This is reblogged from the humanitiesunderground blog
here. This post consists of translated excerpts from the contemporary fiction writer and poet Nabarun Bhattacharya's anthology
Aquarium.
Nabarun Bhattacharya is an exciting dissident voice in the world of contemporary Bengali literature. The 2005 film
Herbert (dir: Suman Mukhopadhyay) is based on a novel by him of the same name (recently translated by Arunava Sinha).
Read an interview of Nabarun Bhattacharya
here - “I dream of a democratic socialistic order beyond rigid Marxist theory,”
says Bhattacharya. “There, people will get enough to eat, their health
and lives will be looked after and children educated. Till then, I’ll
protest.”
***
Useful…Useless
Colin Wilson, the philosopher (and author of
The Outsider),
often wondered about asking Samuel Beckett whether life was really and
altogether so meaningless? But Beckett was such a polite and
down-to-earth person that, when they met, Wilson could not ask his
question. However, the thought remained with him. Later, he had the
opportunity to meet Eugene Ionesco. And when Wilson asked him the same
question, it was raining. Ionesco looked outside and, half-jokingly but
with a serious detachment said, “Look, it is raining out there. Does
that have any meaning?” In this cosy, limitless, undivided third world
of soil and wind, goats and humans—everyone knows what rain means.
Though I do not have enough data, perhaps Rhinoceros could also be
placed in that category.
——————————–
A Play for Thought
Recently a play was enacted by workers and labourers of the Mujnai Tea Estate in the Dooars at Siliguri’s
Srijan Utsav.
A simple plot and subject: death by malnutrition of a little girl in
the tea garden. Such things we see all the time. The props and
performance were also quite ‘crude’ by regular theatrical standards.
What more can one expect from the
kuli-kamins of the garden?
Anyway, the girl dies after a bout of shrill, insistent coughing.
Everyone goes to cremate her. Now this is what is worth narrating. The
play is over. But the labourer women won’t stop crying their hearts out.
Keening and crying go on and on. No break. No respite. Will this
incident make us think? Do we have the competence to think even?
——————————————
He Who Has No Refuge
Somewhere the progressives, with clinical precision, are slitting
open some necks. And then some progressives, as is their wont, are
surely slitting apples and cakes too. There are, of course, quite a
sizable number of progressives whose incredible ability to masticate
with a purpose will shame our most qualified bovine friends. With all
these you have tremendously progressive enterprises and undertakings:
how the Cockatoo’s perch may have evolved from the Mughal period, along
with the photographs of some droopy-eyed Cockatoo on mystifying perches;
a day of intense debate on whether mass urinals, that resembled the
parliament, were to be constructed opposite metro stations; a
post-prandial short seminar on whether globalization means the monopoly
of the US dollar or the rise of the Russian Mafiosi and the Romanian
whores—all these busy activities give us direction for new avenues of
thought. This is the real Pragati Maidan—the one in Dilli is totally
fake. Those who merely gape at nature’s ravages on the Discovery Channel
may be perennially awed by the certainty of such enterprises.
But unfortunately, the mass—
paanch-public, is indifferent to
this brimming arrangement of progress. The new and improved versions of
conscious, rational, scientific, correct, unmistakably almighty
programmes are not making people particularly eager. That the Tata Sumos
and the Opel Astras of the world are naturally loutish we know, but
since when did the dilapidated bicycles, rickshaws, tempos, autos and
number 11 become so immature and irresponsible? Whoever is giving them
such a long rope, eh? Do they not know that such unctuous, ingratiating
behaviour borders on good manners?
Some among the readers would be familiar with that well known
incident at Jadavpur University when during a soiree, the late Sagar Sen
had just begun, “Venom, I have drunk with full knowledge,” when an
elfish student yelled from the back: “Fie on you Sagar! Never such
words.” On that note, let us remind the fatuous ones, “Paanchu, never
such words.”
———————————————–
What news from Seattle and Prague?
That was really funny. The Vietnam War was at its peak. In response
to the call of the US administration, in a secret and important meeting,
a swarm of Nobel-Prize winning scientists got together. Only Linus
Pauling, that saint of peace, was not invited. After going through all
kinds of ‘classified documents’ the Nobel laureates came to the
conclusion that the US military would easily win the Vietnam War. Of
course such a prophecy by these wise busybodies was proven wrong. On the
other hand, who could tell that the so-called red bastion in erstwhile
Soviet Union and other East European nations would give way so easily
like a structure erected upon bogus building materials? But then we have
the Fukuyamas and Fergussons who know for sure that the game is over.
Khel Khatam, Paisa Hajam baba. But are there some minor doubts, here and there? Prague and Seattle, and now Greece?
Who will show the light of day to the asinine wise? We are waiting.
——————————-
Language: A Craftsman’s Wonder
Every year, as the winter is about to decamp, there is a yearly
ritual with the Bangla language. Ritual means repetition. The same
numbers. Similar platitudes. Same knowledgeable mastication. One feels
like eloping with the winter. But what can one do? This is Bengal’s
fate—talking precocious bunkum. But within this relentless flat and
tedious buffoonery, I came across a hitherto unknown poet Arvind
Chaturvedi, who has written this Bangla collection of poetry. The name
itself is delicious: “I Speak Bangla after some Arrack.” (
Ami Bangla Kheye Bangla Boli). I am sure many will welcome Arvind with open arms. The poems are good. With lots of bones. Strong jaws. Not iced
kulfis in the sun.
Recently I have been noticing a pocket-sized virus. A few thousand
Indians trying to mock-show novels in English. Aim: Booker or some such
heavyweight prize. These are nice folks. Merely looking for some quick
fame. That is a normal human tendency. Globalization is helping them
too. If you have to be close to the sahibs, you better be Tom, Dick or
Harry—who does not know that? The sweet
arriviste Bengalis are very much here too. We will call this virus the Rajmohan virus. Nice and sweet, eh?
Fortunately, those who have
mashi-pishis, who sup with
muri-phuloori, use
gamchhas,
suddenly smile at the corners of their lips and lose themselves to
distant drums, are still writing in Bangla. Writing and will keep on
writing. Whether Naipaul’s steamer stops at Aden or Casablanca it does
not matter. It goes back to Dover. So no thread, grey or black, in their
anatomy gets dislodged.
But we also know that there is a scam, a
ghapla, within this
neat division between the sahib-native. Some thrive on this division.
Whole careers and institutions are made. The sahibs will have
‘amplification, digressions and swellings of style’. Natives: ‘primitive
purity and shortness’. Sahibs will dazzle in ‘tropes and figures’.
Natives: ‘unaffected sincerity and sound simplicity’. These we have been
hearing for decades now.
Whenever the wise
maha-pandits have so wished, many
craftsmen of art and literature have simply vanished into thin air, have
they not? But even as they were getting evaporated and obliterated they
kept on saying: “Enough of your drivel. Now fuck off.” Or: “Now is the
time to put a muzzle on your mouth.” In Bangla we call the muzzle—
kuloop.
Has a nice loop to it. That many are invested in making the Bangla
language bloodless, asexual, plastic is a long-standing fact. Our job is
to just make sure that they get the country treatment. First a
tarpaulin. Then an innovative use of bamboo sticks.
I have a feeling that what I have just written has gone a bit awry.
Hardly matters. If there is a reasonable beginning, others will take
over. That is good enough.
—————————————–
Stopwatch
During the Paris Commune, communards came out in droves and began
shooting at the big and large clocks. They declared that those clocks
bore the ruler’s time. We want to establish our time, they said. This we
see in Walter Benjamin’s writings too. All of us know that—time in
future. I have somewhere read this in Herbert Marcuse too. Anyway, as I
kept thinking about the matter, I thought each one of our writings is a
stopwatch. As the reader starts reading, each work starts. And sometimes
the stopwatches do not run. This ethereal stopwatch can sense the
writer’s and the reader’s time. Sometimes in spirals of time too, in a
manner—as the perceptive Bakhtin would have it. There is no use
manufacturing dysfunctional and feckless watches.
Translation by Humanities Underground
