On Bengal
I read this entry in Shikha's blog and I wanted to write a comment, but it just got too long, so I thought I'd post it.
You are wally. But then so are most Bengalis I know. Including myself. Till very recently, I too was filled with a very strong sense of Bengali pride, partly because I was perhaps a little parochial and partly because I had never actually lived in the Bengali hinterland. Most people in my family and their (Bengali) friends are quite brilliant. And these were the people I'd always meet In Calcutta. There were some singularly peculiar Bengalsi in school, but I always considered them the exceptions. I thought they were bongs who (like me) had had the disadvantage of growing up outside Bengal and that too in Delhi, which made them a sort of undesirable mixed breed with several glaring disadvantages. Coupled with that was the fact that I was fed Bengali culture by the dollops by parents who feared that their child would grow up completely oblivious to the beauty of the mother-state. I devoured dollop-fulls of the rich Bengali literature and learnt to understand, appreciate and acknowledge the importance of the Bengal Art movement in India. And of course, there was Bengali film. I spent hours watching films made by Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, Bimal Roy, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Aparna Sen and Buddhadeb Dasgupta. Of course because of this I grew up with an utter lack knowledge of other Indian cultures. But then I went to college and my god, did my perspective change! In college I saw the other side of Bengalis.
Two boys from Calcutta became very close friends of mine, and the thing to be noted here is that they are not Bengalis. For the first tme, I got a so-called "outsider's" perspective. I also saw the Bengalis in college (and there is a huge, I mean HUGE number of Bengalis in my college). The weird creatures have groups consisting exclusively of Bengalis and try to act aloof. They either consider themselves better than everyone else or can't be bothered to reach ou to other people. I don't know. But they always stick together, passing comments about others in Bengali and cracking up. They are infuriatingly smug, and what gets my goat is, they aren't even smart. I could understand a bunch of geniuses sticking together and laughing at the other frail-brained morons around them (though I would denounce it, I would understand it). But these guys are no brainiacs. They are stupid. They are average. They are mediocrities.
My non-Bengali friends from Calcutta tell me that Bengalis are just as bitchy as everyone else. My friend's neighbour used to say things to his mom which would infuriate anyone. "Why is your son playing all day? You should tell him to study. He's wasting his life. Look at my son. He wants to get into Jadavpur so he's studying 20 hours a day. What will become of your son, boudi? Has he thought of his future? I'm certain my son will get into Jadavpur, but your son is too careless about his life and responsibilities." What the fuck? Who made his life your business anyway?
Another problem with Bengalis is that as a people they lack ambition severely. I know it's best to be happy with what you've got, but you should also try to better your condition. Calcutta is famous for lack of work ethic. Call a bandh and everyone is only too happy to oblige you. In Delhi or Bombay people will go to work, risking life and limb. Calcutta will shut down because Mamta Banerjee has measles.
But then, Calcutta is beautiful. Before the World Cup, hundreds of Calcuttans conducted a Maha-Mrityunjaya puja. On Mohun Bagan - East Bengal derby matchdays, the city shuts down. A child representing Mohun Bagan carries prawn and another representing East Bengal carries hilsa, and the two are exchanged. It is a city of wonderfully eccentric people. It is also a city of one of the most socio-politically concious people in the country. Get off at the Howrah station during election time and you'll find coolies wearing arm-bands of different colours. Green means he supports Trinamool-Congress, Red means he supports the Communist party and (a rare) Orange means he supports BJP. The city walls are filled with graffiti - witty comments, satyrical poems, political cartoons. Go into unknown gullies and corridors and you'll find small shacks selling books of all kinds and of unbelievable variety. I once bought a copy of A Tale of Two Cities published in 1936, a biography of Napolean published in 1897, History of Poland published in 1918 (for my granduncle) and Man of Nazareth by Anthony Burgess published in 1979 in a small by-lane in Ballygunge Phadi. Leave us not even talk about the music. My dad and I found Blues for Allah, Blind Faith, American Beauty, Workingman's Dead, Infrared Roses, Infidels, Empire Burlesque and a host of other tapes and LPs while on our various Calcutta-scouring trips. There are of course loads of local bands who are briliiant, in the Bangla-rock and other genres. The new movement after Adhunik is Jibanmukhi.
But, coming back to the point, I realised that what I had seen earlier was, putting it mildly, the best of Bengal. There is of course the not-so-good, the bad and the unpalatably disgusting that Bengal also offers. There is (especially now) a large number of movies ranging from the mediocre to the horrid with heros in bright pink/orange/flourescent track suits and heroines in bright pink/orange/flourescent frilly dresses/frocks flailing their limbs around in utterly incomprehensible and embarassing 'dance steps' and running around trees singing "Tomar mukhta ki sundor, ami bolboi bolbo" in Kumar Sanu's incredibly annoying, nasal voice. There is poor Bengali literature too and unlistenable Bengali music. Therefore, the conclusion is that Bengal is no different from any other place in India.
It is we who are incredibly attached to Bengal, who can see nothing but its greatness, who can think of Bengalis only as a bunch of suave, sophisticated, educated, erudite men in black chinese-collared jackets, immaculate dhotis and leather sandals, with a monocled eye, stick in hand, looking like smart British-Indian hybrids, discussing the philosophical destiny of the nation over a cup of cha and bishkut, who delude ourselves. The rest of the world doesn't buy it. Which has a lot to do with the fact that they don't get a lot of stuff that we do. Just the other day someone was telling dad that she couldn't understand why Tagore was so hyped. His writing isn't that great and he was uneducated. Well, they don't get it because it's translated.
Pride is still there, of course. The other day, in an interview Shashi Kapoor said that films like those made by Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen aren't made any more. Martin Scorcese said that the scene in Pather Panchali in which the children run after the train, was what inspired him to start making movies. Peter Sellers wrote a poem about the scene. I still close my eyes, raise my head, smile and nod knowingly and proudly when I hear facts such as first Asian Nobel-prize winner - Bengali, only Indian to have won an Oscar - Bengali, first and only Asian to have won the Nobel for economics - Bengali, only Asian to have an elementary particle named after him - Bengali, two of the greatest Sitar maestros of India (one being the teacher of George Harrison) - Bengali, some of the greatest leaders of the freedom movement - Bengali, arguably one of the greatest Indian batsmen and captains of all time - Bengali, the only writer to have written the national anthems of two different countries - Bengali, the writer of our national song - Bengali, some of the greatest social reformers, legislators and activists for women's rights and education - Bengali, first Indian to win the Pulitzer Prize - Bengali, the most successful football teams of this country - Bengali and I could go on and on and on.
So yeah, we do have a lot to be proud of. But we need to come down to earth and realise that so do a lot of other people belonging to other cultures. At least I had to come down to earth. And we mustn't let mediocrity or stupidity in Bengalis disappoint us. Simply because, we have a lot to be proud of.
You are wally. But then so are most Bengalis I know. Including myself. Till very recently, I too was filled with a very strong sense of Bengali pride, partly because I was perhaps a little parochial and partly because I had never actually lived in the Bengali hinterland. Most people in my family and their (Bengali) friends are quite brilliant. And these were the people I'd always meet In Calcutta. There were some singularly peculiar Bengalsi in school, but I always considered them the exceptions. I thought they were bongs who (like me) had had the disadvantage of growing up outside Bengal and that too in Delhi, which made them a sort of undesirable mixed breed with several glaring disadvantages. Coupled with that was the fact that I was fed Bengali culture by the dollops by parents who feared that their child would grow up completely oblivious to the beauty of the mother-state. I devoured dollop-fulls of the rich Bengali literature and learnt to understand, appreciate and acknowledge the importance of the Bengal Art movement in India. And of course, there was Bengali film. I spent hours watching films made by Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, Bimal Roy, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Aparna Sen and Buddhadeb Dasgupta. Of course because of this I grew up with an utter lack knowledge of other Indian cultures. But then I went to college and my god, did my perspective change! In college I saw the other side of Bengalis.
Two boys from Calcutta became very close friends of mine, and the thing to be noted here is that they are not Bengalis. For the first tme, I got a so-called "outsider's" perspective. I also saw the Bengalis in college (and there is a huge, I mean HUGE number of Bengalis in my college). The weird creatures have groups consisting exclusively of Bengalis and try to act aloof. They either consider themselves better than everyone else or can't be bothered to reach ou to other people. I don't know. But they always stick together, passing comments about others in Bengali and cracking up. They are infuriatingly smug, and what gets my goat is, they aren't even smart. I could understand a bunch of geniuses sticking together and laughing at the other frail-brained morons around them (though I would denounce it, I would understand it). But these guys are no brainiacs. They are stupid. They are average. They are mediocrities.
My non-Bengali friends from Calcutta tell me that Bengalis are just as bitchy as everyone else. My friend's neighbour used to say things to his mom which would infuriate anyone. "Why is your son playing all day? You should tell him to study. He's wasting his life. Look at my son. He wants to get into Jadavpur so he's studying 20 hours a day. What will become of your son, boudi? Has he thought of his future? I'm certain my son will get into Jadavpur, but your son is too careless about his life and responsibilities." What the fuck? Who made his life your business anyway?
Another problem with Bengalis is that as a people they lack ambition severely. I know it's best to be happy with what you've got, but you should also try to better your condition. Calcutta is famous for lack of work ethic. Call a bandh and everyone is only too happy to oblige you. In Delhi or Bombay people will go to work, risking life and limb. Calcutta will shut down because Mamta Banerjee has measles.
But then, Calcutta is beautiful. Before the World Cup, hundreds of Calcuttans conducted a Maha-Mrityunjaya puja. On Mohun Bagan - East Bengal derby matchdays, the city shuts down. A child representing Mohun Bagan carries prawn and another representing East Bengal carries hilsa, and the two are exchanged. It is a city of wonderfully eccentric people. It is also a city of one of the most socio-politically concious people in the country. Get off at the Howrah station during election time and you'll find coolies wearing arm-bands of different colours. Green means he supports Trinamool-Congress, Red means he supports the Communist party and (a rare) Orange means he supports BJP. The city walls are filled with graffiti - witty comments, satyrical poems, political cartoons. Go into unknown gullies and corridors and you'll find small shacks selling books of all kinds and of unbelievable variety. I once bought a copy of A Tale of Two Cities published in 1936, a biography of Napolean published in 1897, History of Poland published in 1918 (for my granduncle) and Man of Nazareth by Anthony Burgess published in 1979 in a small by-lane in Ballygunge Phadi. Leave us not even talk about the music. My dad and I found Blues for Allah, Blind Faith, American Beauty, Workingman's Dead, Infrared Roses, Infidels, Empire Burlesque and a host of other tapes and LPs while on our various Calcutta-scouring trips. There are of course loads of local bands who are briliiant, in the Bangla-rock and other genres. The new movement after Adhunik is Jibanmukhi.
But, coming back to the point, I realised that what I had seen earlier was, putting it mildly, the best of Bengal. There is of course the not-so-good, the bad and the unpalatably disgusting that Bengal also offers. There is (especially now) a large number of movies ranging from the mediocre to the horrid with heros in bright pink/orange/flourescent track suits and heroines in bright pink/orange/flourescent frilly dresses/frocks flailing their limbs around in utterly incomprehensible and embarassing 'dance steps' and running around trees singing "Tomar mukhta ki sundor, ami bolboi bolbo" in Kumar Sanu's incredibly annoying, nasal voice. There is poor Bengali literature too and unlistenable Bengali music. Therefore, the conclusion is that Bengal is no different from any other place in India.
It is we who are incredibly attached to Bengal, who can see nothing but its greatness, who can think of Bengalis only as a bunch of suave, sophisticated, educated, erudite men in black chinese-collared jackets, immaculate dhotis and leather sandals, with a monocled eye, stick in hand, looking like smart British-Indian hybrids, discussing the philosophical destiny of the nation over a cup of cha and bishkut, who delude ourselves. The rest of the world doesn't buy it. Which has a lot to do with the fact that they don't get a lot of stuff that we do. Just the other day someone was telling dad that she couldn't understand why Tagore was so hyped. His writing isn't that great and he was uneducated. Well, they don't get it because it's translated.
Pride is still there, of course. The other day, in an interview Shashi Kapoor said that films like those made by Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen aren't made any more. Martin Scorcese said that the scene in Pather Panchali in which the children run after the train, was what inspired him to start making movies. Peter Sellers wrote a poem about the scene. I still close my eyes, raise my head, smile and nod knowingly and proudly when I hear facts such as first Asian Nobel-prize winner - Bengali, only Indian to have won an Oscar - Bengali, first and only Asian to have won the Nobel for economics - Bengali, only Asian to have an elementary particle named after him - Bengali, two of the greatest Sitar maestros of India (one being the teacher of George Harrison) - Bengali, some of the greatest leaders of the freedom movement - Bengali, arguably one of the greatest Indian batsmen and captains of all time - Bengali, the only writer to have written the national anthems of two different countries - Bengali, the writer of our national song - Bengali, some of the greatest social reformers, legislators and activists for women's rights and education - Bengali, first Indian to win the Pulitzer Prize - Bengali, the most successful football teams of this country - Bengali and I could go on and on and on.
So yeah, we do have a lot to be proud of. But we need to come down to earth and realise that so do a lot of other people belonging to other cultures. At least I had to come down to earth. And we mustn't let mediocrity or stupidity in Bengalis disappoint us. Simply because, we have a lot to be proud of.