Genuine fountain pen, awful cooking oil

 

This happened long ago in the last century when Indian Railways had non-airconditioned first class coaches. The coaches, which were partitioned into eight cubicles with either four or two berths in each, had a corridor on one side connecting them. (Is there an English word for them?) I miss those coaches with large openable windows that let in strong gusts of air while the train moved, besides offering an unimpeded view of the world outside.

If you knew me well, you would perhaps know that I am not particularly fond of self-promotion. But for a change, let me say that I have a world record. It is as follows: as a passenger, I have always been the first person to reach a railway station or airport, invariably hours before time. That morning too, when I boarded Coromandel Express, my fellow passengers hadn’t arrived. I was alone in a four-berth cubicle. My destination was Madras, mother of Chennai, where I would change train for Trivandrum, my workplace. At that time, I had lived in Kerala for many years. I had fallen in love with the place and her people. In particular, I loved three things of Kerala, the undulating lush green landscape, the unmatched cleanliness of the people, and their delectable food.

I opened an India Today, which was an eminently readable magazine those days; its owner, Aroon Purie hadn’t become the cringeworthy sycophant of the ruling party he is now. Midway through the first article, I was interrupted by a thin young man in shabby clothes and uncombed hair, ‘Dada, this is genuine Chinese,’ he took out a golden fountain pen from his pocket, ‘… Please buy one, dada. For just 10 rupees, it’s a steal!’ That it was counterfeit was written all over the product and the vender. It had been manufactured not in China, but perhaps in Howrah. Even then, I bought a pen without saying a word for two reasons: first, although his pen was fake, the fellow seemed to be a genuine struggling young man, and second, I wanted to get rid of him quickly.

Soon, a man, who seemed to be a Malayali, walked in with a small suitcase. He asked me where I was headed, and when I said ‘Trivandrum,’ his face lit up with happiness. He volunteered with the information that he had come to Calcutta on office work and spent a difficult week here. ‘What a horrible place! Men bathe in the open!’ Was he disappointed because women didn’t? Anyway, I didn’t feel like pointing out that if men bathing in the open was the chief criterion for a place to be horrible, then every Indian village too was a horrible place.

Although I didn’t share his indignation, my companion kept talking in a friendly manner, ‘I was in my company guest house. These beggars (some Malayalis pronounce buggers as beggars, at least they did then) eat such awful food. … Do you know what cooking oil they use?’ After a long pause pregnant with possibilities, the gentleman announced, ‘Bledy mustard oil! Can you believe it?’

At that point, a portly middle-aged Bengali walked in, followed  by a porter carrying two suitcases. After finishing a brief argument with the porter about what would be a fair compensation, the man sat down with a sigh and asked, ‘Apni Bangali?’

In the meantime, the Malayali gentleman had gone to the loo. My new acquaintance began talking to me in Bangla. When he heard I was going to Kerala, he looked sad. In a heavy voice he asked, ‘Have you been in Kerala before?’

‘Never,’ a white lie.

‘Go there, but I tell you, you won’t be able to eat anything.’

‘Why?’

‘The fools use coconut oil for cooking. Can you imagine?’

Meanwhile, the train had started to move. To avoid hearing more unpleasantries, I took out my diary and began writing. To my surprise, the new pen wrote beautifully. I felt bad for presuming that the young man was a cheat. I admonished myself for being judgmental.

A few minutes later, as train crossed the outer signals, the flow of ink stopped. It never restarted.

That it would malfunction was expected. But its maker’s expertise was astonishing. It worked exactly for the period of time for which it was required to work. Amazing perfection!

3 April 2023

Santiniketan, a famous author, and two bright kids

 

Rabindranath Tagore had set up his ashram-school in the turn of the nineteenth century. Despite perpetual paucity of funds, he managed to recruit a galaxy of eminent teachers (including some from abroad). Or maybe, it was the other way round. A galaxy of brilliant people gravitated towards the greatest thinker and visionary Bengal has ever produced. Rabindranath’s idea was to recreate the past Indian tradition of educating children in the midst of nature, where teachers and students lived in close contact. Where facilities were basic, but children grew up unfettered by regimentation, where they could expand their inner world. The experiment worked. The eminent Indians who evolved in Santiniketan included Ramkinkar Baij, KG Subramanian, Mahashwheta Devi, Satyajit Ray, Amartya Sen, and many more.

The glory days of Visva-Bharati was gone long ago, but if a tradition of excellence is built up over decades, it takes time to destroy it. Here is an anecdote written by Palki, who grew up in Santiniketan in the 1980s. It is about her meeting with Annada Shankar Ray.

Annada Shankar was a curious combination of an ICS officer, an essayist, and a writer of children’s rhymes. (He left ICS midway to become a fulltime writer.) His twenty-five-line poem “Teler shishi bhanglo bole khukur pore rag karo” has been a landmark in Bangla literature.

Moving back to Palki, she was a precocious child of 10 who had read everything Annada Shankar had written for children and a little of what he hadn’t written for children. At that time, she was seriously considering a career in writing and naturally, she had decided to leave an everlasting mark in Bangla literature, like Annada Shankar, who she had anointed as her literary idol.

Therefore, when she heard that her idol would visit Santiniketan to receive Deshikottam, the highest award conferred by the university, she was quick to hatch a plan along with her bosom buddy Susmita. A day before the award function, when Annada Shankar had arrived in Santiniketan, the two little girls barged into the university guest house where important visitors stayed. In Palki’s words, Santiniketan hadn’t become Securityniketan then, and nobody bothered that two girls—who had no business to be there—were there. Palki and Susmita covered the long treelined driveway to the circular guest house with much excitement. When they got off their cycles in front of a covered balcony and looked up, they saw Annada Shankar in a cane chair, drinking tea. Palki had no difficulty in recognising him as she had seen his pictures.

The girls had grown up in freedom, they were not to be cowed down by the proximity of great men. They breezed up the stairs leading to the balcony and bent down to touch Annada Shankar’s feet before he knew what was happening. But he would have discerned the purpose of his little visitors in a moment and got talking with them. When he asked them their names, they furnished not only names, but also which school and grade they studied in. By then, Annada Shankar’s wife Lila Ray joined the party. Incidentally, she was an American who had spent years in Santiniketan. Another round of feet touching. Asking them to sit down, Lila Ray gave them biscuits. But the girls were becoming impatient. When they brought out their autograph books, Lila Ray asked, ‘Why do you want autographs?’

You might think it would be a difficult question for ten-year-olds to handle, but no! The children of Santiniketan explained in detail why they thought getting autographs was a good idea. Lila Ray then asked them to recite a poem. The girls quickly finished their biscuits, wiped their faces and stood up. And flailing their arms and possibly their plaits too, recited

For breaking a bottle of oil, you take the child to task,

But you grown-up kids break nations. Why, may I ask?

After such a performance, they naturally got what they came for. Mission accomplished.

* 

I do not know Susmita, but Palki’s mother, who left at an early age and her father, both have been senior friends. Palki hasn’t become a literary sensation (yet). She has just done a PhD from Oxford and teaches at the finest university of liberal arts in India. She is young and I do hope she will achieve her childhood dream someday! All the best, Palki.Picture of the open-air classroom from Mallarika Sinha Roy’s Facebook page

A fine tribute to Vikraman Nair

There is little chance that you met Gopalan Vikraman Nair, a Malayali from Alappuzha who went to Santiniketan to study English literature in the 1950s, but never returned to Kerala. However, if—by a rare stroke of fortune—you had seen him from close quarters, you would possibly remember him as a man of rare brilliance. Vikraman Nair, Nairda to his countless admirers, was a polyglot who not only knew more than half-a-dozen Indian and foreign languages, but had also read an enormous volume of literature in all those languages. He is perhaps the only Malayali who worked as a Bangla language journalist and wrote (in Bangla) two of the finest travelogues I have read. If you have had the good fortune to have met him, you would also remember him as a dazzling story teller, who would unfailingly captivate small audiences with hilarious anecdotes from his multicoloured life. You would also recall him as a man who could argue on any social / political issue and establish his views with precise evidence selected from his vast store of knowledge and information. 

In the turbulent West Bengal of the 1960s and 70s, he joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and then leaned towards the Naxalites. As the Naxalbari movement degenerated into thoughtless cold-blooded murder of perceived class enemies, Vikraman Nair left them soon. Unlike most city-based communists, he was not an armchair revolutionary. He actually worked among peasants for many years.

My friend and Nairda’s close associate, Manas Bhattacharya has written a wonderful memoir on Nairda in Bangla. I have too much affection for Manas; I won’t try to write a review of his book. But I can tell you that I have read Manas’s 174-page book in less than six hours, so gripping his narration is. Congratulations, Manas for your lovely lucid prose. Let me also do what I can do a little: translate a few pages of Manas Bhattacharya’s eponymously titled book: NAIRDA—Three Decades with Vikraman Nair.

*

[Nairda could make friends easily with children, and his little friends were exceedingly fond of him. Manas tells us that unlike most people, Nairda neither changed his voice nor his body language when he talked with children. He was his usual self. Here are a few lines about Nairda and his little friends.]

Let me first talk about a little girl, Fultusi, who Nairda used to tutor privately. She was in the seventh grade then.

One afternoon when Nairda had a day-off, Debashish and me were chatting in a low voice in a corner of Nairda’s room. Fultusi had come for her lessons. She sat on Nairda’s cot, while Nairda was in front of her on an armless chair. Perhaps Fultusi couldn’t answer a question, suddenly, we heard a suppressed growl, which was immediately followed by a full-blooded smack on Fultusi’s chin. Debashish and I were stunned. How could anyone hit such a lovely girl (who was a good student too)? That too, it wasn’t a casual hit, it was a robust slap. Fultusi’s hung her head; silent tears began flowing down her chins.

After punishing his pupil, the teacher continued with his lessons, but the flow had been impaired. Nairda ended the class after a while. Watching the crude exhibition of cruelty, Debashish and I were angry with Nairda for days.

Fultusi’s home was on the other side of the tramline, barely ten minutes’ walk from our boarding house. After an hour or so, a domestic help came from Fultusi’s house and said, ‘Fultusi’s mother has asked me to tell you that Fultusi won’t continue the tuition.’

Without showing any emotion, Nairda said in his usual gruff voice, ‘Thik achhe.’

A week passed. Debashish and I felt sorry about the charming little girl. But there was no change in Nairda’s behaviour. Then one day, Nairda returned to the boarding house in the evening and declared with a smile, ‘Fultusi will come from tomorrow.’

I said enthusiastically, ‘Good, Fultusi must have got over her anger. Please stop beating your students.’

Nairda said, ‘You know what happened? Ratna (Fultusi’s mom) declared, ‘My daughter won’t go back to that barbaric teacher,’ but Fultusi stopped going to school. Her demand, she would study only with Nair Kaku. Ultimately, Ratna had to accept defeat. Barun (Nairda’s friend, Fultusi’s dad) came to my office to tell me.’

A little later, perhaps referring to my view on physical punishment, Nairda added, ‘Children don’t learn unless you give them a few smacks.’

It isn’t Fultusi alone, all the children from the large circle of Nairda’s friends, without exception, are ardent fans of Nair Kaku. When Nairda goes to their house, their faces light up in happiness. Depending on their age, with some, Nairda would just play; to some, he would be a teacher; to some he would talk like an equal. During the chats, the topics could be anything from literature to history to politics to anecdotes from Nairda’s life. For the last one, one could hear frequent bursts of loud laughter from the room. Soon, the entire family would gather there.

…

Nairda has many little pupils. Every year, he takes them to the zoo once, and to the Kolkata Book Fair at least twice. They look forward to these days with tremendous excitement. Once I had the good fortune to accompany them. The joy and excitement I saw was among them was unbelievable.

If their parents or uncles wanted to take them, they would refuse. They would go only with Nair Kaku. Can there be so much fun with anyone else? When they stood before the chimp’s cage of before the elephants, who would tell stories about chimps and elephants so beautifully? Even if they had read the stories before, they would love to hear them again if the raconteur was Nair Kaku. Soon a crowd of random visitors would stand around Nairda and start listening to his tales. And needless to say, not all of them are children.

 

Kolkata / 18 Feb. 23

Kolkata Diary 2 / Nayantara in a Globalised World

Nayantara, which means the star of one’s eye in Bangla, was the star of her father’s eye. He died in his sleep two days ago. 

Nayantara’s mother Shanti worked as cook in our home for 10 years. A quiet diminutive woman in her forties then, she would come for two hours every weekday. And during the long period, she was absent for a total number of zero days (I mean AWOL). Neither was she late once. Once, a cyclone-hit Kolkata was under knee-deep water and it was still pouring. Shops hadn’t opened; buses weren’t plying. But Shanti arrived at the precise time. Besides her discipline, honesty, and decent culinary skills, Shanti is an unexceptional person.

Her husband Sudhir was an expert machinist who ran a cottage industry, using his own lathe. He fabricated small industrial components for the dying engineering units located around the city. (Shanti, who helped her husband at work, couldn’t describe the product, and I left it there.) Sadly, given the state of the economy in West Bengal, Sudhir’s clients’ factories would be closed more often than not, and consequently, Sudhir was unemployed for most of the year. In fact, that is the reason Shanti took up a cook’s job. Ours happened to be the first house she worked in.

Last evening, we reached Shanti’s house after taking several turns in narrow lanes that weren’t Wider than five feet at any point. But thanks to Kolkata Corporation’s people-friendly work, the alleys, all cemented, were scrupulously clean; there were gutters leading to an underground drain every 100 feet or so. Halogen light bulbs flooded the lanes in bright white.

As four of us sat on the only armless three-sitter sofa in the room, Shanti stood before us and talked. We couldn’t ask her to sit down because there was no other place to sit in the tiny room cluttered with old calendars hanging on unpainted walls. Shanti’s house has two small rooms and a smaller one for visitors, which I’ve just mentioned. However, the walled compound is spacious, with several fruit trees. The mango and jackfruit trees reminded me of the delectable fruits Shanti used to bring for us every summer.

Usually in these circumstances in our part of the world, the house of bereavement is flooded with relatives and friends. But when we were there, there was none beside mother and daughter. Both of them seemed to have taken the sudden, completely unforeseen shock with remarkable calm. Or maybe, the enormity of the loss was yet to sink in. Nayantara, wearing pink trousers and a poncho over her shirt, came and stood beside her mother.

A good student, Nayantara had graduated with Honours in English. Then she found a job at a call centre on the other side of the city. It ended her dream of higher studies, but saved the family. She commuted 30 kilometres by bus every morning, and her company provided transport at night. She would reach home at 12:30 AM with mother waiting to serve her food. I knew all that, but as I was away from Kolkata for three years, I didn’t know she had lost her job during the pandemic. I asked her what she is doing now.

‘I’ve been working for an Australian company for the last six months.’

‘Great, where is your office?’

‘We don’t have an office in India yet. We are a small team of just 21 people. But we meet from time to time at a conference hall. I work from home … from 4 in the morning to 11, with a recess for an hour.’

‘What kind of work do you do?’

‘I work for a telecom company. In Australia, every telecom company has to provide a combined package of telephone and internet services. Our company doesn’t have individual clients, it’s all B-to-B. My job is to call up corporate clients and convince them to shift to our network.’

‘Including cold calls?’

‘Yes, some of them.’

‘What is the talk-time for you in a day?’

‘At least two hours.’

Wow! Sitting in a corner of Kolkata, Nayantara convinces Australian companies to buy her network! Does she find the Australian accent difficult?

‘No, not really. I worked for a British firm for five years. So, I was quite okay with the British accent. Initially, I found the Australian accent difficult. But they trained us for a month. It’s okay now. A bigger problem was that I knew nothing about the telecom sector. I had to work hard to understand the industry.’

‘What kind of work did you do in your previous company?’

‘I sold nuisance-call blocking devices to elderly people in the UK.’

‘Wow! How do you find your present company?’

‘Very good. There are no hassles, my salary comes into the bank on the first of every month. The recess hour is flexible. I can even take off four fifteen-minute chunks any time I like.’

‘You found your earlier job through campus placement. How did you find this one?’

‘Through LinkedIn. I had to go through three rounds of interviews.’

 *

West Bengal is known to the rest of India for its moribund economy, lazy people, and a government seeped in corruption. From outside, it looks like a perfect cesspool. As we walked back, I thought when the Gods are against you, only education can help. I also thought however much the scoundrels who run our country might try, it’s difficult to put down young people. They rise above the ruins around them and chart their own course. Nayantara and her 20 colleagues are an irrefutable proof of that fact.

Live long Nayantara, live well, live independent. Be a beacon to the hundreds of similarly disadvantaged young boys and girls around you.

 [Needless to say, I have changed the names of the protagonists to protect their identity. But the rest of the story is unadulterated truth.]

 

15 Jan 23 / ©Santanu Sinha Chaudhuri