Tram tales

Amphan (Umphun) Bengali Poem

যেই শহরে মেঘ ডাকলেই
জল গড়িয়ে থৈ
বাড়ি বাড়ি ঘুরে
কাজ করে ফেরে
মেঘ দেখে তার
ভ্রূ-যুগল হানি
মেঘের      ডাক শুনছে কই?
কত যুগ বেয়ে কবির লেখনী
কত না মননে বর্ষার ধ্বনি
জানে না কি সে পেয়েছে জবানী
বাপ্দাদার ওই ছোট গ্রামখানি
ময়নাপাড়ার জয়ি
 
হালে বরষার উম্পুন সাজ
শত সৈনিক মন্দমেজাজ
ক্ষিপ্ত ফণায় গনগনে বিষ
গ্রাম-মাঠ-খেত – নেই রে হদিশ
জলে মেঘে মিশে নিরন্তর
দুর্দশার আজ নেই অবসর
‘চারদিন হলো 'নেট' আসেনি
কাজের বেটিরও দেখা মেলেনি
দুই-তিন বাড়ি কাজ ধরে রয়ে
এমন কামাই না বলে ক'য়ে!
তিনশো কাটবো দুশো টাকা রেখে
আগে     FB-তে সেফ করে দিই নিজেকে’
নিঠুর আধুনিক  বৃষ্টি শহর
ফিটফাট সব
শুধু কাজের মেয়েটি কই?
আবার ব্যস্ত ব্যাকুল পদে 
ফেরেনি ত্রস্ত মেয়ে জয়ি

কোন জেলা ছিল তার ঘরবাড়ি
প্লাবনের জলে গ্রাম সারি সারি
মানুষ কখনও ভাবে কি মনে
মানুষের পাশে থাকি প্রয়োজনে
হয়তো কালো কাজল মেঘ
জ্যৈষ্ঠ মাসে ঈশানকোণে
ঘনালো যখন উম্পুনপ্রায়
কেঁদেছিলো দেখে নিরুপায়
'ধানের খেতে কৃষ্ণকলির
কোন ছা রে মা তুই'
চূড়ান্ত হেলায় জীবনবলির 
কালো হরিণচোখের জয়ি

Lockdown (bengali poem)

হাঁটছে ভারত

কাঁপছে ভারত

এ কোন ভারত?

ওই তো যাদের

পথ হাঁটার বাহুল্যতা

শ্রমের সন্ধ্যাকাশে

অনিশ্চয়তার জোছনা

আবার কোথাও

একচিলতে পর্দা

রেখেছে সযত্ন আড়ালে

যাদের সেকেলে

একান্নবর্তী ইগো

হরেক মাল দশ টাকার

ময়ূর, তাজমহল, মোমদানি

শোকেস-এ জরাজীর্ণ শখ-স্বপ্ন

তুলসীতলায় প্রদীপশিখায়

আধ-মাইনের কালো ছায়া

কারও আবার

ফুঁসে ওঠা আফসোস

অবসর নেওয়া

এক রত্তি ফ্ল্যাট

আজীবনের EMI পেরোতেই

সুদকমানো সংসারখরচ

রান্নাঘরে মুখ লুকানো

বিবাহযোগ্যা তরুণ অনুভূতি

টেস্ট পেপারে রাতভর চোখ

আগামীর কর্পোরেট দিনমজুর

কারও দোকানটা আবার

ঘুরে দাঁড়ালে

শিশুর সুনির্দিষ্ট LIC

পাওনাদারের ছ্যাঁকা

আগাম দাঁড়িয়ে লম্বা লাইনে

লকডাউনে ভয় দেখায়

দুর্ভাবনার লক-আপ

অন্ধকারে একা
খাদ্যরহিত, স্বপ্নস্খলিত,
দায়বদ্ধ ভারতের 
এমনি বিচিত্র অভিশাপ

এবার এক অন্য ভারত

সাতসকালে ডোর ডেলিভারি

হোম থিয়েটারে

করোনাশঙ্কা সংখ্যাতীত

ব্রেকফাস্ট টেবিল থেকে

'আহা'  'বেচারা'

বাহারি সান্ত্বনা

'এতদিন বেশ ছিল

এখনই আকাল'

আবার ক্যামেরার ভিড়ে

ওস্তাদির কোরাস

‘ওদের চাল নেই 

চুলো নেই

সাতহাজার পাঁচশো 

দিয়ে দিলেই পারতো’

হেডলাইন্স জমানোর

গায়ে পড়া কৌতুক

কাগজের ভিড় ঠেলে

শুঁটকি মাছের নোনা গন্ধ

টাকা ছাপাও, টাকা বিলাও

নিজ নিজ গুনবে কড়ি

এবার কিছু প্রশ্ন করি?

ওরা ভিখারি নাকি?

অপদস্ত ভারত

পথে আর প্রান্তরে

অবনত মস্তকে

শতকের পর শতক

কত বর্ষা, কত শীত

সংসার টেনে চলে

আধপেটা, নির্ভীক

আর দুর্যোগ ঘনালেই

ঘরবাড়ি খোয়ালেই

ত্রাণের নাটক

সাথে সেলিব্রিটি কাওয়ালি

সিনেমায় দেখালে

বিদেশী বাহবা

ফের চুপচাপ নিখোঁজে

কে মরেছে, কে বেঁচে

যতদিনে ফের আমন্ত্রণ

অভাবনীয় মারক
কোনো উপপ্লব

ওই অপদস্ত ভারত

যদি স্বনির্ভর হয়

যদি কেটে যায় সংশয়

তবে এলিট-এর
কপালে ভাঁজ

খতম ভোগের রাজ

সেদিন থেকেই

চিরবিদায়

'আমার চিহ্নে

ভোট দিয়ে যেও

কেউ মরবে না 
আর ক্ষুধায়'

বহু জনপথ

পার হওয়া বাকি

তবু ভোর হবে 

তবু এক হাঁড়ি অন্নের 

নিশ্চিন্ত স্বপ্ন

দুর্নিবার ধেয়ে চলে,

বহু বহু যোজন পার হয়ে

অপরিমেয় যোজন পর

ভারত তোমাকে হতেই হবে

আত্মনির্ভর

সেই পথেই বিলীন

অতীত তোমার

আর ভবিষ্যতের যত

নবলব্ধ কণ্ঠস্বর

November abstract

What we leave behind?

Definitely not a Derrick Jensen book review, but I want to write about an ecology that we continuously build or destroy, and then hand over to the future, that which doesn’t require any intervention from the courtroom or a police trial or even a pie of extraordinary interlock from the administration. The ecology that we can review daily and recompense without any delay is the variance of how aspirational can be anything ordinary to us and how ludicrous supremacy can sound. This ecology is the same system where we fight over how brilliant we are at workplaces, how easily we afford the apples and wine, how we cherish the coveted social supremacism.

Many of my cousins, school and college friends are parents now, meaning our generation have completed a half circle to this human life. This whole fragment is composed of a struggle towards upward mobility and detestation towards ordinariness. A rank or distinction in the academics, some easily acquiring extracurricular, a pressurised admission to occupation and then, fight the way forward to protect and amass – nothing to offer up, nothing to stake out. And when these kids will climb the same ladder, we will share the sum from such store of experiences.

Today’s toddlers will perhaps also learn to rush on the same roadways in the morning to reach the boardroom or to unpack a stall for selling tea, contribute in the game between desi and suave, compete in the marathon between English speaking Indians who can be immediately lobbied into inside the supremacist cabals and ignore the ones who cannot, exaggerate or assault tradition and customs so that the particular adoption can accommodate them respectively into a pro-country mainstream or immediately lift them into the oracles of elite and then, will desire to live in the same country alongside the first mandate of earning wealth and an immoderate ignorance towards poverty till Mars or the moon is ready. In the mid-19th century, Karl Marx termed the same social trait as a peculiar coexistence in India.

My rival leftist friends will wrap me in a hug for this and the entrepreneurs will sign off. But it actually, as I always say is the other way round. When leftism in India have growingly become a moniker for the affording class who moves further upward to secure a socio-economically secured precinct and discharge fire against conditions of poverty, minority and discrimination, their messages have progressively failed to touch the lowest social levels. This is primarily due to rapid change in economic ambitions which they did not follow for ages now. Yes – as for many in the struggling class, upward mobility that is ‘esteem need’ according to Maslow can be skipped or bypassed in order to reach the ‘self-actualization need’ if the physiological and the least of basic needs are fulfilled. They are happy about whatever they have acquired and will not agree to lose anything for the sake of uprooting a social dictum. Entrepreneurs on the other hand should not worry as although a social gap is existent, the differences in aspirations will shrink more as ‘self-actualization’ reaches its brink at every income level. You can produce the same premium toothpaste and pack it in a jumbo file for high end buyers and a sachet for low end buyers. The same mobile network can offer both annual post-paid packages and chota recharge.

Now if we look at this ecology that we deal in everyday, can we find a Hindu Muslim upheaval? Or is anywhere rich versus poor ascending? I would say it’s a no. We are into a very different social complication which political analysts and social researchers cannot point out well, leave alone media. And this is because leftism offers more academically theoretical models than folk culture or ethnicity even when the former is not universally applicable. And the latter is classic, transcending generations. I will reserve a few points for future but for now, it’s clear that we are becoming competitively aggressive without responsibility and not certainly, aggressively competitive. In simple words, we do not play a soccer match as we love to play, display our passion; win hearts by such passion, then relearn through experiences and grow. We play it just to win an honor. On the other hand, when this aggression requires social moderation and trimming, wisdom of the learned and the veterans, social brainstorming etc., the leftists cry uninterrupted about some hidden capitalism. This is now a century-old dead habit and cannot offer any solution.

We have heard from the earlier generations that in spite of the socio-political roller-coaster that followed after the independence, people wanted to relax with the thought that the country is going into the hands of our own people. The ministers, the bureaucrats, the jury and the police, the doctors and the army, the peasants and the bankers are our own people. But a slip-up was reserved for the future. Article 18 of the Indian Constitution provides immunity of “Rights against title” condemning every possibility to earn artificial distinctions but we have always yearned for coveted recognition. Something that sets us apart, something that stands out. This ever-growing hunger of supremacism, this reducing coup of selectivity and exclusiveness rebuilt us into what we precisely are today. We forgot that this independence had brought incredible responsibility to every one of us and if this independence is only utilized for personal expansion, the country will be brought down to the same place in no time from where we had started.

So what do we leave behind? Rants for equality? Voice of dissent? Intellectual discharge of sympathy from comfort suites? Pan sepia of destitute children displayed in art galleries? Revolutions and criticisms? Class vitriol?

When these kids will grow up and would grow interest in society, economy and politics, what will I tell them if they ask how have I contributed towards this close ecology in society that does not require warranty of political or administrative interventions? Will they hold us responsible for blowing up our traditions, culture and environment? Will they believe that when some of you have not missed an opportunity to tag me a Bhakt, many Muslim friends and colleagues have unfailingly inquired about how I had spent recent festive holidays? How well will they understand if I explain them with facts and data that the Ayodhya verdict is no less a slap to the left liberal infection and has no qualms to offer around the Hindu Muslim thing of the past? Will they too pick the honour and humility from the blood-stained win of independence? Will they understand the soul inside “our own people, our own country”? Will they accept if we say that the chronicles of kings and demons or lessons from a rocking spider introduced us to life’s wisdom? Or a conversation between God-turned-charioteer and the forsaken-child-turned-warrior can teach the entire sub-continental personality about “crisis cannot be a license to lose integrity”? Will they forgive us when they would know the humanities departments in many varsities lampoon our own traditions? Will they rely if we say the appeal of surrender in ‘par saamne jab tum aate ho kuch v kehne se darta hai…’ pegs way stronger than randomly getting laid? Are we preparing them well? Are we well prepared to take the questions?

The nature of nature

(Hyderabad/Cyberabad tragic incident - around 1st week of Dec 2019)

I was watching a full army of creepy ants for a few days. It was raining heavily and the severe water-logging pronounced a threat to their colonies, their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters. Undoubtedly, the ignorance of civilized humans has brought this substantial disaster to them. The fire ants seemed seething with anger, clumping together in fury between the trains. The sugar ants were the quieter ones, marching down with a heavy heart. The two columns seemed very different in their approach to injustice yet much concerned. They had no solution for days, and neither a plan.

Today, the bright sunlight had appeared after days and quite prematurely. The cracks on the neck of the woods and the voids in the building walls have dried within hours. A few were upset – they were thinking of reclaiming their colonies in a procedural way. The remaining majority broke all trains of differences to get off on the enthusiasm towards life’s continuity. They perhaps, accepted that restorative justice served on time is way better than the uncertainty of retaliatory justice.

The world sometimes turns to FAIZ

Which is the one word that describes 'a passage in life so deeply reassuring and seems worth a thousand contemplation'?

Ans: Faiz

Last two days choked me inside out. His poetry are as immensely enduring and intransient as the incontestability of one's most relieving refuge. It is where the soul rests between the battles, also collectively called 'life'.

Activities that reduce such an Enigma to the levels of political gain or travesty cannot be appreciated.

Not much ago, I had recorded a moment exploring Faiz...

These are the moments when you get off from the rocking boat of usual hoff hoff, where you release yourself in your soul's company, and where finally an easy hope airlifts you from the state of low spirits.

This is Faiz.

You will give up judging once you 'read through' his poetry. It's a world of 'wisdom at odds'. Here your random thoughts will take wraps off its own depth and surprise you with its veritas.

And once you are addicted to Faiz, you can claim a certain extra-ordinariness. You will not require a human company anymore. Nor will you feel provoked by external resources, better or worse. Many worlds replete with beauty and solace hitherto shrouded by your inner desires will come out bare from inside you.

दिल न उम्मीद तो नही न काम ही तो है

लम्बी है गम की शाम मगर शाम ही तो है

Will the PM speak?

(Around Jan 6-8)

Will the PM speak?

I don't want the PM to be conscience-stricken for somebody else's oversight.

What an ex-PM conceived as India's answer to a British campus had soon become blind in staunch, spine cracking communist ideologies where even the basic rights of making an unprejudiced choice in political ideology fell through the stentorian "long live revolution".

Right from admissions to the daily contributions in protests & movements that finally end into a settlement from the own political ally, a boyish appropriation of win-win and a debut in next protest seems to frame the annual calendar of young communists who are anything but realpolitik, and who often embargoes the administration of one of the world's largest democracy from a varsity campus! So much of atrocity demonstrated since the 80s that her son and a politician too had expressed disgust and an unwillingness to stand such odium.

While communists endorsed & onlookers enjoyed, this obdurate and talk-big excellence associated with reactionary knee jerk leftism were carefully stowed away in the form of direct staff recruits or through the by-lines of the communist party in many other campuses.

What they want?

CAA NRC is the token counter to pitch for a pro communist government by violently revolutionizing from the existing system.

Means even if they will be unanimously voted into majority through a systematic election, they will still shout slogans in an impassioned way and parrot back about their struggle to the top.

Fundamentally authoritarian, Communism is a precise politics that sent waves of change across the world only to face huge obstructions due to its conceptual lacuna in offering an economic alternative. But if you keenly observe their hegemony (best seen and experienced by the people of WB in India), you will sense a substance much definitively stubborn beneath the hot, dull air of class struggle they brag about. Their primary agenda is laid in completely liquidating the opposition and nailing its coffin, an idea that is wickedly camouflaged inside slogans of class struggle. The can of worms would open up once popular sentiments are rapidly drawn to their favor.

You would say that's the way everyone does it. But the people of WB have experienced the brutal aftermath when communists sustain a government. They will break every limb and clip all wings till you are able to regurgitate 'long live revolution'.

Who are the students?

Students and their teachers, no matter how erudite they are, most certainly do not realize that this theoretical bang rang from the chapters of communist history have a malevolent impact on the modern society, economy, trade conditions and stock investments. More importantly, political administration linked internationally is very different from the domestic socio-political values. And any nation is vulnerable to the socio political developments that are sudden and awkward in the neighborhood and that the efficiency of the government is counted on the basis of the responsiveness to such changing scenarios. Such responses might not sync with a particular political ideology but there's always a room for objection, conflict of ideas and reformations for future.

Students if initiate painstaking applications of their thoughts and knowledge should realize that a scientific approach to conflict resolution is more welcoming than violently hitting public space or being obliged by the same. These varsities are probably not created with an idea to corroborate arson or damage but rather an ideology where students can design and offer more competent models of an effective polity. They can come up with brilliant research for future instead of letting all hell broke loose in the present.

Role of media

Media is of paramount importance when two unrelenting ideas confront each other. There cannot be a more efficient agent of conflict mediation than the national media. The current role played by a few Bengali media, online and journalists' public accounts cannot be appreciated. The stimuli produced by the reportage are compounding in nature and certainly not mediating.

Can PM still speak?

I would not want it. The scenario has been engineered to bring about a mob rule. It is clearly evident that the belligerent mass unrest from the communist scrap books has been launched. There are also a few agents who are purportedly jazzing up public opinion so that the supreme administration could be made eyeball to eyeball into the game. It is reasonably unfortunate in a country where the legal systems are well nourished to take care of every affair.

Accusations to hell-bent

You may have a grudge. You may exercise freedom to express it. You can fight it politically. You cannot suppress or underwrite suppression. You cannot resort to disruptions by puncturing equity. You cannot launch evil schemes to lure away public sentiments - "sufferers are the agent provocateurs." What you cannot or generally will not do in a civilized society is upheld as supremely sacrosanct in the communist charters.

You may not like Modi. You cannot run into people who do not know about your Hogwarts and tell them that your bruises have come directly from his wand. There is almost no difference between a charge and an assault; almost none till you have cultivated yourself adequately.

Student & politics

First you have to agree that you cannot press on with forehead kisses to a political tradition forever. Politics will have to flow along the changing terrains of economy and the national revenue management.

I have not seen the era when student politics was a pre requisite. But I have studied in a Calcutta college where violent political scuffles were as frequent as the class bunks during our times, making headlines too often, and at a time when the 32-years long left government was getting loudly deflated by its much promised socio-economic alternatives remaining undelivered forever. Not only it created antipathy due to the evil activities of the student politicians, I also unimaginably tap-danced with a few others to the tunes of precariousness as administration was overpowered by politics.

Political affiliations are much undesired inside the campuses. There's rather a strong requirement to enhance employability by the academia and explore new economic scopes that can benefit all stakeholders of the polity.

Also as India ranks 74th in the global Fragile States index in the category of "elevated warning" ranging between 61 to 95, only China and Russia are the other two countries that fall in the same range and along with a log of bloodshed in the history of student activism. Again, you can understand which particular political ideology is making us live with such afflictions. Also if India grows up along the ranks, there's only Malaysia with another incredible history of student activism in the next improved category "warning" ranging between 96 and 119. Further moving up from category "stable" to "very sustainable", the oppositions have been able to assimilate with the ruling parties to bring an all-inclusive evolutionary reformation.

Another aspect of student activism is to improve political communications by initiating political favors throughout socio economic mobility. Such propagandists think people will worship them forever due to favors or comradeship, least till the campus life. What sort of a model do you think it is, when every institution in enacted by law and an administration is running the expenses? What is the role of management and authorities in student welfare?

Actually this non-management mandate, control and access through political unions are an extremely effective tool to ensure a buoyant vote percentage and levitate its leftist relevance in the society.

Not the least, I had read many newspaper interviews of eminent communist leaders who had gleefully confessed every time about "being beaten up by the police". I have grown up hearing the same lines from many local politicians too. Their expressions had always carried a deep sense of achievement whenever they said "the lathi had hit me right here" while indicating the area on their bodies and with glaring eyes. The students who joined politics or will join it in some time are expected to have a clear understanding that their leftist ideologies and quantum of actions would not drop them at the Chesil beach, and that such over joyous confrontation with the police is the next big thing according to what their predecessors say, that would shape them as a proletariat. Then why is that a problem now? Actually everything is a part of that supreme apparition by which they cunningly convince people about their image as agents of change.

How to resolve ideological conflicts?

I don't think this section will have any relevance now as few common citizens have been ousted from the path of decency, lured by the skillful craftiness of the leftists. But I'm compiling this only for the sake of the write up.

Noted peace researcher Peter Wallensteen in a book "Understanding conflict resolution" had run chapters on conflict resolution between geopolitik and realpolitik, and have said peace resolution is an experience that confronting parties would have to embark upon (by themselves), and draw agreements that is "durable, can free new generations from bitter experiences, and allowing aspirations to develop without systematic or deliberate violence."

The game theory relevant to conflict resolution also talks about all players being individually rational and each would have to assume that everyone else is rational too, in order to choose strategies.

The Japanese tradition clearly demarcates "tatemae" which is one's public face with actions and opinions appropriating to the position and job roles with that of "hon-ne" which is one's personal opinion. Your personal feelings are very different from your public role.

Srimadbhagvatgita says spiritual intelligence is supreme in conflict resolution, as wisdom (Krishna) drives the thoughts (drive strap) that fuel the desires (horses) and finally end into an act (Arjun). Wisdom is an all-alert mind. When alertness falls short, actions spur conflicts inside the mind and with the society.

Will conflicts resolve?

Apparently not. The fundamentals of left ideology is to discard all philosophy and rationality that for so long had been central to human emotions and societies, especially in India where the elements from cultural philosophies have turned into proud heritage.

The chief objective of the communists and their covert supporters is to provoke and mobilize mob. They do this quite smartly - continually admonishing traditions and heritage, customs and values, thus instigating a flawed awe and admiration in popular culture about new beginnings and welfare proposals as the sole aspiration, one that is never achievable. The true color is revealed when they form governments. The first thing to indulge into is vigorously shrouding the sky with "long live revolution." They will repetitively perform the acts that are traditionally not cricket, or unnecessary as a social dictum, till the whole socio cultural value systems would collapse. Marx had commented about this breakdown in India: "it will be painful, but there's a pleasure." And they are doing this across nations. In WB within first 7-10 years, they had institutionalized leftist manifestations inside superlunary wraps of social work. All alternative thoughts, even apolitical had to die naturally. Right now, their aim is to destabilize the systematic legality, economy and polity by infusing hatred and incendiarism in every capacity. This will result in loss of control by the supreme administration. And the loss of control brings repetitive failure in administrative commands.

This also explains another unfettered prompt to man oeuvre a scenario of defeat among the Muslims of the country. What have they done to enrich the lives of the particular community is known to all of us. But they won't show any hesitation to energize the classical fault line of Hindu/Muslim only to broaden the exhibitions of unrest and contrived issues of public rights.

Will PM speak?

Where and how he is relevant in such well programmed acts of moral turpitude?

I am completely convinced that leftists will leave no stone unturned and drag him into the game. I wish he doesn't let it happen. The PM should not speak. The codes of law must act instead.