the shiny silent autumn

A big glass window and the green leaves. My study. Shorot (autumn) announced its presence with a patch of sunshine. The patch brings memories, some happiness, a feel of colder breeze. 

  I am staying at the campus for last few months and did not visit Kolkata. The difficult time is offering a layer of anxiety on every possible day. The patch of sunshine shines, despite of all the gloomy tunes. 

  The pujoshonkha arrived magically, televsion glances are announcing pandal details. The sky is offering the immense blueness, and the clouds. Migratory birds started arriving to the trees around the house. We spotted a Nilkontho as well. 

Shorot is ready, with all the offerings. We are confined. We are not lost among the crowd, we are not lost in silence either. We sit down, lonely, with a patch of sunshine. 

restoring my ancestral home :1

The monkey in my favorite story 'Khirer Putul' written by Abanindranath Tagore renovated her mother Duyorani's ( literally the queen with a bad fate) house with a target. He will change the entire set up if possible. 

I could not be a follower of the monkey. But still, when I began the restoration work around 3 months back, the monkey was in my mind for various reasons. 

Our Kolkata house was built by my great grandfather Kaliprasanna Piplai, a retired judge and a voracious reader. Our family was the victim of the partition of India, where the family had to move to India. Our old ancestral homes ( one at Gaila village and another one at Barisal town)  became parts of a foreign country.  The entire family moved and finally settled at the house at present day New Alipore. 

I inherited a library created by my great grandfather, and slowly built by my grandfather, father and mother. My grandfather Pulin Piplai was a freedom fighter and he established a free community library named 'Study'. Study could not survive for various reasons. But many of the books found a place at our almirahs and an old big book rack. 

Restoration started with my granduncle Fuchi's amazing collection. Fuchi passed away almost an year ago. I talked to some friends of Fuchi, who helped me to arrange his stuffs. 

Story of The Music :1

The songs composed by Tagore gradually becomes the philosophy of life. The renaissance man changed our lives so much with his pen, with his thought. Story of music is a humble venture to listen to the songs along with reading them.

The songs for worship are classified as 'puja' parjay in Gitabitan, the anthology of Tagore songs. But, interestingly, all his songs have the shadow of worship. Worship for God has become the way to self-introspection: 'amare tumi ashesh korecho, emoni lila tobo'( you have made me endless, your greatness). When he says the eternal being that the being has given power to oneself, it goes in the depth of self-realization.

The first song that I am planning to talk about is a song composed by Tagore at the age of 38. 'Bhoy hote tobo obhoymajhe nuton jonom dao he'. The song is immensely powerful, it talks about overcoming the fear. When we live our life in fear, the supreme being can take us to the world that is fearless. We have the power inside us that can help us to take the journey, to the world without fear. It gives a new birth to us.

When we think about the poverty, the fearlessness can take us to the world of plenty. When we are in doubt, it can take us to the world of truth. It can take us to a new life from the life of difficulty.

If we have a wish, let us give the wish to the eternal being. If we are self-centred, the self-centeredness can be turned into useful work. This is a master line from the bani/text which made the song so unique.

We can calm down from many thoughts to one, from chaos to peace. Here is a request to the supreme being, who can give a new birth to one from his own power. The new life will shine in the light of the supreme being.

We often come back to the song, sing it. The song has immense power to absorb one in the light of the supreme power. It is the power that overshadows sorrow and death. Fearlessness is spread in the eternal light.

In the time of turmoil...and the chimes of freedom

Daybreak stranded on Calcutta pavement. Calcutta could not become Berkley. We could not force ourselves to land in the 1960s. Therefore there were diamonds in glossy windows and rust over the bookshelves. They could not become a song anymore. We forced our words to gt stuck in a notebook, freedom for speech cafes remained a mere chayer dokan. Silent speeches moved towards a colder rainy path. There is no need for anger and no need for shame. Because, everything remained just the same. Confinement of a soul into cages or silencing oneself inside a locked room does not really prove anything. The sell of poster colours will never be a topic of a Ford funded research project. Revolutionary ideas will play cricket at the Sunday campus..and the chimes of freedom will continue to shine in the neverland... Because cacophony is another name of silent music. And we continue to sing that music everyday.

Waiting at Varanasi station

I am waiting at Varanasi railway station for last seven hours. I am coming from Kolkata, I need to take another train to Gorakhpur, as I will be spending some time for a research project near Gorakhpur. For the past seven hours I am so closely located near the Ganges, I am closely located near the Vishwanath gali, wooden toy shops, rabri shops and our old house. But I could not move out of the station as the announcements of the train are following short leaps, ‘the train is expected in next one hour.’ I am at Varanasi for the first time after my grandmother’s death. The city was very special to her, as my father was born here in the year 1948. She is the person who spread the urge to touch the city as many times as I can. Last time I had visited the city in April, 2014, I gifter a photo post card of the Malavya bridge located on the Varanasi Ganges. She visited Varanasi nine times, and I was having a feeling that I am completing her 10th visit with the current stepping on Varanasi. But I could just touch the soil of Varanasi. Seven hours of waiting in a ladies waiting hall of platform no. 5 of the Varanasi railway station brought new observations. I found that women students from different corners of UP come to study at various colleges of Benaras and at BHU. Though I have visited BHU a number of times, but encountering students from different corners of the state was totally new experience. I found that students come from Lucknow-Raibarrilley –Benaras rail track, and also from Benaras-Mughalsarai-Patna rail track. A number of women students are friends with the old lady ticket checker woman of the ladies waiting room who speaks a variety of Bhojpuri. I shared a cup of tea with the lady and found that these women students regularly sit at the waiting room and study for a few hours. They also charge their mobile phones and eat their lunch at the waiting hall. Just beside the waiting room, there is a new bhojanalay. The menu include veg and non-veg thalis, north and south Indian snacks and dinner. They pack food and supply order for on-board passengers. They also have a snacks and tea corner. The shop owner was quite surprised to see me for both lunch and dinner at his restaurant. Like Mughalsarai, Varanasi is also a station where many routes are crisscrossed. Trains from different parts of India pass through this station. So, it was also a traveller’s joy to find new routes and googling about them. I came to know that trains from Mumbai to North and East India pass through Varanasi. Trains from Secundrabad also stops here to take a turn for Darbhanga, Patna or Bhagalpur. I noticed a number of known trains from Howrah passing by and tried to track their routes thoroughly, which were partially known by me in spite of my regular Kolkata Delhi journeys. I read story books in between, wrote something, called up home a number of times, had early lunch and dinner, two rounds of tea. Spending from morning to night at the station of a known place was still unknown and refreshing. Though I felt a bit restless in the evening, the feeling that I am at a wonderful city was peaceful. I may exclude this travel from my visit list, but it became a very special travel. I will be back at Benaras very soon, I promised myself.

The Life of Pi and my stories..

The first tears appeared when the young boy was shouting in joy experiencing a terrible thunderstorm..I was feeling like shouting in joy by myself..the joy in danger, walks along with the journey.. The apparently unknown boy lost everything at the Pacific ocean.. And it was a beginning of the unknown world.When groups a fishes attacked him,my eyes saw the shadow of a door which she tried to open in order to find an escape route at the midnight city. When the son of the same master, a man eater roared in full energy, my ears heard a deafening sound, with thousand flashes.. The red carpet movie theater had some exit doors..but can the doors take me there, where I want to go? where i need to go.. I want to shout..yes, I want to cry..because I want my life back..once more, I want to live..

a 'Bangal' conversation and beyond

Two popular Bangla T.V. serials are now using bangal (The speech of East Bengal, traditionally)variety of speech in the script and thus attracting two major chunks of viewers.Firstly, people from Bangladesh who are extremely fond of Calcutta-based serials, and secondly, the 'once upon a time refugee bangals' who are now well settled in West Bengal and cherish the bangal speech varieties. 'They are not using bangal speech properly', says my father, while watching the serial 'Chirosathi' in Star Jalsha. The serial, based on Muktijuddho kaleen Bangladesh is using bangal speech, which resembles the speech variety of Barisal.I tried to convince my father that the variety spoken in Barisal today is quite different from what we speak at home. A family who had left Bangladesh during partition and still using bangal speech for daily conversation is, in fact, archiving the Barisal variety of Bangla which was spoken in 1940s in undivided Bengal.But, today Barisal variety is influenced by the Dhaka Standard Bangla, which is, again influenced by Kolkata Bangla. So, my family does not know how the Barisal-based bangal variety spoken today is different from what we speak at home! An unique example of language maintenance can be heard in the speech of my granduncle, my father and my uncle. They have left everything behind, but they still own their language, which is their valuable possession form their ancestral place. The usual waves of language change has not touched these people of my family. So, we are carrying the old forms, and simultaneously it is really difficult for them to believe that what we speak today is not spoken at Barisal now. Boundaries and distances can do so much for our language,and some of us have never thought about it,perhaps..