My tribute on Teachers' day

I have had many wonderful Teachers
But Life has been and still the greatest of all
together they made me what I am and what I never wanted to be and couldn't be....or perhaps I would be...
This day I remember all my Teachers, the Milestones whom I walked past in my Long Journey.....
And the One who stands apart.....
beautiful as ever, the muse, the gateway to forbidden mysteries.....

The Solitary Reaper--William Wordsworth. 1770–1850

                            William Wordsworth. 1770–1850
 (Above Wordsworth in 1798, about the time he began 'The Prelude')
 

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o’er the sickle bending;--
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

(Written in 1805)

Textual Analysis

a)      What did the poet see? What request would he have placed before a passer-by?

The poet saw a lonely girl harvesting corn in a Highland field. She was singing and working alone. Her song against the backdrop of Scottish countryside enchanted the poet so much that he exhorted travellers or anyone not to disturb the girl.

b)      How was the song like? What was the poet’s immediate impression?

The Reaper’s song was melancholy and her loneliness enforced its effect on the poet. He felt as if the valley were overflowing with her solemn voice. The poet brings to us the picture of a river in spate.

c)      How did the poet compare the Reaper’s song to that of a Nightingale?

The poet felt in his enchantment that the Reaper’s song can soothe weary travellers in Arabia, as they approach an oasis after a long and tiring journey, just as a nightingale might do. However according to the poet the reaper’s song would be more appealing as it could revive travellers exhausted with desert heat.

d)      In what way was the Reaper’s song thrilling than that of a Cuckoo?

Generally barren and cold, the islands of Hebrides would have a more melodious summer if the reaper’s song reached there. Her song had the power to override a cuckoo that usually sings prelude to a pleasant summer that is full of life and happiness.

e)      Why did the poet make such unusual comparison?

Man has always been held captive by birds’ song, even no one ever understand their language. Similarly the reaper’s language, which was Gaelic, was incomprehensible to the poet though it did not mar the beauty and enchantment of her song. Also the poet is of the view that the reaper’s song was as pure and natural as that of the birds. Thus the poet made such comparisons.

f)       What according to the poet was the theme of the song?

Getting nowhere with the meaning, the poet was compelled to believe that the sad song spoke of some old, unhappy things that took place far off or about medieval battles. Given its poignancy, the song could also have been about the reaper’s present life, her day to day sorrow, loss or pain with which their life was made of recurring again and again.

g)      What was the poet’s ultimate impression in regard to the song?   

Wordsworth failed to make out the meaning of the song, however, he realised that the song couldn’t have an end. He felt the beauty of the song in its painful rendition as it spoke about loss and sorrow of rustic life of poor farmers.

h)      How was the poet influenced at the end and how did he react? 

The beauty of Scottish Highland and the flow of a sad song by a lone reaper were enough to hold the poet spell-bound for quite a long time. However he broke free of the enchantment and took his way up the hill with the immortal music in his heart. Sadly he never heard it again anywhere.  

i)        Why did the poet use two extreme climatic conditions?    

Wordsworth brought into focus two extreme climatic conditions of Arabian Sands and that of Hebrides to emphasise the natural soothing power of the reaper’s song, which according to him, even the nightingale and the cuckoo seem to possess but not as much as the reaper. In other words the reaper’s song had the capacity far greater than these two birds are known to have.

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Anders Behring Breivik : We Honour your Sentiments but Condemn Your Methods...!!!

                             Anders Behring Breivik

 

What Anders Behring Breivik has done might be safely called as Unpardonable, but if we put his views—no matter how weird they might sound—against the European perspective, we find that he does have a point.

Actually he is not a problem as an individual but symptom of fatal anomalies that refute the very idea of man as an animal.

 On a physical plane he is outright guilty, no doubt, but must be viewed as an offshoot of a socio-political process prevalent in Europe that is grossly apathetic to the welfare and the aspirations of the common man and unmindful of fundamental instincts of Man as an animal with its intrinsic motives guiding him thereof.

These Primal instincts of man have been superciliously tagged as ‘Racism, Regionalism, Jingoism, Religious fundamentalism’ etc and made to view as ideologies opposed to Multiculturism, the efficacy of which remains in question keeping in mind the kind of cross-currents that underplay human aspirations vis-à-vis shady aspects of global politics and economy governed by intrusive foreign policies of a few countries whose sole purpose is to make profit and seek opportunities even amidst turmoil.

Therefore the point is not Anti-Muslim or Anti-Immigrant or anything else for that matter so far Breivik is concerned, the point is how much do we honour and where do we stand so as to seek to preserve the fundamental aspects upon which the foundation of human society was laid...?

Failing at this ideological plane will certainly result in more Breiviks and groups such as and as far placed as the NASHI or the Neo-Nazi...!!

       

Relevance of Rabindranath Tagore to young generation–An open letter to a Bengali school boy.

                                   Rabindranath Tagore                                                           

To talk about the relevance of Tagore is to see him in the greater light of his personality and the time he walked the earth as we do today.  And to do this we need to see him beyond his literary achievements. We need to look into the essence of this man, the things he stood for and the legacy he left for us to follow.

He is an international figure widely respected—home and abroad, and has been inspiration to many a great man and woman—the poet Wilfred Owen, Scientist Albert Einstein might be taken as example. But if we talk about his relevance he is more relevant to us Bengalis than any other race in the world, because he with his life and action and with his conviction showed what a Bengali needs to be, and what we have really come to.

The time that is gone is gone forever and the time that is to come is a mere presumption and the same premise holds good in our life as well. People who have lived their lives contributing to the ethos, or people who have been simply demolishing what took ages to build have equal influence on all of us. So the future lies in our hand, the young generation, the students, on whose shoulders rest the world.

The life of Rabindranath was a multifaceted one that ideated the need of a questing mind something that is far above the muddle of pre-conceived familiarity we are so much given to now. Today we need to have this originality of thought and action in our day to day life. Over the years this sense of enquiry so vital to our ancestors has now indeed taken a beating. We have lost the legacy of being a rebel and poet, of being people of great courage and vitality and of original thinking.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale once said, “What Bengal thinks today, the rest of India thinks tomorrow.” The question is do we still have that conviction? Does the accolade still apply on us? Do we really deserve it in the present run of time?

Today our intellectual world is steeped in mediocrity and self complacency. But what we have really inculcated post independence is a pathetic snobbery that has made us incapable of seeing things worth seeing, somewhat robbing us of the very sense of pragmatic analyses. In the short story ‘Daakghar’, Tagore showed us the danger of losing our intrinsic judgement to half baked understanding of things around.

We live in a world where we have no respect for our language, and the world once glimmered with the likes of Sarat Chandra, Jibonananda Das, Shakti Chattopadhyay Bishnu Dey is crumbling to cheap and vulgar Bollywood mediocrity. And we see no offence!

Ergo, today we need to re-live Tagore, resurrect the Tagore that we all have in us because we need him to survive the world, to keep our name on the atlas of people and great nation and be proud of being a Bengali.

We cannot expect to change people who won’t change, but we, the young generation can as well gear up to imbibe those true qualities epitomised by our beloved Poet laureate that we might one day be the precursor to a great Nation of great people.

Future of Bengalis as a Linguistic Denomination...

       

                         Akhanda Bangla Anushilon Samiti

                                                  

I am not a great thinker, nor do I have great learning; but what I have is concern for my land—you may call it love for motherland—which I think does not call for anything of special significance. What if I have great wealth and my body is rotting? It’s sure enough that neither my body nor my wealth would be of any use.

Similarly what if I have great learning but the land under my feet is slipping away..or that my name doesn’t attribute to a place of my own... or that everywhere I am threatened overwhelmed by a majority that is hostile to my language, suspicious of my culture as if I were given to constant endeavour to sabotage to claim what is not mine or what is taken from me?

This is the life and the reality of a landless nation. And I am quite sure we, the Bengalis are coming to that... slowly but surely our destiny is being written much in the same way as that of the Jews centuries ago.

We all know to what they went through...what they lived...It was but for Hitler things took a turn and the Jews irrespective of place and standing  threw their arms to one another for universal Brotherhood. They were hated almost across the length and breadth of Europe, deprived of basic rights, exploited, prejudiced and discriminated and at the far end assaulted and nearly decimated.

With so many languages in a country that has no National Character, where the country is more of a concept than a nation, where people still reel under the subtle after-effect of colonial slavery in  culture, thoughts and actions, where Democracy is crumbling under a wicked  game of number, where people have no palpable alternative to injustice and exploitation, where there exist qualitative differences between the intellectual make-up of one region and that of the other in matters regard to culture and political outlook....Can we in any case survive with our Bangla language...can we survive as a linguistic race without making any compromise on the ethos that define our very existence? Do we have that economic capability to sustain ourselves as a race that has a distinct characteristic?

Today we need to ask ourselves only one question—‘Is there going to be anything as Bengali in the next 100 years should civilisation survive?’

Thus, you don’t need to be a pedant to foresee your survival on earth...

All you need is a little common sense, which I’m sure we are all amply bestowed with...!!!

Joy Bangadesh...!!!

Joy Matribhumi...!!!

Are You Still Alive.....!!!!

অবনী বাড়ি আছো?

দুয়ার এঁটে ঘুমিয়ে আছে পাড়া
কেবল শুনি রাতের কড়ানাড়া
'অবনী, বাড়ি আছো?'

বৃষ্টি পড়ে এখানে বারোমাস
এখানে মেঘ গাভীর মতো চরে
পরান্মুখ সবুজ নালিঘাস
দুয়ার চেপে ধরে--
'অবনী, বাড়ি আছো?'

আধেকলীন-- হৃদয়ে দূরগামী
ব্যথার মাঝে ঘুমিয় পড়ি আমি
সহসা শুনি রাতের কড়ানাড়া
'অবনী, বাড়ি আছো?'

Shakti Chattopadhyay

Remember this poem? Many of us might have read this. But how many lived through it? This was an iconic poem that is said to have influenced the entire school of modern Bengali Poetry as also life that followed in the wake of it.

....................'অবনী, বাড়ি আছো?'......................

Over the years this one-liner has become as much of a haunting line as an understatement that celebrates the beginning of an end, i.e. the herald of a Dark Age in the History of modern Bengal, the cloud of which still overcast our mindscape, our ignominious life and things we do.

 An entire generation of gifted mind was liquidated almost under the great system of so called Democracy, about which we so proudly brag before the western world and forget that in return of Freedom it has claimed the very essence of our life, i.e. Freedom itself.

It has given us the freedom to cower, to turn a blind eye to our destruction, to live in complete segregation like a toothless lion whose roar is nothing but an artefact to its people and to the rest of the world. We win accolades and honour but actually starving to annihilation.

Day in and day out as we look on with the eyes of an impotent spectator, we find what we have lost, what price we have paid against this phony liberty and claims of development.

It is rightly said that India is a country of gods, beggars and snake charmers not because we find them in plenty but should one be here one is sure to repose faith in God. It is so because if I happen to close my eyes enough with the evils of today and wake up to that of another to trust to tomorrow again, it is a sheer Miracle.

From the massacre of Sai family through the orchestrated genocide of bright young minds in the wake of Naxalbari uprising to our very own Nandigram and Netai, what have we inherited? Complete destruction of Bengali progressive Bourgeoisie if not the deliberate sterilisation of the remaining progressive minds so much that today they make but a marginalised  group of yellers making encouraging noises so much necessary for a great Democracy as ours.

That I am alive and breathing is the greatest Miracle of my life and of our time and as such I can’t help believing God above me for a platter of rice on my table.

‘Are you home, Abani?’ may as well be ‘Are you still alive, Abani....? Are you still breathing?

The Owl--Philip Edward Thomas.(3 March 1878 – 9 April 1917)

Edward Thomas

The Owl

Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;

Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof

Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest

Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.

Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,

Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.

All of the night was quite barred out except

An owl's cry, a most melancholy cry

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,

No merry note, nor cause of merriment,

But one telling me plain what I escaped

And others could not, that night, as in I went.

And salted was my food, and my repose,

Salted and sobered, too, by the bird's voice

Speaking for all who lay under the stars,

Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice. 

Textual Analysis

1. ‘Downhill I came, hungry, yet not starved...’ who says this? Why does the speaker contrast hungry with starved?

The speaker here is the poet himself.

This poem is a true representation of a man’s inner conflict. The speaker under certain condition came down laden with hunger and fatigue, while his comrades were on the hill. He wanted food and rest but felt penitent for his desires, which he thought were selfish because he was not so hungry that he would have died that night.

    

2. ‘But one telling me plain ....escaped....’ who was the one referred to here? Explain what was told by the ‘one’?

The ‘one’ referred to here is the cry of the Owl.

The cry of the owl reverberated across the hill and spoke on behalf of the poet’s comrades. The poet in its melancholy and piercing cry found himself penitent for his coming down to a shelter leaving his comrades on the hill. He felt that for the time being he had escaped the clutches of death while the poor soldiers waited their imminent fate.

3. ‘All of the night was quite barred out...’ what is the meaning of ‘All of the night’? To whom was it barred out and why?

The poet by this expression wanted to convey the intensity of suffering and eventual death that night could have brought on him. ‘All of the night’ stood for hunger, cold, fatigue and death that night.

He had come down and procured himself food and rest in an inn. He had paid for those amenities and so the suffering of that night was restricted from reaching him.

4. ‘...Except an Owl’s cry...’ Why wasn’t the owl’s cry barred out?

Amidst his frugal amenities, which he thought the sweetest thing under a roof, the poet found that the owl’s cry couldn’t be barred out. He, being a sensitive poet, took its cry as the call of his own conscience that seemed reproaching him for being so weak and selfish.

5.  ‘And salted was my food...by the bird’s voice.’ In what sense does the poet use the word ‘salted’? How was his food ‘salted’ by the bird’s voice?

The poet was too hungry to differentiate between tasty and vile food. He was also fatigued and desperately needed rest. At such an hour the cry of the bird raised a storm inside his sensitive mind.

He felt that at his food and rest were salted in the sense that they became obnoxious to him. He could neither fulfil his hunger nor lie down on the couch, as he suffered scruples which left him utterly disappointed and broken.

6.  How does the call of the owl affect the poet? OR What is the significance of the title ‘The Owl’?

The owl being nocturnal has long been considered a sinister creature that calls upon misery, adversity and death. These symbols work upon the poet as the mirror of his conscience, as he realised that his needs were the reflection of a weak and selfish mind rather than of a sensitive poet. He felt that he had betrayed his comrades by coming down to the comfort of a secured place, while they awaited their imminent doom.

   

7. Describe the situation in the poem ‘The Owl’.

The poet, Edward Thomas, came down the hill in search of food and rest, being utterly fatigued and hungry. He got what he needed in an inn and all that stood for agony that night were restricted. However, an owl’s cry penetrated the numb darkness and hit him hard on his conscience. It spoke on behalf of the unfortunate soldiers who had no comfort that night but to fight in the cold and die. The poet could neither eat nor sleep as his soul fell apart in remorse.