অন্ত ছিলনা। জীবন্ত পুতুল দুটি নিয়ে উর্বীর খেলা আর শেষ হতনা, যদিও শেষ বাসের সময় এগিয়ে এলে ওর মা উদ্বিগ্ন হয়ে পড়তেন, স্বাভাবিক ভাবেই। ওদের বাড়িটাও ছিল একটু খটমট যায়গায়, পার্ক সার্কাসে রেললাইনের ওপারে, সব ঋতুতে দুঃখী মানুষে ভরা চিত্তরঞ্জন হাসপাতালের হতাশার বৃত্ত ছাড়িয়ে। (একটু প্রসঙ্গান্তরে যাই, হাসপাতালের নাম “চিত্তরঞ্জন” কোন বুদ্ধিতে দেয় মানুষ?)

এই সময়, অনেকগুলো ডেডলাইন পার হবার পর, যখন মাকে আরে কিছুতেই দাবীয়ে রাখা যাচ্ছেনা, উর্বী তাঁর ব্রহ্মাস্ত্র প্রয়োগ করতেন, “আমি দুধ খাবো।”

এমন বাঙালি মা-মাসি অদ্যাপি জন্মান নি যাঁরা শেষ বাস ধরতে হবে এই তুচ্ছ কারণে দুগ্ধ পিয়াসী শিশুকন্যাকে বঞ্চিত করবেন। সুতরাং ঝটপট দুধ বেরত, ঈষদুষ্ণ গরম করা হত, এবং সেই এক গ্লাস দুধ উর্বী খেতেন বড় খেয়াল গাওয়ার স্টাইলে, বে-শ খানিকটা সময় নিয়ে।

ঘটনাচক্রে ওদের বাসস্থানের খবর আপনাদের দিয়ে দিয়েছি ওস্তাদ লেখকের মতো, কারণ পার্ক সার্কাস রেল লাইনের পিছনে, মূলত গরীব মুসলমান অধ্যুসিত যায়গা, যে এলাকার claim to fame হচ্ছে একটি মানসিক হাসপাতাল, তিনটি মুসলমান ও একটি হিন্দু কবরখানা, এবং রেললাইনের ওপারে সংশয়-উদ্রেককারী নামের আড্ডিবাগান বস্তি – এই নিয়ে, এবং আরও অনেক কিছু নিয়েই উর্বীর বই, এক নিঃশ্বাসে পড়তে হবে এরকম ২০৭টি অনন্যসুন্দর পৃষ্ঠা।

মূল শহরের সীমারেখার ঠিক বাইরে, ইম্প্রুভমেন্ট ট্রাস্ট, মেট্রপলিটান ডেভলাপমেন্ট অথারিটি ইত্যাদির সদাশয় দৃষ্টি এড়িয়ে, প্রায় আগাছার মতো বেড়ে ওঠা এই এলাকাটিতে আগাছার মতই ভেসে আসা নানা অনাবশ্যক flotsam and jetsam-এর মত মানুষজন, যাঁদের মধ্যে আছেন নেপালি খ্রিস্টান সিকিউরিটি ইন-চারজ ও তাঁর হিন্দু বাঙালি বউ, জনৈক হিন্দু মালায়ালি স্বামী আর তার ভিন রাজ্যের খ্রিস্টান বৌ, যাকে সে পরিচয় দেয় সেক্রেটারি হিসেবে, একজন গরীব পাদ্রি, বিগত দিনের দিকপাল ফুটবল খেলোয়াড় রশিদ, যে এখন বৃদ্ধ ও নির্ভেজাল মাতাল, রক্ষণশীল ব্যবসায়ী পরিবারের মেয়ে, যে অনেক লড়াই করে আর্টিস্ট হয়েই ছাড়ল, অথবা পিতৃহীন দুটি মেয়ে সাফল্য খুঁজে পেতে অন্ধকারের মধ্যে ঢুকে গেল, এরকম আরও অনেক ব্যতিক্রমী চরিত্র এবং অবশ্যই কয়েক হাজার দরিদ্র মুসলমান পরিবার। এদের নিয়েই পোস্ট কোড কলকাতা ৪৬। এদের নিয়েই উরবীর ভারতবর্ষের ছবি। এবং কত যে অসাধারণ গল্প লুকিয়ে ছিল এদের সাধারণ জীবনযাপনে। (আধুনিক বাংলায় নাকি শুধু "যাপনে" লিখলেই চলত?)

উর্বীর বাবা-জ্যাঠারা নেহাতই লিবরাল হিউমানিস্ট ছিলেন, তাই এই পরিবেশে সেই শিশু বয়েস থেকেই মেয়েটির মেলামেশা ছিল সব রকমের মানুষজনের সঙ্গে, গরীব, দুঃখী, বিচিত্র ভারতবর্ষের একটা microcosm-এর সঙ্গে। শিশু এবং কিশরীর চোখ দিয়ে দেখা এই ছবিটা আমি কোন দিন ভুলতে পারব মনে হয়না।

অতঃপর কিশরীটি বড় হয়, আন্তর্জাতিক খ্যাতিসম্পন্ন বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় থেকে পি এইচ ডি করে এসে সে এখন অধ্যাপক। পরিচিত পৃথিবীকে খুঁজে না পাবার বেদনা নিয়ে স্মৃতিচারণ শেষ হয়। শেষ হয় আমাদের সমষ্টি থেকে ব্যক্তিতে যাত্রায়, কেমন করে অনিদ্রা থেকে দুঃস্বপ্নে আমাদের যাত্রায় কাক ডাকে, তাই দিয়ে।

শেষে একটা কথা বলি। মনে হয় কলকাতা ৪৬ নামটার মধ্যে একটা ইঙ্গিত দিয়ে রেখেছেন লেখিকা, ইতিহাস চর্চা দিয়ে যাঁর রুজিরুটি। ৪৬-এর দাঙ্গা ও বিভাজন না হলে কলকাতা পুরোপুরি অন্যরকম একটা শহর হত, আর কলকাতা ৪৬-ও লেখা হতনা।

আজ আমরা একই রকমের একটা বিভাজনের সামনে দাঁড়িয়ে। উর্বীর বইটি সেই কারণেও আপনার পড়া প্রয়োজন।

*

পুনশ্চঃ গোবরার কবরখানা ইত্যাদি ৮০/৯০ বছর আগেও ছিল, এবং সেখানে কোন ইংরাজি-নবীশ টেনিস ও শিকারপ্রিয় anglophile হিন্দু বাঙালির বিশাল বাড়ি হাঁকানোর কথা নয়। এমনকি, সম্পন্ন মুসলমান বাঙ্গালিরও নয়। লেখিকার পিতামহ কেন এই কর্মটি করেছিলেন তা ভাঙবো না। কারণ তা হলে লেখিকার পরিবারের ব্যতিক্রমী মানুষদের প্রথাভাঙ্গা জীবনের অনেক গল্প বলতে হয়। অতটা টাইপ করার আগে আমার ডাক এসে যাবে!

২৩/০৮/২০১৯

126 Years Ago

[Polytheistic (many-Gods) religions are generally more tolerant than monotheistic (one-God) religions. And Hinduism certainly is one of the more accepting faiths. Today, when this ancient religion is being hijacked by a group of bigoted men whose hearts are brimming with intolerance and hate, let us look back at what a young, just thirty-year-old completely unknown Indian monk said in Chicago in 1893. Please read on. It is a surprisingly brief speech.]

Sisters and brothers of America,

It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.

My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to the southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings:

‘As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, 0 Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.’

The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world, of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita:

'Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to Me.'

Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time has come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.

Source: GREAT SPEECHES OF MODERN INDIA, edited by Rudrangshu Mukherjee (Random House India, 2007)

(14/08/2019)