Teacher, forever

Accessing Facebook at Auli was as exciting as getting a proper non-veg chicken meal after days of surviving on simple vegetarian stuff; exactly that happened on August 5 this year. After a long day's trek to Govindghat followed by bus ride, Auli was supposed to be an evening of living off delicious delicacies and drinks. As i logged in to my Facebook account from my cellphone at the GMVN ski-resort, i could not make out a one-word August 3 wall post from Dollar'da: "Nothing". What did it mean? Has it anythng to do with Nihilism? As i racked my brain what made him to write like that while simultaneously looking at other posts on Facebook, i just stumbled on what i didn't expect at all, especially in that scenic Himalayan retreat: Bikash'da is no more.

Only a few teachers can make you what you are today. For me, Bikash Chakraborty was one among them. As i always feel proud to say that i was groomed by excellent teachers both at R K Mission, Narendrapur, and Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, with those at Santiniketan supporting my eccentricities during my early twenties. While we were yet to delve deep into the treasure trove of the English literature, a kurta-pajama-clad shawl-wrapped frail professor stepped into our BA-I class as some other teacher didn't turn up on a wintry morning. That was our first class with BC till he took us to the world of Coleridge, and Romanticism, a year later.

From my BA-I days till we bade Bikash'da farewell, i saw he used to have an aura that earned him immense respect from us and his colleagues alike. He was not head of the department when we were students at DEOMEL, but he had the last word on most issues. An icon in himself, he nurtured hundreds of young minds to turn them into literary enthusiasts. His interaction with students was beyond the confines of a classroom but only a few could enter his almost impregnable inner domain. Those who succeeded could find a different man in great humour and spirits. Months after he retired, i went to Bikash'da's Daronda home to discuss a few points on a paper i was preparing on T S Eliot's influence on Tagore. From a purely academic discussion, it changed direction to things more mundane like Darjeeling tea or what new books the British Council Library had inducted into their shelves! 

His classes on Yeats were unforgettable experience though students in the last row could hardly hear the mild-spoken professor. His lectures on Yeats's poetry were more than sufficient to prepare ourselves for exam papers. For many of Deomelites, Yeats, and 'Waste Land', was synonymous with Bikash'da. He had such an effect on us that weeks before the 2007 reunion, one of my seniors wrote a scrap on my Orkut page: "Romantic deomel is dead and gone/ it's with bikashda somewhere..." just to convey the message he would not return to his alma mater, as BC was no longer taking Yeats's classes! As i told Bikash'da about this, he just smiled and said: "Sob paglami tomader (All madness)!"

Today, as Deomel is ready to celebrate Teachers' Day with traditional pomp and ceremony, the ever-bustling department will certainly miss him: not as a teacher or a scholar only but also as a great human being of our time.

'Death Be Not Proud'

Some people leave a mark on this world, on our lives; others just pay a small visit. As the dark clouds covered the Kalimpong Stadium on August 16, i was standing under an umbrella to watch the final of a school-level soccer tournament along with some local friends. Suddenly, a reporter of a Hindi daily told me that an Anna Hazare supporter had been shot in Bhopal amid the arrest drama in New Delhi over the Gandhian's fast. I asked him who s/he was but he could not give me details then. After a few hours as i came down to Siliguri that evening, i saw 100-odd people brave the heavy rain to take out a rally with posters and candles with pro-Anna, anti-corruption slogans. A lady's picture on one of the posters took me by surprise. She was Shehla Masood. By then, the web world must have been flooded with her pictures and news of her murder in Bhopal.

My communication with Shehla dates back to 2009. That was the time when a lot of like-minded activists of the country started various online campaigns on a whole lot of issues from Binayak Sen to RTI to NREGA among others. Shehla, a former model, was by then known for her campaigns — both real and virtual — across a large section of the society. Her interests also included ecological imbalance and protecting tigers. As i write this piece, no concrete evidence has till been found why Shehla was killed but one point is very clear to all of her friends and well-wishers: her mission did not end in the murder but her killers showed us how a braveheart takes bullets to fight for causes. Hours before she was killed, she re-tweeted: "'It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies. But a great deal more to stand up to your friends' - A. P. W. B. Dumbledore." That says it all about her 38 years' existence.

A few years back, now-defunct but highly intellectual Bengali magazine, Dhrubapad, brought out a special number, "Dosh jon onyorokom Bangali (10 different Bengalis)". A lady painter was portrayed there as one's next-door granny who is not only caring but also loves cooking, and moreover breaks into laughter like a child if her guests are found enjoying her delicacies. But Shyamali Khastagir was more than an artist. With several others in JOAR (Jharkhand Organisation Against Radiation), she gave Jadugoda a new strength to fight uranium radiation among impoverished innocent villagers. A lifelong fight against uranium depletion and other issues took her across several countries.

Daughter of pioneering artist Sudhir Khastagir, Shyamali'di even once courted arrest while protesting in front of the White House; she was also instrumental in stopping to flag off a car rally from the Santiniketan Ashram area. During my stay at Santiniketan, I saw her from close quarters; on many an occasion she asked me to arrange shows for films on several subjects like the US invasion in Iraq, how marine ecology was threatened during Gulf War, how people were slow-poisoned by uranium radiation. Doors of her real abode of peace at Santiniketan's Purbapalli were always open to all. People were treated with home-made ladoos or even muri! She used to live a simple life, true to Tagore's ideal. Besides an environmentalist, she was also a friend of the underprivileged. Some years back, i was going to Santiniketan and on the train, i found Shyamali'di sitting pretty by the window. Soon after the train pulled out of Howrah, a hijra — who i knew for several months then — came to ask for alms. As i told the hijra, Kavita, not to beg like this but try to find a private job, as Kavita was a graduate unlike many other hijras, Shyamali'di gave Kavita a hug and invited to meet her at Santiniketan so that Kavita could be given a job, at least vocational training like many others financed by the septuagenarian lady.

Women like Shehla and Shyamali'di are true-life inspiration to me, and of course many others. In their deaths, they made us more responsible to make this planet for a healthier and better tomorrow.