Bandh Blues

Ever since I returned to Bandhland, otherwise known as Bengal, my mind has turned sluggish. I am possibly back on the same wavelength as my birthplace. No buses, no trams, no cabs, no rickshaws, no nothing. I am doing little other than lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling and ruminating over Cheeniya’s tryst with lizards! Particularly about the lizards he spoke of that disguised themselves as my wife’s toothbrushes with the sole intention of breaking my marriage. His pets. He washes and feeds them first thing every morning.

Cheeniya you devil! Why do you want to finish off the last semblance of happiness that remains in my useless life? Worse, things have been looking particularly grim after Kamla made me chase my wife in Puri and catch her while I could! She has turned so suspicious about the state of my mind that she has stopped eating her meals on the same dining table with me. Keeps a safe distance you know. Instead of serving the food, she throws them at me.

Taken by surprise, I asked her why she was trying to murder me with dining plates.

“Trying to find out if you are able to catch them while you can?”


“Why should I try to catch dishes?”

“You said your friend Kamla asked you to catch while you can?” She ended up throwing a boiled potato and a plateful of salad to try out my catching skills. Unfortunately there was no Ricky Ponting around to help me out.

“Am I dreaming,” I asked myself.

“Dreams are elusive,” whispered Kamla’s haiku.

“Oh no,” screamed I in disbelief. “This is really happening …” As in Rosemary's Baby a la Roman Polanski.

“Listen, we will have a rule here in this household now onwards. Till death do us part. Whatever you do, you have to locate yourself at least 15 feet away from me.”

With this announcement, she proceeded to the farthest corner of the room to eat her dinner. Actually, she kept an umbrella handy, just in case I forgot the rule.

Quite apart from Cheeniya's lizards and Kamla's haiku, I was contemplating about these recent events too as I lay down on the bed and studied the ceiling. “Oh God, “ I lamented, “why did you create women with the sole purpose of not loving me?”

And that's precisely when I remembered this serialized poem I have been writing in company with my friends Amal Sanyal, Argha Bagchi. It's all about things going wrong in the love life of a boy and a girl. I wrote a kirtan for this serial too in a moment of inspiration. The boy, being rejected repeatedly by the girl, goes to Howrah Station to throw himself under a running train. But, to his utter disappointment, he discovers that no trains were running. There was a 24 hour bandh call.

Ah! The power of bandhs! Even suicide is taboo! He comes back dejected to Howrah Bridge and looks down at the river. Should I jump? Can I jump? And the kirtan comes out quite naturally.

I was so excited about my kirtan (it being the only time in my life that I set my rhymes to tune) that I simply fell at my music teacher’s feet and made her sing it for me. I used to be excited those days, since Cheeniya and Kamla had not arrived yet in my stupid cyber-life. Unfortunately my kirtan, like any other kirtan, was written in Bengali.

The kind of Bengali I used defies translation. Nonetheless, I am appending a bad attempt at the job. It does not even sound English! I follow it up with the actual rendering of the song and a drawing by Amal Sanyal.

Unfortunately, the mp3 recording of the song is around 3.3 MB. So, I had to mercilessly cut it short for this post. The IL ceiling is 1 MB. But I have sent an email attaching the full song to those of you with whom I have been in touch over email.

Here goes.

The Kirtan
Oh my darling, dear, dear ...!
How long shall me-ee …
Survive without thee?
Death I approach in fourth gear.

I badly seek to go to heaven
I'll throw myself under a train
Here at this very station ...

But ...

How do I go?
Oh my darling, tell me dear
How do I go?

On this bandh day, e'en if I try
Not a single loco's likely to ply.

Even reaching Burdwan -- alas
Will be a task horrendous
To heaven leave alone to fly ...

Oh my darling, dear, dear ...!

Where do I go, how do I go?
Bliss without you, I sha'nt find, don't I know, don't I know?

Doomed and ill-fated
This life I'll throw away.
Throw away, throw away, throw, throw, throw away ...

I'll climb atop the Howrah Bridge
To catch Lord Yama's feet and pray ...

Ripples below the river
Courage if I find ever
Jump into it who knows I well may ...

Oh my darling, dear, dear ...!

The badly truncated song: View attachment n3.mp3
The full song can be downloaded from here for the next 7 days. ​

Contemplating suicide on Howrah Bridge​

[Acknowledgements: Song -- Ratna Das, Tabla -- Arun Datta, Drawing -- Amal Sanyal]​

 

Dear Pashenka:

I think zindabad means revolution. So, when you say bandh zindabad, you are probably equating bandhs to revolutions. May be you are right.

oj

 

Dear Sriniketan:

This is the trouble with translations. This is supposed to be funny. I mean it's supposed to make people laugh. It's not a serious love song!!

oj