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

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pINiqOrlXEI&t=20s : KALI PUJA IN MY FLAT, TODAY


Essence of the Ramprosad song:

Look, Mother, you have done a lot for me,

My prayer to you now, is that please let me go in a blaze of light

Excerpt from The Kathamrita:

Thakur tells everyone (October, 1884):

Look, pride comes from ignorance. Get rid of pride. Whether you are a judge or any other person in a high position it will go one day. It doesn't really add up to anything [if we are looking at Time, especially, my interpolation]. There was this crazy guy who looked at a bedecked Durga murti and said to her, 'Look Mother, no matter how much you dress up, they are going to throw you into the Ganga, soon!'

Ma speaks on the eve of Kali Puja, 2018:


She said that Kali Puja did not appeal to her. Ours is however a very Shakta family. My father worshipped Kali throughout his life. I worship her. Have always been deeply drawn to Mother Kali. Love her songs and sing them. I once saw at Music World, while Ajoy Chakrabarty's 'ida pingala nama/sushumna monorama/tary moddhye gantha Shyama/Brahmasanatani', Kali singing. I saw her singing. Fair Kali and then that image became Bibhatsa. Year 2004. I  used to go to Music World frequently, those days. From Basanti Devi. From home. It was my way of finding happiness. For my 44th birthday, I remember buying 2000 worth CD's. 4 on Zakir Hussain. There was a special series brought out by RPG on all his famous jugalbandis.

So, Ma said, she did not believe in Kali. She always used to criticize the Ramprosad song, 'Boshon Poro Ma'. She said she disliked how it went on and on during Kali Puja. In the video I took today of her, I said, 'Well, Rabindranath is Shiv, Kali and Durga, all rolled into one for you?'. She raised her hands in a namashkar and said 'yes'.

She said she waits for my son to come home. She loves him most in the world.

We sang Maharaja eki shaaje and Amar milan laagi tumi, together.

I told her that Rabindranath had told Einstein, that 'there was nothing outside what the human mind could conceive'.

As I turned on a Netflix film Allied, I felt that to be human meant to explore the limits of one's strength and to keep pushing and pushing towards greater and greater excellence. In that would lie self fulfillment, self-expression and self-realization. We are really quintessentially divine. 'Koto lakkha janam ghure ghure peyechhi bhai manav janam/e janam chole gele aar pabo na' ('after having traveled a million births, i finally have a human birth, if i lose this one, i will lose it all'), sang the Baul poet. May be he is right. Lesson for all of us to take from his words. 

When Ma met Baba for the first time: (1958)

Theirs was an arranged marriage. Nothing surprising about that, of course. Dadu and Attama ( aar ekta Ma?)lived in Gangtok. Attama (my maternal grandmother) had come down from Sikkim (Gangtok), rented a house on Sardar Shankar Roy Road for a year, and done all the marriage preparations there. Such dedication. Such committment to beauty. No one in my father's family had seen such an elaborate wedding in a long time.

Baba lost his father (a doctor) when he was 19. They used to live in Warren Hastings's house in Howrah then. Thakurdada was a Civil Surgeon. He died at 50. Had problems with alcohol. Reckless man. Once my father and older uncle ( Jethu) had seen him vomit after he came home. They had sworn that they would never touch alcohol in their entire life. Baba kept his oath. Jethu didn't . According to my parents my father's brothers, particularly, Jethu and Sejo Kaku didn't like Baba because of his extreme strictness. But he had a demonic temper. And that is a terrible thing. I find it hard to forgive him for certain actions, words and attitudes.

Anyway, when Baba came to 'see' Ma (kone dekha )for the first time, she sang, 'Chokher aloi dekhechhilem chokher bahire' which translates into 'When my eyes had light, I only looked outward'.My esteemed father heard 'bahire' (outside) as 'baalire' or 'sand'. We all know that sand pricks the eyes and is uncomfortable.

He came home and fussed and fussed over that word till I think they looked it up in the Gitabitan (compendium of Tagore songs) and realized that the word was 'bahire' and not 'baalire'.

Once Ma wore lipstick for an evening's outing together, and he just broke it up (cancelled it) and came home. How extreme, unkind and ruthless! I've never asked her how she felt about this. I've just heard about the incident.

He used to walk before his sisters when he went out with them, lest anyone think that he was hanging out with girls. :)

My birthday, yesterday: Do read it. It is interesting. Not just 'Song of Myself'.

My birthday yesterday had a couple of radiant moments.

A colleague at Presidency demonstrated a good attitude and reflected a side to her character that I liked. It never hurts to say 'sorry'. A lot of healing and a lot of development and positive change may come if that one word is said in a heartfelt manner.

Met Purnima for lunch. I love her house, 6/1 Wood Street, house of Gujarati Jute business folk. Magnificent, elegant but requiring a level of maintenance that is not possible by the family now.

A heritage house, almost, with mahogany staircases, very high ceilings, incredible architectural elegance and spaciousness. It is a privilege to live in a house like this. It would have so many stories, so many individual and interwoven narratives, as Gujaratis (as many Bengalis up until the 80's of the previous century) lived in big joint families. A bahu (daughter-in-law) of this house was my classmate years ago at the Alliance Francaise de Calcutta. Harsha Tulsidas, so incredibly beautiful, tall, classically elegant, fair, with lovely features. I had a picture of her writing on a desk in the classroom where Monsieur Gimeno taught. What a teacher!

He had once signed  off a card sent(given) to me for Christmas/New Year, 'tres amicalement a vous' or 'in a spirit of great friendship with you'. I had treasured those words. I was eighteen years old. My friend Padma Mahadevan (first in class to my second--we were such good friends--she became a Probationary Officer in the State Bank of India, later), and I went to his house in Padmapukur, stood around giggling in the courtyard (I was  16 and Padma, 21), but he wasn't home.

I would have never ever written all this down. All these rich experiences would have died with me. So writing the blog is a good thing even if there are strains of narcissism in it at times.

I hope enough of the world does step in, does come in and embrace you into its wide, wide fold. 'Jagate ananda yajjne, amar nimantran'. 'I have been invited to the great feast of joy in the universe'. Rabindranath emphasized 'ananda' or 'joy'. 'Ananda' is happiness, delight, joy at its most sublime, most delicate, most refined, most magical and most miraculous. It is the golden light of the morning, the blue sky, 'the round ocean' and the mind of man', 'a motion and a spirit that impels all thinking things and all objects of all thought [Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey].

I didn't start quoting Wordsworth consciously. My words mingled with his, naturally evoked his. I doubt Rabindrath ever acknowledged Wordsworth. But the impress of the latter poet's thoughts and cadences are very obvious to me, an English Romanticism afficianodo, teacher, etc. Love British Romanticism. Mother's milk. Grew up on it.

Sreemati at 19-21 is Wordsworth (primarily), Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Coleridge. She is. English Literature is one of my Gods. It has shaped, guided, formed my imagination and sensibility. Provided aesthetic norms and parameters. Taught me to look at the world, frame experiences and seek interconnections and overlappings. It has shaped and formed me. I am grateful to it and love it. My literary first love. Nothing will ever replace it. Nothing. No matter how 'decolonized' I try to become or how much I process and internalize the message of British imperialism into Culture.

So, if  i have a stepmother or a stepsister or a foster mother, what is wrong with that? It is giving me life in helping me to create and connect and teach my methodologies which in turn is creating traditions and continuums of pedagogy, teaching and nurture. My students at Basanti Devi College still tell me that they loved being in my classes. I think they are being sincere. They tell me that I 'shaped' and 'formed' them. I listen with utmost humility.

Poornima, who I met for lunch yesterday , wrote in a letter she gave me:

'I believe fully that if a pure- hearted person seeks His help [ God's ], it always comes. The help I want you to seek is the power to throw out of your mind everything that disrupts your peace of mind, and focus on things that make you happy. I believe you have this power, but it is dormant. It will awaken, and strengthen, as you pray with all your heart and with complete faith.'

I will hold on to these words like I would to scriptural text.

My mother's wishes on the eve of my birthday:

I have a slight, narcissistic fascination with my own birthday. Love to be wished on this day and made a little fuss of. If I do nothing, then I feel very sad. Only child. Cheerless childhood, more or less. Very little money, inspite of living in an elegant house. Parents with sad, slightly worn out expressions. Neither of them smiled very much. Ma looked sad most of the time.

I remember she got me a doll for  my 6th birthday. You know one of those expensive 'foreign' ones? From New-Market. I remember liking the doll very much. For my 8th, it was a small doll. Very small. I remember her coming through the gate. I was sitting on the staircase with Thakuma. I was very close to her.

The tears well up in my eyes as I remember. Ma tried. She tried to do the honours of motherhood with very little money.

I believe Baba was also very sad when he couldn't buy me the long playing record of Sound of Music which we had gone together as a family to see. At the Globe which is shut down and in shambles today. So decrepit with a story of waste, neglect and digital revolution repercussions, written on it. The waste of civilization; the passing of the old and the inevitability of waste and destruction. Fading away, losing relevance. Change that leads to death.

It broke his heart (I believe) that he could not spend 33 rupees to buy that record.

Am too emotional, now. So, on the eve of my birthday (turning 58 tomorrow), here's to my parents for bringing me into this world.