SINGUR SHAME – UGLY AUR PAGLI

The withdrawal of the Nano project from West Bengal is the most depressing and disappointing news I’ve read in a long, long time, more so because I, like so many other hard-working, right-thinking Bengalis, was hoping that the project would somehow be salvaged.

Not that the project was a pristine one. Questions can justifiably be raised as to the way in which some of the land was acquired, and maybe on other policy matters as well. Ms Mamata Banerjee could well have asked for a referendum to be held, or some such other legal and acceptable form of protest.

But then, legal and sane is not what Mamata is all about. She is famous for her histrionics, for rushing in where angels fear to tread and for her pro-people paglami (madness). She has to maintain her brand image, and the image of West Bengal can go take a dive for all she seems to care.

She is such a wrong sort of opposition leader in a state which desperately requires a strong and SENSIBLE opposition. It is simply not healthy for a democracy to have a ruling party, which by hook or crook, has remained in power for donkey’s years.

The CPI(M) is an ugly party, period. In its cynicism, behind its doublespeak, under its smooth manipulation of facts and factions, in its ruthless and systematic mowing down of any protest, in its seeping down and eroding basic services like health/education and basic values like work culture, in its three decades of anti-industry-stance and recent pro-industry ‘won’t you come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly’-attitude, it reeks of ugliness. A little deodorant in the form of a smiling Buddhadev Bhattacharjee is not really enough to hide the stench.

There is something rotten in the state of Denmark (as Hamlet said) and Ms Banerjee is not the person to stem the rot. Instead of offering viable alternatives, she is getting sucked into the very rot which she is supposedly exposing. And caught in the crossfire between UGLY and PAGLI, the Tatas have left Singur, breaking a million hopes.

I feel so, so sad when I hear people talking dismissively and derisively about West Bengal. It’s a place where people talk more and work less, where no business can thrive because people are only interested in politics, where it rains bandhs and strikes…that is what I hear all the time. The red party flag has become synonymous with STOP WORK.

The Singur project was supposed to change all that. It was supposed to herald a new era, a BENGAL SHINING instead of a BENGAL SHIRKING. That is not to be. And the schism between my West Bengal, muddled and riddled with self-destructing Ugly-s and Paglis, and the rest of India, marching ahead with new-found confidence, has widened all that much more.

TAGORE AND THE TALENTED BENGALI

Today is Pochisey Baisakh (the 25th day of Baisakh month in the Bengali calendar), and Bengalis all over the world are probably celebrating Rabindra-Jayanti, the birth-anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, the unchallenged Colossus of Bengali culture.

Little girls in plaits and pleated saris will sing Rabindrasangeet (Tagore’s songs) and dance with lissome, undulating (if un-athletic) movements (Rabindranitya). Little boys, chafing in uncomfortable kurta-pajamas (or dhotis) will recite lisping poems from SHISHU (The Child). Their suddenly-self-conscious parents will clear their throats and launch into reinditions of songs, poems, or verse-plays from the prolific output of the Gurudev (Spiritual Father), accompanied by the tabla and the harmonium. The chief guest will place the mandatory garland-of-white-blossoms on the framed portrait of the white-bearded, visionary-eyed, loose-robed gentleman. The boredom of listening to his (the chief-guest’s) long bhason (speech) about the ‘importance of Kabiguru (Poet-prophet-teacher) in Bengali life and culture’ will be somewhat mitigated by the tantalizing aroma of frying luchis (a preparation of refined flour) and alurdom (curried potatoes). Finally, having gorged on food and culture, everybody will return home, criticising the performance of the neighbour’s son/daughter (“Ki aar emon gaye” – no great shakes) and praising their own offspring (“Ki darun aabriti korlo, aamar toh chokhey jal eshey giyechhilo” – his recitation brought tears to my eyes) in true Bengali spirit.

But such obvious (and sometimes odious) panegyrics aside, Tagore is present in the Bengali’s life and self-fashioning in subliminal, sub-conscious, all-encompassing ways. All Bengalis will proudly declare to the rest of the world that Rabindranath Tagore was the FIRST Indian to receive the Nobel Prize (For literature, for his book of poems – GITANJALI - Song Offerings). The Bengali holds his head high during the national anthem, Jana gana mana adhinayak jaya hey (Hail the ruler of the hearts and minds of the people), because Tagore penned it. Each Bengali has his own individual relationship with Tagore’s poems and songs (the bearded-bespectacled-Bengali-intellectual has an almost proprietory relationship with Tagore’s novels, plays and paintings as well).

Most Bengalis grow up force-fed on his songs. That is not to say that they do not like it. When I was young, my father would often, in the evenings, open the battered blue-bound family-copy of GITABITAN (a collection of Tagore’s songs) and randomly sing songs in his untrained-but-melodious baritone and we would all join in at will; Didia (my cousin) would hum a few notes and I would amateurishly dance my self-choreographed dances.

Now, with my daughters, I am going through the rich legacy Tagore has left for children, the simple-but-graded stories and the lyrical nuanced poems of SAHAJ PATH (Easy Reader). I share their wonder at:
“Kal chhilo dal khali,
Aaj phuley jaye bhorey;
Bol dekhi tui maali,
Hoy shey kemon korey?”

("Yesterday’s bare branches
Are today in full flower;
Can you tell me, O gardener,
Who wroughts this strange power?") – Imperfect translation by me.

Each Bengali grows up with his own memories of Tagore. His lyrics-of-many-moods comfort us, cheer us, make us weep, sustain us through the seasons of joy and sorrow, hope and despair. All nostalgia-haunted-Bengalis, separated from home and childhood-friends by time or distance, have sung (or lip-synched or listened to) “Purano shei diner katha bhulbi kirey haye (How can we forget those old days…)”. My aunt had once told me (when I was dismissive of Tagore as overly-sentimental and old-fashioned), that as we grew older, the relevance of Tagore would increase. How true she was! Now in my thirties, though I still have a lot of uncharted Tagore-territory to travel, and though I still do not agree with a lot of his opinions and emotions, in my heart the bond has grown stronger.

UNACCUSTOMED EARTH

I have just finished reading Jhumpa Lahiri's new book, Unaccustomed Earth. I chose the same title for my blog because the world she writes about - the globe-trotting, non-resident Bengalis living in the United States with their hyphenated identities - is not my accustomed world. I have never been outside India: I have never lived through the hopes and pains of those Bengali people who settle abroad, though I have friends who have done so.
I like the way the stories grow out of the metaphysical quote at the beginnning, which says that human migration is like plants growing in new soil. The stories are also about growing - siblings growing up and then growing apart (Only Goodness), growing old (Unaccustomed Earth), growing apart within a marriage (A Choice of Accommodations), growing close outside a marriage (Going Ashore).
The people in the stories belong to three generations. The older set are first generation non-resident Indians, married to fellow-Bengalis through arranged marriages, never feeling the passion of love for their spouse but growing into a sort of companionship through age and shared struggle and loneliness. The younger set are the Bengalis who have grown up in the US, who do not share their parents' nostalgia but have to undergo their own physical and mental journeys and adjustments in their own marriages/relationships, usually to white Americans. Lahiri taps her own and her parents' histories well. There is also the third generation, children born of these mixed marriages, as yet too young to understand the pulls and tugs of multiculturalism, as yet inhabiting the present only, as yet coccooned in their physicality.
The people in the stories are restless, searching for nameless, elusive things. They travel a lot - across continents, into their past, into old memories, to new terrains. They find love in bits and parts - and this love is taken away, either by death (Going Ashore), or by deception and distance (Nobody's Business).
The material comfort, the professional success masks the undefinable void lurking within the characters. This fractured hell-heaven existence is Lahiri's accustomed earth and she uses a mature, sparse style (with only a few necessary poetic flourishes) to paint its bittersweet colours.