Marital & Martial

 Marital & Martial

May be it all happened in May

The bay leaves were growing at the bay

While Mary was marrying,

the bridal on the bridle

... the gay man was a gay

who was racing against race.

At day, on that day

as the Chinese ate chinese

and Punjabis wearing punjabis

all in gibe and jibe -

..and the kite basked by the kite

the light glided through light

The gorilla learnt guerilla,

the bush was his new ambush

..and out there, peeking from the peak

the prey kept praying

piecing the peace.

Dedicated to the ‘র’ and ‘ড়’ interchangebilia!

‘হা-হা’ কার?

 ‘হা-হা’ কার?

 

কিছু পুরুষ বালক থেকে লোক হয়ে যায়,

 

মেয়েগুলো ছেলেদের মত বড় হতে চায়,

 

আর হিজড়াগুলো ছড়িয়ে ছিটিয়ে,

 

    -  কেউ কাজ পায়, কেউ আজও একটা অস্বস্তি-ভরা গান গেয়ে ভিক্ষা চায়।

 

 

 

একগাদা জেঠতুতো, পিসতুতো, মামাতো, খুড়তুতোর মধ্যে কিছু ধর্ষণের রক্ত বিরক্তিতে শুকিয়ে যায়। 

 

 

 

ফাঁসি হোক আজ এই কিম্ভূতকিমাকার পৌরুষের, 

 

মরে বেঁচে যাক কিছু নারীত্ত্ব, 

 

আর রক্তজীব গুলো ছড়িয়ে পড়ুক দূষিত নীল আকাশে। 

 

পতিতা পৃথিবী এবার হাহাকার করুক কিছু আসলের, কিছু ফসলের।

Peddling Love

 Peddling Love

As we are

Cake-walking on the devils of life,

Carefully napthalene-ing friendships (idea adapted from Bubun)

while messaging the dead over Facebook

... we’ve lost much of intrinsic love

though, might never realize how careless we have been :-(

Butterfly flickering on orange peels

বাদ-দে তো...

 বাদ-দে তো...

 

হা- ডু -ডু  জিন্দাবাদ

 

হা- ডু -ডু  মুর্দাবাদ

 

 মার্ক্সবাদ, ধর্মবাদ, 

 

ভেল্কিবাজ ওই  নিরপেক্ষবাদ, 

 

 জাতিবাদে মুন্ডপাত 

 

দিকে দিকে আতঙ্কবাদ

 

তাতে সম্পাদকের আলোকপাত

 

আর বেকার যত বাদানুবাদ,

 

নেতার তরে  ‘মন কি বাত’

 

আর কবির কথা 'বাদ কি বাত' :-)

 

আজ আয়করের বজ্রপাত

 

মেকি  যত ধন্যবাদ

 

সেখানে, আমি বাদ, তুই-ও বাদ

 

জাতে আমরা বর্বাদ |

Golden era of the silver screen...

 Golden era of the silver screen...

 

 

 

Watching Bengali movies of 60's and 70's is so releiving in multiple ways. First, it reflects the life and social fabric in which I had grown up. So, while the screen size of the laptop and audio-visual quality are often to be compromised with, nothing can match reliving the very vernacular feelings, that too of childhood days. 

 

Also, what draws me is the grit coexisting with the femininity, of the female actors - all captured in such a subtle manner. Lily Chakraborty, Supriya Debi, Sabitri Chatterjee, Tanuja, Mala Singha, Suchitra Sen, ....just to name a few. So heartening to see that in that space and time, the directorial cut dared to showcase women/girls walking out  their paternal houses to avoid a pre-arranged marriage and unhesitantly sharing the house/room with an unknown male! That someone could think of such a storyline in that era, not in one, but multiple movies, surely conveys a message, which thrills me...  

 

Watched Kabali here, at Indiana University cinema last week. Most Indian students, present in the hall cheered the R factor, though caste dynamics, informing the construct of the movie was discoursed by Pallavi, and had its tangential reference in the film per se. 

 

...and thereafter, just to take a break from the monotony of reading, watched Dangal, on YouTube and seriously, no comments. The way the wife stuttered when the daughters ate out or decided the length of their own hair, mentioning, "What will your father say?", said it all....Only that in the garb of paternal good intentions, gender dynamics got layered and end result was a box office hit!!!

 

Silver screen remains surreal, both, then and now, yet the poignant social change messaging which movies of yesteryears delivered, seems missing in the cacophony of colors and jazz these days....  

A, B, C, D and the Unsaid

 

You sent 9 February

The only flaw to this note is that the letters follow the chronological order of the memory lane rather than the alphabetical order. A, B, C and D are four of my classmates in school. I met B in 1982, D’s story was in 1984, A’s vivid memory happened in 1985 and C came to my life in 1987. The only reason of sharing this note here is because I owed these approximately 1000 words to them on their recently bygone birthdays, which I could pen down today, on Kalpataru Diwas. Each of them are on Facebook now, and thus, just the initials of their names or sir-names, here.

That was the last year (1982) when school sessions followed the calendar year- January through December. I was in Class IIA and B was in IIB. It was tiffin time, which, later, we learnt to refer to as recess or break. B sat all alone in class. I had overheard from other classmates that she had recently lost her father. Good lord! I could not actually comprehend what it meant to not have a father at eight. It was such an enigma to me. That day I gave up the regular games and snacking during recess and sat by her. Confused how to break the ice, I suddenly appreciated the handwriting on the label of her notebook kept on her desk. She gave a pale smile and replied that it was written by her father, who is no more. I barely touched her palm, may be to fathom fatherless-ness. Who knew then the sign thereof for me? I started liking this girl, lesser for these profound reasons and more because she could manage with so much of silence. Notoriously talkative, I awed how a person could be so silent. I wanted to befriend her, and serendipity it was! By then we were in Std III. For distinctly different reasons, household level mentoring for studies was minimal for both of us and we needed coaching support. A then engineering student was recruited who came twice a week at ours and taught us. I was happy. I got to talk to B…and one day she came in that crimson frock, with pearl-like beads on its neckline, sleeves and frills. She looked beautiful. That day, I apparently fell in love with B, that girl in the pearl frock!

D and I shared the first bench in class IV, not because she was my best friend, but because we were of the same height and topped the class for being the shortest ones. Another similarity, both of us were ‘chatterboxes’ and thus no claustrophobia of silence! As much as I trust that memory will not fail me, D was and is still called by a pet-name by us, her classmates. This pet name, has its tenets of leg-pulling, but D has always laughed loud at it, as much as we did. Things were fun with D and it was another school day on February 1, 1984. As we entered school there was an eerie hustle. The school bus had trampled the tricycle rickshaw, carriage-ing D and three other girls. A younger girl succumbed to that fatal accident and D was injured. She resumed school after some weeks, her hand plastered and she wearing a red and white checkered sweater throughout that year. Though D was back, this accident had changed things between us. An incommunicable silence prevailed and I wondered how one witnessed death from such proximity? Years later, miles away from home and family, I am needing to deal with long distance news and messages of death. But seems there is some resonance to these seemingly polarized experiences. How D dealt with things then, how she normalized, has been a learning for me... an immense one.

A and I were the out of class buddies. Being punished and turned out of the class for talking, was rather common for both of us. Our bonding over talkathon continued as we stood outside, and thus, punishment of being turned out of the class seemed like a boon in disguise to me. Also, the embarrassment quotient was ironed out to the frowning looks of teachers who crossed the hallway, with the solace that nobody would be able to decipher who among the both of us was the primary culprit! This continued, but one day it was different. A was punished and was asked to keep standing. Though, I was happy with her lesser degree of punishment, I was kind of disappointed for having missed on our relentless talk outside the class. As A stood in front of the class, she and I exchanged looks intermittently. Seemed she was trying to express something, which I couldn’t decipher. ..and suddenly, she urinated. The teacher furious, allowed her to go to the washroom. This was 1985 and we were adolescents. A tricky age, where we would be embarrassed to dig our noses in public, but desperate to share our crushes with classmates. A and I never spoke in class ever again. May be for the first time I learnt, the equation of un-equals. Loss of temper of some could cost the others losing their marbles!! Interesting….

How could I ever forget C? Class VII and the teacher initially rebuked me of talking in class and thereafter stated the ‘Kalapani’- I had to sit beside C for the rest of the academic year. She was a brilliant girl, but who cared of those attributes? Recess, I was almost shattered and started weeping profusely. Concerned, she asked, “What happened? Why are you crying?” Chagrined, I almost screamed, “How can you not talk man? How do I spend the year if you do not talk?” The God of Talk had apparently heard my imploring prayers and by the turn of a few months C and I started conversing. We spoke and enjoyed so much that we chose to extend my punishment and thus expressed my choice to continue to sit beside C in Std VIII, IX and Xth, which was readily granted. The only thing which I could not gather was C’s brevity in her written pieces. Anxious especially during the exams, when my fountain pen leaked of despair and my phalanges pained, C could convey exactly the same thing, in a much precise and better way. I tried hard to crack the secret, but alas, what happened was may be some kind of swapping of perceptions. Of late, C calls me genius, when, I know, it is the other way round!!

We talked in cats and dogs then, and yet the deepest remained unsaid......

We converse in multiple fora now, and yet the deepest is never shared......

THE MIDNIGHT PETUNIA

 THE MIDNIGHT PETUNIA

 

 The good part of fairy tales is that, it expands our spectrum to believe even the weirdest things. Remembering one such fairy tale of the two most influential men in my life: Sur-kaku, our downstairs neighbor, who was afflicted by polio and hence, would struggle to walk, those days, and later became bedridden, and Baba, my father, who was blind. One day when Baba was trying to walk down the barber's across the street, he escaped a fatal accident of stumbling over the durga puja pandal bamboos, only because Sur-Kaku, sitting in their veranda and chopping veggies then, shouted, and raised an alarm, until Baba stopped, and some passers by helped him. Salute to the unique symbiosis between these two physically challenged men, gritting their struggle to sustain their employment in the public sector, and keeping up to the standards of a normalized society. Today, with Sur-kaku's passing away, feels, so many such worthy fairy tales though cherished, yet fade out unrecorded. 

• Snigdha Sur

  Hats off to both winner..

  

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    Tapati Dutta

    Ekdummmmmm Hats off!!!!!

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• Purbasha De

  পুরোনো ঘটনাটা খুবই অনুপ্রেরণামূলক । তবে যেকোনো মানুষের চলে যাওয়াই দুঃখের।কাকুদের আত্মার শান্তি কামনা করি।

  

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    Tapati Dutta

    Thanks, Tumpa. Sur kakur moto manush, ebong onder moto resilient poribar, ami e jibone khoob kom dekhechi. aar aami, Tandra, Chanda, Lalu, jader ekta onnyorokom poribare jonmo hoyecilo, tader shoman bhabe khelar shathi kore neowar jonnye toder, especia… 

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  • Purbasha De

    Tapati Dutta

     ha didi.sesh lineta khub sotto......Tomar sab kichu ja ami dekhechi ba Sabar upore babahare katano mugdhha.

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• • • • • Tapati Dutta

          Purbasha De

           shesh line ta bujhi ni. Banglai lekh, bon

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        • Purbasha De

          তোমার ব্যবহার বা অন্য অনেক কিছুতেই আমি মুগ্ধ

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          Tapati Dutta

          Purbasha De

           Ha ha ha!!! Dhur pagol. Durbybohar korar spordha korar moto social capital thakle, hoyto amio kortam.

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        • Purbasha De

          Tapati Dutta

           না দিদি, তখন না বুঝলেও এখন আমি বুঝি দুটোতেই আমাদের দুই পরিবারের পার্থক্য অনেকই ছিল। তুমি সত্যিই খুব ভালো।

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          Tapati Dutta

          Purbasha De

           No other certificate or accolade could have been better ever, than your pat, that I am a good human.

          

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      • Golam M. Mathbor

        They are the sources of our inspiration in social work

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      • Smita Sur

        আমি এই ঘটনার সময় রাস্তায় খেলছিলাম।আর জ্যেঠুর কাছে আমি সবসময় আসতাম।তোমার কাছে সাবানের ফুলদানি,জ্যেঠিমার কাছে ঘুমানো,আমার বড় হওয়া পুরেটাই রাই কাকু ,তোমাদের কাছে।বাবা আমায় বারান্দায় বসেবসে লক্ষ্য রাখা,আমি গাছে চড়ছি না দৌড়ছি।আজ আর কিছুই নেই।

        

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          Tapati Dutta

          Smritutuku thak.....otai onek re.

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          Tapati Dutta

          Kandbi na. Ekdom. duto manush i kintu sharireek, manoshik, r shamajik onek onek koshto bhishon tej er sathe bear korlo. So be proud, we are their children.

          

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        • Smita Sur

          Tapati Dutta

           ha go.

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