Making of Demo-gods

The importance of any historical event can’t be judged immediately; rather it takes months, or years, to witness the role it plays in the society. Many of us forget the course of events that follows a particular incident, as people’s memory is relatively short. But protests against politicians across India in the last one month remind me of the first such demonstration, though it did not take place in reality, but on screen. In a country where millions swear by the demigods of Bollywood matinee idols, this film took a different course to ask youths not to compromise with politically motivated situations, but put up a brave front against the corrupt leaders.

This piece is not at all a review of the film, but to give an outline of how Rang De Basanti shaped our thought processes. The film is a work of art and fiction. But in reality, people cutting across social lines have learnt to stand united against exploitation and injustice. From the Jessica Lal murder case to carnage in Nandigram — people, especially the middle class, took out protest rallies. This could not be imagined even five years back — of course there were demonstrations against Narendra Modi for Gujarat riots in 2002, but that was not like the one Calcutta witnessed last September/October after the death of a multimedia professional over pre- and post-marital problems with his in-laws.

Politicians came under fire every time there was a terrorist attack; bureaucrats, especially the IPS officers, too had to bear the brunt if there was a whiff of their unlawful involvement in a case; even high-profile businessmen were not spared by the populace. It’s may not be true that Rang De Basanti taught people how to put an agitation programme forward, but the film certainly instilled the courage in them to protest — with candles, and if required, with revolvers too. However, we, the middle class thinking Indians, did show a lot of restraints on our part, as we never shot a politician to death, but numerous candlelight vigils made their cushioned existence shaky.

Now, one Sachin plays for India more than ever; an Aamir sits at Jantar Mantar to show solidarity with Narmada dam oustees; the icons, the stars come down to earth to be with us in hours of crisis where politicians fear to tread. From Gateway of India to India Gate, from Facebook to GTalk status message — people say it with unforeseen courage: f*** the politicians. Virtual communities for proper justice on social networking websites grow everyday; anger spills on to roads making the otherwise smooth rides for political leaders bumpy; religious borders also get blurred even when provocation comes from a section of saffron-clad leaders — some of them are also arrested for deviating from the path of meditation to mayhem in Malegaon. In a word, India stands in unity in crisis today.

The true meaning and implementation of democracy is being unfolded gradually. Voting is not only an exercise done every five years, but also a real tool that may unseat a chief minister, or a septuagenarian home minister with impeccable taste for changing designer apparels even when terrorists rip cities apart and limbs lie scattered on streets! Probably that’s the message Rang De Basanti wanted to convey and that’s why a website is launched with corporate support for voting rights and that’s the reason a cellular company thinks an idea of democracy in its latest ad campaign involving a member of the Bollywood’s first family.

©Supratim Pal

World of Tintin and Feluda

(The following piece is due to be published in an online US magazine early next year)

Every child has its heroes, who may be one of its parents, or a relative or anyone that only s/he can think of. The child wants to grow up idolising the man/woman s/he thinks can play a role in his/her life. This happens quite unknowingly in the toddler’s mind. The real idolising starts once this toddler gets out of his/her 24x7 parental care, say after about four/five years of age.

It happened to me too. My first brush with one of my childhood heroes is still fresh in my mind. The image of a ship on fire on the pages of Anandamela, a well-known Bengali fortnightly for children, is so living a memory that i often forgot that i have passed at least 24 years since that lazy winter afternoon at a steel city home. Red Sea Sharks was the first Tintin adventure i tasted with childhood delight. Who will first read the Tintin — being serialised in Anandamela with a superb translation (though i realised it much later) — was a contentious issue with my elder sister every 14 days. For me, Tintin is a journalist next door who travels from one country to another, and wherever he goes, even for a holiday, his stay there is never without any trouble.

Much the same is with Feluda. Feludar Goendagiri, the private detective’s maiden adventure, was also the first Feluda story i read in my childhood. Didi got Ek Dojon Goppo as a gift (or might be the first prize in her school, i have forgot the exact source) and we read all the stories in turn. Years later when i visited Darjeeling, i went to the mall but not for shopping but to find the bench where Topse used to sit and return with his sun-burnt left cheek! It’s amazing to read then how Feluda could know where Topse sat! I asked Didi a lot about this guy — especially how i could meet him. With years i realised it’s simply next to impossible to meet the detective in person even if i knock the 21 Rajani Sen Road, like Jatayu still does with a packet of hot samosas.

Feluda’s stories are more than adventures, unlike Tintin’s. With Tintin anyone can visualise the place where the reporter is touring. Herge had the rare sort of imagination when he could draw the near-perfect moon launcher — in Destination Moon and Tintin on the Moon — years before Neil Armstrong took the "giant leap of mankind". Some of Tintin’s tales are quite sci-fi stories too, like that of Professor Shanku — a unique character yet to be found in Bengali literature — created by Satyajit Ray. Ray made a conscious difference between Feluda and Shanku, yet at lest two generations grew with both the characters. Those of us born in early eighties were the last fortunate generation to get the fresh taste of a Feluda story or a Shanku one. Our Puja celebrations used to start at least 15/20 days before the elders could actually revel in the autumn fest. The reason was simple: Shanku on Pujabarshiki Anandamela and Feluda on Sharadiya Desh.

Ray, obviously unknowingly, helped spread my range of thought and the horizon of knowledge to a great extent. From a laboratory in Giridih, i used to travel with Shanku, the one-of-his-kind professor, to different cities in the world. With Feluda, i probably learnt to use a revolver also! From Kathmandu to Bombay to Ajanta-Ellora to Madras to Jaisalmer to Hong Kong to London (one of the last Feluda stories) to Benares — there was hardly any place that i did not chase villains like Maganlal Meghraj! I am sure that millions of other kids did the same, and they still do it. Maybe Feluda could no longer be produced on in black-and-white on paper, but the charm would remain so forever. The charm is not because they are mere hero-villain conflict like the famous series created by Ian Fleming, but it’s more than what any common writer would dare to leave an indelible mark in the delicate young minds. Ray did it marvellously, Herge too. During my first reading of Sonar Kella, i came across the term "Kati Patang", as a song, "Yeh jo mohabbat hain", could be heard from the drawing room of 21 Rajani Sen Road. The inquisitive mind in me asked my mother the simple question: What is Kati Patang? She told me it was a film released the year Sonar Kella was written. Later, i found that the film was a Rajesh Khanna blockbuster with the music of the song mentioned by Ray was composed by another legend RD Burman. Moreover, that was the year when my mother got married too! These small personal associations with the book made my reading very special. Every child has some sorts of personal attachment to every book, every character. Children of this generation were seen eagerly waiting in midnight for Harry Potter books, like we used to do that for a piece of Ray for us.

As for Tintin, i still feel no comic strips could have neatly sketched and coloured like that of the reporter’s weird adventures from Chicago to Egypt, Russia to the land of Incas. Last year, while trekking on the Himalayas amid feet of hard snow, we were discussing whether we could spot a yeti and that too waving a yellow scarf like in Tintin in Tibet! While in Class VI, i was asked my didi to fill up a slam book — a popular mode of knowing one’s likes and dislikes in the pre-Orkut/Facebook era — where I wrote that i wanted to be a journalist, a wish driven by no other than the globetrotting little man with Snowy.

Maybe i have ended up being a journalist today, but it’s far from what my childhood hero had achieved! In my profession, questioning from various angles is must — a trick i probably picked up from Feluda! But more than that, my world with them was a learning process — the way of the world, the history of mankind, the time we are living in and more importantly how we approach our future.

©Supratim Pal

Maradona Mania

Maradona could not get a warmer welcome than what he received at Salt Lake stadium in Calcutta on Saturday. Obviously, the sorcerer of soccer was not here to spend an exotic Indian weekend; neither was he here to score a goal against a team. The basic question is: why had he come to Calcutta, a city, for him, known only for Mother Teresa and communists?

Choosing Calcutta over other Indian cities might have roots in its centuries-old tradition of football. Calcutta Cricket and Football Club is one of the oldest clubs established in the then British empire. The event managers for Maradona’s visit probably got this USP right, not the aftermath once the superstar lands here in dead of the night.

That intervening night of Friday-Saturday night when we were returning from office along the VIP Road, local clubs were seen ready to welcome the football great with giant Indian and Argentine flags and newly printed larger-than-life posters of his World Cup-lifting moment. We could not imagine that the next day would be traumatic for Maradona at Salt Lake stadium with brickbats raining on the greens even as commandos safely took Maradona to his hotel.

Mismanagement ruled his visit since the beginning with the windshield of a new fibre-glass bus — specially built for him — developing cracks even before the legend put his famous left foot on it. As a Bengali newspaper questions justification on the Rs 13-crore expenditure just to bring Maradona to Calcutta as an item adorned in a glassed cage, press passes were denied to it. When reporters wanted to cover his visit to Indira Bhavan, where Indian communist patriarch Jyoti Basu stays, they were bashed up by police and alleged supporters of the ruling party. Even TV crew and photojournalists were not spared.

Why this Sunday morning drama? Nobody has an answer. What did an under-developed state of a developing country gain from Maradona’s visit? Where industrialists fear to even open shops (and some are playing open-close-open game like at Sahagunj), where tribals cry for development in their areas, where millions of educated youths can’t even earn Rs 1,000 a month, was such a luxury necessary in such a state? Budding footballers could have learnt a lot if a frontline European club was requested to play a match in Calcutta, below-poverty-line billions could have been provided with proper home and food or even businessmen could have been urged to set up units to offer jobs for unemployed youths. But at the end, this was a story of sheer waste with show of strength by a few politicians and their close aides with no moral in it.

©Supratim Pal

Terror trauma?

Only a handful of youth, all in early twenties, did what even Raj Thackeray could not. Of course, the neo-Thackeray regime did not attack foreigner guests in five-star hotels, but took Mumbai to ransom, much like the 10-odd terrorists, by introducing a hate campaign against people from other parts of India for months. But the secessionist force of MNS fell far short of the terrorists in dividing the country.

Raj, the Thackeray, might have been held responsible for the death of Raj, the youth from Patna killed by police on a BEST double-decker bus. Lalu-Nitish-Ram Vilas, the ministers, might have joined hands to rescue thousands of Lalus-Nitishes-Ram Vilases, the skilled workers in unorganised sector, from the maximum city with minimum security for people from Hindi heartland. Jaya, the Bachchan, might have been criticised for not speaking Marathi although many Marathi homes still have Jayas, the housemaids, from Bihar and UP. But all these could not really divide the country rather all guns were trained against Raj Thackeray, the omnipotent Mumbaikar! It’s more a case of unity than what Raj would wave wanted to do.

The terrorists did what they are best at: introducing terror in the minds of millions of Mumbaikars, who are otherwise known for withstanding adverse situations, be it serial blasts on suburban trains or July 26 rains in 2005. Last week, the terrorists achieved what Mumbai has not seen in recent years. On a Thursday morning all markets, including the famous one in Dalal Street, remained closed; schools and colleges announced holiday; thinly crowded suburban trains as office-goers chose to stay at home and give dabbawallahs a day-off; only innumerable pairs of eyes glued to television sets like trillions worldwide. Scenes like a burning façade of a 105-year-old heritage hotel, commandos rappelling on a building’s roof amid gunshots and rescue operations of hundreds would have etched in our mindscape for years but the dent in great Indian "unity in diversity" would probably be longer than that.

The blame game began the moment after NSG announced all-clear after a 60-odd-hour battle with the terrorists. Politicians came under attack and pressures mounted on them to resign from their plum posts. Within a day or two, several of them quit. The legislative head of one of the most socially progressive state ridiculed a martyr’s family. The Indian media, especially TV channels, were criticised by some people who hardly have any idea of journalism, forget live telecast of one of the historical news moments in recent time. Fissures in the society were drawn by the terrorists as meticulously as the attack was plotted.

In a word, it was pandemonium.

Nobody knew how to react: whether the navy or coast guard would have to be blamed, or the RAW and IB for failure to apprehend such an audacious attack; whether the fashionable home minister should go or more such incidents are necessary to change his suit and seat; whether more funds should be doled out for buying modern gadgets for police, or not; moreover, whether an average courageous Mumbaikar would venture out for another day of business. For a moment, the terrorists left the city, and the country, numb.

©Supratim Pal

Only film, no club?

What’s the purpose of a film society? Is it only to screen films that we may not watch very often, or more than that? Last Thursday, after the screening of Romanian film — 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days — at Santiniketan during the week-long film festival, three of us were discussing what purpose the film had served for Bikshan’s 300-odd members.

Bikshan is an eight-year-old film society started in early 2001 by a few young and veteran ashramites and local residents of Bolpur-Santiniketan. For all these years it has enjoyed good patronage from all sections of people — from octogenarians to students alike. Organising seminars, tete-a-tete with directors, workshops for students and certainly screening good films — it has done a lot to reach out to people of a popular Bengali cultural hub which did witness failed beginnings of film clubs in the past.

What it could not do on a regular basis is conducting interactive “adda” sessions before or after screening a film. This, i feel, is essential for Bikshan or any other cine clubs to make people aware of the film society movement. There are two different ways of approaching this movement. One, just screening quality films for an audience who could not see such movies in their lifetime, but there is another purpose too. This is more of a constructive manner of approaching a film; this carry technical and intellectual overtones. A film like Modern Times of Chaplin could be a kid’s movie, and it could be on the syllabus of a university to show how alienated workers could be during industrial revolution. In fact, i was told by a reporter friend that prior to the Bengal Assembly elections of 2006, Chaplin films were often screened by Maoists in rural areas untouched by development. For the Naxalites, the same films would have served a different purpose that we can’t even think of.

Back to film society movement. I am not saying that all film clubs should take the Drishya route. Drishya, a four-year-old organisation, has trodden a road hardly taken by any one of us. The youngsters of the Calcutta organisation has till date screened films — most in DVD formats — in thousands of villages and small towns in India. Their effort, i would say, is a revolution in the film society movement. They used to talk about the film before screenings, as common people might not make out every detail of an Eisenstein montage or a Ray angle. But after the introduction, screening of the film and subsequent short interactive session, the so-called aam admi would leave the venue with a different set of mind. Why can’t Bikshan initiate such efforts? It can also produce a monthly film bulletin which would include discussions on films — classics and new releases across the world — not just announcing future screenings, as it’s done at present through an irregular newsletter.

Bus blues

For a person from Calcutta who is dependent on public transport system for travelling around, a visit to Nagpur or Patna or any other emerging cities could be an eye-opener as far as commuting is concerned. Calcutta, according to a survey by the Union ministry of urban development, has the highest share of public transport among the 30 cities studied this year.

We don’t know how much fortunate we Calcuttans are. An average daily passenger in Calcutta can avail local rickety decades-old bus, short-distance high speed WBSTC bus, Whiteliner AC bus, back-breaking CSTC bus, overcrowded mini-bus, suburban EMU train (covering 100km to north, 107km to west, 130km to southwest, 60km to south, 75km to east), underground Metro, yellow taxi, AC taxi, black-and-yellow smoke-belching autorickshaws and moreover, a dedicated ferry service on the Ganga throughout the day! How many cities in India would offer so much of transport facilities for common masses?

Still we crave for SUVs and Nanos forgetting that average speed of vehicles on Calcutta streets is merely 18kmph. After the launch of a Rs 1-lakh car, one can easily imagine the congested Calcutta we had never seen before. My intention is not at all to contain the growth of the recession-hit automobile manufacturing sector by requesting fellow Calcuttans not to go for personal cars, but to ask them not to hit the streets — which is just 6 per cent of the total area of the city — with such vehicles to make a chock-a-block condition. Does it take less time to drive from Dum Dum to Tollygunge than taking the Metro? Can’t be. We have a good public transport system, which may not be world class but far batter than any other city has in the country.

What prompted me to write this blog has its roots in my last week’s visit to one of the emerging cities in central India. Hardly there was any suburban train service in the city, which though connects Kanyakumari with Kashmir and Gandhinagar with Guwahati. City bus service was though remodelled with introducing new fleet of Starbuses, it cannot better the revenue generated by two- and four-stroke autorickshaws that ply in several thousands to ferry ever-growing number of passengers. One of the senior journalists i met there possesses a four-wheeler and a motorcycle too. Same is the condition with lakhs of people living there. The streets as usual remain highly congested during the morning and evening peak hours with every mode of personal transport clogging even the arterial roads and flyovers. The only solution lies in developing a proper public transport system, at least like Calcutta to start the process.

Humanity. What's that?

I did not know Rahul till he was shot dead on a Mumbai bus yesterday morning. Everyday, hundreds of people are shot dead in many parts of the world; there is nothing unusual about it, especially for those in our profession who deal with such “stories” day in and day out. But Rahul’s death was not only untimely but also uncalled for.

Last evening, a debate started at our desk whether Rahul Raj — a youth from Patna seeking job in Mumbai — should have been killed by trigger-happy men in khaki. Rahul was not a terrorist, neither he had a criminal past. Yet, the policemen showed him no mercy, as apparently he did not relent to the surrender orders by the men in uniform. His only fault was firing about six rounds from a country-made pistol injuring one on the Mumbai bus on Diwali-eve. It’s nothing serious for .303-toting policemen for being provoked, but their logic to open fire on an employed youth was funnier: Rahul threatened to kill Raj Thackeray.

The basic question is why the policemen did not show restraint. Was Rahul’s crime was more harmful than that of Thackeray’s? While Thackeray was given foolproof security round the clock even after taking the hub of financial activities to ransom for days and unleashing terror on people from Hindi heartland, could not Rahul ask for a bit of humanity? Probably not. First, he did not speak Marathi. Second, he tried his hands on some job in Mumbai apparently kept reserved for people willing to rebuild Maharashtra anew.

When some of us still think it was fully justified to kill an unemployed youth — who had been pushed to that end when all hopes for survival with a Patna tag in Mumbai were thin — on a bus for brandishing gun power, why can’t the police encounter high-profile terrorists jailed in Delhi or Srinagar or Guwahati? Why do we have to see our foreign minister handing over a dreaded terrorist —who had conspired and killed thousands of women and children — for safe release of 100-odd air passengers? Will the terrorists and politicians call the shots and youths hoping to get a job would be killed in acts of cowardice? This is India, a secular, multilingual, multicultural country. Jai Hind!

New age menace?

Mumbai or Mohali? Which one is most headline-grabbing on news channels and papers on October 21?

The day when Dhoni and his men posted an emphatic Test victory over the most powerful cricketing country, the financial capital of India has been doomed to linguistic and cultural chauvinism. How can one believe that a little-known political party takes the "maximum city" to maximum ransom only hours after the arrest of their leader? Has the time come again to witness the mad rush of Hindi-speaking people from towns of Maharashtra like that earlier this year?

What will happen to my numerous friends who make a living in Mumbai? They might not be taxi drivers or coolies at stations, they might have given the chauvinist Marathis a slip to escape their wrath because they are engaged in "soft" jobs; but aren’t they afraid of their survival? The reason is simple: they can’t speak Marathi like the native of Maharashtra. For their everyday work, most of the people from other states living in the cosmopolitan city on the Arabian Sea speak Hindi, as the language has become the national language in the past six decades. People would certainly disagree on whether Hindi should be regarded as the national language, but in a multi-lingual country like India, one needs to be proficient in the principal language of communication within the country. It is still debatable whether Hindi would get similar importance if the national capital is either in Mumbai or Chennai or Calcutta, the city which lost the capital tag in 1911 to Delhi. But no one would rewrite history at this point.

What we should remember is the spirit of being Indian. That should unite us at a time of crisis, especially the present one when the sensex has crashed over 50 per cent in 10 months; particularly when the country has been shockingly expecting for another bomb to rip apart a city or a town; specifically when secessionist movement has spread its tentacles from Kashmir to Darjeeling. Didn’t we feel proud seeing a 35-year-old Marathi is congratulated by his team leader from Hindi heartland after scoring 12,000 Test runs? Why people from all parts of India are raising a toast for the victory against Australia scripted by a young leg-spinner from Haryana, another Hindi-speaking state, in his debut Test? I think the most chauvinist supporter of a Marathi leader is also in a happy state of mind on a morning when India won the Test by 320 runs — a feat not achieved till date. Does he count how many Marathi-speaking player is there in the team? Nobody counts that.

It’s a collective effort that unites India — be it on the pitch of Mohali, be it on the streets of Mumbai. We should aim that keeping our faith in humanity.

Battle for better Ganga

Samiran da’s battle is not for himself, but for the lifeline of a bustling city. The 47-year-old has never grabbed newspaper headlines, but is frightened of reporters. One may wonder when he is on a mission to save the Ganga in Calcutta, why should he be so afraid of newspersons, especially when the latter always support the job he has been doing for the past three years with only three persons.

I met Samiran da on the evening of Dashami (October 9) at Babughat, one of the few ghats on the Ganga where small idols of long tradition are immersed with profound devotion, unlike the idols of big clubs, amid tears. The job of Samiran da and his team was simple. Ask the Puja organisers to separate flowers from the idols so that the Ganga is not polluted and also clean the river of plastic/polythene items. I also thought that there is nothing troublesome in executing the order of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation since a posse of policemen was standing guard with one sub-inspector leading them. Moreover, Calcuttans are known to be law-abiding citizens, particularly on Durga Puja days.

I was proven wrong in five minutes. Only a few Puja organisers were ready to accept that they were committing less sin in dumping flowers a few metres away from the holy river; only a couple of them could have been resisted from throwing polythene bags full of Puja paraphernalia into the middle of the river; only one or two of them controlled themselves from abusing Samiran da and his team in front of the idols they probably worshipped with fullest devotion for four days!

But this year is better, he says with a smile. “Last year, i was slapped and thrashed to the ground before the police rescued me,” Samiran da says, with the smile still on his lips. The incident did not deter him, but his determination was so strong this year that he entered into a verbal duel with a middle-aged lady and later a tall man — not at all gentle — to prevent them from throwing flowers packed in a Westside packet into the river — the source of drinking water for millions. “But i can’t press for more, as it would seem i am hurting their religious sentiment. Who wants a riot on Dashami?” he says.

What struck me more that day were the underprivileged children collecting decorative items and parts of weapons that the idols had. The children also came forward and asked the Puja organisers not to throw the stuff into the river. But the city elders and veterans of Durga Puja were hardly in a mood to listen to the pleas of the kids who are always looked down upon.

Before i made a retreat that evening, i told Samiran da not to be scared by reporters, as they also portray his good work in black and white.
©Supratim Pal

Struggle & comfort

They were a group of six waiting for Puja organisers to approach them at Sealdah station on the eve of the five-day annual extravaganza. Calcutta, for them, is a dream destination.

This year, the journey to Calcutta has been doubly important for them, as their homes were washed away by a man-made flood in their East Midnapore village near Kanthi (Contai). The man-made flood — as water was suddenly released from a dam that wiped out several villages from the earth — struck them twice, once in late June and another in August. They tried to build new homes in high places, but their efforts were all in vain. Their primary source of livelihood — agriculture — was no longer sustainable with cultivable land was lost in the flood. So were the foodgrain stored in granaries.

In the weeks before Puja when we were busy swiping cards at swanky malls, they spent the nights in tents put up by voluntary organisations and NGOs. “The government hardly took care of us. Had there not been the missions, we would die of hunger,” says Sadhan, with tears almost rolling down the cheeks. What could you tell them on that Saturday afternoon (October 4) — the last weekend for Puja shopping? When three youngsters sporting Reebok T-shirts and Nike sneakers approached them to hire for the five days, the villagers told the city brags that they can’t do it less than Rs 12,000. Obviously, the youth — probably representing a club — turned down the demand of the group of six — who had only arrived that Mahapanchami morning from Kanthi. They could not afford tickets to sit inside the bus, so they took the painstaking six-hour journey from their village to the City of Joy travelling rooftop amid drizzling. Some sheets of polythene could only save them, their belongings —which are in fact their seasonal source of income —from the smart shower.

Well, i do not organise a Puja and could not help the hapless six. But talking to them when it was raining outside Sealdah station was a revelation to me: we crib about our work even sitting in the comfort of AC; we remain eternally dissatisfied with our CTC; we don’t like the design of our shirts and trousers even at Pantaloons. What do we want? We have homes that were not obliterated from the city; we have jobs that are not threatened during the rains every year; we have chelo kebabs waiting for us that is not as simple as khichdi at relief camps ... we have everything they don’t have. Is it the Marxist concept of “haves” and “have nots”? Probably yes.

Still they manage to make us happy with the unique rhythm they create with dhaaks. They are the dhaakis who never come to the fore. How many times have we asked the name of a dhaaki at a Puja pandal? We note down the name of the sculptor or the interior decorator or the person in charge of theme-based illumination outside the pandals. We easily forget them after Dashami and they again make their return journey back home, probably to remote villages in Kanthi or Murshidabad or Burdwan even when we know a Durga Puja would remain incomplete without them!
©Supratim Pal

Her Story

It’s a story of a young Muslim woman married to a Hindu after years of spending days together. The story began about a decade ago when the teenager fell in love with the boy of an affluent Hindu family of Calcutta. She, being only about 17/18, could not but be excited about her new-found love; little did she know then that it was the beginning of a long battle.

His family was so-called “progressive”, as she discovered after several visits to their Baguiati home. Her family, as Indian society sometime says, is rather “conservative”, as her parents were against the relationship since its inception. During the years of courtship, she never faced any problem from her boyfriend’s family. In fact, her eventual mother-in-law supported them in the troubled years when she almost waged a war against her family staying on the northern fringes of the City of Joy.

About four years ago, the young woman — an MSc in anthropology — tied the knot with the man of her life — a brilliant student from one of the prestigious IITs of the country. Soon after marriage, she was asked by her in-laws to change the religion of her birth. Obviously, the rebel in her did not budge. She left the “progressive” home of her in-laws to pursue BEd in Jadavpur University — seat of the 20th century Renaissance in Bengal.

There began another battle — now not against families, but society at large. First, the Muslim woman was literally thrown out of the hostel by the same group of girls who talk feminism, bring out magazines for women’s rights and take out rallies even for tortured housewives! With a suitcase and mattress, she knocked the door of one of the paying guest owners in the area, a posh south Calcutta address. “Sorry, we don’t allow Muslim woman to stay with us,” came the reply from the house-owner, rather owners, as the number was many.

We live in a free democratic secular society — of which Calcutta and Jadavpur University are known to be its citadels!

At last she — her husband was then away posted in a company outside Bengal — cleared her one-year BEd course from one of her generous friend’s houses. At present, she is in a West Midnapore railway town with her husband. The government school where she is now a teacher, is not that “progressive” like its Calcutta counterparts, but the school at least has not made her life “hell”.

Let Id brings joy to her family and the newcomer she is carrying now.
©Supratim Pal

Homecoming

For many of us, the days before the annual autumn festival are probably the best time of the year. At least for Bengalis who stay away from home for most part of the year. Some of my friends also change their Orkut identity to “Pujo@Calcutta”, or “Only a few days away”.

When i was a boy of 12/13, i could see black-gray clouds making way for white ones even as we were busy preparing for revision test or half-yearly exam. The day the revision test ended, i used to pack our bedding and books as soon as possible and keep on waiting for my mother to take me out from the place we call hostel to an open place what people call WORLD.

Ours was a small world inside the high walls of Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Narendrapur. When we took the bus either to Sealdah or Sonarpur (the nearest big railway station), i could feel that something had changed in the past three/four months: one or two new residential complexes, some new shops (mall culture was not there like it’s now), and moreover the bustling markets at Gariahat and Sealdah where Puja shoppers browsing shirts and skirts alike.

I used to go for countdown, like most of us. It usually started about 25/0 days before the day we were scheduled to go for a month-long vacation. Yesterday, my nephew Sabaan (real name Rajarshi) told me: “Mamai, ar aat din (It’s only eight days away).” Sabaan stays at Santiniketan and he knows like the past two years his D-Day (D= Departure from routine life) would be the night of Mahalaya when they organise Ananda Bazaar at Gourprangan. For a nine-year-old boy like him, there is no pressure of revision test, but the fun of going home and enjoy the best time of the year with his mother and grandparents.

Sabaan reminds me my days or years away from home. On dewy mornings at Narendrapur, i could smell Shiuli — the same flower that used to bloom with its unique fragrance at our Barasat home. On misty late afternoons at Santiniketan, i would watch in wonder the colours a sky could offer even after sunset like that in Dattapukur. In September 1999, i was returning home soon after the floods that devastated Birbhum, Burdwan and other south Bengal districts. From the train i could see huts still submerged, one or two makeshift boats carrying flood victims and the grim scenes that would etch in my mind forever. But amid all these, two frames that i still carry with me is one that of a boy flying kite from the roof of his deltaic single-storey house at low-lying flooded Guskara, and the other were the branches of Kash kissing the Santiniketan Express near Khana. I could feel Durga Puja was near.

Call for Peace

Another weekend, another series of blasts rips through city markets teeming with crowd preparing to celebrate the annual festive season of Id-Dussehra-Diwali.
Another series of blasts, another evening of "breaking news" beaming on TV sets in drawing rooms of people busy drinking a peg of whiskey or smoking a cigar.

What to do? How can we react? Is there a chance of our survival? Who will secure our lives — the politicians? Or the rifle-toting jawans keeping a close eye on our movements? Or the people themselves? That is the first question came to my mind after Delhi 9/13. Are we heading for 9/11 or the numbers are just getting blurred with sheer intensity of the blasts that very often shake Karachi, Lahore, Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and of course Srinagar. Are the cities safe anymore? Should we head for villages then?

Who is to blame? Who will take responsibility for scores of innocent lives lost in a moment? A press release would have been faxed or an email sent to media houses across the country, or even the world over, stating some terrorist groups have taken the responsibility of the blasts; condolence notes from the President and other VIPs would pour in; investigation committees would be formed; and above all people like us would again hit the road the next morning with a new hope to bury the past and "life must move on".

But think of the girl in jeans and tee being carried from Karol Bagh blast area to a hospital while the blackish-red substance still oozing out from her injured body parts. Most of us don’t know who she is; neither did we try to know whether she survived or not. By now, her family members would have been shattered: whatever was the outcome of her fate. Think of the teenaged boy who went to see the laser show in Lumbini Park in Hyderabad in August last year for the first time before something rocked the gallery to kill him on the spot. Think of the woman in green sari on an Ahmedabad road "sleeping" upside down: the only sign that she won’t wake up again was her head in a pool of blood.

Think of the thousands of frames of bloodshed that we have accustomed to watch since that "Terror Tuesday" evening on plasma screens installed on our beige walls. The scene of a plane hitting one of the world’s tallest buildings that morning in Manhattan, followed by another aircraft full of passengers crashing into its adjacent tower is quite fresh in our mindscape.

Seven years. But i am still scared. Probably, this fear would give birth to courage to move on with life, no matter how much threatened the existence is. Being coward won’t help rather we should gain strength from people around us; people with creative minds, constructive wishes and an intention to care fellow human beings.

©Supratim Pal

Little steps towards humanity

Last year, I wrote about two schoolgirls who approached me at the Science City auditorium with the request to hand over their little purse to the rickshaw-puller in Balurghat who takes care of education of village girls on the outskirts of the Dinajpur town.

This year, during the same event — The Telegraph School Awards for Excellence — the audience were stunned to hear the announcement by Barry O’Brien that students of Loreto contributed in the fund created by The Telegraph Education Foundation for scholarships to be awarded. The contribution may not be a huge amount, but the generosity and fellow feeling of girls of a Calcutta convent — from where one Skopje-born girl became Mother Teresa some 60 years ago — are truly inspiring. The girls created the fund with small savings from their tiffin money they used to get everyday.

The aim of the awards ceremony was never to shower cash awards on meritorious students, but to recognise efforts of little brave hearts. In its 13th year, the event bore more fruit than ever before with students joining hands to help each other, teachers of a little-known school donating a month’s salary to start a scholarship or a poet’s 60km journey from Jamshedpur to Purulia every weekend for decades to start an ashram for Santhal students with lakhs of trees around.

Take the example of Krishna Pada Bhattacharya. A year after the Quit India Movement, a 35-year-old man with a vision to change the face of rural Bengal came from Karimpur in Nadia to Nekurseni in Midnapore (now West Midnapore) to join as station master at the small halt on the Howrah-Madras (now Chennai) line.

The station master, Krishna Pada, believed that a school and hospital could uplift the lives of villagers, mostly tribals on the Bengal-Orissa border, about 165km from Calcutta. With some like-minded friends, he established Nekurseni Vivekananda Vidyamandir, which was upgraded to a high school 14 years later. When the first batch passed school final (matriculation exam) in 1960, tears rolled down his cheeks. Throughout his career spanning over decades, the station master did not leave the village even when he was offered promotion because he wanted to involve with the school and the hospital built later till the last day of his life. Today, the 90-year-old is still going strong with the firm conviction that villagers too can be enlightened with education and healthcare. This year, Krishna Pada was inducted in the Hall of Fame of the foundation with a contribution of Rs 50,000 to the school so that it can build a girls’ hostel on its campus.

The annual awards ceremony —held on the last Saturday of August — leaves us with the message of serving humanity, not always demanding Rs 2,000-tagline Nike shoes or a pair of Levi’s jeans, as told by Barry on August 30 morning, from our parents.

(Links to some of the news reports related to the event that appeared in The Telegraph)
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080831/jsp/frontpage/story_9767961.jsp
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080831/jsp/calcutta/story_9759845.jsp
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080901/jsp/calcutta/story_9766726.jsp
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080901/jsp/calcutta/story_9766727.jsp
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080901/jsp/siliguri/story_9770271.jsp
http://telegraphindia.com/1080911/jsp/calcutta/story_9811499.jsp

Different Take

(I was on a visit to CMC, Vellore, for about 10 days; hence the irregular blog)

Thousands of patients from across the country, especially the eastern and north-eastern parts, come to a south Indian town everyday just to consult a doctor. It may sound weird, as it tends to prove that proper healthcare has not reached to the nook and corner of India, being a third-world country. True it is. But how does CMC, Vellore, differ from the rest of the medical institutions in India? Just because it provides best of the medicare or is there something different at the core of it?

I tried to figure out an answer to the question, as hospitals like Apollo, Asia Heart Foundation, government-run AIIMS, Tata Hospital among others are also doing great jobs as far as quality treatment is concerned. CMC, established and being run by Christian missionaries, has more of a heart of service to people than the commercial venture of a multi-speciality medical hub. Besides the latest technical nitty-gritty of medical science, the college also teaches service to mankind. Probably that is the reason a gold-medallist paediatrician like Binayak Sen, one of its alumni, could venture into the remote parts of a backward state like Chhattisgarh in barefoot to set up camps and small medical units to serve the village poor.

Probably that is the reason people from all religions can pray together at the chapel inside the hospital or light a few candles there not for one’s own relatives only, but also for humanity at large. At its heart, CMC believes in service in the true sense of the word. I have hardly seen a person cry even when the condition of his relative admitted there is critical. They pray to Jesus; most of them like the Hindu way, touching His feet. Religions mingle at CMC, the sea of humanity meets at its steps. When i donated blood there on August 21, i felt the same sense of helping another person — who i would probably never know, never meet. I was touched at the way the hospital, one of the biggest and busiest in India, renders service to people 24x7.

Why so much?

How much protection does a common Indian need to survive in this terror-ridden country?
Ask a commuter who takes the suburban train to office regularly. S/he would certainly say that office-goers like him/her have no option but to leave everything to Almighty. The reason is simple: hardly a policeman could be spotted on the trains that too during the morning and evening peak hours.

Ask the same question to one who takes the underground Metro for regular travel. S/he would say the carbine-toting policemen at the entry to the stations at least provide them with some sense of security. To this day, India has not witnessed a terrorist attack on either the Calcutta or Delhi Metro, unlike the Tube in London. Higher level of security at Metro stations instils a safety quotient in us.

Ask the person, who has just come out in the open on the road from Metro, the same question. Again, insecurity creeps in; if there is a bomb hidden in the bicycle parked on the pavement. Yesterday, an incident on the 2338 Santiniketan Express proved that people are more aware than ever before. A guy comes with a blue middle-sized bag to take a seat opposite me in one of the unreserved coaches of the superfast train. No sooner had the train pulled out of Bolpur than a man seated by the window raised an alarm, as the person could not be spotted but only his blue bag. I asked him to ask the person talking over cellphone standing on the door whether it was him who kept the bag on the seat. He confirmed, and all of us, about 15 by then, heaved a sigh of relief.

Basically, it is our responsibility to thwart terror attacks, especially when the intelligence bureau and men in khaki fail to protect us time and again. Our office has also joined the bandwagon of being paranoid of a possible attack — from Mujahideens to Maoists. I don’t know why. Maybe i am too inexperienced to understand the network of things: from terrorists plotting a strike on a newspaper’s office to frisking female employees on the footpath!

Could the private security guards wearing different shades of blue prevent a white Toyota laden with explosives from ramming into the palatial white house, our office, like that in the Indian embassy in Kabul last month? Perhaps not. Had this happened, 9/11 would not ever take place. So is 7/7, 7/ 11... the list is endless, as usual. If a terrorist organisation wants to deal a blow, there is hardly any machinery that can secure our lives. But our awareness can do and for this, we don’t need metal detector, but a good mental space laden not with RDX, but a sense of humanity; feeling for fellow human beings; caring for good earth that we live in.

Remembering Niranjan da - II

Symbols say it all — a screeching brake to a dynamic life, a sense of void leading to days of mourning. The chair in the picture will be occupied by someone else in some other time; the ashtray too will be used by another person to stub a Wills stick into it; the flowers will wither in a few days. But on that Friday morning (August 1), when the ambience was more than morose at the Deomel seminar hall, i took this picture at the room where NM used to take a puff after a double period of about 90 minutes. With a small garden outside the window, the place gave NM his source of poetic energy between classes. In fact, everyone at the condolence meet said that NM had more poetic self than his self as a teacher. Was this the reason that the poet NM could have foreseen death was knocking his doors? Why could the man say that he was feeling no longer at home in Santiniketan, just a few days before his sudden death? Why did he tell Singhji of Hindi department that their joint project would never be finished even when 70 per cent of the work was complete? Is it because he could “see” death? Was he aware that this time he would have to lose a battle to “proud death”? Are poets saints? Can they see future? Can they feel what’s going to happen? Maybe yes.

A human being like NM was rare in this world. From the rickshawpullers to vegetable vendors, from a grade IV staff of the university to the vice-chancellor, i was told later, went to see NM lying at the PM hospital covered with a white piece of sheet. Why was he so popular among all classes of people in Santiniketan? Santiniketan is not a city, but it has every character of a cosmopolitan town also. Those who know Santiniketan for a long time — not just weekend visits — would say that although it has a balm-like effect to every illness, sometimes it also behaves quite rude too. But to NM, this place was never that rude. NM was an outsider — he was not at all an ashramite in “niketani” sense; i have never seen him attending mandir on Wednesdays; never had i seen him in the crowd on Barshamangal evening at Natyaghar. Then why and how could he win hearts of hundreds of ashramites and people in Tagore’s town? Only because he was a great human being with a kind heart that gave space to everyone — from a teenaged student to tea-seller; from a professor driving four-wheeler to Mantu da riding a ramshackle rickshaw. One needs a unique heart to feel these all; a self not only for personal gains, but for humanity at large.

©Supratim Pal

Click on the link below to find tributes to NM by Deomelites. http://www.orkut.co.in/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=19848648&tid=5228288192276467117&start=1

Remembering Niranjan da

(Sometime we break away from rules set by us. I didn’t want to publish this blog midweek, but had to do it before next Monday)

The journey began one winter evening when he told us how the “distance between Berhampur and Bolpur is zero”. That was the topic he was given to speak on at the navin-baran (freshers’ welcome) in 1999. Being a fresher at Deomel, Niranjan da was given a perfect welcome along with us, the BA-I students of 1999-2K. For him, Santiniketan was not merely an abode of peace, but a place where he could pen a few poetic lines and share that with students, could ride his scooter without a helmet at 60kmph, could sing Rafi on an evening when he was in his best of mood, or could try his hand in his brand new Zen and bang that into bushes opposite our Vidya Bhavan hostel, and smiling even after that. Not because he was unhurt, but for a simple reason that he enjoyed his child-like innocent self.

Smile is something that never disappeared from his face. Even when some of us scored poor in one of the internals, he used to get quite serious while explaining to him/her what had gone wrong, but never forgot to wish his student best of luck for future with a pat and smile. He introduced us to the world of John Donne and Jayanta Mahapatra; Keats and Kamala Das; the list is endless. Poetry was his forte. I was fortunate enough to interact with him on many a lonely afternoon he spent at his Shyambati quarter; finishing reading a poem, he told me to critically appreciate it — a skill i learnt from him in BA-I. I remember the Godhra days when he was visibly pained at the turn of events in faraway Gujarat in 2002; back home, poverty in KBK districts — Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput — in Orissa prompted him to pay tribute to hunger with a poem crafted from his witty self.

“What are you doing this afternoon?” he used to ask me on Wednesday mornings, “Let’s have lunch together. Come over to my place after finishing studies.” He did not listen to my pleas that my lunch either in the hostel or at Subodh da’s would have to be cancelled, which neither Sagar da at the kitchen nor Subodh da would take with a smiling face like him. Reaching Niranjan da’s flat, say any of the Wednesdays, i was treated first with, not chicken or mutton, but a long poem of his “tiger” series, or a love poem mingled with loneliness. “Ektu agey ses korlam, dekh to kemon hoyechhe. Por... jor e jor e por... (Just finished the poem. Read it aloud)”. But where is the food? Then he used to cook with help from a student who hardly knew how to boil rice. Needless to say, our lunch would be less spicy and simple. I knew Niranjan da would take rest after lunch, but not before a puff. Again, over a Gold Flake King Size he used to tell me how Jibanananda and Tagore influenced his poetry.

He knew very well that “smoking is injurious to health”, but could not give it up completely. I told him many a time, especially after the early-morning heart attack following a dinner of hilsa at one of his colleague’s place, that this was high time he should quit smoking. But he won’t relent. Even i threatened him that i would call up Boudi and tell her about your smoking habits. Again, the child-like self would overshadow his self of a professor: “Please Supratim, don’t do this. Je kodin achhi, ektu bhalo korei thaki. (Let me enjoy the life to its fullest).” Now i repent; i apologise to Boudi, Mamna and Babi for not being strict with him; perhaps it would not leave us in a world without Niranjan da today. Rather i would have dropped in his Berhampur home to find a happy and ever-smiling Boudi preparing breakfast for Bodhisattwa da and me like that on a July 2002 morning.

Six years down the line, another July, another phone call from Achyut, another piece of news from a sleepy Jharkhand town to a cellphone at bustling Esplanade made me silent for some moments. I could not believe my ears. But i had to believe, for reality is always hard and shocking. Achyut reminded me of several incidents: the close bonding we had with Niranjan da. One particular incident was to receive him at Bolpur station at the dead of the night. I told Achyut on July 28 the train would chug in again this night also, but we don’t need to wait for NM to come out of the AC-III coach anymore with a huge suitcase after one of his lectures delivered at some university in another part of the country. No one would say us at 1am, “Let’s have a cup of tea here and then take a rickshaw back home.”

No one would tell me at the end of a reunion at Deomel: “Telegraph ekhono poetry er column ta resume korlo na. Dekh na ekbar kichhu kora jay kina. (Why The Telegraph hasn’t resumed the poetry column?).” For him, it’s poetry everywhere. He wanted to live a life with ananda, joy; in death too — as i was told by Sahana di that Monday night from Pearson hospital that NM was apparently in deep slumber without a tinge of pain on his face — he lives a life with ananda. I still want to see that face, smiling and caring, Niranjan da.
©Supratim Pal

Old man and the sea of inhumanity

On a late winter evening show at Geetanjali in Bolpur this year i went to watch Taare Zameen Par, by then already an acclaimed film that had made critics open their pens with a different tone, teachers and parents watching it over and over just to get the bottom of the psychology of a dyslexic child. In fact, my eight-year-old nephew Rajarshi who stays in a residential school founded by Rabindranath Tagore was gaga about Ishan Awasthy, the lead role played by Darsheel Safari, with whom Rajarshi certainly found close resemblance in his state of mind when a special screening was organised at their hostel in December ’07.

Back to the show at Geetanjali. A dhoti-punjabi-clad 79-year-old man silently entered the theatre with his wife and took their seats just a few rows in front of ours. For a person like me who is in touch with Tagore’s Abode of Peace for the past 10 years or so, the aged couple were no strangers. But i didn’t disturb them thinking i’d rather talk to them after the film was over. But even before Aamir Khan made a screen appearance towards the half-way through the film, i saw the old man taking out a hanky, taking off specs and wiping tears off his cheeks, especially when Ishan’s parents were coming back to Mumbai after dropping him at the Panchghani school. But this was not the first occasion, neither was it the last one. When the movie moved to its fag end and Ishan got recognition for his unique talent, i watched the couple behaving restlessly out of discomfort in watching a scene that moved their heart but they could not just cry in public. Because he was not after all the "Iron Man" L.K. Advani who could not hold back tears during a special screening at a New Delhi auditorium on another winter evening. As soon as the film was over, i went over to the couple, asking the old man: "So, have you become an Advani?" Without getting irritated at my question, he replied with a soft, but commanding, voice: "Do you think only Advaniji can feel it in his heart? Don’t forget, we are all human beings." Before asking me some other questions, he told me to do something so that TZP could be sent to the Oscars. "Why don’t you write something about the film? Everyone around the world should watch it," precise was the message with a tone that only speaks of humanity.

I met him first in 2003 when i requested him to attend a quiz contest organised as part of the three-day anniversary celebrations of Geetanjali Cultural Complex. But he could not come in the afternoon as he was not quite well at that time. Probably that was a mid-September day. That evening, there was a cultural show as part of the celebrations when Arati Mukherjee and Indrani Sen, both well-known singers of Bengali modern songs, performed. Being the anchor of that evening, I observed from close quarters how the old man, seated in the front row, reacts to the songs, especially a late evening performance by popular Bengali band Chandrabindoo. When Anindya, one of the lead singers, asked for his permission whether the members and the audience can dance to their numbers, he promptly said: "Why not? As far as a basic discipline and decorum is maintained, nobody is harmed, what’s the problem?" Needless to say, Anindya and the audience had gone crazy.

Discipline he taught many, including leaders of people, as nobody could ever question his integrity, except the CPM which "summary" expelled him last week. Even upholding the Constitution, Somnath Chatterjee was not conforming to the constitution of a party with which he had over 40 years of relationship till July 23, 2008. At least that’s what the countrymen are being told by leaders who never dared to face people except in rallies. Ballot battle was never their ground but Somnathbabu won people’s heart, and not just once or twice, but 10 times — ranging from constituencies in upscale south Calcutta to rural backdrop of Bolpur.
©Supratim Pal

Art for our sake!

Last week i wrote about Dipu, a teenager busy doing an animation in one remote village studio near Santiniketan. Before switching over to another topic, i would like to introduce another gifted teen, Ganesh.
Ganesh has a brother, named Kartik — in resemblance to the Hindu mythology. While Kartik is a relatively good at studies, Ganesh did not come up with great result in the exams. But that did not keep his guardians worried because he has become a pro in ceramics.

Considering his age, this was no little a success. In this picture Ganesh, about 15, is seen busy at his wheel at Sisutirtha when i visited him one monsoon afternoon.
I did not disturb him, neither i spoke a word with him before i saw what he made with his skill intertwined with inherent talent. I don’t know whether his forefathers were great masters of the art, but if they are not, Ganesh has initiated a tradition that would not be easy to follow. He is yet to hold an exhibition, but the works of art call for a public display. I was told that plans are afoot for an exhibition soon.

Just take a look at this picture showing his creation at an adjacent room to his 7ftX6ft studio. Obviously these are not for sale to public — a common skill he is not gifted with — but i asked his guardian whether i could take some pictures of his masterpieces which i believe would worth crores one day. I know it is too early to declare such a thing, for i am no Nostradamus. But how many boys have you seen of his age to come up with such pieces? I have not found much.
Like Dipu, Ganesh is also an orphan left by his relatives at Sisutirtha, Santiniketan. But with people like you and me around them, these hapless boys never felt alone. All they need is support from us, not only financially, but more of a mental support. We can still make a better world involving them in our sphere.
©Supratim Pal

Teenage prodigy

He is all of 17, or maybe even a few months less than that. He has started on an animation project, all by himself — from generating idea to drawing the storyboard, among others. The other day I was floored by what he conceived: a story of migrating birds. Thousands of migratory birds visit Santiniketan, where he lives, every winter. In fact the track of the birds is just over his home at Tagore’s abode of peace. It’s his keen observation that prompted him to start on his maiden adventure in the domain of animation.

A male bird and his female counterpart come to Ballavpur, the nesting site of the birds, a village about 3km from Santiniketan. The mother bird lays egg, and in about a month or so, a chick is born. Now, when scorching summer sets in the laterite-rich picturesque landscape of Birbhum, will the chick be able to fly out, like its parents, to the northern part of the globe? Or will it suffer alone in the heat and dust of Santiniketan and its surroundings?

This concept is unique. So is the situation Dipu, the teenager, could think of. Dipu was orphaned when he was five/six years old, and has been staying at Sisutirtha in Santiniketan since then. About six years ago, he enthralled a packed hall in Calcutta with his rendition of Rabindrasangeet. Later, a cassette and CD were also recorded with his voice and his fellow inmates at Sisutirtha. Now Dipu is into animation. Whatever little I saw of him, made me think that he is a prodigy with a sharp mind.

At present, he is working day in and day out on the project, which needs support from us. Support not only financially, but also mental too. I visited Sisutirtha recently and asked his instructor-cum-warden-cum-whatever-not Rabi da — he is one of the principal forces to make Sisutirtha running for years — what help I could render to them, especially Dipu. They only need to upgrade the RAM of the new computer — it was gifted a couple of months back — to 2GB so that Dipu and others can work on the animation project, and the future ones, fast.

A 2GB RAM I can gift him anytime, but can we give them something more?
© Supratim Pal

Any lessons?

Nadal and Federer. When two of the current icons of world sports were locked in a battle of nerves for close to five hours (4hr, 48min) last night, the world around the Centre Court was waiting with patience. Nobody expected the match would progress to the 62nd game — surpassing the 1954 record of longest Wimbledon men’s singles final with 58 games — and beyond 9pm local time. Though interrupted by rain — longest being 81 minutes after Nadal won the first two sets (6-4, 6-4) and was down with 4-5 in the third — the spectators, including the legendary Borg, were still waiting whether a miracle could be witnessed. Miracle they saw. Miracle that was Nadal, only the third man in open era to claim that he is the king on both clay and grass courts.

For the country on the east of Atlantic, two successive Sundays were probably the biggest ever sporting feats achieved in recent times. Spain does not play cricket, neither it is known for any great chess player. Slow is probably not its passion. The country, known best for its national sports bull-fighting, has revolutionised the way games are being played. Be it in politics or on the grass pitches. Have you ever heard of a fast-moving country with centuries-old of tradition and heritage could appoint a lady its defence minister? Can India ever do that?

Well, let’s not compare such silly things. Let’s talk sports. Can India ever be the Asia champion, a la Euro? In soccer? From an over billion-odd population, we found 11 strong and able footballers who have helped India to get the 153rd spot on the Fifa rankings. Well, we are not even champion in cricket, nor even in Asia (India lost the Asia Cup final to Sri Lanka by 100 runs), although the game is widely marketed with generating crores of revenue every year. What can be done to turn a Dhoni (incidentally, today is his birthday) into a say, David Villa, or a Torres from a Tendulkar? But we are a proud nation, especially in sports. Reasons: besides stars with the bat and ball we have Anand, Paes, Sania. We also have Dola Banerjee or Mangal Singh Champia — no matter a very few people have heard of their names!

Is it that we lack a steely nerve like that of Federer who can only concede to Nadal after denying him four championship points last night? Perhaps.

© Supratim Pal

Fragrance Fanatic!!

What’s your favourite smell? This question came to me last month with a chain mail that asked a whole lot of small, but interesting, queries about the responder. The idea is to send the mail to your friends and wait for their reply. My favourite smell, for years, has been the first drops of rain on a hot April afternoon. One might say, for that particular incident to take place, and the subsequent scent, you have to wait a whole year. But isn’t it natural that the thing one likes most should not happen very often?
Another natural smell that i like most is that of petrol! I know that people might not agree with me to this... but the smell of raw petrol is awesome. I have never seen a musk deer in the forests, let alone smell it, except when it comes with some talcum powder or after shave lotions or deodorant sprays! What other natural smells i like? Valley of flowers. No i am yet to trek to the famous Garhwal landscape, but i am talking about any valley full of flowers like that in Gairibas in the eastern Himalayas.
This evening, it was another smell that left me speechless. I think that this one is too old for me, as it has been with me since March 4, 1980. I was watching Padakshep, a film, with my mom sitting beside me. Once when she put her hand on my back, i could smell it....my Ma. This touch was perennial, so as the smell. No other fragrance — no matter how costly it is — can ever match this invaluable one. I also discovered a new smell recently, incidentally like the old one, while watching a movie. I rubbed my nose with the arm of the person and found that was splendid to drive me crazy. But i restrained myself, thinking if i can get another aromatic substance better than this. It’s difficult to smell a rose in everything, but let’s try to make everything more aromatic.
©Supratim Pal

Spring Fest

From “khol dwar khol” to “rangiye diye jao” is a short but significant journey to the carnival of Santiniketan. For us, who have some association with the abode of peace set up by Tagore, cannot help but wait eagerly for the moon-lit night of the spring; for the fun-filled morning of a warm winter; for the colourful joyous ceremony of Vasantotsav.
This year when I chose not to venture into the Holi hues at Santiniketan, but to keep glued to Star Ananda — a Bengali news channel which telecast live of the morning’s proceedings at Ashram Matth to my drawing room — I felt just nostalgic. Nostalgia not only of the colours of Vasantotsav, but remembering those with whom I enjoyed the day for six successive years.
For a so-called uninitiated student of Visva-Bharati, I could have felt uneasy eight springs ago, but did not. The nature of Santiniketan is such that even an alien from the moon can mingle with the environment in no time. It gives the space for one’s self to grow and fit into the things that bind us together: amra jethay mori ghurey, se je jayna kobhu durey, moder moner majhey premer setar badha je tar surey (Wherever we go, it does not move away from us; its tune unites our hearts with love and affection). This is Santiniketan: where people come from places rarely heard of, it’s the melting pot of cultures. In 2000, I remember, our French teacher Samuel riding a cycle smeared in colour. The next year, he was joined with his French friend Thebo — white kurtas turned pink-red-green-yellow!
While we, students of Deomel, used to form small groups in front of Sri Sadan and Chaitya, “botu”s [Botu – boka (stupid) tourists] thronged Amrakunja and Kalobari. Some were clueless about the weird celebrations — of abir, no gulal — started by the grand old bearded man of lal-mati. Some of those who travelled night-long from Calcutta, Siliguri, Ranchi among many other places just to be there on that morning at Gourprangan — the place where the fest used to start before it moved to Ashram Matth this year — became impatient and began playing abir and gulal instantly. But we are not “others”!
For us, after the initial get-together in front of Sri Sadan — the Plus Two and undergrad girls’ hostel — some of us moved to Chhatrabas — the Patha Bhavan boys’ hostel — where ex-students stage an informal programme for the next one hour. The rendezvous with rong (colour) did not end there, but took us all the way to another end of the Ashram Matth — Kala Bhavan. There, the giant stage where usually would-be Husains and Tyeb Mehtas had their morning-afternoon-evening rounds of coffee culture, played Holi host to a whole gamut of fine arts students — present and former all in the same mood. I was never a student of either Patha Bhavan or Kala Bhavan, but I had good rapport with friends and teachers of the two most internationally known places of learning. Hence, no question of feeling outcast, but one of their very own!
I hardly know a Bengali who has never spent a single day of their life amid abir in Santiniketan. Those who are yet to get a taste what Santiniketan can offer on a day when the rest of India play gulal and grease, must visit the place once, but with the right frame in mind.

Birthday Gift

What are the birthday gifts you got this year? Or the year past? Or since your childhood? We hardly remember all of them. I cannot recall every precise one too.
But some of the gifts — like a book or a pen or a memento — I can remember. In 2005, I got a surprise gift from one Devdan Mitra. It was March 3, my birthday-eve and one of my close friends was planning to celebrate it in our way — hitting Bhalo-Mondo, a mud-walled thatch-roofed restaurant at Santiniketan. Suddenly, about 3 in the afternoon, this Mitra — Mitra in Bengali stands for friend too — called me up on my Reliance cellphone. I met this 40-something only twice — once on January 3 and another on January 20 that year. So I was a bit taken aback. How on the earth he could know my birthday the next day? Why should he wish me greetings — like my other friends? Anyway I took the call. Came that surprise gift: a voice quite cool, yet serious. Stern. “You have been selected to work with my desk at The Telegraph.” Precise was the message. I stood stunned. I was taking a short nap at that time; I thought it must be daydream! But it was not.
Once I got a toy guitar from two angry young men — one was my elder sister’s Hindustani classical teacher and another my table pundit! This was in 1987. In 1992, a year after I was admitted to one of the prestigious institutions — Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Narendrapur — in Class V, I got Ramakrishna Kathamrita (the sayings of Ramakrishna) as my gift from my parents. Books and pens I used to get from my elder sister on most of the birthdays. In 2001, I managed to get a Parker from her too. She is quite nice with gifts and never ever missed a single birthday to send her greetings through a letter or over the phone or sending an SMS.
Well, this year another surprise was in store for me. The desk at where I am working since the call made by Devdan, is so energetic and youthful that a separate file is saved in our archive noting birthdays of each and every member of the team. We don’t miss the birthdays; we celebrate the days with a midnight cake party; followed by an evening one when the b’day boy/girl becomes kalpataru — a mythological creature who gives away whatever one wishes. Usually, the evening party is full of biryani or chowmein or momos or what not! I was also scared that this March, I’ll end up with my salary before the 10th day of the month. However, I was lucky. Nobody, yes none of them, wished me “Happy Birthday” that day giving me the best surprise gift I ever got! And that too from people with whom I spend at least nine hours everyday! Probably we are becoming too busy, with ourselves.

Letters matter!

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.

Amid Darkness

Sixty years is a relatively long time for a country’s independence, especially for a nation which has its heritage that is another 3000 years old. It is that India which witnessed two parallel steel tracks around the same time when industrialization was sweeping Britain during 1850s. In fact, Indian Railways has celebrated its 150 years about a couple of years ago with pomp and show. But my recent trip to Bolpur has changed all that — the journey took me to a dark age when mortal humans did not taste electricity.

It all started one Saturday evening when I took the 3071 Howrah-Jamaplur Express from the originating station. The train, with its composition of two AC coaches besides eight sleeper class coaches, links Calcutta with Jamalpur, a Bihar town known for its huge railway workshop. In its 478km journey every night it touches hundreds of towns and villages a part of the country known for its rural backwardness.

It was a chilly December night last year I boarded the compartment, a general second-class coach yet to get its seats cushioned as promised by Lalu Prasad during his ambitious budget plan in February. To my utter surprise, not a single light was there in the coach preoccupied by 13 persons altogether. It was 9.20pm, 25 minutes before the scheduled departure of the express, known for its impeccable punctuality to reach Bolpur by 12 midnight. I thought that the lights had not been switched on, as it’s a regular practice at Howrah, one of the busiest stations in the country. But to our dismay, even just before the train about to roll out of platform # 12, not a single technician came to switch the lights on. Moreover, the on-duty RPF and GRP personnel, who I approached for the problem, did not bother to look at it. The guard was also not an exception.

Hence started one of the "darkest chapters" of my numerous train journeys. No sooner had the industrial belt of Dankuni had been crossed by the train than we were taken to a world of blackout. When I was a child, I heard daily passengers on the Barasat-Hasnabad section of the Sealdah division used to carry filament bulbs in bags to fit them onto the empty holders of the Ichhamati Fast Passenger. The train was the finest on the route launched by A.B.A Ghani Khan Choudhary, the legendary railway minister, in the mid 1980s. The train, though a fast passenger, soon lost its glory, and by 1990/91, it was all shambles. Hundreds of commuters used to take the train in the morning to Calcutta and after a day’s work forked out bulbs from their bags to play cards over munching nuts! Their travail ended with taking out the bulbs from the holders using handkerchiefs! I have heard, and later seen also, how meticulously a passenger removed the bulb from its holder to leave his fellow passengers, especially those who were not commuters, to travel in darkness the entire evening.

That chilly December night, I was also thinking of a bulb, but to no avail!