All you men can’t you see
You are
being totally crazy
It’45
degrees
Just what
are you wearing
Full shirt,
jacket, and a tie!
But just
why???
In my
cotton kurta, I am shivering
It’s coal
we are burning
For this
air conditioning
To support
your obnoxious dressing
While discussing
global warming
Let me tell
you some interesting
Best way to
mitigate climate change
Is a dress
change!
My tot and I love to play
All we want is to play
Education they say is important
But tot and I find it abhorrent
People told us “go to school”
And so began the ghoul
Twinkle twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are
But what’s a star?
I have never seen one.
Helpless child to me he turned
“Shahrukh Khan”, I replied
No. Up above the world so high
Only they aren’t in the sky
There are stars, says me
Only you can’t see
Too much dust and pollution
Then why don’t we clean up?
Coz humanity needs to develop
So we see stars on screens
And learn our rhymes
But what good is education
Which doesn’t lead to maturation
Let’s teach things kids really need
Greed, greed and greed
Till then damn your education
And the subsequent retardation
Let us play please
I want to play all night
I don’t want to sleep tight
Mamma, give me my cars and toys
And don’t try your sleep ploys
For I am sure I want to play
All night and sleep through the day
I shall not feel the winter chills
Stare I
must at the box of evils
Frustration,
pain, despair, and education
But the box
of evils has my attention
Trapped and
almost out of my mind
Break free
I can’t, there’s poison in the winter wind
Dear Pujo
Committees of Noida,
Heartfelt
thanks for organizing Durga Puja celebrations amidst the chaos and pain which
have defined our lives in the last two years. We have lost much. Death and
disease have ravaged our lives and many of us battling depression, unemployment
or post-COVID symptoms. In these tough times, only Durga Pujo can bring some
joy to our lives. There is a popular saying, if four Bengalis are together, a
Durga Pujo is in the offing. Durga Pujo has played an important social,
cultural, and political role in the lives of Bengalis. Unlike other parts of
the country where Navratra is celebrated with fervor, our Pujo is more about
community, art and culture, and off course fashion, food, and merriment with
worship occupying only a small part of the whole celebrations.
For Bengalis
living outside Bengal, Durga Pujo is an opportunity to retain the connect with their
homeland and introduce Bengali culture and way of life to their children who
otherwise would have little or no exposure to Bengal. As a child, I yearned for
Pujo throughout the year. I participated in sports, art, recitation, music
competitions and off course Tagore’s dance dramas. Interestingly, this time of
the year was also when my Bangla pronunciation was corrected and I got exposed
to Bangla literature and music. All this was off course unthinkable for most of
non-Bengali friends who were just amused with the fact that Puja was time for
celebrations and not a time for strict religious rituals.
I had no
patience with my friends who often said “Chhi chhi. Tum log Navratra pe meat
khate ho. Such an insult to the Goddess”. To us, Maa Durga is mother and
daughter. Can one ever insult one’s mother or one’s daughter? Aren’t these
relationships above such petty things? While others concerned themselves about
how and what to eat to please their Gods, I learnt Kazi Nazrul’s Agomoni songs alongside
Sukanto Bhattacharya’s poems for the quintessential evening programmes. As an
adult, I naturally don’t have patience or respect for those surprised to know
Muslims organize Durga Puja in Calcutta. Not just Muslims, even communist
atheists have always been welcome in Pujo pandals.
While I take
immense pride in the secular, democratic, progressive traditions of Durga pujo,
my heart pains to see that pandemic preparedness has translated into exclusive
pujo pandals and completely destroyed the ‘Sarbojonin’ character of Durga Pujo
which became popular from the early 20th century onwards as part of
the nationalist project. The working class today is scared of visiting pujo
pandals out of very real fears of being driven away and the ‘insult’ associated
with that. ‘Bhog’, an essential feature of Durga Puja festivities, has become a
privileged commodity, given only to those who have the requisite purchasing
power. My head hung in shame when I was carrying four ‘bhog’ parcels and an old
gentleman asked if this was for everyone or for the select few. This is not my
Pujo. Maa Durga is also known as ‘Annapurna’ who feeds her children. Let’s not
do this to ourselves. Let’s not do this to the ‘mother’ and the ‘daughter’ whom
we love so much. Do we want to come across as privileged brats who organize private
festivities for elites during Durga Pujo for sheer entertainment? This grossly
against the ethos of Durga Pujo.
The need to
follow COVID norms is a sham argument because ‘bhandaras’ are happening all over the country and are an essential
feature of Navratra. We have all appreciated the Sikh community for feeding
millions globally during the pandemic. Should we not learn from them? Just why
should we use the pandemic as an excuse to behave like the parasitic Bengali
zamindar class which organised lavish Durga Pujo celebrations along with
expensive food, drinks, and ‘nautch’
to please their colonial masters (who typically graced the occasion as Chief
Guests) while the rest of the population starved? This is the time to
introspect. Eating ‘bhog’ together is
central to the concept of ‘Sarbojonin’ Durga Pujo which can’t be sacrificed,
particularly in current times when so many of our less fortunate brothers and
sisters are hungry. The Bengali who grew up listening to Antara Chowdhury
singing her father, Salil Chowdhury’s, iconic children’s song “Aye Re Chute Aay
Pujor Gondho Eseche” must recall his golden words:
“Amar kachhe ja ache shob tomay debo diye
Aaj hashi khushi mitthe hobe tomake bad
diye”
(I will share whatever
I have with you for happiness is not possible without you)
Regards,
Malancha
On an otherwise nondescript September evening
in 2015, I announced to my friends and Guru that I had a new job at a think
tank called ORF and would be joining from the next day. No one except Malavika
Aunty, a friendly elderly lady who learnt music with me, had heard of ORF. She
said excitedly, “I know ORF. My niece Joyee (as Joyeeta was fondly called by
family and close friends) works there. She can be your friend”. The next day I
reported for work both excited and scared at 9, much before other colleagues.
By sheer coincidence, I was given a seat right opposite Joyeeta. As any new
place, ORF seemed like a mystery to me. A senior colleague sitting close to me
was enjoying his breakfast while reading the newspaper and slowly went off to
sleep. As I was used to more formal settings, I was pleasantly surprised. Then
Joyeeta came and sat down at her seat and I rose up to introduce myself. That
was the beginning of our friendship.
We hit off instantly. Both of us had similar
interests – good food, jokes, sarees, music, and generally chilling around. We
often agreed that the only reason we worked was the fun that came with it.
Money and making a mark in the research world was secondary. We often went out
for lunch together, shopped together, and had golgappas at Bengali Market. She
had a much better idea than me in where to eat what so she was the leader and I
was the good follower. Often she took me to places to eat and later I took my
sister, family or other friends there. So conversations with my friends and
family often started, “Joyeetadi took me there and the food was awesome. We
must go there”. But most important were sarees and saree days in office were a
serious matter for both of us. She loved sarees, shopped a lot and received a
lot of gifts from her husband and also extended family. She had a lot of
friends in Bangladesh, her area of specialization, and received Dhakai Jamdani
sarees from there too. She shared every detail. Who gave, what were the special
features of those sarees, the weavers who weaved them etc. I often complained
Africans never give gifts. I wish I worked on Bangladesh.
Shortly after I joined ORF, Manish (my husband)
and my parents got together and started preparing for our marriage. As we were
very close, I shared all my anxieties and excitements with her. I was quite
anxious because of the huge differences in our backgrounds, Manish’s atheism
and refusal to participate in religious rituals, and the hyper-religiousity of
so many of our family members. Some of the comments I got such as “men change
after marriage”, “love marriages don’t last”, “men are one thing when they are
wooing a woman another after marriage”, “his family and mother will not let you
work after marriage” and the most common one “so no more non-veg for you after
marriage” drove me crazy. One day someone said, “ab music to bhul jao shadi ke
baad”. And I broke down and rushed to her. There were 10 days left to my
wedding and someone was trying to tell me I had only ten days left to live.
Joyeetadi sensed the tension and said ‘let’s take coffee”. What followed was a
one-hour counselling session in which she told me very firmly, “Nothing of that
sort will happen. Manish loves you he will keep you very happy. Why do you
listen to such people? Every one doesn’t have the same experiences. Look at
Subimal. He always encourages me to dance. He encourages me to do work. Just
relax”. Subimal, her husband featured in every third sentence that she spoke.
Her love for him was so reassuring. Next she told me something that completely
shifted my mind from anything else that was going around. Subimalda had bought
two meklas, one for her and one for me. The excitement of receiving a mekhla
from Assam was too much for me. I told my mom in advance that the gift from her
had to be kept carefully because it was a special mekhla for me.
The real life after marriage was actually
closer to what Joyeetadi had predicted. I flourished professionally and
personally. Manish, as a husband was so different from the boyfriend that he
was. Super caring, loving, and encouraging. I felt the intense love that
Subimalda and she had because I knew a lot of the little details of their life.
Their funny fights, every time Subimalda teased for being overdressed or her
dieting. We laughed and shared everything with each other. Often other
colleagues in ORF were amused at our friendship and wondered how we managed to
stick around together so much. Most people in office were also aware of her
dieting and she often shared the benefits of eating quinoa. But that was
another funny story for I knew how non-serious and non-committed she was. After
a full week of eating salads, she and Subimalda would go to Purani Dilli to eat
breakfast, follow it up with a full Bengali meal, go for a Dinner party. Monday
morning, she would be back with salads and complain that it was “Subimal” who was
to blame and not her with a big and bright smile.
Not many people knew how deeply committed she
was to the region she studied. Her knowledge of Indo-Bangladesh border areas
and Bangladesh was very nuanced. I learnt so much from her during our conversations
and often told her to write more. I used to give her a lot of ideas to write
short stories out of her interactions with people during her fieldwork and also
encouraged her to write in Bengali, her mother tongue. She agreed with me but
was overburdened by organizing and also the philanthropic activities that she
and her husband did together. In one of the programmes that they organized,
Manish and I were invited. This was a cultural programme to showcase the
richness of the Barak Valley. It was a great experience for me and Manish who
learnt a lot and got to know the importance of the work that they were doing
together.
A few messages to her wishing her on the Bengali
New year (a day we were always dressed in Saree in office and went out to Banga
Bhawan to eat) were unanswered. Then I got to learn from colleagues that she is
hospitalized and then came a frantic call from my sister. “Just saw Samir Saran’s
tweet. Is it the same Joyeeta?”. That ended everything. No more Dhakai sarees, no
more golgappas at Bengali market, no more discussions on Assamese politics,
NRC, and Bangladesh, no more ‘Subimal this Subimal that’. Last Tuesday, it was
my turn to call up Malavika Aunty, and inform her of the terrible news that her
niece is no more. This is death which ends everything. Our dear Joyeeta, very
smiling, slightly temperamental, who knew how to love is no more. She has left
behind a Joyeeta-shaped in me. In such a short period of time, she was so much
to me. All the discussions of maternity and my little son which I can never
have with her now that she is gone. And I am here at home, listening to the helpless
stories of friends who are struggling for oxygen, hospital beds and also going
through the loss of their loved ones, waiting for my own turn.
Technology has brought all of us very close. At one instant I can reach out to my cousin in another city or country. I don't write letters or have long and interesting conversations, and never miss anyone. I have a very good idea of the political opinions of all my relatives and where all my friends and cousins went for a vacation and also what they cooked over the weekend (photos of food must be uploaded as well!). Is there a way to not know all this? Is there a way to really miss someone. Remember someone without really being able to text them instantly? Is there a way to just engage with some people only once a year that too without literally feeling the anger that they feel over a certain political development? There is off course the 'freedom' to leave the platform. But should the mode of engagement necessarily be 'all or nothing'. Is it possible to retain the elusiveness of the yesteryears and still be a part of the 'connected world'? Am I being nostalgic? or worse, stupid?
