Autumn expresses itself in Bengal as Sharat (early autumn) and Hemonto (late autumn). The Tagore pantheon of literature has much of seasons in it. This poem, Sharat, was part of his poetry collection Kalpana, published in 1900.
Sharat by Sohana Manzoor.
Autumn
I see your beauteous form
In this autumnal dawn,
Oh! Mother Bengal, your green figure
Is resplendent with radiance.
The river cannot be contained in its bed.
The fields are overflowing with paddy.
Robins chant and koels sing
In your graceful gardens.
Amidst this dawn of sharat,
O Mother, you stand poised.
Mother, the breeze chimes
An auspicious onset —
Grains of new rice crops
Fill homes with festivities.
You have no respite anymore.
Sheafs of paddy move in bulk
Along rural paths wafting
Their perfume in the draft.
Mother, the zephyr sends you
An intimation of the seasonal onset.
The skies paint clouds
to welcome the season.
Dewdrops have sprinkled
Coolness on the green earth.
The flute seems to play a melody that
Wafts through the land, water and air.
Boats come crowding to your doorway
From all directions.
The sky is clear and blue.
The earth, soft and cool.
The breeze starts to chill
Refreshing tired bodies.
Every hut is filled with new hope,
With the advent of new life.
All over, Mother, abound events
Organised by joyous faces.
People grab fistfuls of happiness
From your overflowing granaries.
The breeze rushes with anchals*
Full of new life.
Come, come, wherever you are,
Come running all of you —
Our Mother has opened her granary.
Our grains are overflowing.
Come by boat from the other bank,
Mothers and daughters come.
Who cries in hunger under maternal care?
Come running all of you.
Our mother has opened her granary.
Our grains are overflowing.
Our Mother wears a garland of shefali.
Floral perfumes scent the earth.
White, creamy cirrus clouds
Seem to stud her veil.
Crowned with a golden halo,
Sweet, glorious, green and resplendent,
With feet dressed in blooms,
My mother stands poised.
The whole world smiles at her illuminated
With dewdrops, flowers and crops.
*Anchal is the loose end of a sari
Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri in conversation with M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan
M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan
In their new book Roses in the Fire of Spring: Better Roses for a Warming World and Other Garden Adventures (Running Head, 2023), world-renowned rose hybridisers, M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan, record their journey of over fifty years, creating more than a hundred new rose varieties, in a range of colours, shapes and types. The authors spoke to Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri on their lifelong passion for the rose.
The passion for roses goes back a long way – can you recall the first moments when you realised that this was a ‘calling’ you had to follow? Any epiphanic moment that leaps to the mind?
From quite a young age, Viraraghavan was fascinated with roses, but the epiphanic moment was really when his family spent summer vacations in Coonoor, staying at the government guesthouse within Sim’s Park, which overlooked a rose garden. Every morning, he would wander about this garden which was a blaze of colour of the new roses created from the golden rose of Persia, R. foetida by Pernet Ducher, a great French rose breeder. The brilliant, never-before-seen colours of these roses amazed him – from bright gold and apricot to dazzling oranges and reds. In particular, one of the golden roses took his breath away – ‘Julien Potin’, aptly named for a jeweller – its vivid colour was quite overwhelming for the boy of thirteen, already thrilled with roses. From this came the intoxicating thought: ‘If Pernet Ducher could do it, why not I?’
There’s a delightful little bit about Viraraghavan sir’s viva-voce for the IAS and how his knowledge of roses played an important part in him getting through that. Would you like to share that with our readers?
A difficult part of the IAS examination is the viva-voce, where a panel of senior administrators question the aspirant about various aspects of his or her life and ambitions. Viraraghavan was in the middle of this interview when the Chairman, by chance a learned rose grower, asked him what his hobbies were. ‘Growing roses,’ was the response. The next question was meant to be a googly to confuse a nervous candidate. ‘What roses can you grow in Madras City?’ But Viraraghavan had read the CompleteGardening in India by K.S. Gopalaswamiengar, well-known horticulturist of Bangalore, many times, so my answer was nearly verbatim from the chapter on various kinds of roses which do well in low-to-medium elevations, i.e., warm climates, so he reeled off the different rose classifications: Teas, Noisettes, Bourbons, Chinas, Hybrid Teas, Hybrid Perpetuals. The interview committee then decided it was prudent to go on to other questions rather than get a lecture from a young and seemingly unflurried candidate! But his capacity to master detailed information on various subjects had been noted, and he came through with flying colours (pun intended).
You mention making your presence on the world stage as late as 2000. Please give us a brief account of your work on roses before and after – a potted highlights package, if one can call it.
From the start, our rose breeding focused on creating better roses for warm climates based on the dictum of India’s pioneer rose breeder, B.S. Bhatcharji of Bengal and Bihar, who had stressed the need for a separate breeding line for warm climates as distinct from the Western focus on creating cold-hardy roses suitable for them. Thus, in the early years, our work was with those roses which, though Western, performed well in hot climates, and we had bred many which did well in Hyderabad where we lived. Then, after perusal of many books on roses, we realised the potential in two Indian rose species Rosa gigantea (from northeast India) and Rosa clinophylla (perhaps the world’s only tropical rose species). After getting them with great effort, we began to work with them. At every annual national rose convention in India we would present updates of our work. In 1999, at what happened to be a World Regional Rose Convention, in Jaipur, Viraraghavan’s talk, as always, focused on the breeding with the two rose species mentioned. After the talk, the World Federation of Rose Societies President, Helga Brichet, and Vice-President (South America), Mercedes Villar, came up to him and said they had never before heard of this kind of rose work or of these rose species and invited him to be a speaker at the next World Rose Convention to be held in May 2000 in Houston, Texas.
That was the start of a further phase of rose breeding with the realisation that other than India, several warm parts of the world were also looking for roses that would do well there. These two rose species had been personally collected by us from their native habitat. At Houston, and in other places, people were fascinated by this aspect, which no earlier breeder had undertaken, that is, personally collecting rose species in the wild, at great risk, growing them and using them in creating new roses; starting from scratch as it were. It made sense to them when Viraraghavan explained the dictum of that great German breeder Wilhelm Kordes I who said –‘The soup ladle will only bring out what is already in the tureen’, meaning that fresh genetic input was required if new and different roses are to be created. The enthusiastic response to his ideas strengthened his determination to go ahead with this new rose breeding line. There is nothing as intoxicating as the realisation that the rose world is watching our work with great interest.
One of the most fascinating sections of the book is the one titled ‘The Ones Who Came Before’. Please provide readers with a short account of these legendary influences.
Karrie’s Rose. Photo courtesy: M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan
We had noticed that invariably roses were named for famous people with often no connection to the world of roses. This made us think: why not name our roses for the intrepid plant-hunters who had discovered roses in the wild, on mountains and in forests, and botanists who had contributed to the knowledge on plants.
One wild Indian rose is R. gigantea, from our north-east, and Myanmar. Three great plant hunters were responsible for collecting this species in the wild – Sir George Watt, General Sir Henry Collett and Frank Kingdon Ward. We decided to name our rose hybrids for all three. Sir George was a medical doctor with an interest in botany, and worked as a surveyor with the British India government. During the course of his work, in the 1880s, he found Rosa gigantea growing on the slopes of Mt Sirohi, now in Manipur, and collected specimens. Almost simultaneously, so did Sir Henry Collett, except in the Shan Hills in what is now Myanmar. Both specimens were identified as being the same and named by the great Belgian taxonomist of the time, François Crepin. Climbing Mt Sirohi in 1990, we came across and collected plants from perhaps the precise location that Sir George had found Rosa gigantea. We named our first hybrid, a creamy yellow climbing rose, for him. We then felt it should be planted near his ancestral home in Scotland. With the help of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, we managed to get this new rose planted in the Logan Botanic Garden, very near Sir George’s birthplace. Some years later we embarked on a sentimental journey, along with his descendants and his associates’ descendants, visiting his grave and the hospital he had worked in after retiring from India, to see the rose blooming in Logan.
We named a second seedling we had bred from R. gigantea for General Sir Henry Collett, a rose with big creamy white blooms that has been planted in suitable areas in Britain as well, and, gratifyingly, being grown by some of his descendants. A third rose, a climber with blooms of yellow-suffused pink, was named for Frank Kingdon Ward, the legendary and intrepid plant hunter who collected innumerable new and wild Himalayan plants despite his surprising acrophobia! We then came across a piece by the then BBC 4 gardening anchor, Matthew Biggs, who had visited Kingdon Ward’s grave in Grantchester near Cambridge. He wrote about the neglected condition of the grave of one of the world’s greatest plant explorers. So we decided to make amends by planting ‘Frank Kingdon Ward’ by the wall nearest his grave in the churchyard in a moving ceremony organised by Matthew Biggs, and attended by a number of well-known British horticulturists, as also the family. An urn with the ashes of Sheila Macklin, Kingdon Ward’s wife, for whom he had named a Himalayan lily, and who had died just the previous year, was interred near his grave, and close to where the rose was planted.
We have also named a rose for Leschenault de la Tour, the great French plant explorer who found a beautiful new rose species, called Rosa leschenaultiana after him, in the Western Ghats in the early 1800s; our rose named for him is a climber with pure white blooms.
And of course we have a rose to celebrate the remarkable life and career of the great Indian botanist and cytogeneticist, E.K. Janaki Ammal, who co-wrote the Chromosome Atlas of All Cultivated Plants in 1945. She studied botany at Michigan State University in the 1920s on a full scholarship, later receiving a PhD and DSc honoris causa. Back in India, she played a vital role in creating the ‘Noble’ strain of sugarcane – an extraordinary hybrid of sugarcane and bamboo leading to varieties thick as a man’s arm in contrast to the pencil-thin traditional varieties. But credit was stolen by seniors at the research station, and so she went off to Britain. There she worked at famous institutes, including John Innes, Kew and the Royal Horticultural Society. Later, she met the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on a plane, and he put her in charge of reforming the Botanical Survey of India in Calcutta. But sadly she was a forgotten figure by the time of her death in 1984. Our rose named for her has the same colour hues as the saris she wore – orange yellow and saffron. A plant of this rose was planted in 2020 at the World Regional Rose Conference Kolkata, at the Botanical Survey of India garden. The rose has also been planted in the John Innes Institute, in Kew and the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden in Wisley in the UK.
If one were to ask you of one moment each – one particular achievement in the journey and one abiding regret – what would these be and why?
There can be no doubt that the moment which was special in our rose breeding career was the moment described above, when Helga Brichet and Mercedes Villar came up to us in Jaipur in 1999, and said they had never heard such a new approach to breeding roses, pioneered by us, of using two Indian rose species to create a new line of warm-climate roses. It was their invitation to speak in Texas launched us on to the world stage of roses.
As for an abiding regret, that’s all too easy to answer. It’s the systematic neglect of Indian-bred roses by the rose-growing public of India, who remain fascinated by roses raised in Europe and the U.S. though they are utterly unsuited for Indian climates. This unreasonable preference for foreign rose varieties is part of the general craze for all things foreign. Fortunately, more recently, there has been a change, and young rose breeders and growers are realising that Indian bred roses do better in the heat and are slowly beginning to grow these.
Give us an insight into the challenges and pitfalls of growing and creating roses in India, as informed by your journey. Interesting story that highlighted these.
The main challenge was getting Indian roses accepted by the Indian rose growing public, as highlighted above. Indeed, now our roses are being grown in India, perhaps because they are being grown around the world! Another thing is one must learn patience. It takes us about eight to nine years to name and release a new rose. It is a long process, of the actual crossing of two roses, waiting for the fruit to ripen, then harvesting the fruit (rose hips), collecting the seeds, stratifying them in the refrigerator (if one lives on the hot plains), sowing the seed, waiting for the seedlings to sprout, growing the plant for a number of years to test its potential, and suitability, and only then finding a name and releasing it, by sending to a rose nursery to make more plants.
Our long career in rose breeding and our connected travels around the world has provided us with many interesting, even hilarious experiences. We were in Japan, at the Sakura Rose Garden. With us was a group of people including our friend, the well-known Japanese plant scientist, Dr Yuki Mikanagi. We were looking at a rose plant, with dark pinkish-red blooms with white on the reverse, bred by us and as yet unnamed. Yuki said she liked this rose very much. We immediately told her that we would name it for her. She said: ‘But this rose is red and white, whereas my name means “snow” in Japanese. Viru’s instant response was, ‘Then we will it name it Blushing Yuki,’ much to the delight of Yuki and everyone.
In his government service days, when we lived in Hyderabad, Viru would tend to his roses, watering and spraying them with fertilizers before leaving for office. There would be a number of telephone calls for him about some official matter. Girija would answer the phone (landline in those days), and when she told the callers he was busy spraying, they would hear it as ‘praying’ and immediately apologise: ‘Please do not disturb him when he is at his prayers’.
Both of us were hands-on gardeners, doing most of the work ourselves and you cannot garden without muddy hands and clothes. Very often visitors would mistake us for the garden help and request us to take them to the master or the mistress of the house. The looks on their faces when they realised who we were would make us laugh.
On one occasion, we were in California to receive the ‘Great Rosarians of the World’ Award. At the ceremony, we both first gave a talk on ‘Roses in India, Past Present and Future’. At the end of the ceremony, an earnest old lady came up to us and asked, in all seriousness, ‘Do roses grow in India?’
For most of us, roses are red and a Valentine’s Day Gift. Appendix 1 of your roses runs to 50 pages! Tell us briefly of some of the interesting ones, in particular the very evocative names you have, for example, Kindly Light, Meghamala/Wine-dark Sea, Twilight Secret. What goes into giving a name to a rose?
Apart from the roses we have named for friends, for other roses we like to give evocative names.
KINDLY LIGHT: we named this lovely white shading to soft pink rose after the hymn ‘Lead, Kindly Light’, a favourite of Mahatma Gandhi’s. We have the practice of giving two names to some of our roses, one better understood in India, if it is a Sanskrit word, and one for the West. This rose is named ‘Swami Vinayananda’ in India, for a monk of the Ramakrishna Mission order. He was great plantsman, his book on dahlias is a definitive work on all aspects of dahlia growing and he was very good rose grower.
MEGHAMALA/WINE-DARK SEA: One more example of two names for a rose. Meghamala translates as ‘garland of clouds’. The name for our rose was inspired by the purple garland-like pattern, reminiscent of clouds, on the petals of this rose, which otherwise are dark orange-red in colour. ‘Meghamala’ is from a line by Devulapalli Krishna Sastri, beloved modern poet of the Telugu language, to whom the rose is a tribute. ‘Wine-Dark Sea’ derives from Homer’s epithet, in both the Iliad and Odyssey, of the purple shadows of approaching night on the orange-red waters reflecting the rays of a setting sun on the Aegean Sea.
ALLEGORY OF SPRING: We named a very special light-pink rose with intriguing pointed petals after the famous Botticelli painting La Primavera, also called ‘Allegory of Spring’.
INCENSE INDIGO: An indigo purple rose with an enticing fragrance was the inspiration for this name.
TWILIGHT SECRET and TWILIGHT TRYST: Two purple-hued roses that remind one of the late evening, shadowy light, romantic secrets and trysts.
AHIMSA: We gave this name to a golden yellow rose borne on a plant without any thorns (prickles), thinking of the Mahatma’s philosophy of non-violence.
KUSABUE’S GUARDIAN ANGELS: Kusabue is the name of a rose garden in Sakura City, Japan, entirely looked after by volunteers, all very senior citizens. This is our tribute to them.
Golden ThresholdKanyakumariPhoto Courtesy: M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan
Shantanu Ray Chaudhuriis a film buff, editor, publisher, film critic and writer. Books commissioned and edited by him have won the National Award for Best Book on Cinema twice and the inaugural MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Images) Award for Best Writing on Cinema. In 2017, he was named Editor of the Year by the apex publishing body, Publishing Next. He has contributed to a number of magazines and websites like The Daily Eye, Cinemaazi, Film Companion, The Wire, Outlook, The Taj, and others. He is the author of two books: Whims – A Book of Poems(published by Writers Workshop) and Icons from Bollywood (published by Penguin/Puffin).
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Professor Fakrul Alam discusses his new book of Tagore translations, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore, published by Journeyman Books, Dhaka
Professor Fakrul Alam
Professor Fakrul Alam translates Tagore songs with a passion, refers to them as ‘song-lyrics’. In a recent essay, he claimed his favourite book is the Gitabitan, which houses 2232 songs by Tagore. The first edition of the book was published in 1931 and 1932 in three volumes. Over a period of time, Vishwa Bharati combined the three into one single volume.
During the pandemic, Professor Alam — a translator who has been lauded for his translation of Jibananda Das and also something as diverse from poetry as the autobiography of the founding father of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman — took to translating Tagore songs to make a 300 strong collection, which has been published recently. When asked what was the basis for his selection of the songs, he responded: “What was the basis of my selections? Most important was my love for them. I listen to Rabindra Sangeet, that is to say, the songs of Rabindranath Tagore, every day without fail, unless I am travelling outside Bangladesh. Over the years, some songs by a few singers became so much a part of me that I began translating them. As was the case with my Jibanananda Das translations, you could say that translation was an act of homage as well as a way of coming really close to what you love. It strikes me also that many of the songs I ended up translating are by my favourite Tagore song singers — artistes like Debabrata Biswas and Kanika Bandhopadhyay for instance. Once again, translation as an act of possession!”
Professor Alam has been the recipient of both the Bangla Academy Literary Award for translation and the SAARC Literary Award. He has published around a hundred translations of Tagore songs and poems, edited and translated The Essential Tagore with Radha Chakravarty and lectured in a number of countries about Tagore. In his recently published translation, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore, he brings to us a wide variety of songs which he has grouped into different sections. In this interview, he discusses his translated works, especially his new book.
You have translated Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and Jibanananda Das, Nazrul and Tagore. What turned you towards translating poetry from prose?
Actually, I translated poetry first and then switched to translating prose. The first literary pieces I translated were poems by Jibanananda Das—surely the greatest Bengali poet of the twentieth century, if we leave aside Rabindranath Tagore who, of course, began writing poems towards the end of the nineteenth century and stood out among Bengali poets till his death in 1941. I then turned to translating some Tagore poems and songs for The Essential Tagore (2011) that I co-edited with Radha Chakravarty.
Also, from the time my book of translations of Das’s poems came out I either ventured into translating some poems by contemporary Bangladeshi poets from time to time either because I felt like doing so, or as responses to requests of a few poets to translate their verse. An example is Masud Khan, some of whose poems you have published in my translations in Borderless.
What moved you into translating?
I have to begin answering this question by once again naming the person I mentioned at the beginning of my answer to your previous question—Jibanananda Das. It was when I came across his works in Abdul Mannan Syed’s selection of his poems in the mid-1990s, and was so swept away by them, that I felt like translating Das’s verse. This was translation as an act consequent to being possessed—or if you like—gripped. Poems like “Banalata Sen” or “Abar Ashibo Pheere[1]” or “Bodh[2]” or “Aat Bachor Age Ek Deen[3]” seemed to want me to translate them. In fact, my translation of the word “Bodh” for the English poem is “Overwhelming Sensation” and that is how I would say I was taken by these works. And once I started with these poems I felt like translating a whole lot more.
You have a book of Das’s poetry and many poems of Tagore in various anthologies and sites. What made you decide to do a book of Tagore translations?
Rabindranath, of course, is the summit as far as Bengali poetry and song-lyrics are concerned. Because I grew up in a house where his songs were either being performed on the radio or on television, or sung by one of my sisters, in retrospect it appears to me that I was destined to translate them sooner or later. Once I had published Jibanananda Das: Selected Poems in 1999, I began to translate a poem or song by Rabindranath every once in a while. When I heard some of Rabindranath’s songs being sung by a singer like Debabrata Biswas or Kanika Badopadhyay, I felt I had to translate them. And that is how I ended up with the nearly 300 songs that constitute Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics.
Is translating Tagore different from translating other poets?
Of course, and inevitably! Almost every great poet writes differently from his predecessor or contemporary poets and composes uniquely. As the great American critic, Harold Bloom, has put it in talking about Western canonical poets, they suffer from “the anxiety of influence” and must destroy all vestiges of their predecessor poets in them. They may begin conventionally but will soon find their distinctive voice or voices. They will as well move away from their earlier works all the time and not get stuck with one style. Thus, Tagore kept experimenting and, so to speak, shifting gears and taking new routes in versifying all the time. This is also true of Jibanananda. That makes the early Tagore or Das different from the later versions of these poets. In Tagore’s case, let me stress that he was particularly polymathic and kept opting for distinct poetic directions all the time. But as far as I can tell what makes him truly different is the musician in him. In particular, the songs have melodic components that take them away from established poetic forms. In fact, I would be happier with the term “song-lyrics” for his songs. Only in his later verses, did he move away from a melodic base towards relatively free verse or prose-poems. And so a translator of Tagore must strive to capture the music in his poetry, especially the songs, which makes the task of translating him quite a distinct as well as challenging task.
Tell us about this new book of Tagore translations. Are the translations a collection of your earlier publications or do you have new songs?
My new book is the result of years and years of translating the song-lyrics, something I do mostly during weekends. A few of them I published in Bangladeshi English language newspapers and a few came out in periodicals like Six Season Review, which I co-edited.
A few in have come out in Borderless. But all these years, I translated not with a definite plan but unsystematically. It was during the enforced period of home confinement during the pandemic years, however, that my translations of the songs gained momentum. I began at around this time to post my translations on FB regularly, hoping that the comments I receive would include constructive ones that would enable me to revise my work, if and when necessary. Nabila Murshed, an ex-student now living in the United States, then came up with the idea of forming a FB group called “Gitabitan in Translation” for not only my translations of the songs but also those of others who might be interested in contributing their own translations, or sharing their responses to the translated songs posted. She also decided to complement the translations with recorded versions of the songs that she collected from YouTube. All these things eventually led me to the idea of publishing a full book of translations.
I then hired an ex-student as a kind of assistant to sort out the songs I had been translating, according to the divisions and sequencing Tagore imposed on them in his collection. There are thus 13 divisions in my book, one of which, “Prokriti” or “Nature”, is itself divided into six sections following the six seasons of the Bengali calendar. But to sum up my answer to your question, the majority of the song-lyrics are going to see in print for the first time. I would say no more than 100 of them have been printed before.
Sometimes, your republications change from the earlier publications. The words change. Have you done that in this anthology too?
Occasionally. As I said previously, I translate a song when I hear it on YouTube. I might listen to the same song a couple of years later and feel like translating it again, forgetting at times that I had translated it before. This led occasionally to 2 or 3 versions of the same songs. Inevitably, while these versions would be close to each other, they would never end up being exactly similar. For the final round of selections for my book, however, I have chosen only one version of what I did, that is to say, the one I think was definitive. And, of course, I revised what I had done for the final print version.
Would you consider translating Tagore’ prose?
Of course. And I have translated a few already. For The Essential Tagore I translated “Hindus and Muslims” and “The Tenant Farmer”. And for Shades of Difference: Selected Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, I translated “The Co-operative Principle” and “The Divinity of the Forest.” As these titles indicate, Rabindranath is a writer whose works you can mine for topics that have continuing thematic relevance. That is why all translators will go back to him every now and then for essays and prose extracts relevant for our time.
Would you like to bring out a book of Nazrul translations too?
Who knows? I have translated about 12 of his poems and a short story by this great Bengali writer, who is also Bangladesh’s national poet. But at present I feel more inclined towards going back to Jibanananda Das and will continue to translate more of Rabindranath’s song-lyrics. This is because around the time I published my translations of his poems at the turn of the century, a trunk full of new poems by Das were discovered. Most of them have been published by now. If and when I can, I would like to bring out a new edition of my Das poems, incorporating some of these newly discovered ones. This is because I have already come across some that are truly memorable and deserve to be translated. Certainly, he is a poet the best of whose unpublished as well as published works need to be introduced everywhere.
Tagore is unique in as much he was socially committed to improving the lot of the villagers in Bengal. He practically created Santiniketan and Sriniketan. At a point, he wrote: “My path, as you know, lies in the domain of quiet integral action and thought, my units must be few and small, and I can but face human problems in relation to some basic village or cultural area. So, in the midst of worldwide anguish, and with the problems of over three hundred millions staring us in the face, I stick to my work in Santiniketan and Sriniketan hoping that my efforts will touch the heart of our village neighbors and help them in reasserting themselves in a new social order. If we can give a start to a few villages, they would perhaps be an inspiration to some others—and my life work will have been done.” This was in a letter in 1939 to Leonard Elmhirst, an agricultural scientist who helped him set up Sriniketan. Has any other poet done work of this kind in Bengal? What do you see as his greatest contribution —poetry or his ideals of human excellence and the work he did to realise his ideals?
Very few writers can come close to Tagore as far as the variety of his works are concerned. Such a polymath dedicated to the world of the spirit and the mind as well as human welfare is surely rarely to be found anywhere in any period of world history. Once he took charge of his father’s estates in what was then East Bengal and is now Bangladesh, Tagore plunged into work for the betterment of the people there and the surrounding areas. But he kept writing poems, fictional and nonfictional prose, plays and wrote all sorts of things for the amelioration of his people as well as his own need to articulate beauty and depict the Sublime in all its manifestations. And he would combine theory with practice, carrying out experiments and introducing new ideas for his tenants and others to implement in their farms and lives. His greatest contribution, however, was not only his poetry and prose but also his contribution to Bengali language and literature. I remember Dryden on Chaucer at this point: “He [Chaucer] found it [English writing] brick and left it marble.”
Thank you for giving us your time.
(The online interview has been conducted by emails by Mitali Chakravarty)
Tagore articles & Translations by Professor Fakrul Alam
Fakrul Alam brings to us Tagore songs in translation and in discussion on the season that follows the scorching heat of summer months. Click here to read.
Monomor Megher Songi (or The Cloud, My friend) has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click hereto read.
Giraffe’s Dad by Tagore: Giraffer Baba (Giraffe’s Dad), a short humorous poem by Tagore, has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Oikotan(Harmonising) has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam and published specially to commemorate Tagore’s Birth Anniversary. Click here to read.
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[1] Fakrul Alam translates this as ‘Beautiful Bengal’, but lietrally, it means I will return again
[2] Fakrul Alam translates this as ‘An Overwhelming Sensation’, but literally, it means sensation.
Rabindranath Tagore spells different things to different people: National Anthems; the Nobel, Rabindra Sangeet, a veiled woman, Sriniketan or Santiniketan. A cineaste might think of Charulata or Kabuliwala, Chokher Bali (Best Friend) or Kadambari. But the subject ‘Tagore and Cinema’ would mean talking of Tagore’s exposure to cinema, his interest in the medium, the fate of his involvement with celluloid, the films based on stories penned by him, their interpretation in a world that is so far removed from his, in historical, economical, and cultural terms… In other words, it would mean talking of what about Tagore endures — and why it reaches out to the wide world of humanity.
To me, it is Tagore’s awesome, inspiring humanism that offers us immense scope to transcreate, reinterpret, relocate the socially relevant developments and rooted characters again and again onscreen. Like Shakespeare, his works are universal in terms of age, geophysical location, terrain of the mind and tugs of emotions…
Rabindranath was almost seventy when he exhibited his paintings that were so radically different from the style associated with the Tagore family artists, Abanindranath, Gaganendranath, Sunayani Devi, or Nandalal Bose. For, if the Bengal School looked East and sought inspiration in delicate miniatures, Chinese watercolours or the sparseness of Japanese zen, Tagore absorbed the boldness of German expressionism and created a unique style. It’s impossible for someone so open to avant garde trends to take no interest in cinema, the 20th century art form that was silently taking its juvenile steps in India when Tagore won the Nobel.
When he visited Russia, he watched Battleship Potemkin, the classic ‘handbook for editors’ (to quote Phalke winner Hrishikesh Mukherjee) that influenced a long line of filmmakers in India too. By 1931, the year when Alam Ara (Hindi) and Jamai Shasti’(Bengali) turned ‘movie’ into ‘talkie’, Tagore was in the last decade of his life. So, when he directed Natir Puja (The Dancing Girl’s Worship) at New Theatres, he was substantially assisted by Premankur Atorthi, who was the first to direct a film based on a Tagore composition. This was the only time when the Renaissance personality directly interacted with the celluloid medium. His nephew Dinendra wrote the screenplay, albeit under Tagore’s guidance, and students of Santiniketan acted in it. More importantly, Tagore himself essayed an important role in the dance-drama which was shot with a static camera over four days. However, the result was more a staged play than cinema. A greater tragedy is that the reels perished within 10 years, when a fire ravished the New Theatres Studio in 1941.
Atarthi’s own direction of Chirakumar Sabha (1932) set off a tradition that received a robust boost, first in the 100th year of the poet’s birth, and again in 2011, when he turned 150 and further. If literary treasures like Gora (1938) and Chokher Bali (1938) were adapted onscreen by Naresh Mitra and Satu Sen, they were remade and reinterpreted by Rituparno Ghosh who veered towards Tagore rather than Saratchandra, the more popular litterateur of Bengal who was a staple of Tollygunge for years. In fact all major names of Tollygunge, from Nitin Bose, Agradoot, Tapan Sinha, to Purnendu Pattrea, Partha Pratim Chowdhury and Rituparno Ghosh have announced their coming of age in cinema with a film based on a Tagore composition.
It is interesting to note that when Tagore visited Russia in September of 1930 members of the Cinema Board who had a conversation with him regarding his “new film stories” were deeply impressed by the short versions of the stories (as narrated) by the Poet, and they met him at his hotel to discuss in detail the possibilities of filming them. Tagore himself had enough interest in cinema to visit the Amalgamated Cinema Union, where he was received by its president M Rutin and was shown Eisentein’s Battleship Potemkin and portions of Old and New, we learn from his Letters from Russia.
Although evoking the Bengal of his time in divergent hues, Tagore’s stories continue to inspire man to go beyond divisions of nation, religion, caste or gender, perhaps because they explore how society shapes our love and relationships. This essay dwells on films that highlight the pervading themes of feminism, humanism and universalism in Tagore’s literary works.
Not Slave, Nor Goddess
The champion of women tells us to enunciate aami nari, I am a woman … with pride, because a woman is not a slave nor needs to be the other extreme, a goddess. That it is right for a woman, whether young, maiden, or widowed, to be a person of flesh and blood. That Tagore empathised so deeply with his women characters that today’s social historians are talking of an androgynous strain in the humanist.
* When Satyajit Ray filmed Ghare Bairey (The Home and the World), we got a glimpse of the regressive practices that ailed even the wealthy and educated households. However the most symbolic scene was the one where Bimala is inspired by Nikhilesh to step out of the inner quarters of the zamindar’s household. Even Sandip, the false god, hails it as a ‘social revolution’. Tagore the author goes on to criticise the pseudo rebel but at no point does he criticise Bimala — not even when her sister-in-law cautions Nikhilesh about the freedom his wife is abusing. We find a repeat of this theme in Char Adhyay (Four Chapters) – but we’ll come to that later.
* Chokher Bali, first filmed in 1938, turned the spotlight on the deprivations young widows were subjected to even after the reformist crusades of Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. Very sympathetically, and most aesthetically, it held a brief for their sensuality — even sexual needs, especially when Rituparno Ghosh filmed it in 2003. But even here, before Mahendra’s mother dies, she urges that in her memory he should host a feast for widows — “people feed Brahmins, beggars, even animals, but never for the unfortunate widows,” he underscores.
* Nitin Bose’s bilingual Noukadubi was probably the first to take Tagore to Hindi cine-goers. Incidentally Rituparno and Subhash Ghai’s Noukadubi were also bilingual. In 1944, Milan afforded Dilip Kumar opportunity to mature as an actor, for here Ramesh upholds the flag of humanism. After being boat wrecked he comes home with Kamala, the ‘bride’ he has not deigned to look at, and realises that she is in fact someone else’s wife. The gentleman in him decides to take her to a convent and give her not just protection (from a par purush, stranger) but also proper education — even at the cost of his own spotless reputation and his chances of finding happiness with his beloved, Hem Nalini.
* In Charulata (1964), although Satyajit Ray continues to unfold her story from Amal’s point of view, his sympathy without reservation lies with the lonely wife. For half a century and more viewers have no doubt that Charu was an alter ego for Tagore’s Natun Bouthan – his sister-in-law Kadambari Devi, who took her own life. This story has inspired Bandana Mukherjee’s Srimati Hey and Suman Ghosh’s Kadambari (2015). Ray underscores this aspiration aspect in the film when Charu writes, gleaning from her experiences, and her writings are published in a magazine. This was unthinkable in the 19th century — and only a deeply humane soul could understand that a woman too needed to express her intellectual and creative self. (This aspect is completely missing in Charulata of 2011, directed by Agnideb Chatterjee, although it unfolds from the woman’s perspective and unabashedly speaks of her physical intimacy with Amal.)
* For Tagore, perhaps the stifling of this intellectual self was as great a tragedy as the ‘burying’ of her potentials within the walls of domesticity. In the poem ‘Sadharan Meye’ (Ordinary Girl), he urges his contemporary Sarat Babu to write a novel where the protagonist — a scorned woman — goes on to study, travel abroad, re-valued by several admirers, including the man who ditched her for being an ‘ordinary’ woman. The core thought of this poem had inspired a script by Nabendu Ghosh, an altered (and unacknowledged) version of which was made by Hrishikesh Mukherjee as ‘Pyar Ka Sapna’ (Dream of Love, 1969). In recent times the theme has been most successfully revisited in Vikas Bahl’s Queen (2014).
* In Megh O Roudro (Clouds and Sunshine), Rabindranath’s short story creates a protagonist whose struggle to affirm her dignity in the British ruled 19th century prompts her to read and write under the tutorship of a stubborn law student who is jailed for constantly challenging the discriminatory ways of the imperialists. By the time he is released, she is a prosperous widow who courteously acknowledges his role in her achieving self-confidence. In 1969, Arundhuti Debi, herself raised in Tagore’s ethos at Santiniketan, chose this for her second outing after Chhuti (Holiday) and her lyrical treatment brought her recognition as a director of substance.
* But what happens when a woman cannot fulfill her destiny, as in Streer Patra (A wife’s Letter, 1972)? How did Rabi Babu want his Mejo Bou — haus frau — to behave when the acutely male dominated household turns a blind eye to the injustice of marrying off the hapless orphan Bindu to a lunatic? Not drown her woes in the vast ocean at Puri but to slough off, in a moment of illumination, the shell of ‘Mejo Bou’ and become Mrinal, a woman with .her own soul and individual identity Why must she end her life like his Natun Bouthan — “Meera Bai didn’t,” he points out. And to us, even by today’s standards, it is the ultimate expression of feminism.
* Perhaps because of the class she belonged to, and with the support of a rebellious brother, Mrinal could do what Chandara couldn’t in Shasti (Punishment, 1970). Tagore knew that neither his ‘Notun Bouthan’ nor his own wife Mrinalini got the opportunities enjoyed by his ICS brother’s wife. Far from it: Chandara’s husband Chhidam places the burden of his Boudi’s death at the hands of his elder brother on his wife. In the prevailing patriarchal society it wasn’t unthinkable: a wife was expendable because you could get another, but not a brother. But the unlettered Chandara has her own estimation of the sanctity that is the conjugal bond. When her husband comes to meet the wife condemned to hang, she denies him the right of visitation by disdainfully uttering a single word: “Maran!” How should we read it today? Go, drop dead or go hang yourself!
* Jogajog (Connection) was written in 1929 in a society where there were caste/ class distinctions even amongst zamindars. Tagore had first-hand experience of this within his family. His crude protagonist is a johnny-come-lately who seeks revenge by marrying the educated and cultured Kumudini. He cannot stand any expression of respect for her brother and feels belittled at the slightest hint of will in his wife. Matters go so far that in the 2015 film, director Sekhar Das can effortlessly trace moments of marital rape in their conjugal discord.
* Chitrangada had poised the question: where lies a woman’s true beauty – in her outward appearance or her inner worth? Should the princess, raised to be as good as a prince, deny her essential self to please a man? Or is she wrong to sacrifice her being for one she loves? In 2008, Rituparno Ghosh gave a whole new androgynous reading of the dance drama, with Madan/ Cupid becoming a psychoanalyst.
Child — The Father and Mother of Man
Robi, who immortalised his childhood in Chhelebela (Boyhood), could never forget the restrictions imposed by adults and the suffocating effect it had on an imaginative soul. Therefore in Ichhapuran (Wish Fulfillment,1970), directed by Mrinal Sen for the Children’s Film Society of India, he effected a role reversal whereby their bodies get swapped. The naughty child Sushil becomes the father and the senior who covets the youthfulness becomes the free spirited son.
The comical confusion this ensues in the village leads both to realise the importance of their individual positions in life. They get back to their original self with the profound lesson for humanity – that each one of us has a place in the world no one else can ever fulfill.
* Of course the best known child in Rabindra Rachanabali (Creations of Tagore) is Amal. Essentially Dakghar (Post Office) was a testimonial against the crushing of childhood Tagore suffered. In the recent past actors Chaiti Ghoshal and Kaushik Sen have proved the enduring appeal of Dakghar — she in the form of a recorded audio play (CD); he on stage. Chaiti Ghoshal interprets the protagonist she had played with Shambhu and Tripti Mitra not as a Rabindrik character but as any child today, familiar with cricket and computer. Manipur’s Kanhailal has used elements of dance and drama to reinforce this message of freedom beyond frontiers. And, following the 2007 police firing in Nandigram (that killed 14 persons who were opposing state officials on land acquisition drive), Kaushik Sen had interpreted Amal’s desire to send a letter as a message to every household to raise awareness.
Sen’s Dakghar, then, was not about death but about liberation from life in bondage. “Perhaps that’s why, a day before Paris was stormed during WWII, Radio France had broadcast Andre Gide’s French translation of the play,” Kaushik had said while staging the play. “Around the same time, in a Polish ghetto, Janus Kocak had enacted the play with Jewish kids who were gassed to death soon after.” After such multi-layered readings of the text, Dakghar as filmed by Anmol Vellani in 1961 remains a simplistic viewing — perhaps because it was made for the Children’s Film Society.
* In The Postmaster the child – an illiterate village girl in this instance – metaphorically becomes a mother and a priya , or beloved, of the pedantic city boy who is stirred by beauty of the moon but can’t wait to go back. When he falls critically ill she dutifully serves him and cares for him like a wife. When he is set to depart by simply tipping her with silver coins, the child with a maturity beyond her years refuses to say goodbye. Rejection doesn’t need words: she can negate his very existence by her silence.
* Samapti (Finale) the concluding story of Teen Kanya (1965) remade by Sudhendu Roy as Upahaar ( The Gift, 1975), builds on the flowering of a woman in an unconventional girl child. Mrinmoyee is certainly not a Lakkhi Meye…a good girl , she’s a scandal in rural Bengal of 100 years ago. She escapes her wedding night by climbing down a tree, she spends the night on her favourite swing on the riverbank, she snatches marbles from her friend, a boy… When they try to tame her by locking her up in a room she throws things at Amulya. But when he returns to Calcutta and she’s sent back to her mother’s, she realises grown up love for the man she’s married to, and sneaks into his room by climbing the same tree!
* Buddhadev Dasgupta had woven Shey from Tagore’s late novel written for his granddaughter, and then scripted a feature based on 13 poems by the bard. When we read a poem, certain images arise before our mind’s eye. The director interprets Tagorean poetry through such images and experiences. “It is about how a poet responds to another poet,” he explains.
Of Zamindars and Servants
Robi, the ‘good for nothing’ youngest son of Debendranath, had to prove himself in his father’s eyes by successfully performing the job he was entrusted with – that of collecting taxes, ‘khajna’, from the ‘prajas’, subjects, no matter how impoverished they were. We all know that in doing the job he came across a vast cross section of people of the land whom he would not otherwise get to know so intimately. And while he could not be lenient as his father’s representative, he created caring characters like the zamindar in Atithi ( The Guest) who brings home a vagabond, gives him education, and even prepares to give his daughter in marriage to the free spirited boy whose restless soul drives him away…
* But having seen the reality of the lives of the subjects Rabindranath also created uncaring zamindars like the one in ‘Dui Bigha Jami’ (Two Bighas of Land) that had inspired the Bimal Roy classic Do Bigha Zamin (1953), set in a post-independence India that was rapidly industrialising. Debaki Bose attempted a more literal visualisation as part of Arghya, his Centenary Tribute to Tagore, along with his poem ‘Puratan Bhritya’, (Old Retainer).
* Robi, the motherless child who was raised in a large household in the rigid care of servants, said ‘Thank You’ to them through characters like Kesto, the old family retainer who refuses to leave even when he’s dubbed a thief or driven away. Instead, he saves his master from small pox at the cost of his own life. Tagore, in fact, goes a step further in his short story, ‘Khokababur Pratyabartan’. The trusted servant even raises his son to eventually give him up as the master’s child lost to a landslide in the river! Oppression of Religion
Pujarini (Worshipper) was immortalised by Manjushri Chaki Sircar’s dance. Although set in the revivalist times of Ajatshatru who was set upon putting the clock back and wipe out the Buddhist tenor of his father Bimbisara, we can easily identify with Rabindranath’s condemnation of any excess – violence in particular – in the name of Religion. Visarjan (Immersion) too raises consciousness against violence in any form, against even animals, in the name of religion.
* Nor can we overlook instances where he raises his angst ridden voice against the inhuman treatment of humans on grounds of caste or creed. In Chandalika, the untouchable gets a new mantra to live by when the Buddhist monk Ananda says “Jei manab aami sei manab tumi kanya (You, lady, and I are part of the same humanity).” The act becomes a beacon for Sujata, the eponymous protagonist of Bimal Roy’s film, who is on the verge of ending her life (following casteist discrimination).
* Tagore’s poem called ‘Debatar Grash’ (God’s Greed), lashes out against the cruelty people can unleash through the heart rending plight of the mother whose child is snatched from her and thrown into the raging waters to appease the villagers superstitious belief in god’s wrath. Shubha O Debatar Grash (Shubha and God’s Greed, 1964) remains a signature film of Partha Pratim Chowdhury.
* Tagore questioned the very concept of belonging to ideological boxes. His time-transcending novel, Chaturanga (Four Quartet), points out that human experiments (like, say, Communism) have failed because they put ideology in watertight boxes that do not have any room for flexibility. This inspired Suman Mukhopadhyay to film it in 2008. Tagore, who himself created walls and broke them, questions this through Jyathamoshai, his uncle, and Sachish, who invite Muslim singers and feed them at shraddha or funeral as much as through Damini, whom Sachish wants to domesticate much against her wish. She even questions her husband’s authority to will her away along with his property, to his religious guru. Tagore uses the graphic imagery of a hawk and a mongoose that Damini has as her pet (it is well known that these animals cannot be domesticated).
Nationalism to Internationalism
‘Where the world has not been fragmented by narrow domestic walls, and the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habits: into that heaven of freedom’ Tagore, forever and always, wanted his compatriots to awake. That is why Nikhilesh, in Ghare Bairey, does not condone violence even in the name of nationalism. That is why he decries Sandip, who uses the passion of young freedom fighters and the wealth of the poor to fill his coffers.
Beware the false god: Tagore repeats the criticism in Char Adhyay. In 2012 Bappaditya Bandopadhyay revisits the novel filmed by Kumar Shahani in 1997, the golden jubilee of Independence. But Ela’s Char Adhyay review it for its politics, its backdrop of ultras and violence, for the debate that acquired a new validity in the world after 9/11. Tagore was much in favour of non-violence, so much so that he criticised the nationalist movement too when it turned violent. How much of a visionary he was to ask a full century ago: “What will be the state of the nation that is based on violence?”
Young filmmakers are amazed by Tagore’s vivid criticism of the deterioration of party structures although he himself never belonged to any party. Sarat Chandra’s Pather Dabi (Demands of the Path), written about eight years before Char Adhyay, had taken a populist stand while Tagore didn’t hesitate to say through the protagonist Atin, ‘I am not a patriot in the sense you use the term.”
* That Rabindranath was against any form of regimentation is well established. His play, Tasher Desh or the land of cards, perhaps, written to criticise the submission of the conscience in Hitler’s Germany, remains the ultimate critique of regimentation. Directed by Q in 2012, the text layers his criticism of contemporary society by “trippy” visuals. By Q’s own submission, it is a “quirky” retelling of the Tagorean allegory.
* Gora (directed by Naresh Mitra in 1938) goes further: He bows to his adopted mother, hails her as his Motherland and says, every child is equal for a mother, she does not differentiate on any ground. Tagore here gives us a blueprint for an ideal Republic where a hundred flowers can fill the air with a hundred different colours.
* Perhaps the ultimate example of Tagore’s humanism is Kabuliwala, directed in Bengali by Tapan Sinha in 1958 and in Hindi by Hemen Gupta in 1961. An Afghan selling his wares in a Calcutta 150 years ago and striking a friendship with a child who reminds him of his own daughter back home, is a story that will strike a chord in anybody, anywhere in the world, at any given point in time — even in a world swamped with internet, chat rooms, mobile phones and multimedia messaging.
All of this reiterates the ‘forever-ness’ of Tagore. It also redefines the need to interpret his farsightedness, his comprehensiveness, his universality for our own times, in our own terms. Tagore himself had observed in a letter: “Cinema will never be slave to literature – literature will be the lodestar for cinema.” So we may conclude that since Tagore was primarily delving into human emotions, into the psyche of men and women placed in demanding situations that forced them to measure up to social, political, cultural or gender-based challenges, films based on his stories not only continue to be made but find an ever-growing audience in the globalised world.
(Courtesy: Tagore and Russia: International Seminar of ICCR 2011 held in Moscow. Har Anand publications, 2016. Edited by Reba Som and Sergei Serebriany)
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Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
The right to exist with freedom to choose is threatened when dictatorial regimes try to erase a culture or linguistic group as we can see in the current conflict that rages between Russia and Ukraine. In 1971, Bangladesh came into existence over a similar issue. The colonials had divided the Indian subcontinent on the basis of religion — not culture. Before this division, Bengal was a whole. In 1905, Tagore had marched against the British directive to divide Bengal and Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India. In 1911, Bengal was reunited to be slashed again in 1947 and made a part of Pakistan with Urdu as its national language. Bangladesh fought a war to find the right to exist as an entity outside of Pakistan — adopting their favoured language Bangla. Throwing off the yoke of Urdu, Bangladesh came to its own. On 16th December, the battle against cultural hegemony was won with warplanes drawing to a halt.
Celebrating freedom from oppression, we have an article by Fakrul Alam giving the historical background of the struggle. A musing from across the border about the 1971 refugee exodus into India has been written by Ratnottama Sengupta. Asad Latif muses on the need to identify with a culture. We have translations of poetry by Nazrul to add a dash of seasoning.
The Birth of Bangladesh & the University of Dhaka: Professor Fakrul Alam takes us through the Partitions of Bengal which ultimately led to the creation of Bangladesh, with focus on the role of Dhaka University. Click here to read.
Joy Bangla: Memories of 1971: Ratnottama Sengupta recaptures a time when as a teenager she witnessed a war that was fought to retain a culture. Click here to read.
Title: The Shaping of Modern Calcutta: The Lottery Committee Years, 1817 – 1830
Author: Ranabir Ray Chaudhury
Publisher: Niyogi Books
If you ask any layman about the city of Calcutta (now rechristened as Kolkata) you will get three major pieces of information — namely, it was founded by Job Charnock in 1690; it was the seat of East India Company and capital of British India till 1911; and that it was divided roughly into two sections — the white English town at the centre and towards the south and the native town in the north. Beyond that, very few people have the idea of how the city developed spatially and how several major arterial roads, tanks and squares were built systematically during the beginning of the nineteenth century and this is where The Shaping of Modern Calcutta: The Lottery Committee Years, 1817 – 1830 by Ranabir Ray Chaudhury gives us plenty of information about the gradual development of Calcutta. This was undertaken by raising money through sale of lottery tickets and implemented by the creation of a Lottery Committee which functioned specifically for thirteen years from October 1817 to 1830.
Under the system then prevalent, the surplus lottery funds remained with the Bank of Bengal which would continue to be involved in the sale of tickets and the payment of prizes but would have nothing to do with other payments. The three senior members of the committee were John Eliot, Charles Trower and Henry Wood who had already looked after the construction of the square and tank at Baparitala (Wellington Square) and the new road being built from Dharamtala Road to Bowbazar. Later officials like Henry Shakespear and Barwell, G. Gordon and A. Colvin were inducted, and featuring in various sub-committees, they were also deeply engaged in the city’s development work.
In 1830, for all practical purposes, the functions of the committee relating to the improvement of the city ceased effectively. Though the beneficial impact of the committee’s work affected everyone, native and European alike, and there was nothing remotely furtive about it, yet the Directors of the East India Company in London were not happy with what was happening in distant Calcutta on the city-development front, choosing to view the evolving picture in a different light. Keeping in mind the virtues of economy in expenditure, the Company wrote to its Government of Bengal that whenever there was any activity relating to general and public utility, some part of the charges ought to be borne by the inhabitants. Further, the Lottery Committee was handling large sums of money and perhaps there was the Company’s deep-seated skepticism about the sensibility of such expenditure in general and a tendency to conclude that the money was not being spent efficiently. The work done by the committee was phenomenal because the projects conceived and implemented by it still cast a long shadow on life in modern Calcutta.
It becomes very clear that the city of Calcutta gained immensely from the development work carried out by the Lottery Committee since October 1817. The Strand Road had spruced up the eastern bank of the River Hooghly beyond recognition; the western side of Tank Square (today’s BBD Bagh) down to the Maidan till the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, had been given its modern shape with its grid of streets; pucka drains had been built and upgraded all over the city; the major north-south arterial road extending from Park Street in the south to Shyambazar in the north with four squares along it had been constructed; Free School Street had been made; the entire area south of Park Street up to Circular Road had been transformed into ‘virgin’ land ready to be settled in by the genteel (for the most part, sahib) population of Calcutta; and the modernisation of the Garden Reach area, reaching up to Khidirpur in the north, had been begun.
Among other things, the Lottery Committee built the major arterial roads in the northern and central parts of the city, which in time determined the layout of the contiguous residential areas. Dalhousie Square and the entire ground between Park Street and Circular Road were developed by the committee. Previously, a large part of the ground south of Park Street was low-lying and marshy, generating pestilence all around. Bustee clusters were located here probably because of the availability of Gangajal from Tolly’s Nullah (the Adi Ganga) through the existing network of drains, the river being some way off to the west.
The story of the making of Strand Road is narrated in detail, as with increasing economic activity and population pressure, it would provide the inhabitants with easier access to the river, both for recreation and commerce. The Lottery Committee was also responsible for putting up the first brick-and-mortar decorative balustrade which still adorns the Chowringhee area and Red Road. Thus, in its 13 years of effective functioning (till 1830), the committee had been successful in providing the critical push necessary to transform Calcutta from the topographical shape it had inherited since the years immediately following the landing of Job Charnock at Sutanati in August 1690 into one which, in a manner of speaking, would make the city ready to be launched into the 20th century and beyond.
The interest in reading the book persists throughout because apart from the maps, figures, numbers, statistics, and other logistic details, we get a lot of information of the different hindrances the Lottery Committee faced while implementing their projects. Human nature has not really changed much and so we read about people at that time who flouted the rules to line their own pockets and for whom profiteering was the norm.
The basic premise here is that human nature being what it is, there are some aspects of life and behaviour which are universal in their reach, both temporally and spatially. Another very interesting area of study is how the officials encountered the problem of encroachment, the process of land acquisition and the demand for compensation by native plot holders. The committee was aware of matters affecting the native sentiment and there are instances of how they altered the alignment of a major road to suit the convenience of the natives. Even then in some instances tiffs and legal hassles with local residents in North Calcutta were also recorded. Apart from private property rights, religious considerations too played an important role in the decision-making process of the committee.
Before concluding it is worthwhile mentioning a few lines about the author of this volume. During his quarter-century with The Statesman in Calcutta (1970-94), principally as a leader writer, Ranabir Ray Choudhury became interested in the past of a great city which the East India Company had selected as the nerve centre for its operations in the Indian subcontinent and further to the east, extending to Singapore and beyond. In time, this growing interest led to three compilations – Glimpses of Old Calcutta 1835-1850 (1978), Calcutta a Hundred Years Ago 1880-1890 (1987), and Early Calcutta Advertisements 1875-1925 (1992). He next wrote The Lord Sahib’s House, Sites of Power: Government Houses of Calcutta 1690-1911 (2010). A City in the Making, Aspects of Calcutta’s Early Growth (2016).
This volume under review is his sixth book and thematically is a sequel to the last one. That work ended with the formation of the Lottery Committee in 1817: this book takes up the story from there. From a connoisseur of the city, we get details of its development to a point that a lot of unknown facts are provided to the reader which the author garnered from documents and archival material available at the West Bengal State Archives.
Though he is not a historian, trained or otherwise, the author mentions in the ‘Introduction’ how he faced the constant struggle to avoid getting enmeshed in detail and to refocus attention on the broad current of policy and the effects of its implementation. Attention to the specific problems faced in the day-to-day execution of projects also does help to throw light on the precise nature of hurdles encountered at the grassroots level. The book is therefore highly recommended for scholars of history, architecture, town planning and every layman reader who is interested in Kolkata – a city which has been defined in multifarious ways as a city of joy, a city of palaces, a dead city, and so on.
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Somdatta Mandal, an academic, critic and translator, is a former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India.
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With Christmas at our heels and the world waking up slowly from a pandemic that will hopefully become an endemic as the Omicron seems to fizzle towards a common cold, we look forward to a new year and a new world. Perhaps, our society will evolve to become one where differences are accepted as variety just as we are fine with the fact that December can be warm or cold depending on the geography of the place. People will be welcomed even if of different colours and creed. The commonality of belonging to the same species will override all other disparities…
While we have had exciting developments this year and civilians have moved beyond the Earth — we do have a piece on that by Candice Louisa Daquin — within the planet, we have become more aware of the inequalities that exist. We are aware of the politics that seems to surround even a simple thing like a vaccine for the pandemic. However, these two years dominated by the virus has shown us one thing — if we do not rise above petty greed and create a world where healthcare and basic needs are met for all, we will suffer. As my nearly eighty-year-old aunt confided, even if one person has Covid in a remote corner of the world, it will spread to all of us. The virus sees no boundaries. This pandemic was just a start. There might be more outbreaks like this in the future as the rapacious continue to exploit deeper into the wilderness to accommodate our growing greed, not need. With the onset of warmer climates — global warming and climate change are realities — what can we look forward to as our future?
Que sera sera — what will be, will be. Though a bit of that attitude is necessary, we have become more aware and connected. We can at least visualise changes towards a more egalitarian and just world, to prevent what happened in the past. It would be wonderful if we could act based on the truth learnt from history rather than to overlook or rewrite it from the perspective of the victor and use that experience to benefit our homes, planet and all living things, great and small. In tune with our quest towards a better world, we have an interview with an academic, Sanjay Kumar, founder of a group called Pandies, who use theatre to connect the world of haves with have-nots. What impressed me most was that they have actually put refugees and migrant workers on stage with their stories. They even managed to land in Kashmir and work with children from war-torn zones. They have travelled and travelled into different dimensions in quest of a better world. Travelling is what our other interviewee did too — with a cat who holds three passports. CJ Fentiman, author of The Cat with Three Passports, has been interviewed by Keith Lyons, who has reviewed her book too.
This time we have the eminent Aruna Chakravarti review Devika Khanna Narula’sBeyond the Veils, a retelling of the author’s family history. Perhaps, history has been the common thread in our reviews this time. Rakhi Dalal has reviewed Anirudh Kala’sTwo and a Half Rivers, a fiction that focusses on the Sikh issues in 1980s India from a Dalit perspective. It brought to my mind a family saga I had been recently re-reading, Alex Haley’s Roots, which showcased the whole American Revolution from the perspective of slaves brought over from Africa. Did the new laws change the fates of the slaves or Dalits? To an extent, it did but the rest as fact and fiction showcase were in the hands that belonged to the newly freed people. To enable people to step out of the cycle of poverty, the right attitudes towards growth and the ability to accept the subsequent changes is a felt need. That is perhaps where organisations like Pandies step in. Another non-fiction which highlights history around the same period and place as Kala’s novel is BP Pande’sIn the Service of Free India –Memoirs of a Civil Servant. Reviewed by Bhaskar Parichha, the book explores the darker nuances of human history filled with violence and intolerance.
That violence is intricately linked to power politics has been showcased often. But, what would be really amazing to see would be how we could get out of the cycle as a society. With gun violence being an accepted norm in one of the largest democracies of the world, perhaps we need to listen to the voice of wisdom found in the fiction by Steve Davidson who meets perhaps a ghost in Hong Kong. Musing over the ghost’s words, the past catches up in Sunil Sharma’s story, ‘Walls’. Sharma has also given us a slice from his life in Canada with its colours, vibrancy and photographs of the fall. As he emigrated to Canada, we read of immigrants in Marzia Rahman’s touching narrative. She has opted to go with the less privileged just as Lakshmi Kannan has opted to go with the privileged in her story.
Sharma observes, while we find the opulence of nature thrive in places people inhabit in Canada, it is not so in Asia. I wonder why? Why are Asian cities crowded and polluted? There was a time when Los Angeles and London suffered smogs. Has that shifted now as factories relocated to Asia, generating wealth in currency but taking away from nature’s opulence of fresh, clean air as more flock into crowded cities looking for sustenance?
Humour is introduced into the short story section with Sohana Manzoor’s hilarious rendering of her driving lessons in America, lessons given to foreigners by migrants. Rhys Hughes makes for more humour with a really hilarious rendition of men in tea cosies missing their…I think ‘TrouserHermit’ will tell you the rest. He has perhaps more sober poetry which though imaginative does not make you laugh as much as his prose. Michael Burch has shared some beautiful poetry perpetuating the calmer nuances of a deeply felt love and affection. George Freek, Anasuya Bhar, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Dibyajyoti Sarma have all given us wonderful poetry along with many others. One could write an essay on each poem – but as we are short shrift for time, we move on to travel sagas from hiking in Australia and hobnobbing with kangaroos to renovated palaces in Bengal.
We have also travelled with our book excerpts this time. Suzanne Kamata’sThe Baseball Widowshuttles between US and Japan and Somdatta Mandal’s translation of A Bengali lady in England by Krishnabhabi Das, actually has the lady relocate to nineteenth century England and assume the dress and mannerisms of the West to write an eye-opener for her compatriots about the customs of the colonials in their own country.
While mostly we hear of sad stories related to marriages, we have a sunny one in which Alpana finds much in a marriage that runs well with wisdom learnt from Kung Fu Panda. Devraj Singh Kalsi has given us a philosophical piece with his characteristic touch of irony laced with humour on statues. If you are wondering what he could have to say, have a read.
In Nature’s Musings, Penny Wilkes has offered us prose and wonderful photographs of the last vestiges of autumn. As the season hovers between summer and winter, geographical boundaries too can get blurred at times. A nostalgic recap given by Ratnottama Sengupta along the borders of Bengal, which though still crossed by elephants freely in jungles (wild elephants do not need visas, I guess), gained an independence from the harshness of cultural hegemony on December 16th, 1971. Candice Louisa Daquin has also looked at grey zones that lie between sanity and insanity in her column. An essay which links East and West has been given to us by Rakibul Hasan about a poet who mingles the two in his poetry. A Bengali song by Tagore, Purano shei diner kotha, that is almost a perfect trans creation of Robert Burn’s Scottish Auld Lang Syne in the spirit of welcoming the New Year, has been transcreated to English. The similarity in the content of the two greats’ lyrics showcase the commonalities of love, friendship and warmth that unite all cultures into one humanity.
Our first translation from Uzbekistan – a story by Sherzod Artikov, translated from Uzbeki by Nigora Mukhammad — gives a glimpse of a culture that might be new to many of us. Akbar Barakzai’s shorter poems, translated by Fazal Baloch from Balochi and Ratnottama Sengupta’s transcreation of a Tagore song, Rangiye Die Jao, have added richness to our oeuvre along with one from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Professor Fakrul Alam, who is well-known for his translation of poetry by Jibonanda Das, has started sharing his work on the Bengali poet with us. Pause by and take a look.
There is much more than what I can put down here as we have a bumper end of the year issue this December. There is a bit of something for all times, tastes and seasons.
I would like to thank my wonderful team for helping put together this issue. Sohana Manzoor and Sybil Pretious need double thanks for their lovely artwork that is showcased in our magazine. We are privileged to have committed readers, some of who have started contributing to our content too. A huge thanks to all our contributors and readers for being with us through our journey.
I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful transition into the New Year! May we open up to a fantastic brave, new world!
Rupali Gupta Mukherjee visits a restored palace in the heartland of Bengal
The Courtyard of Rajbari Bawali. Photo Courtesy: Rupali Gupta Mukherjee
From time immemorial, rajbaris, or the palatial homes of zamindars, have been a part of Bengal art and architecture, although many such splendid mansions have fallen into ruin owing to ownership issues or lack of conservation. Some are being converted to hotels, like the rajbari at Bawali. Located sixty kilometers from Calcutta, the palace-hotel enthralled with its restored regal rhythm, glamour and enduring legend. We were transfixed, bemused and in love with the aesthetic elegance.
“The daunting task of restoring the crumbling historic manor into a lavish hotel was a mammoth task. An exclusive 300-year-old colonial mansion transformed into a stunning luxury heritage boutique estate”, said the proud Resident Director of the property, Ms. Mrinalinee Majumdar. Once an imposing abode of the aristocratic zamindar family, The Rajbari Bawali undoubtedly, has revived an integral part of Bengal’s glorious history and culture.
Mr. Ajay Rawla discovered the 18th century palace in a state of ruins in 2006 and tried his best to reconstruct its history. Mr. Rawla, the Chairman, spent around seven years restoring the Rajbari’s past glory. The restoration work received acclaim, award of excellence by INTACH [Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage]. The restored Rajbari Bawali has also been featured by Conde Nast UK on their hot list of “Top 50 Hidden Destinations of the World’. The Duke and the Duchess of York were guests at the Rajbari during their visit to India.
Bawali Rajbari has a remarkable history, dating back to more than four hundred years, starting with the Mughal Emperor Akbar. The name “Bawali” can be traced to its first settlers, forest dwellers from the Baul. Initially, this place was known as “Bowali” but over the years this has changed to “Bawali”. This erstwhile swampland, once part of the Sundarbans, was handed over as a reward to Shoba Ram Rai, an army officer under Maharaja Man Singh of Jaipur, the commander-in-chief of the Mughal Emperor. History tells us that the Mondols of Bawali were originally Roys. Their dominance in the fringes started way back in 1710. Later, the royal family prospered under Haradhan, who enjoyed the benefaction of the East India Company.
350-year-old Radha Krishna Temple built in the traditional aat-chala style. Photo Courtesy: Rupali Gupta Mukherjee
It was autumn, just before Durga Puja, when we planned a day trip to explore the rajbari at Bawali. As we moved towards the entrance of the rajbari, more than three-centuries-old, Radha Krishna temple, opposite the palace, caught our attention. An arched alley made of red bricks and pillars with Victorian floral motifs. The temple steeple stands out from the rest of the architecture. It has delicate terracotta etching outside, with moss and plants growing in cracks. We were amazed at the rich intricate structural motifs. This is another heritage site that desperately needs restoration, we felt. The West meets the East in the lofty temples and the palace of Bowali. The European style columns that hold up the temples in the village are atypical in the rest of the state. Beautiful gardens dotted with fashionable statues of Italian marble and a sinuous water turret weaves a flowing reverie. It’s really sad that most of the structures are in ruins and on the verge of collapse.
Finally, we found ourselves in front of the main entrance leading to Rajbari Bawali. The welcome was grand with the beating of the dhaak, the traditional drums, and women in traditional attire, clad in red bordered white saris, welcoming guests with the traditional smear of tika on the forehead, flowers and sweets. We were overwhelmed by the antique fixtures, after stepping inside the courtyard which revived the bygone era of the zamindars, nawabs and their lifestyles steeped in grandeur. The welcome drink was refreshing and the entire property was a visual delight, a photographer’s paradise.
The Terrace café, with a part of the vestiges from the roof took us back to the primeval past. A striking segment of the palace merges the new with the ancient, keeping the antiquity alive. Apart from exploring the huge chattels we enjoyed the sumptuous traditional Bengali lunch. The royal lunch was served with utmost warmth and hospitality. The food was exceptionally delicious, was flawlessly soaked in conventional recipe and served in a stately style. Burnt clay plates lined with banana leaves served lip-smacking kochur loti chingri, kassa mangsho, Bhetki Paturi. The dessert was mouthwatering and elaborate, I loved the misti doi. The ongoing melodious live concert on the lush green lawn adjacent to the dining arena was definitely scintillating.
It was an astounding experience for us; something, undeniably beyond expectation, we started our journey with the thought of exploring a historical site but we were overwhelmed by the exclusiveness of the palatial structure, antique display, hypnotic charm of the ‘Zamindari Raj’ and the warmth of the employees. I was in a trance for weeks after visiting the elite ‘khazana’ of the colonial era and was keen to know more about its imperial past. My quest brought to light many hidden facts.
Unrestored Part of the Rajbari. Photo Courtesy: Rupali Gupta Mukherjee
The ruins of the rajbari and its surrounding relics was also the memorable shoot venue preferred by renowned film director Mrinal Sen for his Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin starred movie Khandhar. It was screened at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. Later after restoration of the Khandhar, in 2003 Rituparno Ghosh selected the same setting, Bawali Rajbari for his National award-winning film Chokher Bali, an adaptation from Tagore’s novel of the same name. This also bagged the Chicago International Film Festival Award [2003] The rajbari is an extraordinary architectural masterpiece about 60km away from Kolkata, steeped in convention and opulence, a heritage boutique resort
It had been more than a month now, but still the spell of the Greco-Roman style Rajbari, the dungeon, jailkhana, cellar storing liquors from 1858, antique decor portico, fax machine and gramophones of archaic fashion, well-ventilated thakurdalan, spacious grand piano room, exquisite chandeliers in the dining hall and the faintly lit vestibule will take you, beyond doubt, to a baffling pensive world of romance!
Antique Fax machine
The bottles in the cellar of the ‘Jailkhana’ with labels of East India CompanyGramophone in the thakurdalanObjects from the past displayed in the hotel. Photo Courtesy: Rupali Gupta Mukherjee
Glossary:
kochur loti chingri — Prawn
kassa mangsho – goat meat
bhetki paturi – fish
misti doi – sweetened yoghurt a Bengali speciality.
Rupali Gupta Mukherjee has a passion for reading, writing and reciting poetry. She is a nature enthusiast, loves to travel and has a zeal for photography.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
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