Culture

It is needless to remind ourselves that Kolkata once famous for its large number of palatial buildings, which earned it the sobriquet: “the City of Palaces”. At present, however, except the Marble Palace, Jorasanko Thakurbari and a handful of other such well-maintained ones, the rest are all gone or are in a pitiable state of disrepair.

I congratulate the Iran Society of Kolkata for stepping into its 75th year — which is no mean achievement. I also compliment the Iran Society for conducting a 3-day International Seminar on the subject: ‘Persian Heritage of Bengal’. It is, indeed, the most appropriate occasion for deliberating on this topic, as Bengal is certainly a major beneficiary from its six centuries of association with Persian language and culture.

It is quite surprising that the claimed cultural capital of India does not have one worthwhile art museum or an international-standard exhibition space for painting, photography and other forms of visual arts. While the Biswa Bangla complex does the city proud, it is not meant for art like, say, the National Gallery of Modern Art is. This art museum is at its grandest in Delhi, but Mumbai and Bengaluru also have scaled-down NGMAs. Calcutta was obviously bypassed for the fourth NGMA, surprisingly without protest.

It is only natural for Kolkata to have some of the finest specimens of colonial architecture. After all, it enjoyed the status of being, for one and half centuries, the capital of the British Empire in India and of the East India Company’s Dominions, prior to that. We may marvel at the Gothic architecture of the High Court and St Paul’s Cathedral as great examples of this class.

Year after year, people in Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai and major cities wonder what exactly is Chhatt Puja when they witness so many lakhs and lakhs of men and women from Bihar out on the streets, heading towards the river or the sea. They see them push cartloads of bananas and other fruits or carry them on their heads, but few outsiders understand anything more. The main festival is just six days after Diwali, which explains why it goes by the colloquial name for the ‘sixth’, chhatt, that is also called Surya-shasthi.

Did you know that on November 2 every year, the dead manage to unite billions of living people all over the world?

Many of us know that it is ‘All Souls’ Day’ and that Christians visit the graves of departed family members. They lay flowers at their tombs and also light candles, which brightens these desolated cemeteries.

It is rather astounding that India is the only country in the world that reserves two special celebrations for siblings to shower their affections on each other. The first being Rakhi or Rakshabandhan while the other is Bhratri Dwitiya which is popularly known as Bhai Dooj in north India.

From Tagore’s beautiful words, ‘Ei BharaterMaha-Manaber Sagar-tirey’(From the shores of the vast ocean of humanity, India) to Nehru’s ‘Unity in Diversity’, we have excellent poetic expressions and vivid descriptions of the wondrous plurality that personifies India. But we need to delve deeper into the process through which this unity was actually achieved amidst wide diversity and Deepavali or Diwali is a good case study of the process.

দুর্গাকে সব বাঙালিই খুব ভালোবাসেন। কিন্তু দুর্গাঠাকুর যে নিজেও মনেপ্রাণে কতখানি বাঙালি, সে বিষয়ে তাঁদের অনেকেই অবহিত নন। চেহারায়, কাজকর্মে এবং লোককাহিনিতে বঙ্গভূমির দুর্গা-মা বাকি দেশের থেকে একেবারে আলাদা। প্রথমত, শরৎকালে ভারতবর্ষের আর কোথাও কখনওই পরিবারের সব্বাইকে নিয়ে তিনি এরকম ঢাকঢোল পিটিয়ে আসেন না। দ্বিতীয়ত, অন্য কোনও প্রদেশে তাঁকে এমন আবেগে ভেসে স্বাগতও জানানো হয় না। এখানে তাঁর এমন কদর যেন তিনি একলা মেনকারই কন্যা নন, সমগ্র জনগোষ্ঠীরই আদরের মেয়েটি। এই হেঁয়ালি বুঝতে হলে, দেবীর দ্বান্দ্বিক চরিত্রের মূল সূত্রটি বোঝা দরকার। জানা দরকার, এক দয়াময়ী জননী কেন নিজের মায়ের কাছে এমন যুদ্ধং দেহি মূর্তিতে এসে দাঁড়ান! কিংবা, মা যখন অসুররাজের সঙ্গে জীবনমরণ যুদ্ধ করছেন, তখন তাঁর প্রাপ্তবয়স্ক ছেলেমেয়েরাই বা কোন আক্কেলে এমন নিরুত্তাপ দৃষ্টিতে অন্য দিকে তাকিয়ে থাকেন!

All Bengalis here love Durga, but only few realise that Bengal’s Durga is uniquely Bengali and her form, agenda and legend are quite different from the rest of India. First of all, Durga never comes anywhere in autumn with her whole family and secondly, she is not greeted in other regions as the loving daughter of a whole people, not just Menaka’s.

I thank this prestigious institution, the National Centre for the Performing Arts of Mumbai for giving me this unique honour of delivering the first Jamshed Bhabha Memorial Lecture. Had it not been for the great visionary, this very ground that houses our auditorium and the extraordinary Centre, would still be many feet under the sea. His perseverance and leadership is best exemplified in the amazing reconstruction of his dream theatre, after it was destroyed by fire. I salute both the Bhabha brothers and the Tata family for their interest and munificence — a remarkable quality that distinguishes the Parsee community of India.

India, as you know, is a multi ethnic, multi lingual, multi religious country which is vast and populous. Of the 1 billion 300 million people in India today, some 170 million are Muslims, which is the second largest Muslim population in any country of the world. Though Muslims are in a minority, they have lived in peace with Hindus and other religions for centuries.

It may be interesting to recall the story of a teacher whose students were puzzled to find him crawling on his knees under the dim light of a lamppost, looking for something. When his students asked him what he was looking for, he said he had lost the keys to his house somewhere. So the students also went down on their knees and palms and started looking for the keys, but after a futile search, they brushed the dust off their hands and clothes and asked the teacher if he had any idea where he may have dropped the bunch.

Right from the Upanishadic period, India has an age - old culture of questioning existing beliefs, texts, systems and public authorities both the religious and the secular or political . We have briefly mentioned Gautam Buddha in this regard. But the hard fact is that this practice had fallen into utter disuse by the late medieval and early modern periods. This is when Rammohun arrived.

On the occasion of Maha Shivratri millions of Shiva devotees keep a fast all day and pray through the night. The festival, which falls on March 4 this year, is one of the holiest days in the Hindu calendar and the most important among the 12 Shivratris celebrated throughout the year. Some say this was the day when Shiva manifested himself in the form of a linga, and the Puranas mention that Shiva wed Parvati on this day. But why do Hindus celebrate this birthday or even the marriage, which was as tempestuous and interesting as most human marriages?

The topic which I have chosen to speak today seeks to bridge, to some extent, the ever-increasing gulf between the social sciences and the physical sciences. As academic disciplines improve their coverage and become more organised, more systematic and reach higher levels of understanding of reality in their own different ways, they become more and more exclusive. They begin to speak in languages that arise out of the requirement of their own disciplines without realising that their lexicon is hardly understood by anyone else who is not a part of their limited domain.

The moment I read in the papers that the South India Club on Hindustan Park was closing down its famous canteen, I rushed for a last breakfast. But alas, when I reached I found it had already shut down. To make up, I went to the old trustworthy Ramakrishna Lunch Home on Lake Road, so close to where I was born and brought up. I gorged on steaming idlis, crisp vadas dipped in sambhar and a wonderful masala dosa. To me, it was not food — but nostalgia. I grew up on Lake Road that was known as Little Madras.

একটা জিনিস খেয়াল করে দেখেছেন? আজকাল কোনও কল সেন্টার থেকে আপনাকে ফোন করে কেউ একটা মোবাইল কানেকশন নেওয়ার জন্য যখন ঝোলাঝুলি করেন, সাধারণত প্রায় পুরো সময়টাই তিনি হিন্দিতে কথা বলেন। যিনি ফোন করেছেন তাঁর উচ্চারণ শুনে আপনি বুঝতে পারবেন যে ছেলেটি বা মেয়েটি বাঙালি, তাঁর হিন্দিতে বাংলা টানটাও বেশ টের পাবেন আপনি, কিন্তু কথাবার্তা হিন্দিতেই চলবে। সুইগি বা মিন্ট্রাকে ফোন করার সময়, ব্যাঙ্কে বা বড় বড় মল-এ, অ্যাপ ক্যাব-এর চালকদের সঙ্গে, বস্তুত প্রায় সর্বদা এবং সর্বত্রই আমরা আজকাল হিন্দিতে কথা বলি। হিন্দি বলায় চোস্ত হয়ে উঠতে না পারলে আজকাল খুব মুশকিল।

প্রসঙ্গত, শবরীমালা বা শবরীমালাই হল পাহাড়ের নাম, দেবতার নয়। দেবতা হলেন শাস্তা আয়াপ্পন। নামের দু’টি অংশই তাৎপর্যপূর্ণ। ধর্ম-শাস্তা হল মালয়ালিতে বুদ্ধের একটি নাম— এই ধারণা বহুলপ্রচলিত যে, এখানে আদি দেবতা ছিলেন বৌদ্ধ। এখনও তীর্থযাত্রীরা সারা পথ ‘শরণম্’ বলতে বলতে যান। অন্য নামটি (আয়াপ্পন) এসেছে সুপ্রাচীন দ্রাবিড় ঈশ্বর ‘আই’ থেকে।

During Durga Puja, the indomitable spirit and irrepressible energies of Bengalis literally burst forth, holding normal life to ransom. The spirit of festivity surrounds us as hundreds and thousands of gaily-decorated pandals – those magnificent creations made of bamboo, cloth, plywood and imagination – come up everywhere. They house the mammoth but exquisitely sculpted figures of Durga and her family, and the whole neighbourhood is transformed into a wonderland of lights, animation and music that the organisers conjure.