It is always unfinished business with God/Cosmos/Universe/Other people. In a slightly grim song Rabindranath writes, 'noi, noi e modhur khhela/tomai amai shara jeebon, sakal sandya bela/....koto baar je nibhlo baati gorgey elo jhader raati/samsarer ei dolai dilo sangshai er thela..'

Translation ( my own, the sense of the words as i understand them..)
It is not a sweet game with you, Oh Lord. Disruptions, discontinuities and question marks come in all the time..certainty changes to uncertainty..one can't be sure of anything..

In The Waste Land Eliot for instance says,
',,,On the banks of the Thames, I can connect nothing with nothing..(approximate quote--can't get up and check)

Children leave. One ends up negotiating the universe on one's own. It speaks elliptically, sometimes. You have to catch its language. Sometimes it helps you with dreams..

So Rabindranath once again writes,

'Aji jhoder raate tomar abhishaar, paran sakha bondhu hey amar'
Oh you journey to meet me my Lord on a night of storm and darkness

Bodo bedonar y moto bejeccho tumi hey amar o praane..
Oh you have plucked so heavily on my heart strings, my Lord

'Tomar holo shuru amar holo shara'
You begin and I end..
[Of course, this needn't be the Lord. It is the dialectic that exists between two kinds of people--those who are radicals and those who prefer security..

In my life, English Literature has been one of my greatest teachers. My great teachers--the great Greek tragic dramatists (Sophocles, mainly but also Aeschylus), Shakespeare, Keats, Wordsworth, Eliot, Rabindranath Tagore...

Thakur and Ma have taught in different ways.

Excerpts from a diary of 2015.

Close to Februrary 7, 2015. Exact date not recorded.

Thakur a man of the people, who spoke a language that people understood.

Richness of personality, intellect, experiences. Even dramatic. The many interactions. In a way he too is like Krishna (Krishna aptly part of his name); in that he knew and interacted with so many people.

Householder and sannyasi at the same time, many people had access to him, which often makes him say the same things (in different forms) to different people at different times. This causes a rich variety, many interrelations and also overlapping.

The Kathamrita is concentrated with many spiritual ideas/discourses but incredibly warm and interesting for the quality of his human interactions, with lay devotees from many walks of life; with sannyasis.

So we also note the marvelous empathy of this man—his protean sensibility.

17.02.2015

The kanchon is in full bloom as I write from my verandah at 9 a.m. in the morning. Listened to ‘dekhechi roopsagore moner manush kancha shona’. Wonderful, wonderful. Shikhbo. Sanghamitra diyecche. I blessed her.

22.02.2015

Blown away by  ‘dekhechi roopsagore moner manush kancha shona’. Learnt it today.

24.02.2015

..the light is already hot. The purple pink kanchan against the blue sky.

The Katthokra with its alert expression checking out the trees.

Amazing. The marvelous currents of life. They should well up more in me and meet the ones flowing in the universe.

In the end what does one give?

In the end it all boils down to how much love one can give. How much. The ultimate manifestation of this love is perhaps to meet the light that is in nature with the light that is within oneself. To feel that the sky (especially) and the trees and birds are one's relatives and inmost beings.
Once a friend of mine had commented about the self-absorbton of someone closely related to her and had said, 'She does not watch the seasons go by'. At that point I was very young and did not exactly understand.
But I understand now. I understand why Rabindranath laments (he comes up so frequently in my posts because I have learnt his songs for many many years and my mother is a great Rabindra bhakta) in a song, 'Jodi prem dile na praane keno bhorer akash bhore dile emon gaane gaane?' (If you didn't give me love then why have you filled the morning sky with so much potential for music?') He means that the glory, the beauty the softness of the morning sky should raise an answering melody in the heart of the human being.
In sonnet 116 Shakespeare resonantly states:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments
Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove..
Oh no! It is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is not shaken..

My quotation may not be exact because I use my memory and not my text book.
'Ami roope tomai bholabo na bhalobashai bholabo....jaanbe na keu kon tuphane torongo dol uthbe praane/ chander moton olokh taane joware dheu tolabo..'
I will not tempt you with my beauty but immerse you in my love..that love which has the compelling power of the moon on the tides (Rabindranath, again)
In Pied Beauty Gerald Manley Hopkins says, 'glory be to dappled things' (meaning deer)
Posted on FB on 14.12.17

pos

pos

Top of Form

If one has the opportunities one must always renew oneself. Remake oneself, redesign oneself and refashion oneself. Now that I am older I understand the full import of Yeats's cry in An Acre of Grass where the aged poet says, 'Myself shall I remake till I am a Timon or a Lear'..
Amare tumi ashesh koreccho
Tomai notun kore pabo bole harai khhone khon or mor bhalobashar dhon. The 'bhalobashar dhon' could also be the Self.
In one his last songs Rabindranath writes, 'Hey nuton dekha dik aar baar'. 
Notun chhada je bancha jai na. One always needs to reinvent oneself in order to live fully...

Post on 11.12.17  in  Facebook . Felt that the thoughts were valuable..

Srijit Mukherjee’s Zulfikar

I went to see the film because I am committed to seeing what Srijit is doing.  The opening moments of the film are outstanding—the cinematography—the palimpsests of camera vision, the frame of the Howrah Bridge, and then of course, the blue waters of the Hooghly. This is one reason I like watching well made Bengali films—because they catch Kolkata in surprising, unexpected and beautiful angles and colours. I remember Kaushik Ganguly’s Shabda—what a tour de force of imagination and execution.

The acting for the most part, was brilliant.  The male actors, particularly. In the opening scene, Parambrata. He has only got better, from his early days as Topshey to Sabyasachi Chakrabarty’s Phelu Da.  He looked the role; the Rastafarian dreadlocks really suited him. What I like about Parmabrata, is that he is truly a professional. He is always ready for the role. In top condition. Kaushik Sen, too.  They never look out of place, are never tentative, their professional correctness is paramount and their state of readiness, admirable.  I had felt that way about Akshay Khanna in Baby. He must have been close to 50 when he played that role. What a display of litheness and fitness, without which that particular profile of a RAW officer would not have come to life.

Coming back to Zulfikar. The tightness of structure, of the plot, of story line, of movement of story, intertwining of plot, character, pace, perfect till the intermission. Of course, it is a very male centered movie. Women hardly figure much in the ethos of the underworld. Destiny is male, tragedy is male, and society is also figured in terms of male actors and doers. However, the Begum, a recasting of the role of Calphurnia, is somewhat haunting. Dope addiction, loneliness, childlessness, living out an abandoned marriage, her walking on the Second Hooghly Bridge, epitomizes the loneliness that marks the lives of many.  A Death-in- Life existence. That could be more a woman’s trajectory than a male’s, if one is living in a world where only men call the shots. In any case, women are more involved in careers as psychiatric patients, than men. We all know the etymological root of the term ‘hysteria’.  Paoli is very convincing in her role as this haunted woman.    

In the Begum’s walking, the starkness of the human being was very movingly etched. What do outcasts and pariahs do? They walk. The street is their home. For the Begum, walking frees her from the confinement of her home, where there is no convivial sound or presence. Not even a pet. Not even a maid. She is alone with her mind and her addiction. Yet, it is a mind that is gifted, in that it is capable of prophetic vision.  Cassandra too had prophetic vision. She warned Agamemnon that she saw blood all around. But no one heeded her. What one notices about the Begum also, is that she is not hooded behind a purdah. Her isolation is both classical and contemporary and gendered. She is stark in the way the tragic hero (Oedipus, Macbeth, Lear, Othello) is stark, stark because she has a mind in a heavily male dominated society, stark because she feels unwanted and rejected. She is the alienated woman in any society.  

That it was structured along the lines of Julius Caesar, I caught on pretty late. Only when the soothsayer warned Zulfikar about the coming of Eid. The Ides of March and Eid, have an interesting resonance. There was nothing overt about the recollection or recasting of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The recall and the weaving in were very subtle.  There was nothing loud or overt.

The transformation of the artist into the Mafia Don was for me, the most spectacular transformation, and an affirmation of the darkness of Destiny, sometimes. Art did not offer this young male, release. Crime has its own seductions, its power, and its own relentlessness. In this respect, the film seems to concur with the Classical view of Destiny as all powerful. Shakespeare too, does not discount Fate.

The casting of Dev in the role of Mario was very intelligent. Srijit certainly brought the best out in Dev vis à vis the role he plays here.  I have never seen Dev in as restrained a role as he plays here.  The romantic sequence was not very impressive. It seems slightly out of place in a film that is so darkly realistic. It brings back echoes of the marriage of Don Corleone’s youngest son to the young and beautiful Italian girl, who later dies in a car blast. The love story however does not strike the poignant note that it did in The Godfather. The actress however, did her best.

Kaushik Sen was outstanding. He brings out the conflict between nobility and the desire for revenge in Brutus, very well.  The splitting of the role of Mark Anthony into the two Anglo Indian brothers was superb from a dramatic point of view.

Rahul Banerjee too played his role very well. He is another highly competent actor who takes his profession very seriously and whose professionalism comes across to the audience.

Music was excellent.

The film however was too long. The deaths too many. Reminiscent of Seneca and Kyd.

I really like your work Srijit. I hope you will not mind my criticism.

Film making is very difficult. All those who try to bring wholeness and unity into character, event, and all else that goes into the making of a film, deserve our applause and I give it to youJ

                                   Losing my Phone (Phone Churi)  11.1.15                                                     

Blissfully going to Parnasree on a blue and white ‘no refusal’ taxi. Was talking to Swaraj da just before that, he told me that my article had been accepted/or was going to be published in the February Holy Mother Special Issue of the RKM bulletin. I was happy. He had said that he had felt bad that he had not spoken to me very nicely when I had called the other day and that he felt sad about it.

But I should not have searched in my bag for the phone when it rang as I walked from home to the taxi stand around 10.15 in the morning of last Sunday. I was very tired, and somewhat nervy and it would be great to have just stayed home and recuperated; 

So somewhat shaken and not quite with it, I walked in a sea green kameez and white salwar, with the blueberry color jacket given by Priya, to the taxi stand, and still on the phone.

The blue and white taxi said that it would go. I had Geraldine Forbes’s Women in  Modern India, with me. It is that book that caused my fall that day. I hesitated to take it before I left, it seemed to invite me from the bed, I came back to the room (after having made steps to leave it), and took it downstairs. I went down to eat. On the point of leaving  the bag I was carrying with me, in addition to my purse, seemed very full (because I had put priya’s new lotion in  it, with the faint hope that I would apply lotion at Parnasree), and I did not want to stretch my Shantiniketan-y carrying bag, so I took the book in my hand. BIG MISTAKE.

Then the Swaraj- da, call. As I spoke to the taxi driver and asked him if he would go to Parnasree, he said ‘ yes’, a young, perhaps Bihari, driver. I had the book in my right hand. What I did not remember, is that I had the phone as well. I put the book next to me and then the phone. When I got off, I took the Forbes book, not only because I valued it, but also because it was an MRP book. I forgot the phone.

I went up and within 15 minutes thought of calling Deepa and asking her that if she was at Parnasree, she could come to my house. The bag, that is the purse, was overturned and phone not found. A frantic rush to the neighbour’s flat upstairs, and Mona’s husband gave me his phone from which to call. My number was called and the voice said ‘switched off.’ The bearded muslim older relative who was in the flat , said that if I could get another no refusal taxi, they could direct me to their headquarters in Jagu bazar and that they might be able to help me.

As I walked sadly and in a state of flurry to the police station, I did meet such a car, but the driver was completely indifferent to my situation. I arrived at the police station, and the lady police first asked me, if I had noted the car number, I said no. then she asked me for the IMEI number of the phone. I had no clue what that might be. I was already shaken and I said to her in strong tones, ‘you expect me to go to New Alipur now, and get that number’? Then she gave me a yarn about how the GD would require that number and then it would go to Lalbazar, etc. To whatever I understood of that, I said that you now want me to go to Lalbazar to trace a phone that was 3.5 years old? I should have just stuck with the demand that they make a note of the number of this phone 9831775725.

But I too allowed myself to get caught in circles and circles of discussion, with various police officers or SI’s. None of them would accept my contention that it was ‘stolen’. They said, ‘you have misplaced it’. Of course, not in proper English. They insisted on ‘misplaced’ and I on ‘stolen’. I said, but if he (taxi driver) did not want to steal it, why should he switch the phone off? One guy, who had done me the courtesy of listening to my story, got up at this point, said to me, ‘ amader bidya buddhi khub kom; amra eta misplaced bole jani. Sheta je stolen hote pare, ta bujhina.’ then he walked up to the junior police, woman, inspector and told her summarily, ‘just write her number down. make a report with just that detail. No need to write anything else down.’

By that time, I said that I would get the bill. The woman inspector kept telling me ‘apnake to kotobar bollam.’ Then I said, ‘what is point of saying all this? What does it matter? When someone does something wrong and then wishes to rectify the mistake, do you keep saying, kotobar bollam?

Went back to 318 Parnasree Pally, hurriedly ate the ordered meal from Gopa Chakladar, rushed home in a taxi, took the airtel post paid bill and went back in the same taxi. Noticed on the way that the taxi driver smiled and talked to himself.

 When I eventually arrived, a senior superintendent, overall kind, who had previously heard remonstrations from the woman superintendent, about how recalcitrant I was, kindly tried to explain to me how they did not have scanners that would trap if my phone was being used. Initially, I had asked them in sheer helplessness, if it was not possible for them to do anything without the IMIE number, if I gave them the time of the taxi ride and from where and to where it had been. This had been two hours ago from the present moment of narration.

He looked at my Airtel post paid bill with a great deal of attention. And then said, but we need the bill of purchase. I looked at him tired and dejected and said, I had not kept the bill of a  phone purchased 3.5 years earlier. He said that he had kept his even if it was 8 years old. They explained like they were explaining to an eight year old.  

That is why I think it is a sin to think one self intelligent. In a police station, unless you are prepared to be very patient and submissive, your intelligence will hold no value.

Came back at the end of the day to New Alipur. Had a plan of meeting Shelley in the park. Don’t know why I had  agreed in the first place.  At this age, and given my style, a park is not where I would meet someone. Sat there for 15 minutes, felt the cold penetrating my body and then walked home. My mother said that Shelley had found my phone switched off, had called home and Ma asked her not to go and meet me. I had kept the appointed hour, because I had not told Shelley anything. Since I had not been able to get in touch with her, I had gone exactly at 5 in the evening, when we were supposed to meet.

On Tapan Sinha's Harmonium

The film is a classic. As far as central story structure goes, which is having a lost thing end up in the possession of many people, and finally the true owner, I guess it has precedents. But the manner in which Tapan Sinha has used this central narrative technique to weave several sections of society together, ridicule the middle class, and poignantly and sympathetically represent both the aristocracy and the world of sex workers, is impressive to say the least. 

I was very moved. The closing song "Mon bole tui moner katha jano na," finds echoes in many songs of Rabindranath, that play with the idea of "mon" and what it does know and does not know. At the same time, the song also affirms the folkloric or rural roots of Bengali culture, thereby bringing the entire social sweep of the film into a unity or whole. 

Letter written to a friend after watching the play  Gabhir Asukh (Deep illness)..

Excellent play. Very well done. Well scripted and well directed. Energetic flow of action, coherent plot, excellent stage designing and very competent acting by the lead characters. Dr Chakrabarty and Bhonsle were the best. Male characters did sort of take center stage today. Is it because psychiatry was a male dominated profession for a long time?

 Isn't it interesting that the story teller and psychiatric patient narrating the story is a woman? Doctors male, patient woman. There were more women than men, as patients, did you notice? Years ago I remember reading in some feminist theoretical essay that women were more involved in careers as psychiatric patients than men. Apparently men have some hormone or God knows what, that makes them more forward looking and better engaged with the world, which ensures objectivity.

Yet,interestingly, Manashi is also the 'Kathak' (story teller, script writer, rhapsode) who is cogent and coherent enough to tell the story. Thank Snehashish Bhattacharya  for making this woman psychiatric patent, also the story teller or the artist.

Perhaps there is some releasing force in undergoing the pain of psychiatric illness. It made Dr Chakrabarty ask some very penetrating and humane questions. 

By the way did you understand how Dr Bhonsle became converted to Dr. Chakrabarty's point of view? Some gift of personality that the older doctor must have possessed. Some charm, some force, some energy of belief that had the power to sway another man/being who was also sensitive. Artists have this power of swaying, moving,energizing others. The greatness of theatre lies in its power to move many. Hence political movements have used theatre to get their message across. And this one does too. 'India is incredible' because it 'diminishes' those with 'mental illness'. It is 'insane' says a poster on the sets. Wonderful. Yes, 'Great art is inevitably political but irrevocably beautiful as well' (Toni Morrison)

Dr. Bhonsle was very well played. The cool business like non-Bengali, who finally acquires some of the passion of a Bengali. From cool and self possessed he becomes passionate and engaged. Interesting.

The story reminded me of Chekhov's Ward No Six. Very similar. How the doctor treating mental patients eventually becomes insane himself. '

'Transference' is so dangerous isn't it? I believe psychoanalysts live in real danger of absorbing the 'transfer' of the analysand's personality into themselves. But unless you comprehend through imagination and understanding and through affect, how will you cure the other person?

Very interesting questions raised from the point of view of Medical Science. How much empathy? How does one monitor exactly how much to give? Whether a pat on the head is more than what professionalism demands. In America one can NEVER talk to the doctor outside his/her chamber. He/She may not recognize you when they see you on the street. Perhaps it is very different in a hospital where you are in constant contact with patients. 

I think Snehashish Bhattacharya truly understands the situation well. Or else he would not have been able to act with such engagement. 

Please parle shobai ke bolish je bheeshon bheeshon bhalo legecche. Khuby moving. Sima Mukhopadhyay and the entire 'parivar' of this theatre goshthi deserve kudos.

 Well done. May they produce many more such thoughtful and well designed, well written and well directed plays. Ora je theatre 'japon' kore shune bodoi bhalo laglo. E chhada theatre hoi na. Ekhane passion na thakle theatre e praan ashbe na. Devi puja'r motoi theatre aradhona ebam sadhana korte hoi.  

I would be curious to know how Kolkata takes thisplay. Exactly how many people  actually go to see it and like it. 

Review of Rajkahini via the last song, “Jana Gana Mana Adhinayak”

This is a resounding song. We all know that. The interspersed Yaman strains/extrapolations, emphasize the themes of loss, that the film focuses on.

For an epic narrative like Rajkahini, Rabindranath’s classic composition, later institutionalized as the National Song, is fitting. I am going to see whether the individual lines emphasized in the singing, illuminate/refract the motifs, themes, preoccupations in the film, in significant ways. At the outset, I have to admit that I don’t recognize all the singers. The singing in this finale part of the film, is very good as is the music at other moments, for instance, when Rituparna (Baiji) sings as the Nawab fornicates with the new inmate of the Kothi. If that instance underscores the idea of how Art may have to inhabit and actually, further Death, of how Art may exist in close contiguity with the profane, the bizarre  and the perverse, then the instance referred to above, would be a case in point.

However, ‘Jana Gana Mana Adhinayak Jaya He’, like ‘Vaishnava Jana to tene kahi  eje’( plaintive conclusion to Gandhi), underscores the idea of the scale that is even greater than the  national scale, however epic that might be. Both films, like Shakepeare’s Lear, confront us with the question, ‘What is left after this’? If words fail, then music may step  in.

Even in Gandhi, Narasimha’s song of the 12^th century  may have an artistic point of highlighting Gandhi, once again, at the end of the film. We all know that Gandhiji loved ‘Vaishnava Jano To’. However, the song also provides an alternative frame for acting and suffering. The question is, can the political and the artistic, dialogize in significant ways? I mean, what does ‘Vaishnava Jano’ and ‘Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka’ do for these respective films. They suggest, especially the former, ‘the calm of mind all passion spent’—where spirituality remains the only answer to the frenetic questions of doing and having in this world.

Other questions that Srijit’s film raises are many. One of them is the intertextuality produced by Abanindranath’s Rajkahini. That may have been alright in the beginning, but was it necessary to close with that after the definitive gesture/action of the Baiji closing the door. It did have the effect of laboring a point unnecessarily, and feeding the audience too much information. Chittor is another epic narrative, and hence in my opinion, the film story, monumental, gigantic, and all consuming on its own, did not require an additional the artistic footnote.

The acting of the Sahibs was unconvincing and amateurish, and although Rituparna was excellent, most of the other Kothi girls, did not really leave much of an impression. Their  Bangal speech also needed far more practice to sound natural and convincing. Of all the girls in the Kothi, the little one, who disrobed in her father’s presence, was the most memorable. Reminded me of Mahasweta Devi’s Draupadi, where Draupadi (echoes of the classical Draupadi), disrobes in the presence of Sena Nayak (play on the words), to stage her ultimate act of defiance and resistance to male authority and power, to the male (societal, cultural, institutional, class) appropriation of the female body.

The Kothi itself, powerful leitmotif, motif, image, holding the plot together, seemed to carry for me strong echoes of the mad asylum at Lahore in Manto’s Toba Tek Singh. Do you think that ‘Khol Do’ and ‘Toba’ could both be artistically united in this film? The urgency and drama of the initial ‘khol do’ moment gets diffused in the later Toba Tek Singh narrative structure. The two symbols remain in uneasy dialectic.  There is less fusion, but more interruption in bringing the implied two stories together.

No doubt there is great effort in a film that tries to do so much. As a work of feminist historiography within Partition traditions of India, it is new in film. But I would say that to pull that off, would have required tighter structure, so that the poignancy of borders of several kinds, could hit the audience more forcefully and more plaintively.

Rituparana and Kaushik Sen, moved me the most.

I’m sure you have read Urvashi Butalia, Srijit. I found those women stories, simply haunting. You could have also had a series of Manto stories, which featured women.

This is just my humble opinion.

Sreemati Mukherjee

On seeing Rituparna Ghosh’s Chitrangada

The film was a revelation. I did not see it in 2012, when it was released. Somehow I had thought that it would be a replay of the Ar Ekti Premer Golpo themes.

But, no. The film is like a haunting lyric. Playing out the power of Rabindranath Tagore’s  lyric ‘amar praner pore chole gelo ke/ basanter batashtukur moto/ se je chunye gelo, nuye gelo re/phul phutiye gelo shoto shoto…’

A translation of these lines reads (and this song is not in the film):

Who is that who just passed over my being?/ like the breeze in Spring?/ that being touched me, overwhelmed me/ and made so many flowers spring in his/her wake…’ The film is like that. Echoes and reechoes. Not a word, not a gesture out  of place. Perfectly orchestrated; a lyric on the pain of otherness. So one of the songs that run through the film, which actually one has to slightly strain to hear, is Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘ bodo bedonar y moto bejechho tumi he’ or ‘Oh, you have sung through my being a sad song, always’.

Who is the one addressed? Is it God, or Nature, or who? Who has the answer to the secret of being? The film does not answer. But only poses the questions. And portrays the suffering of the one who is different. How he/she tries to belong. So Rudra Chatterjee, creative dancer and producer of Rabindranath Tagore’s Chitrangada (the masculine warrior princess who wished to become a beautiful woman), wishes to become a woman, because his body feels like one. He repeatedly goes through the pain of multiple surgeries, including breast implantations, to look attractive and desirable for his male lover. The story is Rituporno Ghosh’s own life. Self-reflexivity as Art; Art and Life inevitably inhere in each other.

Echoes of Philadelphia. Sexuality that is not accommodated by society. And certainly not middle class Bengali society. The pain and bewilderment of parents who find it hard to accept a child that society rejects, especially on the grounds of sexuality. Themes of the stranger abound in literature. Themes of transformation too.

Transformation is the stuff of fairy tales. Beauty and the Beast. The Frog Prince. The moral lesson that underscores the need for transformation and the uphill moral climb to re-transformation.

In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, little, black girl, Pecola Breedlove, yearns for a pair of ‘blue eyes’ that she thinks will take care of her socially outcast state. It will make the man in the candy store give her candy with more respect, instead of throwing it at her.

The film is a signature of how much Rituporno Ghosh suffered. Perhaps it was (it was) his last film. An unforgettable farewell gesture.

 Each actor, playing a major role or side one, is in tune with the whole. Superlative performances given by Rituporno himself, Jishu Sengupta, AND Anjan Dutta. I loved him the best. Restrained, disengaged initially, but more and more engaged as the sessions and story telling progresses, a model of the perfectly trained emotionally intelligent person. What a performance! Dipankar Dey, the actress who played the mother, were  all so very good. The subdued pain of the parents. However, the need to hold on in spite of everything.

 The loyal household person. When all abandoned Lear, his Fool came along with him on the heath. And the socially outcast son still has meals with his parents. That says something. Having meals together is commonality and community. That is the first thing that Macbeth loses—he cannot eat with his peers after the murder.

Coming back to Subho, or the counselor.  The reality of the counselor itself becomes problematic at the end. It seems there was no counselor. Just a voice? The Atman speaking and counseling? Reaching out to the rent apart, ‘unaccommodated’ (King Lear) self? The Self healing the Self?

Who knows? There are no answers. Except the reality of transits at all points.

Pain insufferable. But caught within artistic design and story telling.

The dirty, mleccha outsider that a sanitized, obsessively clean and hetero normative society, wishes to expunge? The film wrings one’s heart at so many levels. 

Celebrations are times of renewal and affirmation of community. My great guru Shakespeare taught me that through his romantic comedies As You Like It and Twelfth Night.

Shakespeare believed in fun and festivity and of course in love. In Twelfth Night which is actually the last day of the Christmas season before the onset of Lent (period of abstinence, austerity), there is a character named Malvolio. Names in Renaissance comedy imply a person's nature--thus the prefix 'mal' suggests that Malvolio is not nice. He is serious, over-ambitious, vain and also very austere.

Shakespeare did not like austerity. I mean, that is what I think. That is why he makes the self-indulgent and carnivalesque people win in TN. Malvolio comes after them because they were eating and drinking and dancing late into the night. When he asks them, "My masters, are you mad?', Sir Toby (carnivalesque character) tells him, 'Because thou art serious will there be no cakes and ale?' This means that seriousness should not undercut fun and festivity.

Thoughts on the continuity of festivals in our lives: this Diwali/Kali Puja, November 6.

And so the festivities go on..as long as families exist, festive patterns must continue, must be affirmed. That is how we hold on to notions of order and community. So what if the happiness is somewhat ritualized? Lights always bring happiness. Thank God for light! 'Alo amar alo ogo/ aloi bhuvan bhora/ alo noyon dhowa amar alo hridoy hora' : Rabindranath Tagore.

My dear, dear, Light, you fill me up and you fill up the Heavens...

· 

Dakshineshwar temple (only the top) from the bridge leading to Dakshineshwar.

'Gaya, Ganga, Prabash-adi, Kashi, Kanchi, ke ba chai'?

'Who wants Gaya, Ganga, Prabhash, Kashi and Kanchi?' sings an anonymous poet, when, one has Mother Kali as Ultimate Reality in their lives?'

'Kali, Kali, Kali, bole amar ajapa jodi phurai'...

I haven't reached that stage. So for me, the Ganga is so beautiful, so majestic, so mysterious, so powerful and so compelling. Giant water bodies. Watching all that human beings do. Make use of them for myriad uses. Sometimes they answer back. Water, rivers, oceans are so tightly wound up with human histories. They are like our eternal relatives

I believe in the kindness of strangers!

This evening I went out to see my friend Sreemati di. Not for very long. At Prema Villa, off Rashbehari Aveune.

I gave the waiter a 200 rupee note. He brought it back saying that it had writing (numbers--written by a bank employee) on it and could not be accepted.

The bill was a 150 rupees. I paid a 100 that I had and asked Sreemati di to pay the balance amount. I had not wanted her to pay at all.

Now, I needed to change that 200 rupee note if I had to ride back in an auto. It was too much of a bother calling for an Uber in the noise and din of Rashbehari Avenue.

I went up to a socks seller (winter ones to wear with a sari) on the pavement and said, 'I have this marked up 200 rupee note. If I buy two pairs of socks from you, will you give me change?' He looked at the note and said, 'No'.

I hesitated to go into any other pavement shop. Almost near Rashbehari Avenue, I suddenly stopped by one,near Habib's. I asked the shop owner, 'I have a marked up note. If I buy something from you will you change it?' He said, 'You don't have to buy anything. Give it to your Uber driver and just don't tell him it is marked'!

A young man had his back to me. He said, 'Money is money. What is all this fuss about having something marked up? You give it to me Ma'am. I'll give you change. I'll give you two hundred rupee notes'.

He was not handsome. He was not rich. He did not look very distinguished.

He was kind. He felt he wanted to help this lady. There are others like him in this city.

I will never forget him. I believe in the kindness of strangers. I believe kindness and purity exist.

The Mukherjee family singers: Bharati Mukherjee and Sreemati Mukherjee

My mother sings 'Amare tumi ashesh korechho'...

My mother sings 'Amare tumi ashesh korechho'...

On seeing Alakananda Roy's Balmiki Pratibha in the Lakes 3 years back. Letter/email written to my daughter...

Dear Priya, 

I went to see Valmiki Pratibha (composed by Rabindranath in his late teens, staged in his house at Jorasanko at that time and Valmiki [who composed the Ramayana] acted by him, and directed this time around, by your Alakananda Aunty. I am attaching a photograph of hers that I took. 

I can't tell you what a brilliant display it was. What masterful choreography. How breathtaking the community participation on the stage. And the actors, the performers and the dancers? Inmates of the Correction Home at Alipore. I hope you know that jails are called Correction Homes, nowadays. 

I knew her as an Odissi dancer before; when you were 7--10 years old, taking you as I did every Saturday afternoon, to her class in Dover Lane. But it is in this brilliant act of humanitarian engagement leading to various kinds of  psychological rehabilitation and reorientation s of marked and pariah peoples, that she has made her signal contribution. I don't know if she received a National Award for this. She should  and a lot more. 

There was a little girl who plays the part of the Balika (little girl) who brings about a transformation in the dacoit Ratnakar, who later turned into the sage Valmiki. Remember how smitten you were with Nigel? Well, he was the original Valmiki of the first/initial staging of this dance drama. This little girl played her part so well, so expertly, and she has been so well taught by her teacher, Alakananda Ray. The reason I mention this, is that i truly applaud her parents, for allowing her to participate in the midst of Correction Home inmates. 

I was seated in the second row; hence, I could watch the wings. A band on her little wrist had come undone. One of the men (convict) tied that band for her so very tenderly, and she smiled a quick, sweet smile to another man standing next to her. Convicts playing convicts. Policemen watched from the wings and from the grounds. 

This occasion had many 'firsts'. In a splendid move to fuse Art with Nature and patronage, some well meaning residents of Kolkata and the Rabindra Sarovar area, have decided to have open air theatre in the Lake area, every Saturday. Ananda-da told me about it yesterday. I took your Bomma and went. Every moment was worth it. 

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bottom the weaver, has an affair with the Fairy Queen, Titania.  It all happens in  a forest space, at night, and the borders of dream and reality become porous, as all the characters, more or less, but especially Titania and Bottom, are lost in spaces which cannot be translated (or represented) in language. 

But Bottom, recovering from that dream, says, ' Methought I was--there is no man who can tell what Methought I was......The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was'.

I felt that the stage offered these special inmates that chance for a special metamorphosis, when the rough clothes of workaday existence, the suffocating coils of societal punishment could be shaken off, and a glimpse of glorious transformation achieved .

 In response to Srijit Mukherjee’s Hemlock Society

This film, a much earlier one to Chatuskon, has the same preoccupation with Death as the latter film. There is an eros of thanatos ( the death drive) in Mukherjee’s films, often. That is, love of death, as opposed to affirmation of life, or eros. Death as pervasive, death as the final arbiter of life. “Maranare tuhun mama shyama saman” or “moron bole ami tomar jivan tori bai”. Death the great  Beloved, death the great shadow and tragic reality. I see an obsessive return to the theme of death in Srijit Mukherjee’s films, each return, an outstanding film, though.

Hemlock Society does not have the grimness of Chatuskon. It is redeemed by the love story, the concentration on youth and the inevitable beauty of the heroine. The closing song set to Raag Yaman, also gives a note of upbeat joy, of life triumphing over death. The car too, Parambrata driving over Hooghly bridge, also suggests motion or dynamic flow, and modern technological innovation that facilitates exits of all kinds. 

I am stunned that a young film maker thinks so well, so brilliantly, and is able to transform some of the deepest intuitions of life into a gripping story, interesting and empathetic dialogue and outstanding cinematography. A work of Art, indeed, a consummate fusion, a melody that stays and moves.

I thought that the ending cheapened the sustained exploration of death in the film. In my opinion (and my opinion, only), the film would have been more artistically restrained, more tailored, had it ended with the scene between Koyel and Parambrata in the hospital. That would have prevented the somewhat comic closure of the end. After the telling of Koyel’s story, it was not necessary to engage with the story of her boyfriend. There was no need to make him out as a comic figure, nor give added emphasis to the evangelical side of Parambrata’s (Ananda’s) character. The unitary focus of the film was lost for me that way. The scene with the TDS issue, was great, though. A slice of real life, as opposed to the finished perfection and seriousness of artistic enterprise.

The acting was outstanding. Parambrata seems to reach a maturity in Srijit Mukherjee’s films, that I don’t recollect seeing elsewhere. Koyel plays the role of the sophisticated Meghna perfectly.

The bit about Siddhartha Ray’s electrical engineering degree from Jadavpur is also interesting.

Srijit Mukherjee is one of the greatest film makers to come out of Bengal, and also India. He rivals both Satyajit Roy and Rituparna Ghosh. However, if he repeats the death motive too often, then he will stand the risk of over repeating himself.

I know this is a  comparatively older film, but revisiting it was great. One of the lines that Ananda speaks, of how the ideal woman of his dreams, combines  knowledge of ‘Feluda, Derrida and Neruda’ is  hilarious to a degree that I will remember it for a long time.  Intelligent, well read and wonderful film maker.

Srijit Mukherjee’s Ek Je Chhilo Raja.

The title exploits the fabulous implications of a fairy tale (Roopkatha) which always begins with, ’Once upon a time’, ‘ek je chhilo Raja o Rani’.

Yes, the film treats the Raja of Bhawal (Sannyasi Raja) very sympathetically. It also (almost) presents the point of view of the brother-in-law (perpetrator of crime) and woman attorney, well. Not equally forcefully—the tilt towards favouring  the Raja, no matter what, is a given in the text/film/ narrative/ ‘secret desire’ of the work.

As a woman, I ask whether a profligate of that scale, whether a licentious man of that calibre (I mean, the calibre to be so licentious) should be forgiven and celebrated and not excoriated?

The music (incredible, fabulous, superlative) is with him. It is he that the spectacular Kedara composition at the beginning, celebrates. It is he that Rabindranath’s “Maharaja, eky saaje,’celebrates.  Dramatic moments of entry, superb  music, character, moment, stage., magically and powerfully fused. Shreya, Ishan and Sahana have sung so well.

Redeeming qualities of Mahendra? His love of animals and also his subjects, perhaps. Human beings are paradoxes. They are seldom just good or evil. A human being has to be judged on the basis of the actions she/he can commit, both as agents of good and evil. It is the scale that is important. It is the scale that is dramatic. Tamburlaine, Macbeth, Faustus, Othello and even Lear, were not ‘good’ men as such. Or Vittoria Corombona of The White Devil (John Webster,1612). However, they had a quality of incandescence that was rare, that was compelling, that could draw human interest and engagement. Create spaces of identification for the audience.

Mahendra’s life has classic potential as drama. It is a good story and it is well told,  in this case.  

What I really take back from the film is the music. Once again, Shreya, Ishan and Sahana were all so good. Can’t say who was better. Shreya Ghoshal is the queen of playback singing. But the way the scene is imagined with Jisshu’s re-entry into that magnificent building and Sahana breaking into, ‘Maharaja..’, just made my heart sing, too.

Jisshu is larger than life. He fits the larger than life role, with his appearance, mostly. Noble, imposing, Raja-like.  All the characters acted well. All. I forget the name of the sister. She is always so good. One of the best that the Bangla scene has to offer. I am so happy that a Bangladeshi actress is doing so well,  in India.

The setting is fantastic and carefully created. The details are good.

Not easy to pull off a story like that,  where characters, stage, setting, demand a grandness of design and execution.  An almost epic venture.

Long after I left the hall, the music resonated in my ears. It still does. That is why I wrote the review.

Srijit Mukherjee’s Ek Je Chhilo Raja.

The title  exploits the fabulous implications of a fairy tale (Roopkatha) which always begins with, ’Once upon a time’, ‘ek je chhilo Raja o Rani’.

Yes, the film treats the Raja of Bhawal (Sannyasi Raja) very sympathetically. It also (almost) presents the point of view of the brother-in-law (perpetrator of crime) and woman attorney, well. Not equally forcefully—the tilt towards favouring  the Raja, no matter what, is a given in the text/film/ narrative/ ‘secret desire’ of the work.

As a woman, I ask whether a profligate of that scale, whether a licentious man of that calibre (I mean, the calibre to be so licentious) should be forgiven and celebrated and not excoriated?

The music (incredible, fabulous, superlative) is with him. It is he that the spectacular Kedara composition at the beginning, celebrates. It is he that Rabindranath’s “Maharaja, eky saaje,’celebrates.  Dramatic moments of entry, superb  music, character, moment, stage., magically and powerfully fused. Shreya, Ishan and Sahana have sung so well.

Redeeming qualities of Mahendra? His love of animals and also his subjects, perhaps. Human beings are paradoxes. They are seldom just good or evil. A human being has to be judged on the basis of the actions she/he can commit, both as agents of good and evil. It is the scale that is important. It is the scale that is dramatic. Tamburlaine, Macbeth, Faustus, Othello and even Lear, were not ‘good’ men as such. Or Vittoria Corombona of The White Devil (John Webster,1612). However, they had a quality of incandescence that was rare, that was compelling, that could draw human interest and engagement. Create spaces of identification for the audience.

Mahendra’s life has classic potential as drama. It is a good story and it is well told,  in this case.  

What I really take back from the film is the music.Srijato wrote wonderful lyrics and they were masterfully set to tune by Indrajit Dasgupta. Once again, Shreya, Ishan and Sahana and Kaushiki were all so good.  Can’t say who was better. Shreya Ghoshal is the queen of playback singing. But the way the scene is imagined with Jisshu’s re-entry into that magnificent building and Sahana breaking into, ‘Maharaja..’, just made my heart sing, too.

Jisshu is larger than life. He fits the larger than life role, with his appearance, mostly. Noble, imposing, Raja-like.  All the characters acted well. All. I forget the name of the sister. She is always so good. One of the best that the Bangla scene has to offer. I am so happy that a Bangladeshi actress is doing so well,  in India.

The setting is fantastic and carefully created. The details are good.

Not easy to pull off a story like that,  where characters, stage, setting, demand a grandness of design and execution.  An almost epic venture.

Long after I left the hall, the music resonated in my ears. It still does. That is why I wrote the review.

Sri Sarada Math, Dakshineshwar

Went there yesterday. Had a desire to do Jagadhhatri Puja,this year. Easier said, than done. It is an impossible feat for a person to pull off alone. It is a huge undertaking requiring very elaborate preparations and execution. Just me, Rita, Kamala and Maya, could not have pulled it off.

Had gone to Matri Bhavan a few days back with the intention that I would give a small offering there for the Puja at the Math. Some years back, 2013, I had dreamed of Jagaddhatri Puja at the Math. That's how I knew I had to go. Priya was there with me that year. It was the 16th of November. She was very sick. Standing in the line at the Math, with the wind from the Ganga blowing, she got sicker. I remember I got off at Shyambazar, to buy paper plates and spoons with which she could eat the prasad. Priya and I have rare continuums. Must have known her in my previous life.

Saw a nun in my dream. And a chalchitra, from the side.

Had no idea that I would go yesterday to the Math at Dakshineshwar, which  I avoid nowadays because it is so far away. In any case, i had to pay the Centre driver 580 for taking me there.

Suddenly around mid-morning a resolve grew. Why not? the voice said. Why can't you go? Why is it impossible? Then I decided that I had to go. The Math celebrated Jagaddhatri Puja. It made sense for me to go there.

Sarada Math is a pure place. The calm, the tranquillity, the serenity and the purity, are genuine. i felt I had to make it my inner space. i had to. This was the only way to put all inner upheavals to rest. To reach that point of calmness, 'the still point' on 'the wheel' is our goal in life. To inhabit that beautiful and utterly giving calmness. To own it. To claim it. To make it my own. There is no other way to go.

'Gaya, Ganga, Prabhash-adi, Kashi Kanchi ke ba chai?/ Kali, Kali,Kali bole amar ajapa jodi phurai'. 

This is an article which has been published today: On the 'themes' of Durga Puja, 2018. In Windows on Travel:)

http://www.wotweb.com/wot-article/many-themes-durga-puja-2018/?fbclid=IwAR0j2EaYWuF4ILxeeC9-ttnBcfnhynOjIBrgx26lmur59MD88yBNtnz9O34