WRITERS AND THEIR WORKS

Inside Hunger

So do I wonder; so does the horizon
host death-concert. I rule over the hungry
in this land. My arms are bare, my sword has fallen away,
limp and listless
Yet I wander; searching for signs of life,
for life beyond life, among rubble of suddenness.
So too I wonder; in this land of the hungry
deprivation doles out happiness to us
oppression makes optimists of us
floods fool us, drought dry our tears
We herd at meetings of all kinds and at all places.

Still deep down, sadness lingers among rifts
Despite promises of a new life.

 

Hungry Rocks

Rocks howl in hunger
Rocks drone in thirst as do you and I , give them water to drink
Cracks crisscross fields, trees stand bare
Birds have flown away, wils and howls roll over the land. Hunger rules.

Listen to the rocks, wake up to their woes
Pale and sallow, the cries corrode their core
Mild and lone in the dark, Basuki
Craves for tender warmth.
Words and rocks make their way to memory-
hardened in the process?
From afar, music beckons.
Darkness transcends itself, writes inscriptions with fingers of light.
In pores of ether, rocks mingle their cries in nature.

Translated from Bengali by Swati Ghosh

 

FIRST PERSON

Stranger in a Strange Land

Have you seen how people hang like bats from the buses and trams here?
Well, this is Calcutta!
Khokon thought, what a strange place I've come to.

These lines constitute the first chapter of a novel. They tell you straight away how the rustic boy comes to this concrete jungle and looks upon it in awe. And how, after entering the madding crowd, he realises his own loneliness. But then, loneliness is his only possession-one that brings him close to the emptiness has a quantifiable existence.

The novel never reveals where Khokon actually comes from, nor which village he belongs to. Where does he stand after abandoning his ancestral home, and is he not an outsider there? This is the question the novel begins with.

But then the novel was never written. I had planned it in Calcutta some 25 years ago, in 1976. And of course I have good reasons for not writing the novel.

The days of exile in Calcutta are so helpless and chaos-laden that Khokon feels that he has no shelter at all. His own helplessness makes him angry. "I will crush it under my feet-I'll twist the city beyond recognition and throw it, hard…." Of course, he can't do anything of the sort. He gets angrier. He climbs on top of the Monument one day. He wants to see the village that he's left behind. But where is it? North? South? The east, or the west?

His vision has its limits. Gradually, dusk falls. It gets dark. Pointing himself at the Governor's House and the State Secretariat, Khokon pisses noisily from the top of the Monument. He imagines the Governor's residence and the Secretariat drowning in his piss, and the whole city too. The people floating, drifting, like himself.

But why does Khokon think of himself as drifting? He reasons that to be human is to be in exile, to float without direction. The chain of humanity that originated and spread from Babel had Khokon at one end as a descendant. Because to be uprooted from one's homeland was to be in exile. Those who abandoned East Bengal before Independence and came to Calcutta seeking comfort-aren't they in exile too? The so-called refugees-in their thousands in cities and villages-are they just 'homeless refugees'? The immigrants-haven't they been in exile from the very beginning? V.S. Naipaul wasn't born in India. His forefathers had left as long as a century-and-a-half ago. His relatives are spread across the Caribbean islands. But even so, he and his contemporaries in his family consider themselves to be immigrants, the exiled. And perhaps that's why Naipaul seeks the origins of his narratives from the Indian soil and environment.

Salman Rushdie seeks the same thing, but he has his ancestral roots firmly planted in the subcontinent. Even though he's left London for New York now and had donned the mantle of the Global Citizen, India is still the source of his stories. And keep in mind that Rushdie's present partner is an Indian.

What I'm trying to say here is that even though these people might be in exile, the country and its culture have become their companions. This happens in public, and sometimes even unknown to ourselves. I have many examples-only they are not quite contemporary.

One anthology of my poems, published in 1976, was titled Ei Shaoney Parobashey ('In Exile this Evening'). I had gone to give a copy to Bishnu Dey, an icon of modern Bengali poetry. He browsed the pages, asking, "In exile? Coming from Bangladesh to Calcutta?" I reminded him that Calcutta and Bangladesh are different nations now. "Even you are in exile," I told him.

"And how's that?" Well, leaving North Calcutta for its southern quarter, the difference in environment and culture, didn't all this make him an exile just as well? Dey found it amusing. "True, there are differences in the environment and influences of these two quarters. The south is influenced by the culture of East Bengal, while the north is relatively old and traditional, and yet thanks to the Marwari population, it wears cosmopolitan colours…." Wasn't his poem Everyon'e a Stranger in Calcutta wearing those colours as well?

While in South Calcutta, Dey had written these lines:

I am a stranger in this jungle of people,
I talk face to face, yet a sturdy wall meets my eyes
I am a stranger, sent by some mistake of God
To the great hall of earth-but I don't follow their language

When the Bangladesh government asks me to leave my country, it is dusk. May 20, 1974. Just out of prison, I am told to leave Dhaka that very evening. But my mother is sick. So I get permission to spend one night in the city.

I have no clue where to go. But I have to leave. Or else Muslim fundamentalists will kill me while the government looks the other way. Clearly, the government wants me dead too, and use the fundamentalists as the instrument of execution. "We told you it could happen," the'd say once it was all over. No government owns up to state-facilitated assassinations.

So, to save my life, I leave my country for Calcutta on May 21, 1974. I take a Bangladesh Biman flight. It is morning. All I have with me in this bag slung over my shoulder. It contains my books of poetry, two shirts, two pairs of trousers, a pair of slippers, toothpaste and a brush. I have exactly 60 (Indian) paise in my pocket. I don't know whether I will stay, what I'll eat. Sixty paise doesn't get you even a handful of puffed rice.

Therefore, from the moment I land in Calcutta's Dumdum airport, I am decided-I'm in exile, what do I care? I shall live on the streets. I shall drink water supplied by the city municipality, work in a restaurant as a waiter, or maybe as a porter, or in some factory as hired labour. Or as someone's domestic servant. But I would have to get work. And before that, one needs to eat. How could these sixty paise buy me a meal?

I notice the warm teardrops only then. I wipe my eyes, but the tears don't stop. I have left behind my homeland, my family. Will this alien nation give me refuge?

Bangladesh Biman counter, Dumdum airport. Manned by two employees. I introduce myself. One of them is astonished. He says he's a fan, and rushes to get me tea. I asked him if I could make a few calls. "Sure! Make as many as you want…."

I know no one in this city. So who do I call? Suddenly I think of two names-the Bengali poets Shakti Chattopadhyay and Sunil Gangopadhyay. I had corresponded with them before my imprisonment. I know they work for the Bengali newspaper Ananda Bazar Patrika. I call, to be told that neither of them have reported for work-no, whether they would turn up at all wasn't known. What now? I must clutch at every straw before I go down. Back in Dhaka, I had written poems for Desh, a weekly magazine also published by the Anada Bazar Group. I call up the editor of Desh-he isn't in either. There! Even the final glimmer of hope is gone now. Then I spot the names of Santosh Kumar Ghosh and Rupadorshi on the list of Anada Bazar staff. I had read Ghosh's novel Dear Mother. And Rupadorshi's Calcutta is a pleasure cruise, ha ha!

No, the operator says even Ghosh isn't in.
And Rupadorshi?
No, he's not here either. Maybe he's at home….
Could you give me his residence number?
Who are you?
I'm a poet, from Bangladesh. Poet-I needed that word.

The operator gives me the number. I didn't know back then that Rupadorshi was actually the nom-de-plume of Gour Kishore Ghosh. I call him at home and tell him my saga. "Ananda Bazaar carried a story about you just yesterday," he says. "Come over to my place, we'll think of something…."

So I find shelter at Gour Kishore Ghosh's place. Changed several addresses thereafter. Besides writing for newspapers, I worked as a domestic servant too. I did have to adopt a Hindu name, though. I lived on the streets as well, after quitting jobs. I have written extensively about those days in The Statesman in the past and I don't want to repeat myself here.

I could have easily exchanged my name permanently for a Hindu one and begun life anew in Calcutta. But I wondered if the political partition of 1947 meant that I really was severed from the Indian cultural biosphere. Was I an alien, just because the countries were divided? But Tagore was mine too! Then? And my father had lived in Calcutta before Partition. How can this country disown my forefathers?

The police, however, aren't swayed by such arguments. They don't need to listen. The cops can't be avoided forever, several people reminded me. I wrote a poem:

Should I then drift from this rooted mountain
Into the desert fire?
Am I not
A part of this Bengali landscape?
O country,
I wish to gift you my exile,
But can you keep away
From the eternal sentient life
on the shores of this earth?
Can you paint in water colours this emptiness?
Or shatter the silence of a howling sky?

Of course, there is no fax or Internet at the time. If your phone calls get through to Dhaka, you feel like a king. There are no public telephones either. So I wait everyday for letters from home. Waiting can be worse than death-Calcutta drills this realisation in.

No money for a meal. I hang around the numerous restaurants in the Park Street-New Market area. Every whiff from the kitchens excites my stomach. Not enough clothes with me either. I window-shop-looking at spotless shirts and trousers. I say, "No thank you, I won't be buying anything. I just want to look at them…."

I see the shopping malls of Dhaka-memories of the city I have grown up in and left behind come rushing back. The one day I discover that Calcutta is as lonely as I am. Tormented by the loneliness, it waits silently for death. Only a loner can befriend another. Thus begins our love-the love of the friendless. My love for Calcutta becomes so intense that I think I shall never be able to love another city. So intense-for someone in exile-that I soon begin to admit that I have lost my innocence to Calcutta. I declare this love in a poem, which ends with:

Youth, at the far end of a long lifetime,
Wants you in love's soul-hugging embrace
You-my liberation in spring, autumn or the monsoons

The poem is published in an obscure little magazine. Obscure, because a second issue never came out. But amazingly, two young ladies-students of Calcutta University and Jadavpur University-write to me. The editor duly delivers their letters to me. Which bear their addresses, so I write back. Disaster strikes. Both the ladies declare their love.

I fix a date with one of them. We decide to be together in Haldia, near Calcutta, from morning till eight in the evening. We book a hotel room, she pays. When we are in bed, she says, "What? You're circumcised?" Then she says, "Muslims eat a lot of garlic. You must be eating a lot too. So don't kiss me…."

"Okay no kisses," I say, adding, "Let's go for a walk on the river bank."
"Why?"
"I don't have a condom…"
"Don't need one…please?"
"So you're in exile, right?" she asks two hours after that "please".
"So how do you mingle in this country?"
"Every exile mixes with the local cultural and social milieu. There's no religion at work here-no concept of the nation and the self either. But the questions arise after you mingle. Like they have for me now. Like they arise for everyone in exile. And these questions compel exiles to hunt for their country, their social-cultural moorings, their identity. Actually, these very questions never let them forget that they are in exile, in asylum. Despite the shelter allowed, you are still an alien, you do not belong."
"But do you really not belong to this country?"
"Of course I'm of this socio-cultural biosphere. But my identity is that of an alien, or an exile. I don't belong because of my difference in my appearance, my manner of speaking, my attitude, my social behaviour. And because I'm an alien, I've been desperate lately to portray my own culture."

"Can you do that here, in this foreign land?"
"Certainly. First, through the difference in my physical appearance; then through the differences in my accent and dialect…."
"Then how do you define your existence in this country?"
"I'm a foreigner."
"Aren't they more…global?"
"Not really; not if the hang tags like 'alien', 'exile' on me…."
"Do you sing? What songs do you sing?"
"Who will live in this foreign land…"
"Who's written it?"
"Me!"
"Dhut! You fib so much. Since when have you been writing songs?"
"From the day Tagore did it. All his songs are mine. As they are yours. As they are every Bengali's. He has written on behalf of every Bengali. On behalf of everyone in this world. Tagore is yours, mine… everybody's. Doesn't that justify my claim?"
"So what? You didn't sing it…"
"Every Bengali sings it. Every exile sings it. The Bengalis are always in exile, forever seeking their identity. And whenever a clear picture emerges, they sing out:

Who will live in this foreign land!
Live with this hesitation, misery and grief,
Who will offer shelter in sorrow, fear or crisis
With no one to call one's own in this desolate field…"

Dusk, foggy grey like the wings of the eagle, flies in over the landscape. Strange sky. Strange evening. Strange horizon. Strange environment with stranger people. Their faces stick out. They look tired, exhausted, troubled by deep inner storms. Carrying on with depressed eyes on a journey without destination.
Alone in this universe. Humming under the burden of loneliness:
"O motherland, I lay my head down on thee…"

The collage of emptiness and silences forms itself amidst all the din and chaos. I see my own shadow all over the room. It looks exactly like me. It even moves its lips in a silent song: Who will live in this foreign land…

Print This Page