By Snigdha Agrawal
This was an annual event organised at home, on Tagore’s birthday. Preparations started a week before ‘Pochishe Boishakh’)[1].
Musical instruments were dusted and tuned, particularly the most used harmonium and tablas. The living room was rearranged. Chairs were pushed against the walls. Centre and side tables were removed, creating space for floor seating. Durries were laid over the carpet. All the pash balish — bolsters — in the house with freshly laundered covers, placed haphazardly for those wanting to recline. A space earmarked for the performers, usually against the room’s longest wall. On this wall hung a fairly large black and white framed photo of Tagore, garlanded with freshly picked jasmine flowers. Not the fully bloomed one. White buds with short green stems. We girls were given the responsibility of making smaller wristbands from the jasmine buds, presented to the visitors. Stalks of rajanigandha (tuberoses) stood erect in tall vases placed on either side of the photo.
The overpowering smell of jasmine and tuberoses drowned other smells floating in from the kitchen. A hands-full kitchen as no jalsa[2] is complete without serving the guests chai and piping hot assortment of pakoras — onions, potatoes, brinjal, pumpkin flowers, battered fried crispy brown. Poppy seed-sprinkled vegetable chops, cylindrically shaped, were polished off as fast as they were made and served. The service continued till the guests left, mouths sweetened with the dessert — usually rossogollas, delivered by the sweet-meat dhoti-clad guy, arriving on foot, carrying gigantic-sized aluminium dekchis[3]balanced on two ends of a pole, hoisted on his shoulder.
It was an open house event for those interested and wanting to join. There were the regulars and walk-ins as well. Performers and audience. A manageable crowd most years. Rarely spilling out into the adjacent veranda. Cane chairs were lined up to accommodate the latecomers. Ma, a gifted and trained singer had the honour of opening the ceremony with the song “Hey Nutan, Dekha dik aar-baar janmero prothamo shubhokhan…”[4]. On popular demand, she went on to sing a couple of Tagore’s songs not omitting the song dedicated to Boishakh “esho hey boishak, esho…esho. Taposniswasbaye mumushure dao uraye, botsorer aborjona dur hoye jak…”. [5]A song that has been on our minds, with the current heat wave raging throughout the country.
As the evening progressed there were recitations from Tagore’s poetry collection. A young couple, Soumenda and Rinadi, our neighbours, had the gathering spellbound with their singing and poetry recitation. Close neighbourhood friends of ‘Puluda’, the affectionate nickname of the famed actor, the Late Soumitra Chatterjee, the talented couple were in demand at many such musical soirees held on Vijaya Doushami[6] in community clubs. And through them, we met the greatest Bengali screen actor of all time, on many occasions, when he visited after the day’s outdoor shooting in the picturesque surrounding in Maithon and Panchayat, way back in the 1960s.
With our leaving the gated community complex in 1968, ended the annual Rabindra Jayanti home celebrations. A not-forgotten era. Rabindranath Tagore lives on. These days, I listen to Rabindrasangeet on YouTube, remembering the days of youth, Ma’s full-throated voice, and Somenda, and Rinadi regaling us with their practised/professional voices. Pakoras are replaced now with sushi. God rest their souls.
.
[1] The 25th day of the Bengali month of Boishakh, recorded as the official date of birth of the Rabindranath Tagore in 1861. As per the Gregorian calendar, the date falls between the 7th or 8th of May.
[2] Musical soiree
[3] broad-rimmed cooking utensil with a flat round bottom
[4] Oh ever new!/ Let my eyes behold once more/ the first blessed moment of birth.- Translation by Aruna Chakravarty, Borderless Journal
[5] Hail O boisakh! Welcome./ Blow away deadly diseases with your ascetic breath./May the debris from the old year disappear. – Translation from Borderless Journal
[6] Last day of Durga Puja
Snigdha Agrawal (nee Banerjee) has published four books and is a regular contributor to anthologies. A septuagenarian, she writes in all genres of poetry, prose, short stories and travelogues.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles
Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International
Borderless 