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Categories
Poetry

Doubt


Poetry by popular poet Avaya Shrestha, translated from Nepali by Haris C Adhikari

Avaya Shrestha


Doubt the beautiful 
Collages rendered by 
These various images of clouds, 
Doubt the beauty 
Of the existence of various 
Floating colours on beautiful lakes
And of the snow— like patches of clouds—
That has come to your hands. 
.
Doubt the sensational 
News in newspapers and TV,
The flowery, immaculate poems of poets,
The mind-blowing thoughts of intelligentsia,
And the Prime Minister’s speech 
In the name of all the citizens. 

Doubt 
Even the stories told 
In sweet language 
By your respected teacher,
Doubt 
The history written 
By great historians 
And the all-accepted values 
In the world. 
.
Doubt 
Yudhisthira’s loyalty
To truth, which is like snow 
Melting; and doubt
Arjuna’s bravery, which is like the sky
Untouched; doubt
Devavrata’s BhishmaPratigyaa*,
Duryodhana’s meanness
And the magical stories of the
Vedas and the Puranas. 
.
Socrates, Marx and Gandhi 
Darwin, Freud and Einstein 
Are only your co-travellers;
The Holy Bible, the Ramayana 
And the Mahabharata 
The Dhammopadesh, the Tripitak 
And the Quran 
Are not the ultimate truth;
Neither Brahma is real 
Nor false is the world; doubt
Vishnu, Maheshwor, Shree Ram, 
Christ, Kabir, Mohammed,
And even the Buddha 
Who himself speaks of doubts. 
.
No one is outside 
The circle of doubts 
In this yard-like 
Collective world—
Doubt !
Even this poem of mine
That creates 
The god of doubts … 
.
Unstoppable, 
I do doubt my own conscience 
The way the soil does
Give a test every time 
To the seeds sown in its womb. 

*Bhishma Pratigya : A terrible oath taken by Devavrata (who later came to be known as Bhishma), one of the most important figures in the Mahabharata (Note:In this poem the persona doubts both the eulogized characters like Yudhisthira and Arjuna, who have been depicted as completely flawless and godlike, and the hatred-inspiring character like Duryodhana, who has been depicted only as a figure full of foolishness and demonlike character in the epic).

Avaya Shrestha (b. 1972) is a powerful poet, well known for his subversive, rebellious, anti-conformist and thought-provoking poetry. He hails from Bhaktapur district. He is also known as a short story writer and columnist. He holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and political science from Tribhuwan Univesity. Shrestha has three books to his credit: Phul Binako Sakha and Kayakalpa (both anthologies of poetry) and Tesro Kinara (an anthology of short stores). He has received several recognitions and awards including Garima Best Prose Award (2012) , Best Creation Award in Prahari Bimonthly (2008), Nepal Academy Short (Best) Story Award (2004) and Dristi Weekly Columnist Honour (2008). He has worked as reporter and feature editor for different national dailies of Nepal. His columns Satyakura is popular among Nepali readers.

Haris C. Adhikari, a widely published poet and translator from Nepal, and an MPhil scholar in English language, teaches at Kathmandu University. He has three books poetry and literary translation to his credit. Adhikari’s creative and scholarly works have appeared in numerous national and international journals. Until 2017, he edited Misty Mountain Review, an online journal of short poetry. Currently, he co-edits Polysemy, a journal of interdisciplinary scholarship, published out of DoMIC, Kathmandu University. He can be reached at haris.adhikari@ku.edu.np

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Categories
Poetry

Gaia Breathes Again

                 

            By Kaikasi V .S.    

                      

The bridal bouquets extended their arms to the surreal patches of evening

Blended with a bounteous passion of Autumn

Meanwhile the leaves laden lands cuddled in the passionate embrace of –

A fragrant breeze

Jacarandas proudly display their purple blooms

Blanketing the stone-laden, abandoned palace of worship

The meadow leaves its coyness

Only to set ablaze the labyrinths of green pathways

Myriad hues paint the ‘Goldilocks’ as they used to call her—

Even as the last human has left the final chemical signature behind!

Behold the gorges, the mountainous terrains and the caves of hounds

Swarming with the inheritors of the soil,

Crawling and creeping millions

Even as the pupa awaits its most exciting phase

The festive season of the planet heralds the resurrection of maggots

While the land sings praise of a forgotten eon

Ice-sheets have already taken the cue to trace their way to their spotless abode

As magpies and blue jays greet each other holding fresh olives in their beaks

Squabbling sparrows forget their fights as the grains lay scattered

In fields where machines used to dictate the measurements a meal

Squirrels have forgotten the act of hoarding

Heaving sighs of relief at the sight of rusting pieces of snare

Forests adorn with wild flowers

That await the fresh kiss of untainted dewdrops

And here, the last sapling has sprouted

From the dishevelled tree trunks

From the last block of an abandoned civilization

No one heeds for entreaties

Borders or hoardings that reads—

No-Man’s -Land

Gaia Breathes Again!

  KaikasiV.S. is presently working as Asst. Professor of English, University College, Thiruvananthapuram. She has published a number of articles in the field of literature, sociology and film studies. Her area of research is Indian Mythology and is equally interested in translating literary works in her mother tongue to English. She is also an accomplished creative writer and bi-lingual translator whose poems have appeared in several national and international anthologies including ‘The Poetry of Flowers’ and ‘Mytho Madan’. She has also contributed to ‘Indian Literature’, the bi-monthly journal published by Sahithya Akademi.

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Categories
Poetry

No Brutal Dynasty

By Robin Wyatt Dunn

no brutal dynasty

pink as gruel

shepherded and stolen

to try its fist in the night

.

no dead ringer

cut and chopped and lighted for the storm

.

no bleak narrow tomb

bridged over the moor

.

not your tremor or your trial or your train

.

out of this earth:

.

you stuck the mic into her throat

to listen to her death:

.

and showered it over the park

and piped it into the mall

and into the bedrooms all around

.

to demand your hell come home:

.

you wrote a song of love about a child

that you kept alone

.

and all your friends

wrote it down

and sang and sang and sang

.

in the most beautiful voices

.

tis a brute must walk

pashing their life out

over and over

.

creatures of the tower kept in time:

.

the funeral march of love is no longer yours

for you are neither living nor dead

.

and the monsters are overseas

and beneath

.

here come the drums of war so slow it is like a lightning storm in dream

.

kept shuttered against fate

and no oboe nor cello can compete with them

for their caroled keep:

.

and marbled thought:

.

cold blue and wrought like iron are her eyes

atop our arms

.

Robin Wyatt Dunn was born in Wyoming in 1979. You can read more of his
work at www.robindunn.com.

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Categories
Essay

The Cancel Culture and Indian Intelligentsia

Pratyusha Pramanik, a researcher in Humanistic studies, explores the impact of a desire to cancel out people from social media

Debates around the cancel culture escalated following Harper’s open letter which advocated justice and open debate. Signed by many dignitaries across academia, media and culture this letter critiqued “the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty”. But instead of being hailed for advocating free speech, this letter was criticised by most as a veiled attempt to save face by intelligentsia who had been taken to task by their critics.

At a time when public intellectuals are gradually being considered an extinct species, it is interesting to note how the internet itself is becoming a free space where netizens are taking it upon themselves to decide a more sanitised standard for public figures. Tables are turning, public intellectuals are no longer getting to decide how people think and instead it is the people who are deciding how they are spoken to, and who gets to speak to them. This vaguely reminds us of Gramsci, when he said — ‘All men are intellectuals’1, but we can no longer agree with him when he continues, ‘not all are intellectuals by social function’. The cancel culture bridges the gap that divided the ivory towers of the intellectuals from the common mass.

The cancel culture is largely identified as the ‘left-wing mob’, so in India where the liberals are mostly left-leaning, the question arises who is going to bear the brunt of these angry mobs. The liberals in India are in crisis; they may have accused the Prime Minister for having infantilised the public, but is not this accusation a way of avoiding responsibility for having failed the masses. The mainstream media have largely cancelled the Indian intelligentsia with tags such as anti-nationals and urban-Naxals. The binary of the ‘Brave Soldiers’ versus the evil anti-nationals has been an engaging narrative among netizens.

The failure to create a successful counter-narrative has left the intelligentsia cornered and at a loss. This primarily English speaking, elitist intelligentsia became gradually redundant as Hindi took centre stage with the Prime Minister himself being the ambassador. With the ongoing debates around — the political bias of Facebook in India, the Prashant Bhushan verdict, and the overwhelming posts on social media on the occasion of laying the foundation of the Rama temple in Ayodhya — a large number of liberals have either chosen to unfriend people who do not adhere to their views or have chosen to stay away from toxic social media platforms for fear of being ‘trolled’. The situation becomes doubly problematic: the masses have rejected their intellectuals, and the intellectuals too have relinquished the role of being the harbingers of changes. 

While ridiculing, mocking, ignoring the intellectuals and questioning their loyalties have been a norm from the days of Socrates (469-399 B.C.), it is slightly unconventional to see the intellectuals themselves cancelling the culture that they are part of. This makes me wonder, what would Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) have done, had he been bullied online for his stands on sati and widow remarriage? Would he prefer to block his critics and to open himself for debate among the chosen few?  Slander has never been easy to deal with– whether offline or online, the problem becomes worse when we find nameless and faceless hate messages flooding the inbox. The intellectuals rejecting their society at this moment of crisis highlight the divide that have always existed between the mass and the ivory towers. It reminds us that the allegation of their failure to create a counter-narrative is true.

The intelligentsia in the Congress regime had enjoyed a considerable amount of freedom to change the narratives and create for themselves a few pockets of change. The narratives around caste, class, gender, religion and family were rewritten, and there was a considerable amount of western influence in the changes that were imposed. However these narratives of change had not spread homogeneously across the country, and the intellectuals had not felt the necessity of taking the discourse beyond classrooms, conferences, and indexed journals to the drawing rooms, dinner tables and the kitchen sinks of the masses. These imported changes and western jargons not only baffled the masses but brought in an identity crisis which the intelligentsia never cared to address.

The mass felt the need for class mobility, gender fluidity or getting rid of caste-based discrimination, but the narrative was never Indianised enough to suit their needs. We can recollect how Tagore (1861-1941) had introduced Rakshabandhan to celebrate Hindu-Muslim brotherhood, or Tilak (1856-1920) had started the Ganpati festival or Shivaji festival to foster a sense of nationhood. The rising sentiments of religious nationalism catered to this very need for addressing the crisis of identity faced by the middle class. The intelligentsia by rejecting these sentiments have moved further away from society. By cancelling the thali*-clapping, the candle lighting and the Ayodhya Rama temple issue, intellectuals have further distanced themselves from the middle class, which is in dire need of their guidance. Had they been able to create a counter-narrative that highlights the plight of hospital facilities, the crumbling GDP and the rising unemployment during the pandemic, there would have been a light of hope; but all they managed to do was get distracted by the National Education Policy.

The great digital divide has also remained largely unaddressed by the liberals. The increasing number of webinars being arranged online every day seems to promote the divide. The webinars while have enabled many students from remote colleges to hear celebrity professors from the academia but they also have encouraged the tendency of students to hoard certificates and not gain wisdom per se.

This crisis itself has been reduced to a sabbatical which has led to heightened productivity; we have seen papers on the crisis of migrant labourers being published even before the labourers could reach their home. The pandemic and other crisis in 2020 have brought to our attention the growing apathy among the Indian intelligentsia. The intellectuals have reduced themselves to an elite class that feeds on the plight of the society to write their papers, get funds for their projects and to write woke social media post. Their posts may not be politically inappropriate like those cancelled by the cancel culture in the West, but they need to be taken with a grain of salt.

It is expected that this online movement will be as significant and as unbiased as it has been in the West. Being unbiased does not mean giving the intellectuals a free rein. The intellectuals accountability in the people’s court is perhaps also a way of bridging the gaps. As much as the government and the elected representatives are answerable to the people, the intellectuals too have accountability towards the people who have looked up to them and respected them.

The cancel culture is not to be seen as a threat to free speech and expression; it is instead to be acknowledged as the tool that sets a common standard for all. Romila Thapar2 speaking of intellectuals has pointed out that there is no dearth of people who can think intelligently and ask relevant questions, but recently there has been silence when there should have been voices, it is possible that people are afraid of the draconian laws imposed by the State. She insists on creating an independent space for critical thinking . This is particularly true when we see a large number of academics, students and experts are being charged with sedition.

But, I feel the academics have distanced themselves from the masses and in their bid to maintain a higher ground for themselves, they have chosen to stay aloof. Sundar Sarukkai3 observes that the ‘real essence of a public intellectual: someone who acts to create a public in which her role will become redundant and unnecessary’– it is this possibility of redundancy that gnaws the intellectuals.

*thali — Plate.

Reference

1Gramsci, Antonio. “Prison Notebooks The Intellectuals: Formation of the Intellectuals.” An Anthology Of Western Marxism, edited by Roger S. Gottlieb, Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 113–119.

2Thapar, Romila. “To Question or Not To Question? That Is the Question.” The Public Intellectual in India, by Romila Thapar et al., Aleph in Association with the Book Review Literary Trust, 2015, pp. 1–40.

3Sarukkai, Sundar. “To Question And Not To Question: That Is The Answer.” The Public Intellectual in India, by Romila Thapar et al., Aleph in Association with the Book Review Literary Trust, 2015, pp. 41–61.

Pratyusha Pramanik is a Research Scholar and Teaching Assistant in the Department of Humanistic Studies, IIT (BHU) Varanasi. She is working on post-colonial social movements in Bengal, she is also interested in gender studies. She is a cinephile and is an amateur film critic. Few of her works have been published in Feminism in India. Her interest in the role of intellectuals stems from her desire to search for a life purpose. 

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are solely that of the interviewee.

Categories
Poetry

Camping Out & More…

By John Grey

Camping Out

.

The night is the sky mostly.

Trees are one heaped shadow.

The lake’s lost to its shore.

Mountains retreat beyond the eye.

Only high, do shapes remain.

.

My fire gives details to my face

but no one’s here to see.

My sleeping roll

unfolds to its edges

and no further.

Shadow, night, sleep, blackness –

I’m at the rim

of every known dark.

Hunger

Hunger tells you stories

of hot wind across desert,

of sheet lightning,

of trembling guts and empty pockets.

.

When the city noise

is too loud for it to shout over,

it keeps the tale going from inside you,

becomes more circumspect,

speaks with a crackle,

like an old phonograph record

of a politician giving a speech.

.

Hunger needs an audience

and it always knows where to find you,

under the same overpass,

with the usual cronies,

all green teeth, ratty hair

and breath like gasoline. 

.

Sometimes hunger comes in disguise

as thirst,

and it encourages you

to take a swig from that bottle you found

that could be whiskey,

could even be kerosene.

.

Hunger can sing soft but compelling

in the voice of the one who last

provided you with three meals a day.

That’s years ago now.

Hunger has no memory

but it assumes that you do.

Death Valley

.

Sand abbreviates a ghost town’s story,

shutters the mine,

buries the roads leading in and out.

.

A lesser history gives birth to saltbush,

No trees. No shadows. 

The sun’s advance is unstoppable.

.

Grainy winds

blow from the West

Dust devils dance

on the rocky floor.

That’s it for movement.

.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Soundings East, Dalhousie Review and Connecticut River Review. Latest book, “Leaves On Pages” is available through Amazon.

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Categories
Poetry

Uprooted

By Adrian David

A disastrous drought dried up the lands,

but not the impoverished peasant’s tear glands.

The field was barren, hardly a sapling in sight.

None lent a helping hand, adding to the plight.

 .

Every day, he looked up at the cloudless sky,

hoping the rain gods will hearken to his feeble cry.

Alas, not even a droplet reached the root.

Decades of heavy toil yielded bitter fruit.

 .

Almost all the green acres he possessed were sold,

for hunger and thirst plagued his agrarian household.

Debt upon debt piled up to a gargantuan sum.

Inflicted by life’s many blows, he grew numb.

.

Despite hopefully voting in every election without fail,

there was no answer to many an anguished wail.

“Agriculture is the economy’s backbone,” they said.

Ironically, it bent, making the farmer bow his head.

.

The hands which had brought food to your plate

had no other go than succumbing to fate.

Deep inside the empty well, a frail body lay dead.

‘Yet another farmer suicide’ the daily report read.

.

(In the drought-stricken parts of Asia and Africa, debt-ridden farmers commit suicide owing to abject poverty)

Adrian David writes ads by day, and poetry and short fiction by night. His poems explore themes of society, war, conflict, gender, human emotions, and everything else in between, from the mundane to the sublime. He resolutely believes that art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

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Categories
Review

A Plate of White Marble: A Woman’s Journey

Book Review by Bhaskar Parichha

Title: A Plate of White Marble

Author: Bani Basu, translated from Bengali by Nandini Guha

Publisher: Niyogi Books, 2020

“The house at Number 45 Shyambazar Street had its date of construction engraved right at the top of its façade. From this, it could be learnt that the house was not built in this century. If not a hundred, it was close to eighty-five years old. Thanks to the moist winds from the holy Ganges in its close proximity and the salty winds from the Bay of Bengal within 105 kilometers to the south, houses in Kolkata do not survive as long as the rich, traditional manor houses of England do. However, first-class materials from the British companies — marble, pillars, arches, tiles, original Burma-teak windows, doors, rafters, and the limestone-layered, twenty-inch-thick brickwork — continued to ostentatiously preserve the antique glory of these homes till today. This carefully polished old heritage, going by the name of ‘aristocracy’, may well be called stiff-necked orthodoxy, with all its evil fallout.” These are the opening lines of the novel A Plate of White Marble (Swet Patharer Thala) by Bani Basu. 

One of the most versatile contemporary writers in Bengali, academician, poet, novelist, essayist, critic, and translator of eminence, Basu writes on diverse topics ranging from history and mythology to society, psychology and gender. From Sri Aurobindo’s poems along with two volumes of Somerset Maugham’s stories to a volume of D.H Lawrence’s stories, there is a huge readership of her work. Janmabhumui-Matribhumi (Motherland), Antarghat (The Enemy Within), Maitreya Jatak (The Birth of Maitreya), Kharap Chhele (Dark Afternoons), Pancham Purush( Fifth Person ) are some of her other novels.

Translated into English by Nandini Guha – retired Associate Professor of English at University of Delhi and a well-known translator of some seminal Bengali novels – A Plate of White Marbles brings to a wider audience the imperious social concerns.

First published in 1990 in the original Bengali, A Plate of White Marble tells the tale of the ‘new woman’ of an era that just witnessed the independence of a nation. Bandana, the protagonist, though grieves over her husband’s early death, never conforms to the social subtext and ideals of ‘widowhood’, thanks to her uncle. She dares to begin her life afresh in every possible sense. But, the road proves to be full of thorns as she gradually faces bitterness from many quarters of the society. The only thing she clings to is her son,  but once that anchor too is lost, she leaves behind the safe concrete walls of what she used to consider ‘home’, only to work for a far greater cause—she joins a children’s home to work for those who need her the most.

Post her husband’s demise, the Bhattacharjee family is left grappling with the aftershock of the loss and the new set of “rules and rituals of widowhood” that she has to follow — a life devoid of colors, sweetmeats and celebrations.

Savor these lines of Bandana’s mother-in-law and her appearance!  “Serving Atap-rice on the plate from a small saucepan, the middle-aged, heavily built mother-in-law suddenly broke into wails. One-fourth of her hair had turned grey. A broad streak of vermilion was visible in the broad parting of her hair. She was in an artistically woven, red-bordered sari, with three rows of the traditional temple pattern. She would wear nothing but these colorfully bordered saris. Her arms were full of loudly jangling gold bangles, wristlets, and the special wedding bangles of iron and conch shell.”

But for the young widow, the kind of stuff in the house were cruelly painful: “The prescribed meal of a widow’s broth of boiled rice, potato, and green banana — just would not go down Bandana’s throat today. Combined rage, mortification, and a sense of disgrace caused the food to turn into a coagulated lump in her throat.”

The novel has a riveting description of the Bengal countryside: “The early morning cacophony — the clangor from the local tube well as its handle rose and fell, the clang of utensils being scoured, the swish of brooms and the hoarse voices of housewives issuing orders and instructions — touches such a quarrelsome decibel that neither the Vedic hymns nor the tuneful Rabindrasangeet, in a grave baritone, or soft tenor, can find a way through, sadly beating a hasty retreat.”

As times go by, Bandana’s Kaka (uncle)visits her and unable to withstand her deteriorating health, he takes his neice and her son Roop to their maternal home, leaving House number 45 Shyambazar Street behind and shunning the absurd sacrificial rituals for women.

Through Bandana, the status of woman in an old-fashioned Bengali society comes to the fore. It also portrays how they’re rendered miserable and are arbitrated for their choices, when they try to break free from stereotypical shackles. Published thirty years ago, the novel hasn’t lost its appeal because the same old shenanigans   bring into being even today.

 A Plate of White Marble has several dimensions: how even an educated and modern woman is helpless when she is widowed at a tender age 0f twenty-seven; how she is forced to lead a life of austerity as a “virtuous widow“, by her in-laws and how she eventually comes out of the shackles and stops confirming to the conformist traditions that were forced upon her. Even when she begins to live a new life, she had to face difficulties, though she bravely fights the battle for a liberated life.

The plot of the novel is captivating and inspiring. The characters, the backdrop, and the portrayal are entrancing. The translation has impeccably captured the essence of Bandana’s numerous roles; a wife, a daughter-in-law, a widow, and a mother who is hell-bent on bringing up the child even if it meant sacrificing one’s own comforts.

Bani Basu’s original  novel  and the translation magnificently throws  light on the age-old  customs, the gender-based discrimination in a patriarchal society that  doesn’t allow women to come out of  the shadow of a man, the superstitions  within and outside the homes.

 A Plate of White Marble has a touching story to tell and it weaves the narrative fabulously.

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Bhaskar Parichha is a Bhubaneswar-based  journalist and author. He writes on a broad spectrum of  subjects , but more focused on art ,culture and biographies. His recent book ‘No Strings Attached’ has been published by Dhauli Books. 

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Categories
Poetry

Not Promised

By Aminath Neena

Oh you there, you who loathe someone somewhere

Why carry the black beast on your shoulders

When on your left breast there is a fountain?

Fill it to the brim with the essence of love instead

‘Cause tomorrow’s not promised

And today, may be the only chance you have

.

Oh you there, you from this race and that creed

Why instill such gluttony In your thoughts

When there is so much generosity running in your veins?

Fill your mind with the essence of love instead

‘Cause tomorrow’s not promised

And this day, may be the only chance you have.

.

Oh you there, you from this nation and of that town

Why carry so much spite in your mind’s tongue

When there is so much light within you?

Fill your soul with the essence of love instead

‘Cause tomorrow’s not promised

And this time, may be the only chance you have

.

Oh you there, you from this family and of that colour,

Why such ostentation and self-worship

When all by entrepreneurship, were fashioned by one?

Fill your sight with the essence of love instead

‘Cause tomorrow’s not promised

And this moment may be the only chance you have

.

Oh you there, you, friend or foe,

Why dip yourself in the sea of animosity

When you have no capacity to deny the natural law?

Fill your bath with the essence of love instead

‘Cause tomorrow’s never promised

And this, may be the only chance you have

Aminath Neena is an English lecturer from the picturesque archipelago nation of the Maldives. Currently, she works at Maldives National University. An avid lover of words, poetry is a hobby closest to her heart. Her poems usually revolve around themes such as love, relationships, spirituality, society, and global issues. According to her, poetry is the gateway to spirituality because it resonates purity like no other. Among her achievements include having her poem featured in ‘Words And Music’, a programme on BBC Radio. She believes her writings to be a reflection of her thoughts, her feelings and her life.

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Categories
Excerpt

The Birth of The Chronicler of the Hooghly

By Shakti Ghosal

In our lives, we at times get confronted with intense and traumatic events which force us to question who we are, what really matters to us and what we believe in. In some ways these events alter our sense of reality. Each of the four stories in my book, The Chronicler of the Hooghly draws inspiration from such crucible events that I have had to face in my own life. The protagonists in that sense carry a bit of my own ‘experience and thought’ genes. As I see them now within the larger fabric of the stories, I do notice shades of myself and others who have been part of my life. Writing the stories has been a personal journey in that sense. At times the stories seemed to write themselves. The four stories portray five crucible experiences and invite the reader to experience those transformative moments. Chances are that the reader would be able to relate to them in some way.

The Chronicler of the Hooghly is currently under publication. Here is an excerpt from the book.

Calcutta, 1757

The battle having been won, it was Omichand’s turn to demand his share from the East India Company. However, he did not realise he had more than met his match in the wily Clive.

Clive welcomed him with all solicitousness.

“Your share Omichand? But according to our agreement, you are not entitled to anything at all! Take a look at the agreement”.

Clive laid out before him the original agreement which had no mention of any wealth share from the royal treasury for him.

The earth moved from under Omichand’s feet, the whole world seemed to be swaying around him. His throat constricted. His head swam. He could not believe his eyes. The signatories were all there but the agreement was different.

Omichand realized he had been duped. “You have cheated me, you have cheated me!” was all he could say.

“Not at all dear friend”, said the wily Clive softly. “In fact, we have collected considerable riches as spoils of war, including an exquisite necklace made of pearls. We would like to offer that to you. Of course, we would continue to have you as one of our preferred trading partners. With the changed circumstances with a new and supportive Nawab, we expect the trade volumes to go up significantly”.

A medium-sized wooden box was placed before Omichand. “Take this home and be happy with it”, said Clive signalling that the meeting was over.

Omichand came back to his quarters and dully opened the box. He found a few trinkets, some gold coins and a pearl necklace. Omichand in his disturbed state failed to recognise the necklace. The deception and humiliation were taking its toll. Or was it the necklace that had started exercising its evil control? The outcome though was that Omichand, the one-time cunning and ruthless trader, started losing his sanity. The rumour went that he was given to alternate bouts of uncontrollable laughter and howls of misery.

One day in a fit of blind rage Omichand decided to go to Murshidabad to demand his rightful share from the new Nawab, the share from which he had been cheated. When the guards of the royal court heard of his audacious claim, they simply wrested all his belongings including the wooden box and threw him into the dungeon where he met his sorry end after a few years. The contents of the box went to the Nawab’s treasury.

Unbeknownst to all, the curse of the necklace had moved back to the Nawab of Bengal. It would ensure the decline in the fortunes and influence of the Murshidabad Royal Court over the years.

**

Ironically, as Omichand’s fortunes plummeted, they were on the rise for his one-time friend Nabakrishna Deb. The latter was rewarded with untold riches because of his services to the Company in the conspiracy against Siraj Ud Daula. Earning the title of Raja, Nabakrishna Deb rose in stature to become one of the leading luminaries in Calcutta.

Raja Nabakrishna Deb came to know that Clive wanted to do a thanksgiving ceremony to celebrate his victory at Plassey. Unfortunately, there was no suitable place in Calcutta, the one church that had been there was destroyed in Siraj Ud Daula’s attack a year earlier.

Nabakrishna suggested to Clive, “Your Lordship, I would like to invite you to the Durga Utsav that I would be performing at my residence. You may offer your thanks to the Goddess Durga”.

What Clive did not know was that this really was not the time for Durga Pujo which falls during the Bengali month of Chaitra, the end March- beginning April period. However the shrewd Nabakrishna had directed his purohits to come out with a suitable date or tithi in the local calendar. The generous pronami that was offered no doubt motivated the local priest community to come out with the creative solution of Akaal Bodhon.This essentially permitted the Durga Pujo ritual to be performed in autumn.

On the appointed day of the Pujo, Clive drove in his carriage to Nabakrishna Deb’s residence in Shova Bazaar and participated in what was to become the biggest festival in the Bengali calendar. He was accompanied by a number of Englishmen. The pomp and grandeur of the pujo were such that it became a talking point and something to aspire for by the upcoming rich merchant class. The Company Pujo, as it became known as, was not the usual conservative ritual based Hindu puja. Instead, it became known for its dance parties, elaborate menu of meats from the Wilson Hotel and unlimited drinks!

It is also said that Raja Nabakrishna Deb’s guests were regaled with the performances of the best nautch girls of Calcutta, one of them being the sensational new courtesan Rajni Bai who also responded to the name Joba.

**

Present Day

Dusk was on its way. The twinkling lights on both banks brought in an ethereal quality all around. Conversations were muted as most guests were immersed in the surroundings. The low voice of the Chronicler seemed to gain in intensity.

“The betrayal was huge and its impact momentous. A betrayal that led to the Nawab of Bengal losing the battle and his independence to a much smaller army. A betrayal that led to the payment of huge bribe money of Rupees eighty million to Nabakrishna Deb and other conspirators. A betrayal which led to the British becoming the dominant power in the subcontinent for over two centuries”.

But what is interesting is that this greatest betrayal in Indian history is so inexorably linked to one of the biggest religious festivals in the country. What is ironic is that the secular nature of the Durga Pujo festival, which receives praise all over the world, finds it origin in a tale of conspiracy and betrayal.” The Chronicler paused, looking at Samir with his hooded eyes.

Samir sat fascinated, only to hear the soft voice resuming from far, far away.

“The Hooghly ghats then were a far cry from the crumbling cesspools that we are seeing today. With magnificent facades and European classical architectures, the ghats were witness to impressive steam ships and tall masted boats sailing out to faraway places in England, Australia and New Zealand as also upstream to ports on the Ganga”.

“Did you know that there were thriving French, Dutch and Armenian settlements on the Hooghly in the early years of colonisation?” the Chronicler asked.

“Well I had read about the French settlement”, Samir responded.

“Fascinating, is it not, that events and rivalries five thousand miles away in Europe would show up in the waxing and waning of the Hooghly ghats? And so, it was that as the British colonialism went into ascendancy after winning the Napoleonic Wars in Europe in the early nineteenth century, the settlements of other nationalities on the Hooghly faded into oblivion.”

“Hmm! Interesting indeed. But what happened to the pearl necklace carrying the curse?’ asked Samir.

“Well for that we need to get into another story. A story which too is inexorably linked to the Hooghly”, replied the Chronicler.

Shakti Ghosal is new to the genre of fiction. He uses a wide-angle narrative style in his writings into which he brings his rich global perspective and life experiences. He loves to explore relationships within emergent situations. An engineer and a MBA (Faculty Gold Medal 1984) from IIM Bangalore, Shakti Ghosal has lived close to four decades of corporate life in India and abroad. A professional certified Coach, Mentor and Trainer, Shakti Ghosal runs Leadership Workshop cum coaching programs for organisations as part of his commitment to develop and upgrade Leadership Incubation globally. He is a visiting professor at IIM Udaipur, IIM Kashipur and IIM Nagpur. www.linkedin.com/in/Shaktighosal, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMg92VMo3_Cw8k-cu1rYWwg Ghosal has been blogging for close to a decade ( about 800 followers, 39,000 hits from all over the globe) on Leadership incubation, performance, life experience, philosophy and trends, and more recently, on his forthcoming book.www.esgeemusings.com

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.

Categories
Poetry

Liberation

By Gopal Lahiri

That’s the fall, that’s the liberation,

beautiful blow of the autumn leaves,

explosion of red and yellows.

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I go to find myself in the rays of sunshine

not to be guided by slur,

usurping the reign of light

to flow beneath the skin and bone.

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Stand in the shadow of a cave

root and rock, senses of separation,

plant and man- today and everyday

even link unevenness in me

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From the world within

I often bend down and collect star dust

in the tenants of ruddiness,

the unknown meadows of whisper

weave carpets of colour and light.

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Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator. He is the author of 22 books published including fourteen volumes of poems in English (includes four edited/ jointly anthology of poems) and eight volumes of poems and prose in Bengali, His poems, translations and book reviews have been published across various journals (includes Indian Literature) worldwide. He has recently edited the book titled ‘Jaillianwala Bagh- Poetic Tributes’. He has attended various poetry festivals in India and abroad. His poems are translated in 10 languages.

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.