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?