A School Compromised?

Since i heard the sordid tale of my school a few weeks back, i can't relate to the reality with the days we had spent together in our formative years within the high walls of the space called Narendrapur. A school that inspires awe amidst one and all, a school that builds not only someone's career but manifests, in Swamiji's words, "perfection already in a man", a school that is unique in itself that grows with time but believes in the ashrama tradition is something we can hardly think now.

One can visit the campus on the southern fringes of Kolkata to find the true meaning of the word, discipline. Well, that was the idea on which RKM Narendrapur was built in 1943. Students were few, handpicked ones, who would get the best of education and training from the best of teachers. We were the last few batches to have tasted the quality teaching. In the past 10 years or so, the institution has been apparently cornered by the state government to lose its high chair of centre for excellence.

The process was easy. Like other government-aided schools, Narendrapur has to get teachers from a pool created by successful candidates qualified from SSC examination. Precisely, this is where the government played a trick to supply teachers who are hardly qualified to teach students whose level of intelligence surpasses the former! A peculiar situation that the present lots of students have to face day-to-day. Meritorious students here no longer go for the once-respected profession of teaching that too school ones! Some of the university toppers turn out to be teachers, but that's generally confined to the college or university campuses themselves. Schools usually get teachers who prefer Haranath Chakraborty to Eisenstein! Or, Chhaya Prakashani books to Stephen Hawking! A teacher like the great Ajit Sengupta is just a rare-found at Narendrapur.

Then came the age of cellphones. Our on-campus off-the-syllabus expeditions were largely confined to "choti cricket" during the days and "Superhit Muqablas" on Sunday evenings! Our distractions were few although we went through one of the most transitional phases of  human history in this part of the world: India opened doors to foreign companies with ecnomic reforms in 1991, before that Reebok or Coke was brand only to be watched during football World Cups! 1992-93 on one hand were "black years" of Indian democracy with the demolition of Babri Masjid, curfew in major cities, including Kolkata; the birth of serial blasts in Mumbai; the financial jolt with Harshad Mehta scam at BSE; but on the other this was the time when day-night ODIs with back-to-back successes in Tests and ODIs saw another era of marketing cricket unfolding that culminated in IPL 15 years later! MTV was a new thing and drawing rooms started to change forever with the advent of STAR and other TV channels later on. "Dekh Bhai Dekh" was soon to be passé. Also, the first FM station in the country was set up at a place hardly 15km from our campus! So were the first cellphone signals started sending beeps, also from the first tower set up in Kolkata in 1995!

Parents created a ruckus the other day when Narendrapur inmates were found talking on cellphones — something unimaginable in our days not that we didn't have mobiles then but we were brought up under strict discipline. Narendrapur lacks discipline these days besides dedicated teachers who would stay with students at the bhavans. Over-ambitious concerned parents hand over cellphones and iPods unlike my parents who could well gave me a Walkman also! But they didn't. Here lies the second problem in degeneration of an institute. Even during guardian calls on Sundays — as i was never a calm and quiet kid but the one who would play cricket at room and break window-panes or play table-tennis at odd hours — my mother used to listen to the complaints against me and rebuked me sharp. The other day, two guardians threatened our headmaster, who was at the helm then too, if their wards were given TCs! Although the students were shown the Narendrapur main gate eventually, our headmaster had to be put under medicines for the stress and humiliation he never faced.

I won't say Narendrapur is in crisis but alarm bells are ringing. Even if there's a change of guard at the Writers', the government won't change its policy for the sake of a single institute. At least we should try to carry the torch for sake of present students and the Generation Next.

Free? Or, Gagged?

Media, whatever be its strength, is always a soft target. The job of a reporter is equally difficult as that of a diplomat or a commanding officer of the Forces. Attack on journalists in a country that is supposed to promote "free press", is nothing new. Many a time my colleagues our attacked, in some cases it turned out fatal. Although i have never worked with J Dey, who took nine bullets in Mumbai's Powai on Saturday afternoon, instances are many when my friends in the media fraternity have taken the blow amid a stunned silence of governments.

Neither is India a country torn by civil war like Sri Lanka nor is its media voice gagged like that of China. Yet, it's a dangerous place if you want to go into the details of things and publish it for people to know — in short, there's hardly any place for investigative journalism in a country that is rooted deep in corruption. On one hand, people say we publish only "paid news" to suit our corporate needs and on the other, politicians and mafia would constantly put you under threat! Irony of a reporter's job is hardly anyone who is not associated with the mainstream media has any inkling of our profession. It's not glamorous as it often looks like, it's not a safe and secured profession like that of even a primary schoolteacher, it's not money-spinning like that of a doctor or an engineer, but a reporter feels proud in taking a moral stand to unravel the truth. In the process, he might end up like J Dey leaving with unanswered questions.

One of my friends in the industry wanted to move Mumbai to work on the crime beat there. I asked him the reasons, especially when his ageing parents are in Kolkata and he was with one of the most respectable English newspapers. His answer was Mallory-like: "Because criminals are there." Not that Kolkata, or any other city, does not witness murder-rape-robbery-kidnap-extortion et al, but Mumbai is the destination of all criminals, and probably the crime reporters, too. Crime reporting is always a risky job and you won't get support hardly from anyone even if your arm is broken by goons apparently owing allegiance to the ruling party in a state.

Examples are galore. In less-developed states and cities, attacks on reporters are quite frequent with the local mining mafia or gangs or even so-called rebels pull the trigger on inquisitive people who practise on the firm belief: pen is mightier than the sword. Will the government allow us taking up arms like Chhattisgarh's Salwa Judum? Our enemies are many, friends few. We don't need police protection, we don't need sympathy of people, we only need the right kind of environment to work — not to go home happy at the dead end of night only but also to protect democratic and human rights of billions.

Hills Are Heaven Again?

I don't have any childhood romanticism of Darjeeling like many others. My first visit to the Queen of Hills was when i was pursuing my degree at Visva-Bharati. Although i had trips to the Himalayas before that somehow Darjeeling didn't fit to my itinerary ever. Maybe because of Gorkhaland agitation of the late '80s my parents never took us there fearing Bengali backlash during the heyday of Subas Ghising. Maybe because of that only i was never sent to a Hills school, rather to a plains one near Kolkata. Maybe that's why i hardly had any inclination towards one of the most popular hill destinations in the vicinity.

Just a day after i came back from my maiden Puri visit with my mother in 2001, suddenly i got a call from my friend who had a plan trip to Darjeeling with his friends. But one of them declined to go at the eleventh hour and i boarded a sleeper coach of the Darjeeling Mail! We didn't have a hotel booking also and being there just two days after the Puja, it was virtually impossible to find a room for just three of us! After much googling, we got a superb room just off the DHR toy train station. Sharp whistle of the toy train — another symbol of romance after Aradhana fame — woke me up every now and then during our short stay of a couple of nights.

I always had a mind of a typical tourist and inquisitive journalist! During our ropeway ride, visit to zoo or to Happy Valley TE, i talked to people out of curiosity of what makes the town so attractive to thousands of visitors! The evenings were not quiet at the Mall, breakfast tables were simply over-booked for hours at Keventers... i was wondering why the rush to a particular place. The answer i've never got. In the next few days, we criss-crossed the hills with halts at Kalimpong, Loleygaon (Kaffer), Lava, Rishop, Dooars among other places. Wherever we went, we had won hearts of the local people as we had respect for them — unlike many of us who still want to keep them alienated from our society.

The bond just grew stronger with our 2007 trek to Sandakphu, the highest point of West Bengal. Over a week, we befriended many a local people there, especially our guide Saja became another team member. Images of poverty-stricken faces welcomed us in villages. Government schemes of poverty alleviation seemed to have not reached there for years. Beautiful was the topography with serpentine roads meandering through pine trees. White peaks of Kanchenjungha, Kabru and Pandim accompanying the backpackers all the way to the Sandakphu peak — our trip could not have been better! But somewhere in the region reverberations of Gorkhaland demands could be felt though not in striking terms set later by GJM leaders. I did not even think then that we could not return there for a couple of years.

In October 2010 when i visited the hills last, people there realized they have no option but to keep the three 'T's floating — tea, timber and tourists. Our driver, whose home in the foothills i visited later, was a pro-Gorkhaland supporter but he too told me: "Yeh hingsa se badi nafrat hai, magr karoon kya (I hate this sort of violence, but what can i do)?" That was a transitional phase in the Hills after ABGL leader Madan Tamang, who had a democratic voice, had been killed on May 21, 2010. Residents there could not understand what the best solution to their misery was — whether to support GJM (thus supporting economic blockades and surviving on peanuts) or support the Bengal government (thus hounded out of hill homes).

The dilemma seems to be over now with the Mamata Banerjee government agreeing to some of their demands. As the people from plains again making a beeline to the makeshift stalls on the Nehru Road to pick up a sweater this summer, the Hills can hope for better days ahead with hosting a perfect Puja holidays for the Bengalis!

Pain & Peace

It was almost 1.30 in that 2007 night of early spring when we entered a zone of dense fog where our car’s headlights seemed to be reflecting backward. We couldn’t help but make a brief halt at a highway dhaba that came up there only recently. The young owner of the eatery joint — apparently grown quite popular in a short time on the NH-2 where truck drivers relaxed themselves on khatias — told us how he hoped that the upcoming Tata Nano plant near his dhaba would change his fortune, like many others. We also thought that with the new government — second Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government bulldozed opposition parties to victory just nine months back with industrialization on lips — could turn the tide before heading towards Bankura.

Same dhaba, two years later. On our way to Santiniketan, i told my friend that we should stop there for breakfast. I was not at all nostalgic but i could see from a distance that the once-bubbling dhaba was looking shabby with its thatched-roof verandah caved in during Nor’wester. I asked the young man, who obviously didn’t recognize me, what about his dhaba’s expansion plan he had told me a couple of years back. “My dream is lost somewhere under the blue tin sheds of the Tata plant. Can’t you see that?” terse was the answer with pain in his looks. That was in February 2009, a little over four months after Ratan Tata had announced the decision to shift his proposed plant from “Bad M (Mamata, Banerjee) to Good M (Modi, Narendra)”. Back to wheels, my friend said: “Because of one lady, many a dream has been shattered like this.”

In the past four years, i’ve taken this highway many a time and seen how a real greenfield project was coming up flattening fields that yield golden crops, how a woman resisted forceful takeover of land, how an under-construction plant with 80% completion gets its equipment shifted overnight and moreover, how the people still stare at the 1000 acres with disbelief. Singur has many definitions and dimensions now. People, especially farmers in Bengal villages, have now realized that their lands are acquired for some projects and most of these hardly come up in their lifetime. They can part with their land but who will ensure their survival? The industries won’t give jobs to unskilled farmers, like what happened in Rajarhat. The government won’t allow farming in urban vicinity, like what happened in Salt Lake. The elites won’t allow an entry to their domain, like what happened in Santiniketan. They will always be marginalized.

A few days ago, i was on a bus going to Bakkhali, a tourist spot off the Bay of Bengal. After it left Namkhana on its last leg, i spotted some bull-dozers pressed into service for widening of NH-117. An old woman, sitting by the window, asked her relative (maybe husband): “What will happen to those who have land by the side of the highway?” “The government has given them compensation and also recruited our villagers in the job. Why should we complain if the 30ft wide road adds another lane to it?” he said. I was not surprised as people have realized two things: awareness is necessary, and development is the keyword but not at gunpoint.

Bong Pride

Known for its focus on culture, especially after Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee ascended to the chair just before the 2001 polls, every other Bengali thought that West Bengal would rightfully be put up on the cultural map of India. True to our nature, we, Bengalis, always think we are far more progressive than other states culturally, if not on the industrial front. Our superiority complex is simply unmatchable: we think people from neighbour Bihar has hardly any culture, we don’t even consider Maharashtra can also dominate the field like finance markets. Gujarat? That might be a developed state but ruled by a communal chief minister! Examples like these are abundant.

What is surprised to note that West Bengal — or Bengalis as a community — didn’t have any representation in Republic Day tableau fro several years. Critics would say why make a fuss about it? When other states had tableaux in this all-India cultural show on the Raj Path, why can’t West Bengal send a team to the annual New Delhi colourful extravaganza? Nobody had an answer, no one was bothered, at least those at the helm of affairs in Kolkata, the power citadel of communists in India. We had a chief minister — who had also been the cultural minister for decades — apparently inclined to writing plays, watching films, and moreover, spending times with culture vultures.

Yet, nothing changed much after we sent a team to the Delhi show way back in 1996! This January, something was different on the sprawling misty Army campus in New Delhi. A team of teenagers from Santiniketan was rehearsing steps for the Republic Day parade. They had just a fortnight to practise the dance to the tune of a Rabindrasangeet chosen by the person who had invited them for the national show. Their instructor was also not spared from the strict Army guidelines even during the practice sessions as this would be televised across the country besides thousands others, including the President, Prime Minister and other dignitaries, would watch it live.

On that chilly morning of January 26, the 15-odd youngsters, including girls, finished the 4.5km dance to the rhythm of “Oi Mahamanob Asey” to an overwhelming response of VIPs and enthusiastic spectators. Their performance was applauded by one and all as they were the only group, unlike other states, that did not use a tableau but represented the barefoot performance on the Raj Path. Sitting in her usual sari-chappal beside Sonia Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee was visibly happy with the performance ideated by herself. She was instrumental to invite Visva-Bharati students — who represented the Indian Railways — to the Republic Day show for a tribute to Rabindranath Tagore in his sesquicentenary anniversary celebrations. Incidentally, West Bengal did not send a single team this year also!

Whether we should take pride in our state of cultural affairs is a matter of debate but an Army officer present during the practice sessions said: “At last we have seen Bongs are not afraid to put up a show on Republic Day.” Isn’t it the time to ponder over our future as a community known for cultural supremacy? Can we hope to see a team from our state performing on the Raj Path in 2012? Questions are many.