MY tryst with a classic, "Boshey Aanko" by Suman Chatterjee

Unlike Deepak Sodhan and Lala Amarnath, to our heartfelt delight, Suman Chatterjee scored his second ton with "Boshey Aanko", in his second album! The title-song has a strange and direct colloquial flavour that so often had eluded Bengali songdom.

I still remember, how the allusion made to English medium schools had slapped me tight, and little did Suman know, how this song would mould my inner defiance to certain things. I loved "shurjo bollo ish" for fluid playing of the guitar, and, also, for the simple yet vibrant structure of its lyrical content. "ek muhurte phiriye dile" remains another of my favourites, for, pure love that can reflect a moment of eternal glory, amid the ruins of concrete faith, is the focal point of this song. Suman places his cynical counter-realisation vis-a-vis this feeling, and, we, the spellbound listeners, stay glued to the dialectics till this hour.

"shawkaal belaar Roddur" is a social statement, beautifully sung and, the choice of words, they never cease to evoke the pang of fellow-feeling ( sympathy is too limited a word) for that nameless little girl. "chhawk ketechhe gaachher chhaya, ebong roder dwando" reminds us of Bibhutibhusan at his best. Before Suman, I never came across a description so physical in its essential nature, so ethereal in its sense of aesthetics, at least in the empire of Bengali songs.

The last two lines of "meghdoot" gets ironic enough, to show us the contrasting reality, and, like Yeats, reflects that beauty, indeed, is not a joy forever!

"rekhaaber rawng" captures the sombre mood of serenity, from the point of view of an ageing maestro. The song continuously makes us aware of our past, and how it firmly holds its ground even now. In "hothat rastaay", nostalgia bewitches reality, and the refrain of "bondhu kawtodin dyakha hoyni" breaks through the craving, yet uncertain hearts.

"ekekta din mosrin" remains another of my favourites, despite its embryonic rock sound. The lyrics, with a nonchalant "ekekta taa din bawro bey-rongin, awsukher mawto aashe aamar shawkaal", projects the casual darkness in the heart of a truant generation.

Although "chaalsher Gaan" was a childhood favourite; with dotage, it has lost some of its appeal. It sounds a little boring, a little overstretched, with some brilliant lines here and there. With "pukur paarer noyaano gaachh", begins the celebration of the trivial, which some years later would touch the pinnacle of song-making with 'chaarline-er gaan' in Jaatishmor.

"bhorsha thakuk" reminds me of Sukumar Ray, the lyrics are absolutely fascinating. This song actually captures the possibilities of the Bengali middle-class existence. The song is all about magical commonplaceness that renders a certain pedestrian charm to this song.

We are mere muggles, years before the boy who lived started enchanting us with his magic spells; another wizard had made us spellbound, as well. "boshey Aanko" remains another of his dazzling spells. I can't get rid of it, of course, I don't want to get rid of it for the world!

Suicide note..

If I ever plan to counter Albert Camus, I would do it with the words of a black American poet.....

" The cool
Calm face of the river
Asked me for a kiss"

Period.

Longing...

It’s not easy to deal with smiles. A sudden twist of facial muscles or a moment of indecision can ruin your citadel in a flash. I close my eyes and try to regain composure. Somewhere deep down the valley of lonely stars, faces creep in to the last syllable of recorded time! She was someone very close, or was she not? Memories play snake and ladder with each other !

The cellphone screen shrieks with searing light. How strange has this living been, how terribly fantastic. Someone, from a different corner of this old, old city, has sent me some words. Flowers and ashes do not seem much different within the cavity between each word.

Suzanne, I miss you.

Flakes of thoughtlessness

There are times when you want to assure yourself that you are capable of scribbling a line or two! That is precisely the reason I am trying to phrase some thoughts on this very page. All my ideas have gone haywire, giving way to incomplete thoughts! It does not bother me anymore. I am happy to be alive, as Tolstoy had said in one of his less pious efforts!

Collecting words out of a void has never been easy. It may be bread and butter for philosophers and poets of this world, but it does cost me a lot of time. Sometimes, I wonder, why am I trying to post such morbid thoughts, damn it, Why am I even writing this crap at all! Is it because of some hidden urge to express vulnerability, or is it just a fancy like boating on a summer night!

The quest goes on....

My baby shot me down!

Almost imperceptible, a hint of coloured reality lurks beneath the words of Uma “the Goddess” Thurman. The pang of being shot down plays a pivotal role in making our heroine aware of her femininity. Somewhere, deep down the valley of consciousness, the feeling of sexual suppression and racial abuse prepares a queer concoction! Strangely enough, the inevitability of being exploited as a woman never clashes with her affection for the lover boy, the age-old adage “nothing hurts like love” seems to be the potter-esque scar of this woman-child! She makes love with her ideas of perfection by dedicating her independent self to the confines of society like a mature woman and yet breaks like a little girl, showing her sand-made defiance.

Thereafter comes adulthood and April is the cruellest month! Even the flawed ideas have their moments of glory, church bells do have a tendency to weave magical sounds through still air and after all, we human beings are only human. So, the last shot comes unexpectedly and there remains only the bullet-ridden carcass of the angel of dreams! It’s pain, pain and excruciating pain all the way, and a little bewilderment. The song ends with almost an acceptance of what had happened, and we all see a woman trying to come to terms with actuality that has always been hidden in her dark corridors of loneliness. And yet, in her eyes, I can always see a bewildered look like that of a little girl!

Personally, from an inverted perspective, I am not sure how I would face the entire situation. Derisive I have never been, the way Dylan flaunted derisiveness in “Like a Rolling Stone” is never going to become my much-needed “protégo” charm. I lack that razor. I would rather prefer to say, “Don’t think twice, it’s all right”, and begin the walk down the long and lonesome road. I am ready to give my heart to somebody, but, if anybody ever wants my soul, the bargain would end there. I would still prefer walking the path with Bob Dylan inside my head.

Perhaps, the male counterpoint is always a little linear in its depiction of feminine reality!

when winter comes.....

More than two hundred years ago, an English youth in his muse had written the welcome note of spring amid the usual frosty weather of his motherland. Since then, scholars and dare I say, masters, have been blowing their trumpets of incorrigible pedantry by repeatedly quoting it in the confines of classroom. Honestly, when you are literally shivering from the chill, if someone reminds you of those ever hopeful lines in a dreamy voice, would you not be better off by giving him a tight slap for being untimely! And there lies the crux of our civilized existence, you could only offer him a meek smile and perhaps a pained stare at most! Destiny!

A concert in Bangalore

There are concerts, and, well, concerts. Only a very few of them can make your heartstrings vibrate to the rhythm of unadulterated life, and believe me, this one did just that!

Like the most natural phenomenon, I was feeling rather sick with my old bones on the day the concert was about to take place, and true to my annoying nature, have been a real pain in everybody’s you-know-what. Astonishingly enough, every person in Bangalore has been quite angelic in dealing with my antics, and though congenitally dull, I was being able to feel the warmth of unbreakable charms!

The evening started with a note of resurrection, and all my sickening moments of weakness were gone in a flash. Here was a group of supremely talented musicians, performing the songs of Kabir Suman, in a rare showing of tribute, and how they extracted life from every word they sang! It was a tour-de-force of extreme passion, the guitars, the vocals and, of course, the key-board were tuned in unison as if they were the cry of the soul, desperate to touch the sublime halo of ultimate musicality.

A regret that rankled me after the concert was that I won't ever be able to hum the songs with my brand of asinine voice.

For the first time in my life, I wish I were a musician. That tells you something about the concert, because indolent imbeciles like me do not often get the urge to look back in anger. What do they know of music, who only music know?

Experience

It’s a dull day as usual. I am about to witness another boring day passing into oblivion, dragging its tail to eternity. These hours always haunt me, memories make mayhem inside my office-browsing soul. The fading voice of a distant 'paperwalla' outside the glass window brings back long forgotten tales. An indifference, almost glacial, spreads itself over the expensive ceiling of a Calcutta office. I try not to look behind.

And then the dam breaks open.

I see a boy peeling an orange in a small town. He looks back in bewilderment and my world takes a tumble.  I try to look away with all the sagacity that my world can offer me! I see dada, my grandfather, trying to acquaint a little boy with Jogindranath Sircar. I see his radiant eyes and innocent smile. I try not to met his gaze.

Perhaps, everyone of us has started to play different tunes from what we used to play earlier. Wisdom prevails. Hard and concrete wisdom, Euclidean in its very essence.

Freedom thou art but an illusion!

When bullets sing hymns to praise our spineless existence, when genteel lines take the form of a wrinkled prostitute, when corporate indifference makes you shiver inside your three-piece, you lose your dignity to live as a human being.
You try to retrieve the humane values, you try to rekindle the old flame with a serendipitous commitment. Even the most introvert of them all throws a clenched fist towards the sky and utters his conviction aloud to protest against fascism.
And only yesterday, I have been categorically told by one son-of-a-bitch that I won’t be allowed to join today's rally. I could have thrown my resignation letter on his face, I could have beaten him all black and blue.
Instead of all that, I had to keep my mum as you can’t really resign without a two-month notice, and after all, you argue only with people who have a heart beneath their customary exterior.

I shall quit this job exactly after two months. But, that’s not why I am writing this post. I would like to see everybody joining the rally and make full use of their vocabulary.
We'll fight together. It is not roses, roses all the way.

Candle in the wind

I loathe the megalomania of Kolkata during the autumn festival. Disarrayed psychosis gradually evolves into a shapeless mass, apparent, yet inconceivable, in a strange medley of humanity. However, the series of life and its majestic tragedy remain unaffected, perhaps a bit pumped up, by this throng-mania; but mainly unaffected.

Some tragedies stay do not seek recognition, and some create a lasting ripple to steal their place in history. The death of a certain Rizwanur Rahman belongs to the latter category, and quite contrary to our wonderful indifference, it has touched some raw nerves. 

This death actually has raised some questions about the basic value of freedom, of whether it could be determined in a multi-biased social reality.

Rizwanur and Priyanka had not obeyed the stigma of social ethics, in an otherwise free economy, and, interestingly enough, the final equilibrium has been achieved in a most unethical way.

Like a single violin fades out to the harmony of a hundred bugles, the importance and freedom of human expression ultimately ebbs away, once we get into the cliché of perfunctory reality. The value of an individual, in units of intellectual and physical productivity, only diminishes as the beauty of incoherence gets lost to the mechanised make-belief world of concrete present tense.

Somehow, this city has its share of ecstasies and agonies. Despite our king-sized ignorance, a group of fellow citizens have decided to show their defiance to the system that has killed not only a person, but a plethora of promised dreams, by lighting up candles in front of our college. Hats off to them, I wish I had the courage.

The spirit of love and innocence is going to haunt the conscience of our neon-lit city. May the candles absorb the collective darkness of shattered dreams.

Let’s hope.

It’s better than doing nothing.