What's happening all around?

I have reverted to the practice of first writing my blogposts on the computer and then copy-pasting them on the blog. This has been prompted by a very recent warning from Subhanjan that someday Blogger could simply take down and trash twenty years of my loving labour. I wouldn’t like that to happen. Meanwhile, I am looking for someone who has the technical expertise to download everything I have written here so far.

I must admit to feeling a little disappointed at having received so few congratulatory messages from dear old boys (and a few girls) in response to my last post. I should have thought that many of them, especially those of them who have been reading a long time, would somehow feel the urge and find the time to write a few lines. ‘Screen fatigue’ does not explain everything, you know; laziness, distraction and confusion together account for quite a bit of the things we know we could but did not do.

Which led me to reflect upon a passage that I have been dealing with in Julius Caesar. In Act IV scene iii, Brutus displays superhuman self-control by quietly absorbing the grief brought upon him by the news of the horrible death of his beloved wife. Perhaps he was only demonstrating how good a stoic he was; stoics believed it was a sign of moral weakness to make strong overt shows of any emotion, whether it be love or fear, anger or sorrow (by the way, we don’t lack the same ideal in the great Indian tradition: Sri Ram, described as the maryada purushottam, the ideal man, was said to be sukhey vigataspriha, dukkhe nirudvignamana … indifferent in joy, unworried in sorrow). Cassius is filled with awed admiration and a sense of inadequacy at this display of self-control: he says ‘I have as much of this art as you, but yet my nature would not have it so’, meaning, I too have been taught this in theory (though he subscribed to a different philosophy, all schools taught self-control and calmness as a fundamental virtue), but my character is too tempestuous to submit to such discipline. What would they have said if they surveyed our world, where habitual and wild expressions of manic joy (whether it be over a World Cup Final victory for the favourite team or the son graduating from high school) is counterpoised by everyone falling into traumatic depression every now and then when they can’t find strong enough stimulants from day to day, and even language has degenerated into mindless repetition of empty superlatives (everything has to be ‘amazing’ and ‘incredible’… you call someone merely good or something just nice, and people take it as a snub, even an insult!). Could they be blamed if they wrote off modern ‘civilization’ as a babel of eternal children or madmen, regardless of all our vaunted technological progress?

Coming to the strong, growing and spreading popular protest movement spearheaded by the whimsically named Cockroach Janata Party, I can only wish them well (yes, I know some readers have been wondering when I will begin to comment on it). I am proud that so many young people have woken up to some of the most urgent and legitimate needs of the day. If we believe in democracy as the ideal form of government (or at least, Churchill fashion, the least bad among all the options), if we truly respect the Constitution, the right to dissent, argue and demand reform peacefully simply cannot be denied to the people: it is fundamental and non-negotiable. An Opposition-free Bharat would be a nightmare, a prison for all self-respecting Indians to live in. The government knows perfectly well that they are not all anti-national, foreign funded agents sent over to destabilize this country – who benefits from spreading and believing that sort of childish, paranoid nonsense? What they are asking for might be silly or superficial (does anyone seriously believe that simply dismissing a certain minister will magically and overnight clean out the Augean stable that our education system has become?), what they are doing and the way they are doing it might seem unwarranted or misguided or excessive to many (to think that way is also a democratic right, as long as we do not impose our views with brutal force), but to imagine that repression and suppression by obduracy, callousness and police action is the solution is to invite disaster. No man, no party, no government, no philosophy has a monopoly of truth and righteousness and patriotism, because humans are simply not built that way. That is why democracy has been called the art of muddling through: even it does not guarantee the best outcomes, it at least ensures that slow reforms for the better through dialogue and compromise are brought about with the least harm to the many. Any government which tries to simply silence and choke the voice of peaceful dissent is inviting trouble, if not catastrophe, for themselves, and if we are unlucky, for the whole country. I am neither unpatriotic nor anti-democratic, just a very humble man still proud to be Indian, and it is as such that I appeal to the government of the day: please listen to the protestors, do not hurt them, accept some of their demands, acknowledge your mistakes (there is no shame in that) and correct them to the best of your ability: that is what will work best for you and for ‘we the people’ in the long run. Doing the opposite, I repeat, is courting disaster. It has happened again and again before. As a wise but cynical man sadly said, ‘The only thing we learn from history is that we never learn anything from history’. 

After twenty years

I started writing this blog on July 08, 2006. Which means that I have been writing continuously here for twenty years now, and this is my 825th post. Twenty whole years of writing! The contents would certainly make a fairly fat book. I am the sort of man who doesn't quickly give up what he starts doing, but even I had not imagined that I would keep at it for twenty years. That's half or more of a man's entire working life. Those who had just passed school in 2006 are family men and women in their late thirties now; those in their twenties who started reading this blog then must be pushing fifty! My little girl was ten years old then, now she is thirty, and busy living her own life. Is there anybody who has been reading this blog continuously right from the beginning and still visits it now and then? I would certainly like to say congratulations and thank you...

I have had a lot of interesting debates and conversations here, too, so thanks to all who participated. I have revealed a great deal of my mind and life here as I have passed through the prime of life into old age. Of course, do not imagine that you know everything about me even if you have been a regular long-time reader. As Tagore said, you will not find the poet in his poems. I have by preference shown the happier side of my life and the sunnier part of my mind here, if only to avoid burdening my reader with the weight and gloom of my own sorrows, fears, losses and disillusionments, of which, like every other human being, I have had aplenty. That is because it has been my lifelong desire to ease the travails of living for a few people if I can through my work, and not to make it more irksome by inflicting my own complaints on them. At worst, maybe a hint of melancholy and tiredness may have crept into some of my writing, for which I sincerely apologize: I wish I could have sounded cheerier without pretending to be what I am not. Also, despite talking and writing so much, I have always been at heart a very private sort of person - unlike most young denizens of the age of social media, I keep very personal (and usually painful) things for the most intimate circle, to which few belong, many have dropped out from, and thousands never came into.

I don't know how much longer I shall keep going. Without specific requests, I often feel at a loss for things to write these days. Also, as I frequently say myself, I am growing old, and weary, and no longer quite sure whether my writing matters to people. Why do people work at all? As I have always believed, unless it is under some sort of external compulsion, it is either for love or money. This was never a money making proposition, so obviously I did it for love: love of the written word, love of many things that I have seen, felt and enjoyed, love of the idea that perhaps I was influencing some people's lives in a good way. Now, I am not so sure that that love endures, or will endure much longer. Other than working as a teacher in my own house, I have, unsocial being that I am, have led a withdrawn life for ages, and perhaps a time is coming when I shall withdraw some more, limiting my human interactions to face to face conversations with those who keep visiting me at home. Maybe I have shared enough with the vast faceless public already? 

One good thing that I have just noticed: even when I am not attending to the blog, the number of pageviews keeps on climbing, and more and more older stuff has been coming into the most-read list (right now, the post titled Ingratitude and Karma is on the top of the list. Interesting). Unless I am much mistaken, that means a lot of people still remember the blog and are still curious to explore beyond the home page. Cheers to them, but also a lament: why can't you write in comments that will energize me to engage? Hundreds and hundreds of posts on such a huge diversity of subjects, and nobody finds anything to say?

Browsing through several dozen posts written over these last twenty years, I felt a sense of unreality. I was running a family then, working seven days a week non-stop for months at a stretch, reading so much, frequently going travelling, counselling so many people outside of my classes, dealing with all kinds of emergencies... where did I find the time in between all that to keep writing so much? And I hear so many people saying that they 'have no time' for any kind of serious (mental) work, not even reading, let alone writing! I myself have lost a lot of readers to two things: jobs and marriage. Of course, I never married and never worked for a living. Isn't it a really funny world? 

They say every grown man has a story - is a story. Well, I have told a large part of my story here. Not earthshaking, not maybe very educative or moving, but perhaps it will have significantly affected, even touched, a few people. That should be enough. In my own life, I have met many 'ordinary' people who have deeply instructive and memorable stories to tell, if only they are encouraged a bit (remember I once wrote the memoir of a roadside phuchkawallah). Mine may not be the most trivial of them. Some may remember. Otherwise, like everybody else, I shall soon pass, not only from this world but from everyone's minds. So what? And what would be unique about it? I just learnt in class two days ago that teenagers of today haven't heard of Sir Don Bradman!

Lately I have been enjoying myself enjoying old TV series now available for free on YouTube: specifically Mind your language and Blandings (yes, the Wodehouse creation). Try them sometime. Wonderful things for those who admire wit and genuine humour of the educated and civilized sort rather than what passes for comedy today. Also, regaling myself watching the 'vlogs' of young bike riders who go gallivanting across the length and breadth of India: so relaxing and interesting if you can do it from the safety and comfort of your bedroom, ten or twenty minutes at a time, spending virtually no money at all, and they give you drone's-eye view scenery, too! Science ka kya marvel!

A gentle nudge: do listen to my story collection on YouTube and the growing series of poetry podcasts on Spotify (in both cases you need to search only for 'Suvro Sir') and tell me what you think about them, here if you like. And if you do, please write more than a one-liner. 

So much for now.

So that June may not stay empty...

Yes, I know, I haven't written for ages. Fact is, looking back on the immense amount and variety of things I have written, I can't think of much to write any more. Not, at least, for now. I am too tired. Maybe someday the blocked stream will break free again. 

I watched Sir Richard Attenborough's Gandhi again earlier this month, after I guess a gap of nearly forty years. Two things occurred to me: a) such a beautiful movie, and yet so ahistorical - a story about Gandhi's life and times with no Subhas, no Ambedkar, no mention of Tagore though the Rev. C. F. Andrews features notably, and Jinnah barely a shadowy figure on the margins?! and b) how did Gandhi do it - returned to India in 1915 little known, and by far the most prominent and influential leader of the country as no one has been before and after, hypnotizing and holding the worshipful attention, affection and obedience of millions of both high and low, without fakery, without violence, and with no more modern tools of mass communication technology except radio and newspapers in a largely illiterate country? I have been wondering all my life, and I am as far away from the answer as I have always been...

New government in the state, of an entirely new type, as I have noted before. Not been in office for two months yet. As I said, I am watching. I am not a man who draws conclusions quickly.

I don't know whether many people are listening to my poetry-reading podcasts on Spotify, but making the successive episodes has been giving me a particular sort of gentle pleasure. I shall be glad to have suggestions from listeners about what they would like to hear next. Till then, it remains entirely a matter of my personal taste and choice. Meanwhile, it is good to see that my stories on YouTube continue to attract new listeners, however slowly (both can be accessed by typing in 'Suvro Sir'.) Something that I heard today and loved: a senior ex student of mine reported that her daughter recently exclaimed 'I know... you are going to visit your Spotify Sir'. Newest nickname... made my day.

Speaking of YouTube, I loved this speech of Chandril Bhattacharya's. After a long time, he's said something that I agree with in toto. (In a democracy) people get the kind of government they deserve.

Over the last few weeks, the rains have been playing truant hereabouts, making us swelter in the muggy heat day after inexorable day. What makes it especially galling is that we keep hearing how Kolkata and north Bengal are being inundated.

That's all for now. As of June 25, my daughter is a married woman. May God bless both her and Swarnava. I am looking forward more and more eagerly to vanaprastha. Just think: even that post is nearly four years old!

The Pope on AI, and ranking countries

The current Pope, Leo XIV (an American and by training a mathematician, so not exactly science- and tech illiterate), has just released an encyclical (open letter to all people of goodwill) warning against the rapid and, to many, overwhelming and frightening rise of AI: see this news report. I shall not comment on any part of it right now, but I shall be glad if there is a discussion here on his various prescriptions for the future development and control of AI - before we, human beings, are actually overwhelmed and cast aside (that is a prospect  at least as old as the Frankenstein story, and looks ever more likely to come true within a generation or two). It is interesting to note that giant-tech honchos were beside him as he spoke, including, notably, one of the chief officers of Anthropic. I shall be eagerly waiting for responses: what sort of Brave New World are we shaping? And shall we be able to handle it?

Also, in today's newspaper, I read that the UN has come forward with a newly designed complex and multi-dimensional measure of the progress and wealth of nations - meant to replace the many-decades long narrow focus on GDP as a catch-all; see this and this. It has been drawn up by an expert panel of fourteen, headed by the well-known Indian origin economist Kaushik Basu. Now it has been agreed among the majority of economists for a long time that GDP and its rate of growth by itself is a very unsatisfactory index of real human progress and welfare (even if you consider only 'real' and per capita incomes, and factor in purchasing power parity corrections), because it ignores too many important things, like the degree of wealth- and income inequalities, the sustainability (environmental effects) of the kind of growth we are pursuing, the contents  of the basket of goods and services that we keep producing (more guns count for as much as more healthcare drugs, more roads as much as more cars, in purely financial terms), the actual quality of life that the majority of people enjoy (safety, green living spaces, gender equality, long term health security, type of education), etc. etc. So experts have been searching for better ways to measure things for a long time. However, the problem has been that most 'alternatives' fail to provide a different and much better picture of reality: the same UN's Human Development Index, based on a weighted average of three metrics, per capita income, literacy levels and life expectancy, very closely mimics the GDP figures, in the sense that ranking countries by their per capita GDP alone shows nearly the same list of countries in the same order as the HDI does, whether you look for the ten most 'developed' countries or the ten most backward ones.

On the other hand, taking too many metrics into consideration might make the measurements much more subjective/biased and much less dependable/broadly acceptable than a simple ranking based on GDP alone, as the critics of the new measure have already pointed out. So how best to measure which country is really most advanced, and how much more than others? Would anyone like a discussion on this issue?

Finally for now, any comments on episode 5 of my poetry podcast series on Spotify?

Diary entry

Weather-wise, this is the most extraordinary summer in living memory. All through April and May, till the day of writing, it has been raining on and off - sometimes even on successive days, along with classic nor'wester storms and otherwise, so that the maximum temperature has not risen above 32/33 celsius for nearly a fortnight, falling abruptly sometimes to 25-26 even in the afternoons, so that, forget the airconditioners, we are having to use warm water for baths, turning off the fans and pulling rugs over ourselves when going to sleep! I could easily believe, if I were not looking at the calendar, that it was not summer at all. I would rather call this climate erratics than secular climate change. Anyway, even if it becomes very hot in June and July, we shall have to be thankful for a short summer.

I have lately become obsessed with Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay. Just 'revised' the novel Dhatri Devata (we had it in our ICSE syllabus, and it seemed so familiar and well-remembered that I might have read it only a month ago, rather than 47 years), moved on to Ganadevata, will deal with Hansulibaanker Upokotha next; then maybe revise Gurudakshina too. I have paid Tarashankar too little attention, considering his stature as a litterateur: but better late than never. My mind has wandered too far and wide for ages: it is good to be back closer to home in the dusk of my life. I might be writing more about his works in a later post.

Just watched an animation movie called Wild Robot on Netflix. Quite a heartwarmer, a robot eager to please and complete assigned tasks to perfection getting briefly lost and falling in love with a host of wild animals, a stunted baby goose in particular, changing their lives greatly for the better despite much misunderstanding and resistance, and herself learning the meaning of loving and caring beyond the scope of any kind of programming. Food for thought too - brought back to mind all the countless different scenarios about human-robot conflict and coexistence that Isaac Asimov conceived half a century ago (as I have discussed in one of my YouTube podcasts), many of which are going to come true within a generation or two. It will be a brave new world indeed.

My podcasts on poetry have got going. Three episodes are already up there; several more are mentally lined up. I don't need to put up links here, it seems: you can simply type in 'Suvro Sir' in the Spotify app, or Google 'Suvro Sir Spotify' and it will take you there. Some listeners are already commenting, but unluckily there is a glitch on my side, so I cannot see them on my app; have patience until someone fixes things for me, and meanwhile do please cheer me on by commenting here on this blog. And don't forget the 52 stories that are waiting for you on the YouTube channel (again, just typing 'Suvro Sir' in YouTube will take you there). 

Meanwhile I am wondering why, suddenly, so many people are reading this blog on all continents (see map on the right-hand sidebar). If a lot of them were commenting (politely and sensibly, it goes without saying) I'd have been a famous author by now!

Also, approaching 63 (as I keep reminding myself, if I had held a salaried job I would have been compulsorily retired on a paltry pension three years ago), I am greatly enjoying the ease and leisure my careful plans for gradually reducing my workload have earned me, and also the fact that I have been able to decide I don't really need to care and worry about family responsibilities as intensely as I have done for four continuous decades - nor can they expect it from me any more - so I can live out the remaining years of my life 'for myself'. Whatever that means. I shall be most deeply indebted to anyone who can give me some pleasurable engagement that can help to fill in the yawning hours of emptiness, until I have become senile and decrepit (which I mightn't, if God is kind to me. Three score years and ten, I made a deal with Him thirty years ago, and I am just seven years away from that deadline. Believe me, far from being scared, I look forward to it more eagerly with every passing year).

The new BJP government of West Bengal is going to be inaugurated tomorrow, Ponchisey Boishakh. First time ever that we shall have an avowedly right wing government in power. I shall keenly follow their progress over the next year, and try to write up a report card of my own at about this time in 2027. What I am hoping and praying for can be best stated in the ruling party's own slogan: sabka saath, sabka vishwas, sabka vikas -- everyone's progress with everyone's faith and everyone's participation. 

P.S., May 13: The fourth poetry episode has been uploaded tonight on Spotify.

Sukumar Chandra: a great doctor

In three months' time this blog will be twenty years old, and the number of pageviews will have crossed 1.5 million. The number and variety of things that I have thought of and written about boggles my own mind now and then. Hard to believe that I was simultaneously leading a full, active family life all along, at least until recently.

During my two-day visit to Labhpur in Birbhum this January, I had happened to visit the little museum dedicated to the memory of the most famous son of the soil, the writer Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay, and there I came upon a little book titled Labhpurer Bishu Daktar - a biography of Dr. Sukumar Chandra, vastly better known as Bishu Daktar - which outlines the story of a true karma yogi, one that I have just finished reading, and I have been deeply moved. In his nineties (unless he has left us within the last three months), he is still attending to his calling, incredible as it may seem, which, being a generation younger, makes me both wonder and feel deeply ashamed about being so tired of life already: I can only say

ক্লান্তি আমার ক্ষমা করো প্রভু। 

Born into a very humble (but dedicated-) schoolmaster's family, he graduated from R. G. Kar Medical College in 1948, missed going abroad for higher degrees because of his father's untimely death and, at the great novelist's behest, settled back to practise in and around his native village, and has spent his entire working life there. Starting with two humble rooms which did not even have the luxury of electricity in the early days, he built up a vast practice over the decades, and evidently made a decent living, considering that the book says he took care of the upkeep and upbringing of a huge joint family and gave away a small fortune out of his lifetime earnings to all sorts of local welfare projects, especially those that look after the furtherance of education and culture. He has earned countless awards and trophies from far and near, including one from the state government personally handed over by Smt. Mamata Banerjee, but he still counts the love and respect he commands among those who have benefited from his ministrations, help and wise counsel as his most fulfilling achievements. He has also been an avid and eclectic reader all his life. Where have such doctors vanished? Has any one of my old boys (some of them in their fifties now) become a doctor of that calibre and repute yet - as distinct from mere skilled technicians with one eye firmly fixed on the bottom line?

My grateful thanks to Mrs. Monalisa Chandra for having written with so much empathy about her father in law yet managed not to make it a hagiography. Else I wouldn't have known, and that would have been a loss. I shall make it a point to offer pronaam to both the daktarbabu and his Boswell, if I have the good fortune to meet them. It would be silly to wish Bishu daktar a long life at this point, but I certainly wish him a happy and easy passage when the bell tolls for him, and may he be remembered and idolized by thousands long after he is gone.

P.S. May 02: Oh, the pageviews counter has crossed the 1.5 million landmark already!

Start of poetry podcast

This is just to announce that I have tentatively begun to recite and discuss poems on Spotify. The first podcast, unimaginatively titled 'The Beginning', is already up there. I am still learning how to use the app, so I am likely to go about ham-handedly for a while: please bear with me. For now, I think clicking on this link will take you to where I want you to go. Alternatively you can search for Suvro Sir's beloved poetry on the app (yes, it seems you need to download the app first, unless you already have it - but it is free, and would take you less than five minutes).  Give me fifteen minutes of your time: listen and tell me about it.

P.S., April 27: The second episode has been uploaded. The link is here.

P.P.S.: May 07: The third episode has been uploaded: here.

Time and wonder

Nineteen years ago I wrote a post here with the title 'The sense of wonder'. I am a much older man now, and would have been bored to tears with life if something of that sense didn't still linger deep inside me. 

One of the greatest wonders, of course, is the fact that I have lived all those years since that last post, and so much has happened, and the days dragged while the years whizzed by, until now I sometimes feel like laughing and crying at the same time to think that I am quickly becoming an old man, and 85%+ of the living human population, or so says Google, is younger than I am!

Some forms of wonder never seem to pall. I first watched my work being transformed into money with which I could buy things when I was in mid-teenage, and I have been working continuously for more than four decades now, and bought so many things with the money I have made, and yet it still makes me wonder like a child to watch people paying me so that I can pay others for their wares and services - imagine, me, pushing 63, and having a formal training in economics! So also the way the young keep being born and growing up into self-sufficient, self-important adults (or so they think) before my eyes, and I keep watching and cannot always remember that I am growing ever older along with them, with 'Time, which makes memories of everything'...

কাল ছিল ডাল খালি / আজ ফুলে যায় ভরে,

বল দেখি তুই মালি /হয় সে কেমন করে?

There are more bitter kinds of wonder too, like the all too common human folly of putting off the most important things for a later time (like telling your loved ones how much you care for them and miss them) until it is just too late, and the kind of stupidity that persuades people that they can somehow try the bad things that their forerunners did and the results will, this time round, turn out to be good. When shall we learn, for instance, that nothing truly good comes from going to war, for either side, that could not be negotiated in peace, over time, with much less horror and devastation?

And now there's a different kind of wonder. In his Ode to a Nightingale, Keats concludes with the line 'fled is that music/do I wake or sleep'? Having thought and read so much along those lines for much longer than most of my students have yet lived, I begin to wonder: what does 'real' mean? Was this life real by any universally acceptable definition, or was it a long, vast, bewildering dream which is soon to end? And will that truly be the end, or just a final waking up? I shall refer the interested reader to the chapter titled On Dreams and Daydreams in the only book I have ever written, To My Daughter.

One last item for now: I cannot stop wondering how the computer/smartphone/internet era has made the general run of humankind so ahistorical minded. From infant to 40-year old, they all seem to believe that the world was created maybe just about half a century ago, the way they talk, the way they are surprised to hear that we have been living with lots of things, from epidemics to spectacles, for hundreds, or even thousands of years. And also how very different things people mean when they say 'it happened a long time ago'. The ordinary man means maybe twenty years, a historian means thousands, a biologist or geologist means millions or tens of millions, and an astronomer glibly talks of supernovae exploding billions of years ago, as if that makes perfect sense to him, as if he really grasps what that kind of timespan means...

So here's as much time as makes sense to me, a very ordinary man:

Jenny kiss'd me when we met

Jumping from the chair she sat in, 

Time, you thief, who loves to get sweets into your list,

Put that in. 

Say that I am weary, say I am sad,

Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,

Say that I am growing old, but add -

Jenny kiss'd me.

Tired and brooding at the end of March

The last week has been hectic for a staid and increasingly easygoing person like me. First I made a sudden two-day trip to Kolkata to watch a play in which a dear old boy was playing the role of Satyajit Ray's Feluda (first stage production ever), and he asked me up on stage during the curtain call to felicitate me as his childhood Feluda and current Sidhu Jyatha (look up Shoumo Banerjee on Instagram): it was as heartwarming as it was embarrassing. Then a rushed visit to the local police station with all sorts of documents for passport-renewal related verification - but a very nice experience for a change, swift, helpful and polite. Then a three-day admission routine for the incoming batches, followed by my mother's IOL implantation surgery yesterday, which seems to have gone smoothly, God be thanked. I hasten to add that my usual classes have been continuing side by side. So I am currently fagged out and can't get enough of sleep. Mercifully, Pupu and Swarnava have been here since Saturday to give me support and company. The admissions have been to my satisfaction on the whole, but I must say that the majority of parents are growing simultaneously sillier and more distracted and more entitled with every passing year (the current generation is the one I taught in the early and mid-1990s). Some day I am going to write at length about all the many different kinds of cartoons I have seen, but I am getting more and more exasperated, and will have to stop pretty soon, or put the entire admission procedure online.

March has been gentle on the whole, weatherwise - let's see what kind of summer is awaiting us this time round. I can't say as much for geopolitics, given the insane 'war' (quotes put in deliberately) going on in the Middle East, and its terribly upsetting effects on everything, from cooking gas availability to the massive and continuing slide in the stock market, probably to be followed by a huge car fuel-price hike. I am nowhere close to going hungry to bed, but I certainly can't say I am feeling safely and comfortably off. And the most traumatic elections in ages are scheduled for April: traumatic if, like me, you feel like an utterly beleagured Bengali, that is. The time to write at length on why I am feeling that way has not yet come, but it will. This much, though, I shall say now: I am remembering Harshavardhan ranged against King Sasanka, Gandhi against Subhas, and even Nehru against Bidhan Roy - it is all about the Hindi heartland trying to obliterate Bengali culture and asmita for good, so it is a very great pity that so many Bengalis can't see that any more, blinded as they are by a combination of historical ignorance, self-loathing, pure opportunistic greed, religious hatred and anti-incumbency. So, though I am eagerly looking forward to some very good things happening on the family front soon, I have no idea how this year is going to end for Indians as a whole and Bengalis in particular among them. I wish everyone well except those who are motivated by stupidity, greed, fear and malice. Nothing good ever came from that awful combination...

Meanwhile, this blog, continuously updated, will be twenty years old this July. Those (perhaps few) who have been attentive readers for years together, I beg to tell me in comments why they have stuck to it for so long.

My YouTube story podcasts on the channel Goppoguchchho (also accessible if you simply type in 'Suvro Sir') has come to an end - for now. I shall be doing other things next, on Spotify. Look out for the links given here in coming weeks.

One last observation: after going gung ho for social media and digital classrooms, many advanced countries, beginning with Australia, Finland and Denmark are now applying reverse gear and putting stern restrictions on those efforts, while India, in the name of 'catching up with the world', is going precisely down the disastrous path those countries took ten to fifteen years ago and suffered heavily in consequence. Shall we never learn that whatever the white man does is not necessarily right, good and urgent?

Hey Madhav!

 মাধব, বহুত মিনতি করি তোয়ে   

দেই  তুলসী তিল দেহ সমর্পিলু ,

দয়া জনি ছোড়বি মোয়ে। 

গনইতে দোষ গুণলেশ না পাইবি 

জব  তুঁহুঁ করবি বিচার ,

জগতের নাথ জগতে কহায়সি,

জগ বাহির নই মুই ছার। 

Probably Govindadas. More than 500 years ago. (I wrote this from memory, bits and pieces of which are fading now); read around 1981, in class 11 or 12. A rough translation would go as follows:

My Lord, I beg you fervently

Supplicating you with the ritual offerings (tulsi and til, basil leaf and sesame seed)

Please have mercy on me.

When the time comes for You to judge me, you will not find a trace of virtue, but

They call You the Lord of the world, 

Do remember, I, insignificant though I am

I do not exist outside this world.

The hour of judgment is approaching. Today, I can only supplicate: 'Lead, kindly light, for the night is dark, and I am far from home', or 

আরো কতদূরে সে আনন্দধাম ? 

And, as another Bengali adage goes,

বিশ্বাসে মিলায় কৃষ্ণ, তর্কে বহুদূর। 

The Fifteen: book review

Thanks to Swarnava and Pupu, I am engrossed in and being edified by a recently published book titled The Fifteen, which offers short, well-researched biographical sketches of the fifteen extraordinary women who played highly significant roles in framing the Indian Constitution between 1946 and '49. Remember, they were only 15 in a Constituent Assembly of 299 members (ultimately only 11 of them remained, and 284 in total signed the final Document) - all the others were males. Moreover, six of these fifteen were Bengalis, and all were deeply influenced by Tagore and Gandhi. Says a lot about many things, doesn't it? In a desperately poor, mostly illiterate and superstitious, rigidly orthodox, ferociously patriarchal society torn apart by civil war and massive two-way migration, it was a miracle that fifteen such could at all be found, though: highly educated, intelligent, self-confident, self-assertive, idealistic and patriotic women who looked many generations into the future while imagining the India of their dreams and left their own indelible stamp on the new nation state on the basis of which so many others both female and male have been building, with varying degrees of success, over the last eight decades. While paying my deepest respects to these women, I frankly admit that their stories take my breath away, especially when I compare their characters and achievements with those of the three latest generations of women I have lived alongside: a huge number of whom have no idea and don't care two hoots about how much they owe to these fiery pioneers for the often lazy, wasteful, dissolute, entitled and pointless, if not utterly selfish and vicious lives they are allowed to live today.

Among these, I already knew something of the works of Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Sarojini Naidu (nee Chatterjee) and Vijay Lakshmi Pandit. It is a pity I knew hardly anything about Ammu Swaminathan, mother extraordinaire of Dr. Captain Lakshmi Sehgal of INA fame and sister of the redoubtable Mrinalini Sarabhai (as I become surer and surer with age, it's genes plus the first five years of upbringing that determine virtually everything, apart from who holds your hand in your youth!), or about Annie Mascarene, Begum Qudsia Rasul and Dakshayani Velayadhun (the only Christian, Muslim and Dalit woman members respectively), and too little about the likes of Renuka Ray and Sucheta Kripalani. I could wax eloquent and write reams in praise of each of these, ruing my unforgiveable ignorance of details for so long - but I choose here to write about one who has impressed me most: the following paragraphs should elucidate why.

All these women, by the way, were born to some kind of privilege: either they were born to rich and/or progressive parents, or married to highly supportive men, or they were high caste, or at least they had the benefit of a good education, which 99.9% of women in those days were denied. At the same time,  the point is that they worked to make better lives for the common woman and man, not just for themselves or their own little elite circles, and every one of them had to fight almost lifelong against all kinds of unfair obstacles and prejudices, often of the meanest sort which make me cringe in shame (like women cannot be doctors, poets or lawyers) yet they never soured up or gave up - I wish I myself could have remained so positive minded, so hopeful at my age. Anyway, as I was saying, my heroine of choice from this book happens to be Durgabai Deshmukh (1909-1981). What I find fascinating, nay, incredible, is that a girl born in those days, with all her social and familial handicaps, could know her mind so well even before she had outgrown childhood, rejecting her 'arranged' marriage at age eight (and persuading her in-laws' family at 15 that the marriage was impossible, so the man could and should marry someone else), setting up a girls' school at age 12, working for the the Congress party and refusing no less a personage than Jawaharlal Nehru himself at age 14 because he did not have a valid ticket for entry to an important meeting, and she had been tasked to refuse entry to all such arrivals (the modern 'advanced generation' child would not dream of dealing with even someone as trivial as her school headmistress that way, and recently two parents informed me that their girl children, of exactly the same age, cannot come to my class any more, because in the afternoons, they, the parents, would be at work, and such 'infants' cannot possibly dream of coming over on their own - though the fact remains that literally thousands like them have done so for close to four decades now!) My God, she even outstrips Abigail Adams and Rani Rashmoni, about whom I have written gushingly in this same blog long ago...

Still a child, she became a translator for Gandhiji whenever he visited the South. She quickly picked up some Tamil and a lot of Hindi, and actually became a Hindi teacher to hundreds (she was then all of 13). She learned English only in her early twenties. She refused all donations from tycoons of the stature of Jamnalal Bajaj except for books. She was jailed again and again, and actually asked to be housed with the lowest grade of prisoners, just to find out how badly they were treated. She graduated in political science, and then became a qualified lawyer at age 22. At 37, she was elected to the Constituent Assembly - if not the likes of her, then who? She argued forcefully on countless burning issues (read the book), and moved more than 750 amendments. Born into Telugu, coached excellently in Hindi, she fought for Hindusthani to be made the national language, considering the propagation of Hindi 'a serious obstacle to the growth of the provincial languages and a provincial culture', and that 'the narrative to turn Hindi above all other languages was embittering the feelings of the non-Hindi speaking people': Amit Shah, will you please note? She fought for Constitutional protection of the Fundamental Rights of citizens,  for lowering the age criterion for qualifying for a seat in the Rajya Sabha, arguing that being older doesn't necessarily mean wiser, and for a reformed Hindu Code Bill which would guarantee shares of daughters in their fathers' property. In the early days of free India, she served in very high and responsible positions in the Planning Commission and the Central Social Welfare Board, and also won numerous national and international awards, including the Padma Bibhushan. She prepared the first report of the National Education Policy for Women. Her marriage to C.D. Deshmukh, the first Indian Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, was a huge success. She died in his arms, as she had always longed to, and the loving and respectful tribute he paid to her in the book My Durgabai, is something that could be the dream of millions of smart, cool, modern-day women.

And this was just one of those fifteen stars. The rest I leave to the reader who buys and devours the book because I recommended it. I end with a sigh: why haven't I met such women in such a long and inquisitive life? I wish someone would write a book about 15 women who have worked wonders to improve India since 1947... and I shall still lament that I haven't had the good fortune to sit at the feet of any of them. Some females asked with reference to this blog many years ago about me... 'Does he respect only strong and determined and socially beneficent women'? Yes, guilty as accused. It's the same way I think about men, you see... all the rest, just making a living, raising families, thinking of nothing beyond the animal appetites of themselves and their families, I have always sneered at as polluters of the world... they eat, shit, breathe out carbon dioxide, preen over their cars, phones and kids' marks in school, grow old, sick, die and are quickly forgotten even by their own families within twenty years at most. What do they matter? And why should I 'respect' them... just because they look human? Since when did respect become so cheap?

[The Fifteen, by Angelica Aribam and Akash Satyawali, Hachette India 2024, pp. 310, Rs. 371 on Amazon]

Sundarban Safari

Last week, I finally toured the Sundarbans after having wished to do it for more than four decades. Much of my to-do list has now been checked. And, owing to the delightfully congenial company, this was one of the best vacations I have ever had, which is saying something, because I have travelled so much for so long with so many people to so many beautiful and interesting places. 

Having first gone off to Calcutta, we set off for the jungle on the morning of Wednesday, 25th February. There was my friend Saibal the wildlife enthusiast and his wife Kulbir ji, with whom I had travelled to Kanha a year ago. They had made all the arrangements, so I didn't have to lift a finger. Pupu and Swarnava went along without having to be persuaded too hard: I was thrilled, for this was the first time I was travelling with them since they became an 'item' (I hope I am using the word in the correct Gen Y/Z sense). There was Pratyush, who revels in our company. And there was Shoumo the actor (to me, who has actually seen him growing up before my eyes, he will always remain my beloved nitbor). It was a three-hour drive along the Basanti Highway to Gadkhali, across the water from the much better known Gosaba, where we parked our cars and boarded the launch Delta Queen, which could at a pinch seat 40 plus, at a quarter to twelve. The afternoon was already warm to hot, but balmy. The boat was very well-appointed, with clean little washroom and beds, though we, it goes without saying, spent almost all the time lounging on the deck as we manoeuvred between the mangroves along the distributaries with pretty names (like Vidyadhari), some of which were bigger and deeper than many rivers I have seen inland (and so green, so green), keeping our eyes skinned in the hope of catching fleeting glimpses of all sorts of wildlife, and knowing that tigers in hiding were very likely keeping an eye on us. 

No, we didn't see any tigers. Which certainly didn't disappoint me, firstly because I have seen enough in the wild already, secondly because the locals say only half in joke that it is best not to see one, the first sight being quite likely to be your last, since virtually all Sundarban tigers are maneaters, and essentially because I love the forest and the water for their own sake, and don't belong to that class of tourists who go around the Himalayas for days and lament that they 'saw nothing' if they couldn't catch a glimpse of Everest or Kanchenjungha. Lunch was delectable and sumptuous; we were dropped off at evenfall at a nice little riverside resort with large rooms and ample beds. We found a lot of friendly to ecstatic canine company, which, for the likes of us (Shoumo is an animal rights activist among other things) is always a welcome bonus. The evening was spent the way we like best, drinks and snacks and a lot of adda and laughter, slowly dozing off, somehow dealing with dinner (no slight to the cook), then off early to bed and sound sleep.

Swarnava, Pupu and Pratyush hate waking up at daybreak even more than I do, so we were all groggy and grumpy when boarding the boat (this one was named Sher Khan!) at 6.30 next morning. But the beauty of the sunrise through the mist and the chilly wind quickly stirred up everyone's spirits, aided by a hearty breakfast. I don't know how, but everyone had already become garrulous friends with everyone else (I believe I was the quietest of all), and it is unbelievable how fast eleven hours passed, with lunch in the middle and some of us dozing off for short spells now and then. The cameras were worked like crazy: we eventually figured that more than a thousand photos had been taken, making me sigh to remember the days when we took along film rolls in modest quantity, and worried about making every shot, every frame count. We saw all kinds of things, from myriad species of birds (including a rare sort of eagle, besides egrets, kingfishers, adjutant storks) to huge crocodiles, monitors big and small, swamp deer, wild boar, otter, mud skippers, monkeys, snakes ... and miles and miles of dense, unspoilt jungle. What dismayed was the factoid that the sea is encroaching ever deeper inland, so the waters have become brackish, and as a result the sundari tree, after which the forest is named, is becoming scarce - most of the flora is of the garjan and hental variety. Oh, and in the early morning we had stopped at a site which offered a watchtower, a shrine to Bonbibi and Dakshin Rai, a large freshwater watering hole and a botanical garden designed to educate us about the local vegetation.

Next morning, Swarnava, Pupu and I cried off the boat trip, I because I was exhausted after waking up so early three days in succession, and S and P because they had work to do online (the internet connection, weak to non-existent, had been quickly restored the first day itself). Pupu and I have done this more than once - we need time to unwind very slowly; that is essential to full enjoyment of any trip. Shoumo and Pratyush went off with Saibal and Kulbir for another eleven hour sail. Frankly, I enjoyed the day quite as much as all the other days, doing absolutely nothing: a bit of reading, playing with the dogs, delicious lunch of lobsters, and Pupu came to sleep beside me while Swarnava was working through the afternoon. Late in the evening, we went for a walk up to the edge of the jungle to catch sight of spotted owls across a rutted path over an embankment in deep darkness. A few of the doggies accompanied us, heaven knows why. Pupu walked with her arm entangled with mine. Bliss.

On Saturday we boarded the boat for the last time at about 8.30, and, after another five hour cruise and a hearty lunch, we were dropped off at Gadkhali. By that time, the boat manager and guide had become friends: 'Do come again', they urged. We set off at around 1.15, took the road through Baruipur and Kamalgaji, and were back at home at around 3.40. I heard later that Shoumo, who dropped off Pratyush later, was discussing how lonely they would feel after four days of such jolly and close camaraderie. All of them have since thanked me for coaxing them into making the trip, despite all their work and engagements, so that's a small victory I think I can be proud of. I want to make loved ones happy, and cannot have enough of their thanks when I succeed. I missed Sunandini and Koushik and Aveek badly. God bless you all.

To all readers, I shall urge: make this trip, but do ensure that you do it with true loved ones.

Finally, two things that impressed me: the authorities were very strict about not carrying disposable plastic water bottles on the boat, and not one of the numerous boats we saw, some crowded with passengers, was playing earsplitting 'music' on so-called DJ boxes. More power to the elbow of the Forest Department, and may the tigers live in peace.

Back in Calcutta, I went to renew my passport. The hassle was absolutely hateful, especially the coldness or downright bad manners of everyone except the final clearing officer. Then imagine queuing up for visas every time like a beggar, then the expense, then long layovers and not being able to smoke for hours and sitting cramped inside a tin tube for 7, 10, 15 hours at a stretch and often not even being able to talk much with the locals because of the language barrier... so much for the 'joys' of travelling abroad, and I thank my lucky stars for YouTube: I can do all the foreign travel I want from my bedroom, at virtually no expense and trouble at all. If I cannot travel abroad like a VVIP, to whom no rules apply, I am better off without trying. I do hope, however, that I can see more of my vast and still in places charming country before I die.

For photos, click here.

How time flies!

I am reading a book written by my great grandfather on my mother's side, the doctor (the others of my male ancestors of that generation I have never seen, not even my father's father. There was a self-made tycoon among them, my mother's maternal grandfather, but that's a story for another day). It is a novel based on his hospital days. I have mentioned him at least twice before (here's one). More and more he sounds to me like a Bengali A.J. Cronin. But that was not what I set out to write here.

It is mid-February. The laziest time of the year for me, because all classes have shut down prior to the annual examinations. This is when I have the most free time, and this is when I let it wander most guiltlessly. So it has been for a long time now. Lately I have been thinking about my lineage: all the generations I have seen. It is my belief that we are all very complicated and unique admixtures of the genes of many generations of ancestors; there is hardly anything about the 'me' in me that is completely new. I am sure, for example, that if you take my father and my dadu out of me, there will be virtually nothing left (oh, tiny bits and pieces of some much older ancestors, maybe). Anyway, the thing that I am musing over is that I have seen six successive generations of living people now. The oldest were my dadu's parents, then my grandparents, then there were my parents' generation, then mine, then my daughter's and now their children are being born: you can see me cradling the newest arrival in the vast extended family I have created; he is all of three months. Today's parents are being very late about it, so they will be lucky if they live long enough to see five generations. It has also been a very communicative family, so, besides everything I have read and seen about the world, I have witnessed living history for close to a hundred and fifty years. 

The most remarkable thing about this lived experience is that, unlike most people around me - especially those of my own generation and those up to twenty years younger - I do not believe that either the world or the people in it have really changed very much within the last two or three decades. Technology hoopla?  That doctor was using anesthesia and watching movies a century ago, and they had already invented the telephone, the aeroplane, radio and TV,  atomic bombs and computers before my grandpa was middle aged. Wars? They lived through two world wars; today we see firecrackers and skirmishes in Gaza and Ukraine. Women plying their wiles and men cheating or swooning over them? That sort of thing was old hat millennia ago. So was 'corruption' in politics and dirty tricks in business, so was mass unemployment and pathetic pay packets for the vast majority (brush up on your Chander Pahar and Jana Aranya). They survived horrible famines and epidemics; these days we are traumatized by CoVid, which, when the madness was all over, confirmed that the mortality rate stayed at no more than one per cent, regardless of what we did or didn't to 'contain' it. We have vastly more people and motor vehicles around; that's one big thing that has changed, certainly, but even around 1900 so many writers were talking about India's teeming millions, and today, even the 'poor', at least in cities, are on the whole better clothed and fed than when I was a child. 

That is one big reason, coupled with my own jadedness, why I find the world so increasingly tiresome and boring. Two things have definitely changed for the worse: people on the whole have become far weaker both in body and mind, far more easily dissatisfied and frustrated, far less willing and able to fight adversity despite having much more than their ancestors dreamt of  (some important lesson to be learnt here?), and good manners in public have almost vanished, at least in this country, at least in urban areas. Maybe folks are much more honest in expressing what they truly think and feel, which is a good thing, but couldn't that be done less loudly, less hurtfully, less crudely?

It is nearly two decades since I wrote a post here titled 'The world we are making for our children'. I have been reminded forcefully of it since this child was born. What a world he has been born in, sadly; how much he must struggle to find some peace and joy in it! I am also reminded of the terrible poem 'Prayer before birth' by Louis MacNeice. May this child and his generation therefore carry my blessings, and may those blessings be of some slight worth. People like me tried in very tiny ways to make the world a little better: I think most of us failed, and in any case, we are now too tired and timid and weak to do more.

Heads up about that YouTube channel

I have been telling stories on my own channel on a playlist titled Goppoguchchho (which can be accessed by simply typing in 'Suvro Sir'). 46 episodes have been uploaded so far, one put up unfailingly every week. Another six, and I shall stop. I had planned to do 52 episodes - one full year - to see how it worked out, how many listeners and appreciative comments I got. It has been rather disappointing (especially the fact that those who said they liked it very much and want me to go on didn't, I think, do much to spread the word around). Anyway, that experiment will be over soon - another six weeks, actually - and I shall switch over to Spotify, where I shall be reciting poems, and telling stories exclusively for children. This last will be done essentially for family, so I wouldn't have to care how many or how few others listened in or bothered to draw in more listeners. 

I have said over and over again for nearly forty years that I work only for love or money. Where neither seems to be forthcoming, let us end our thankless labour.

This is for everybody's information only.

Shattered Lands: book review

Sam Dalrymple, following in his famous father William's footsteps, shows considerable promise with his first book of becoming another erudite yet highly readable historian. He is apparently a very proud young man too: though he has thanked his dad and mum for their valuable and constant support, not once have they been mentioned by name anywhere in the book or even in the blurbs! And he too believes that weaving together archival research with private correspondence and interviews with old people who can narrate gripping stories from personal experience makes the best kind of book when you are writing recent history.

Shattered Lands, a story of how, with the rather hasty dissolution of the vast British Empire through the middle of the 20th century, the Raj era 'India' underwent five partitions (yes, five, starting with the separation of Burma in 1937, then the Arab Protectorates governed from Bombay, then the Great Partition of 1947, followed by the messy integration of 550-odd princely states, mostly with India and a few with Pakistan, and finally, the breakup of Pakistan leading to the blood-soaked birth of Bangladesh in 1971) is truly a monumental and admirable work. I cannot do justice to it in a short review, so, as I wrote at the end of my little essay on William D's 2016 book Nine Lives, I shall instead urge the reader to read it. This essay, rather, would pick up for comment only a few things that particularly stirred my interest.

To start with, I had heard quite a bit about the great post-partition exodus from Burma (which the writer calls the Long March) from my own elders, so reading that part was like re-living history, though I did not know that the Burma chapter, too, was so violent and complicated - that, for one thing, the Rohingya problem is certainly not a recent phenomenon as so many of us used to imagine. And frankly, I didn't know that, had the dice rolled otherwise, countries like Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE might just have been part of India still, making us one of the biggest oil producing nations in the world (no harm in fantasizing)! As for the princely states' story, sad and tumultuous as it was, can it be lumped together with the 'partition' narratives? The author evidently feels some sympathy for the princes who gradually lost everything, including all that was rich and good about their olde-worlde culture, especially seeing that some of them had actually helped in diverse small ways to hasten the departure of the British and joined the newly independent countries with remarkable alacrity (barring a few like Junagadh, Travancore, Kashmir and Hyderabad) - but in my opinion they had lived an archaic and hugely parasitic lifestyle for too long, and they should feel lucky they were not treated like the old aristocracy in Russia and China. Many of their descendants seem to have done very well for themselves in business, politics, and the world of the arts and letters; few are begging for alms on railway platforms.

As for the last two partitions, a very great deal has been said and written about them since the day I read Freedom at Midnight, so it is to the writer's credit that I still found it engrossing: it will certainly be of great educational value to any reader below 40 who does not have a degree in south Asian history. What can I say of any moment? I was moved, yet again, to visualize all the loss and suffering and shame and grief and destitution and death brought wantonly upon so many tens of millions of people who had no hand in shaping their destinies - actually beggars the imagination - who were mere pawns on a chessboard, being shifted around by tired, greedy, venal, vengeful politicians and bureaucrats in a hurry, who revelled in playing God. And so much, sadly, depended on mere accident and whimsy (like Mountbatten's inexplicable haste to transfer power, and his later lament that had he known Jinnah would be dead within the year, he would have never gone ahead with the partition plan). 

All this happened because of the haphazard and rapid dissolution of the British Empire. I recently heard Jeffrey Sachs making the off the cuff remark somewhere that almost all the lingering problems around the world created over the last 300 years can be traced back to the interference of the British. But, given how fractious and complex and violent  an admixture of races, languages, religions, castes, communities and kingdoms this enormous territory from Aden to Singapore was, perhaps it was only the relatively even-handed rod and whip and love of order imposed by the British that briefly held it together in a kind of grudging peace - though that idea has been endlessly mocked and reviled for more than a century now? Maybe if the British had only been a little more farsighted, a little less bullheaded, a little more committed to the welfare of their subjects and slow but continuous devolution of power, an incredible amount of human suffering could have been avoided? (by the way, I stand corrected on one crucial matter: there were great famines in south Asia even after independence, the responsibility for which, unlike in 1943, simply cannot be laid at the door of the Raj). Maybe that is what the Moderates in the early Indian Congress had wanted all along, and precisely for this reason, besides the fear that the newly freed lands would quickly revert to the chaotic late-medieval darkness they had just begun to emerge from? This paragraph, by the way, is purely my personal reflection, not something hinted (except maybe subliminally) at by Dalrymple himself.

Given the still very strong Anglo-American hegemony on scholarship, coupled with the ignorance and/or unconcern of the subcontinent's post independence rulers, too little is known across the world, even by educated people, about the titanic upheavals and traumas repeatedly suffered by the two-fifths of the human population that inhabits this part of the globe, whose after effects still continue to confuse and vitiate our contemporary political reality powerfully. As I read about the man whose citizenship was forcibly changed three times, dark forebodings about our present government's maniacal urge to get rid of all 'infiltrators' kept troubling my mind. Let me mention just one more thing about which I had heard but little in all these years: that the Bangladesh war was not just over language just as it was not over religion; that modern Bangladesh has insisted on officially forgetting and suppressing the fact that several non-Bengali languages still somehow survive in that country (Rakhine and  Kokborok and Chakma and even Chatgaiyya, which is not considered Bengali!), and that, contrary to popular mythology, the Mukti Bahini guerrillas did not exactly cover themselves with glory during the war of liberation - the horrible atrocities committed by the Pakistani army and their Razakars upon non-combatants were only much bigger in scale, that's all. No wonder so much long-simmering anger against the beneficiaries of the liberation has been coming to the surface in recent times... last but not the least, I found it most pitiable to read that so many people, arbitrarily separated by new and sudden borders, have found themselves to be permanently stateless, not just poor labourers, petty shopkeepers and marginal farmers but here and there a minor royal as well.

Having heaped so much praise, I hope I have earned the right to do a little bit of nitpicking. Too much sympathy has been shown for the likes of Jinnah and Patel, I think, given that they eventually acted so undemocratically, arbitrarily, covertly and violently, against so many of their supposedly 'own' people. And why should it be insinuated that the facts that actually very few British Indian soldiers joined the Azad Hind Fauz and that some of them turned renegades and criminals in later years show up Subhas Bose's inspirational power and leadership quality in a poor light? Wasn't he all along fighting almost impossible odds? And then there are howlers and typos scattered across 430-plus pages which could have easily been corrected with a little more careful editing. A man called Halvidar (not Havildar) Singh? The state of Dungarpur spelt Durgarpur? A temple in south India whose accumulated wealth, estimated at $22 billion, is thousands of times richer than the Vatican?! How do you describe a spring morning in the Kashmir Valley when the Pakistani irregulars were about to attack unless you were there yourself, or you cite some reliable source? How is a British Intelligence file 'secret' if you have been given access to it in order to write a book for public consumption? How do you make a statement like 'Indian intelligence had been working with East Bengali nationalists for a decade at this point' (29 April 1971, when the Indian Army was given direct orders to help the Mukti Bahini) - page 379 - without quoting an authentic official statement? And lastly, I wouldn't be as shocked as the partition researcher who, while talking to a teenaged cold drink seller in Dhaka, realized that he knew nothing about the partition(s) or even the Mukti Juddho and found it odd that an Indian could speak in Bengali: I guess you can find millions of young Indians, too, who know nothing about our history from, say, 1905 to 1971, and so will happily believe whatever poisonous garbage they are fed by the current rulers. As the wag said, 'The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history', and that 'history is only a fable that is generally agreed upon'. Also, alas, I can bet my shirt that such people would never read a book like this anyway.

This little bit of criticism is not meant to deride or devalue Dalrymple's work, only to suggest how it could be improved, and thereby made more reliable and valuable. I wish the author every success with his future endeavours, and shall look forward to reading his next book.

Many thanks, Rajdeep and Aveek, for urging me to read this book.

P.S.: A very angrily critical review can be found here.

[Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia, by Sam Dalrymple, Harper Collins 2025]

Book Fair

I was in Kolkata for three days, and visited the Book Fair after ages. Well, close to two decades, I should think. It was a leisurely jaunt on a balmy winter weekday afternoon.

I had worked as a volunteer at the stall of a little magazine called Proma (headed by the engineer-poet Surojit Ghosh, who was an insider in the city's literary/intellectual circle in the '80s) from 1980 (the fourth fair: this year it was the 49th, and Surojit-da is long dead!) to 1987. Then there was a big gap, and I visited again with wife and daughter after it had been shifted to the Milon Mela grounds next to Science City. By that time, it seemed to me, it had morphed into a food fair more than a Book Fair, though the Publishers' and Booksellers' Guild happily released figures about soaring sales year on year. And it had become too noisy, crowded and dusty. So I stopped going. In any case, I was busy making a living, and where books were concerned, I was spoilt for choice, what with so many old boys and girls constantly supplying me with reading material, my daughter foremost among them, besides Amazon. I had lost the taste, apparently, just as it had happened with going to the cinema. This year, I went because Pupu and Swarnava cajoled me along.

As every Bengali knows, the fairgrounds have shifted again, to Salt Lake this time. The visit brought back many memories, a sense of loss and a deepening of the feeling that our times are gone. The fair is much bigger now, much tidier in a way, with all kinds of stalls selling things which have little to do with books, from the National Jute Board to people who want to talk to farmers about fertilizers to a welter of recently born private universities. I visited the Proma stall, which was a tiny ghost of its former self, and the only gentleman running the show was at sea when I tried talking to him about days past and people whom I had worked with (wow, I silently reflected, the 'hot babes' I had worked alongside would be past sixty now!). I had promised myself to visit the Guruchandali stall, and had a nice chat with the founder/owner Saikat Banerjee. I was tickled to find that the Bangla Poksho stall, whose helmsmen were loudly berating the BJP government's anti-Bengali agenda, was located right next to the BJP's own stall - which was deserted! Do listen to these people on YouTube, those of my readers whose Bengali blood has still not been too polluted by influences from the cow belt. I liked the beautiful display of heritage publications set up by the state government, with Parvathi baul playing softly in the background. And I deliberately gave the big stalls like Family Book Shop, Ananda and Dey's a miss, because they were claustrophobically crowded, and could only offer books I can easily find elsewhere and more cheaply. P and S bought a small mountain of books anyway. Snacking at Saha Confectionery was fun, because their banner said 'Boi kinley kshidey paye' (buying books is hungry work)! Smoking on the fairgrounds is strictly prohibited, which I suppose is a good thing (though they could have put up a few few paid smokers' corners), and the enormous police presence made me wonder: were they expecting a large scale terrorist attack or a riot?

Riding an Uber cab home, I knew I was feeling tired and a little lost. I have never been able to like Calcutta, and now it has left me behind. Much more wealthy since the days of my youth, of course, maybe a little cleaner and greener too, but certainly not my city any more, in any sense, if it ever was. That is probably why I zoom into my daughter's house, laze and luxuriate for a few days, and then zoom back home, despite so many people telling me to visit them when I am in town. If Pupu had not been living there, I cannot think of a single reason why I should ever want to visit again. And that applies to New York as well... but it was good to see that in this city of festivals, the Book Fair has struck deep roots as another one of them. May it grow and prosper.

Manusher Ghorbari

My latest trip was to a place I had only seen advertised. It is a large farmhouse cum homestay facility close to Labhpur in Birbhum, little more than a two-hour drive. It is called Manusher Ghorbari (after the novel by Atin Bandyopadhyay), owned and run by Sri Aniket Chattopadhyay, filmmaker, news editor of Kolkata TV and YouTuber (his popular channel is named Banglabazar) along with his wife Sahana and a team of dedicated young locals eager to please. It was a most pleasant two-night stay.

As all readers of my little travelogues know, I love wandering, but long vacations to faraway places take a heavy toll on the pocket, as well on my time and dwindling reserves of energy, so I can do them only twice a year, or maybe three at most. And yet I find it painful to stay home for too long at a stretch. So I keep searching for pretty, quiet and not-yet-so-hot idylls nearby. A decade ago you found them only in the hills; now, homestays are coming up all over south Bengal. Just the right sort of thing for people who want short breathers amidst silence, pure air, vast open spaces and greenery.

We took one mud house and one regular room, because I wanted to get a taste of both. Only young Aveek the soon to be doctor accompanied us; everyone else in my gang of favourites being currently very busy. Arriving at the property just after 11 a.m., we had a sumptuous Bengali lunch on traditional kansa (bell metal) utensils, mostly made out of things grown on site. Then, the huge lakeside garden beckoning, we dozed for a while in the mellow sunshine before turning in for a late siesta. The evening passed in leisurely fashion, with hearty adda and a bit of music, followed by a heavy dinner: if the hosts can be faulted on anything at all, it is that they insist we gorge ourselves (or maybe that is what the typical guest expects). But as they promised, the water drawn from an underground aquifer is really so good (no longer a common thing anywhere in India) that we were hungry for breakfast. 

On Tuesday morning we got off to a somewhat early start, visiting, in turn, the ancestral house of, and the museum dedicated to Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay, the greatest writer (besides artist, social worker, philanthrope and sometime MLC) that Birbhum has produced, at least since Chandidas. Then off to the sickle-shaped bend in the river Kopai just before it meets the Bakreshwar, made famous by the novel Hansulibanker Upokotha. That was a bit of a let down, really, but the locals said that plans are afoot to make the surroundings more well-tended and scenic. Finally, a visit to the Neel Kuthi, basically some forlorn brick ruins standing derelict amidst dense jungle: it was the jungle which enchanted me, with Ray's music playing inside my mind: e je bonyo, e oronyo... I shall never grow tired of forests, rivers and mountains. Back for bath and lunch, which was good again, though pulao is not my favourite rice dish, and the previous day's delicious routine was happily repeated until dinner. A good night's sleep, waking up lateish, a filling breakfast of hot paranthas, fried aubergine (oh come on, begoon bhaja) and nolen gurer rosogolla, and we drove off to reach Durgapur just after twelve. As always, the two days, like all joyous times, had passed in a flash. I think everybody, ma included, enjoyed it thoroughly.

If you ask for the USP of this homestay/resort, my answer will be that though both Mr. and Mrs. Chatterjee are busy working people, and we stayed with them during working days, they not only made it a point to give us company during every meal (it would have started becoming embarrassing if I had stayed for another day) but we quickly developed enough rapport to engage in serious conversation covering a wide range of subjects - which is saying a lot, given that I am at heart a very private person who avoids talk with strangers unless invited. I was also glad to know that it is pet friendly, and that they do not welcome visitors who want to play earsplitting music on 'DJ boxes'. I hope this kind of publicity won't make it too crowded and raucous for peaceloving folks like me. Visit on weekdays: you are almost sure to get a booking even if you call just two days in advance, unless it is holiday time. You can contact Mr. Chatterjee directly. His phone number is 94349 48504.

I am almost done travelling this season: one more trip perhaps, and I shall sit back and brace myself for summer.

For some photos, click here.

Jolly LLB 3

I just watched a new Akshay Kumar movie on Netflix: Jolly LLB 3. I have grown to like this fellow, for all his slapstick and earthiness and splayed-tooth laugh - there is a kind of decency, sincerity and social urgency about many of the roles he has played that appeal strongly to something in me. I have enjoyed movies like Airlift, Toilet: ek premkatha, and OMG. Better in many simple but touching ways than much of the pretentious trash we see on screen these days. 

The storyline, though, is what really had me glued. It is about how filthy rich land sharks are gobbling up large pieces of our rural hinterland at throwaway prices, and that too with money borrowed from public sector banks (certainly not their own mehnat ki kamai, as the lawyer demonstrated in court), then 'developing' these places at enormous profit to build an airport here, a golf course there, a mine elsewhere and a luxury housing estate somewhere else. Very often they abuse the 'system' in every way they can on their way to piling up their ever-bulging fortunes, from co-opting public servants to bribing and threatening and occasionally even killing off those who stand in the way, be they journalists or the police, judges, recalcitrant villagers or NGOs helping them. And always, their slogan is that someone must 'sacrifice' a little so that the country can 'progress', as long as the sacrificers are the poorest and most vulnerable. Indeed, such is the logic of capitalism that they have the most hotshot lawyers and journos and even the occasional lawmaker to argue plausibly and strenuously on their behalf, for very hefty fees, of course: there is an 'eminent professional economist' on their payroll in this movie who has done very nicely for himself by selling 'expert advice' to his clients.

The movie was made in feel-good style, so the bullet-hit district magistrate arrives on a stretcher to give damning testimony in court, the lawyer duo plead earnestly, cleverly and convincingly, the ageing and trouble-avoiding judge, goaded beyond endurance by the tycoon's offensive arrogance (can you actually call a judge a clown and and idiot to his face in open court in India, however rich and powerful you are?), gives a stern and just verdict, the project is abandoned, the determined old woman who had stubbornly fought for her rights is shown respect and compensated to some extent, and the villagers celebrate with Holi colours, so all is hunky dory.

The good thing about the movie is that such a story can still be told in India, where it comes so close to reality in criticizing the kind of shameless and rapacious crony capitalism that has now taken root. And, well, Netflix has not (yet) been ordered to take it down. This is the kind of movie that can open many eyes, especially in a country where so many of us prefer to stay blind for as long as we can (indeed, so many of us have been conditioned to admire and salivatingly fawn upon such robber barons as great 'success stories' to be hero worshipped). The sad part of reality is two-fold. One, a mere district judge's verdict can easily be overturned in a higher court if you have the right kind of money and connections - that is how our 'democracy' functions. Two, most people are so trivially affected by such stories that the effect does not last beyond a few days or weeks, so there is little hope that, regardless of the good intentions of the storytellers (I deeply admire their idealistic perseverance), it will create the kind of lasting public awareness, caution and outrage which can permanently put shackles on the kind of vastly powerful predators who today absolutely dominate our society. Haven't such stories been told before? Remember Rang de Basanti and 3 Idiots?

P.S.: Surprising and most ticklish irony - the movie has been financed by Star Studios, a subsidiary of Jio Star, and everybody knows who is the head honcho of Jio. He financed the film?! Why on earth?

Not a happy ending

We are having an unusually cold winter this time round after several years. Last night, the weather app said the celsius had sunk to 8 degrees, but it felt definitely colder. Anyway, I love the winter less than before, because my bones ache, and the horrible pollution keeps giving me coughs and colds. 

So, alas, I am writing the last post of the year on a rather bitter note, especially because, though by nature strongly against extreme views of any kind, I am getting politically angry against the ruling dispensation after a long, long time. Maybe I shall grow vocal in the coming year.

Let there be a just peace on earth, and may God deliver His judgment on those who believe, and tell others to believe, in hating other human beings on the basis of race, religion, language, colour, gender, nationality and so on. That breed is proliferating everywhere, and all history stands testimony that it bodes ill for all of us, except perhaps the very rich and the very powerful. As the poet asked, tumi ki taader kshoma koriyachho, tumi ki besechho bhalo (have you forgiven them and loved them)?

One good thing I just did and which makes me happy is putting in this link to the blog of a dear young man, Aditya Mishra, friend of Swarnava, and one of those increasingly few who have things to write about and can write.

Bye bye to 2025

It is 24th December. Just a week left of the year. Time again to look back... and ahead. This has been on the whole a good year for me: sort of quiet, no big bad news, travelling around quite a bit, welcoming a newborn into my extended family of old boys, watching my daughter become a well-rounded working cum family woman, blessed with the companionship of old favourites who have stayed by my side for years, slowly learning to relax in the sunset of my life. This has also been my storytelling year. I have been posting a story a week on YouTube (now linked to my Instagram and Facebook accounts) since April, and I shall continue for at least a full year: that will be a repertoire worth leaving behind. Also, within a few months this blog will be twenty years old, and I am proud, because I know for a fact that few people in this age stick to writing as a non-commercial activity for that long; indeed, most bloggers give up after a year, because they have nothing more to say. Other than teaching for a living and bringing up my daughter, this has been the longest single project of my life. Someday, Pupu says, parts of this blog can be culled to make a traditional book. It has truly been a labour of love.

2026 is going to be a busy and difficult year for lots of people. There will be the Assembly polls in West Bengal, with the BJP getting more and more desperate to throw out the current regime. Globally, the AI bubble is likely to burst, sending shockwaves through stock markets all over the world, and the climate crisis is going to grow steadily worse, along with the worldwide reaction against immigrants - Americans against Indians as much as Indians against 'Bangladeshis' (I am not going into the right and wrong of it here, but I have been predicting this for three decades and more). So also technology mania and the onward march of elected autocracies wedded to the most short-sighted kinds of populism (the Roman emperors kept the masses happy with bread and circuses - just read plentiful junk food, non-stop festivals and social media feeds: no substantial difference). Low level white collar jobs will continue to become ever scarcer, more ill paid and less secure. Economic inequality of the worst kind will keep becoming ever more acute. Language will continue to be debased until people are hardly able to figure out what others are saying, creating problems everywhere from workplace to family place and funplace. Nutcases of all sorts, from vegans to those who insist on unisex toilets, will become ever more strident. But also, countless people will go on quietly doing useful things they do because they love doing them, from nursing patients to teaching kids to gardening and making music, and all kinds of pushback against nutters will also build up steam. If my health and finances permit, it will be an interesting scenario to sit back and watch from the sidelines, sometimes to laugh at and sometimes to grimace over. It has been a fairly tough life, and if God gives me a fairly comfortable retirement for a few years (not too many, please!) I shall be quite content.

Thinking about all the old boys and girls who have taken a lot of my time, attention and love and at some point vanished completely from my life with not so much as a by your leave, I was suddenly reminded of something that an economics professor remarked in class while talking about Nehruvian socialism: 'He loved humanity but hated people'. Supposing that were true, at my time of life I see nothing wrong or cynical about that attitude; rather, I deeply understand. If you know enough of the best things in human beings, you cannot help loving humanity, but individual people are most usually so flawed (to put it very nicely) that, even if you don't hate them, you cannot bring yourself to love them: unless you are the kind of divine fool who would forgive even those who crucify you.

I have become fascinated with a website titled History.com - visit it and you will find out why, in case you have any interest in the past. Also, a most interesting fledgling venture that an old boy has been talking about and is involved with: see the website truecompanion.co (not dot com). Right now, I am almost through a six part web series titled Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on trial on Netflix. And over the next three days I am going to have my fill of feel-good Christmas movies. Merry Christmas, all: God give you peace, rest and warmth.

Madhupur

Those who have been listening to the stories on my YouTube channel (just write Suvro Chatterjee or Goppoguchchho) will have noticed that I read out excerpts from a new book titled Memories of Madhupur not long ago. Now I have driven before through Madhupur, now in Jharkhand, about a four-hour drive from Durgapur, but never stayed. I have heard lots of stories from family elders about the days when the moneyed Calcutta elite invariably had little palaces or large bungalows there, and went over frequently for a health cure: the doctors highly recommended the 'change' from city life, because the weather was cool and balmy for most part of the year, there were vast open spaces and greenery all around, so virtually no pollution, the mineral charged water was supposed to be very good for health, and local labour was cheap, obedient, dutiful and generally harmless. With the great socio-economic and political changes post independence, most of this old Bengali elite lost their stranglehold and many even their properties, though some held on doggedly. Lately some have renovated their old villas and turned them into resorts - weekend getaways - for the newly moneyed middle class tourists from the cities. One of those caught my attention.

On the way I stopped at Karmatanr, where one of my most revered heroes of yesteryear, Pandit Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, spent many of his last years, still teaching, still treating with cheap homeopathy the poorest of the poor, the local Santhals, the sort of people for whom he had cared most and done most all his life (gnyaner sagar, doyar sagar, birchuramoni Bidyasagar). The railway station has been renamed after him, and his walled compound with some trees he planted with his own hands still remain: one or two rooms, including his bedroom, have been lovingly restored, but most of the houses are going to seed and the site is located beside an obscure, dingy, narrow alley with open drains, and sandwiched between ugly, jerry-built, newly constructed houses and shops of insignificant and uncaring locals simply making do. A very sad contrast with the ways the houses, memorials and museums dedicated to Tagore and Vivekananda have been restored or preserved. Shameful and pitiable. I got a book about the great man's life there, and learnt that a small trust is still protecting the place from dissolution and decay, but there was no way I could connect with the trust, the writer or the publisher, no phone number, email, postal address, nothing, to ask if I could help, in whatever little way I can afford. I wish the two state governments involved would get into the act with gusto and do something before it is too late.

Arriving at the resort (Sett Heritage Guest House) at just after 12 immediately lifted my spirits. The property was not too big,  but beautifully preserved, everything from rooms to the Victorian era babuder boithokkhana, complete with old paintings tastefully placed on the walls, old books inviting the connoisseur on the shelves, period furniture of cane and wood, ceiling fans of century old design, even switches from a bygone era and canopied four-poster bedsteads, low doors and curtained French windows, albeit grilled, because sneak thieves have been a problem for ages. I like this kind of holiday stay far more than any chrome and steel and wood-laminated five star hotel tower frequented by the crass newly rich any day. We got the lawnside room, which was the best, because it was isolated from the main building and so very quiet, with a little private garden in front and the kitchen right across, so that you didn't even have to holler for tea, coffee and snacks, and you could lunch and dine right there in the mellow sunshine or under a canopy at night. The staff was  promptness, courtesy and helpfulness personified. In India you cannot get closer to heaven, just sun bathe, listen to soft music, read, chat (my mother and driver/friend had gone along), eat (very nice, homely, filling food) and sleep.

But there was a bonus waiting still for me. The proprietor, Mr. Anjan Sett, 75, from Kolkata (Theatre Road) and his wife came over and struck up a warm and friendly conversation right away. Within minutes we had discovered common acquaintances from the days of yore. He begged me to browse through his collection of books and take away whatever, as many as I pleased - 'I can't cope with the dreary task of preserving them any more, and finding true bookworms to share with is such a rare pleasure!' So courteous,  so humble, so self-effacing: talk about the civilizing effects of old money! My mother shared many of her childhood experiences, and he drank it all up, because they were, after all, contemporaries who have lived through a nearly forgotten, far more cultured age. We were earnestly invited to visit their much bigger property a furlong away.

So next morning we went, and saw a palace. They occupy the much smaller wing, which they have transformed into another guest house ('You can come over right now if you wish!'). I suggested they hand over the palace itself to some giant corporate chain like the Taj or ITC, which they will transform into a haven for the dirty rich in no time at all. But of course, the olde-worlde charm will be lost forever, because their clients will come only to make raucous noise, lech after each other's wives, and drink themselves silly... Then we did a little bit of local sightseeing, taking in the tiny Bakulia Falls (must be a spectacle at the height of the monsoons), the bahanno bigha neighbourhood of humbler Bengalis who settled down generations ago, the Kapil Math (I thought the ancient sage's den was on Sagar Island, but okay, maybe he spent some time here), and enjoyed the aarati and vandana at the Vivekananda Math. Next morning, we set off after a leisurely breakfast and were back in good time for a regular lunch. A most satisfactory getaway, and a very good use of the Monday and Tuesday break I have now assigned to myself every week. If you have enjoyed reading this, let me know.

For photos, click here.