How many Bengalis do you know who learnt to write their first letter on 21st February? I knew none, till this 21st evening.
Well, for the uninitiated, the auspicious day a Bengali child learns, rather is guided to write, the first letter of the Bengali alphabet, "ã", is the day of his "hatey-khori" ("haat" means hand and "khori" means chalk). For me, I still recall the day when an old gentleman, I think a priest of the area — Mahiskapur Road, Durgapur — took me on his lap and put his hand around my tiny fingers to hold a chalk — we used to write with a chalk-like pencil — on a newly bought slate. I don’t know how I fared on my debut to the world of letters, but later on I found it quite a hard world with slates being thrown at me by my father at regular intervals till I passed the school-leaving exam!
Over the years, the concept of hatey-khori has changed its charm — from mere slate-pencil it went on to mouse-keyboard-screen version! Guardians with foresight choose computers, instead of chalk and slates, and even pen and paper! But still there are some who just arouse interest to this. Just like this person I saw playing cards with co-passengers during the 17.42 Dum Dum-Dattapukur local this 21st Feb.
As a passing comment, this guy — to my observation, he is just an ordinary human being with not-so-decent pay packet —told his friends that he persuaded his family members to initiate his son to the world of education with hatey-khori that morning. Usually, this little, yet important, event is held on the day of Saraswati puja, the goddess of education and knowledge. It happened with me too in 1984, if I remember it right. But why he chose 21st Feb? It was a conscious choice that he made. As 21st Feb is the International Mother Language Day, he thought that that day is the best for his son to pick up Bengali — the language for which seven youths laid their lives down in Dhaka in 1952. Fifty-six years is a long time for a country and the gentleman in train was all of 30 years old. But it is impossible that the bloodbath on the streets would have never been heard by the father proud to impart the first training to his child in his mother tongue.
The rich heritage of Bengali —the seventh most-spoken language in the world today —can only be carried forward for generations if we make such conscious effort in our everyday life.
