People & Memories

Just a couple of days after the sad death of the one and only Ameen Sayani, I stumbled upon a photo with him, taken by his son at the NCPA, Mumbai. ‘August 2019’ was scrawled on it and I had gone there to deliver the Jamshed Bhaba Memorial Talk on Indian Culture. I was his great admirer and came to know him well from the time I headed All India Radio and Doordarshan, as CEO, Prasar Bharati.

Just a couple of days after the sad death of the one and only Ameen Sayani, I stumbled upon a photo with him, taken by his son at the NCPA, Mumbai. ‘August 2019’ was scrawled on it and I had gone there to deliver the Jamshed Bhabha Memorial Talk on Indian Culture. I was his great admirer. And came to know him well from the time I headed All India Radio and Doordarshan, as CEO, Prasar Bharati.

কাহিনির সূচনা ১৯৫২-র অগাস্ট মাসে সিংহলি রেডিওতে একটি হিন্দি ফিল্মি গানের অনুষ্ঠানের মধ্য দিয়ে। পাঁচ বছর আগেই ভারত স্বাধীন হয়েছে। দেশভাগ, দাঙ্গা ও আঞ্চলিক সংঘাতের বাতাবরণেও বাহ্যত দেশটা তখন সংহত, ঐক্যবদ্ধ। তবে সে দেশের না আছে কোনও সাধারণ ভাষা না আছে কোনও অভিন্ন আবেগ। 

মৃণাল সেনের ফিল্মের সঙ্গে আগেই পরিচয় ছিল, তবে বাক্তিগতভাবে আলাপ হল ১৯৯৭ সালে। 'ক্যালকাটা ফিল্ম ফেস্টিভ্যাল'-এর কমিটিতে আমার নাম অন্তর্ভূক্ত হওয়ার পর। সেই সুবাদে ঘনিষ্ঠ পরিচয় গড়ে ওঠে। প্রচুর আড্ডা মেরেছি ওঁর সঙ্গে। মাঝে মাঝে দেখাসাক্ষাৎ না হলে গৌতম ঘোষকে ডেকে বলতেন — তোমার আইএএস বন্ধুটির খবর কী?

Sri Aurobindo, the venerable sage of French Pondicherry, turned 75 on the very day British India – which he had quit after leading its first revolutionary war of liberation – attained Independence. The sheer coincidence was not lost then, though it is almost completely forgotten today, on the 150th anniversary of his birth.

The Sangh's mouthpiece, Swaraj, in its issue of June 23, 2019, insists that Syama Prasad Mookerjee had actually saved Hindu Bengalis from "imminent annihilation", and its powerful social media repeats this claim incessantly. The PM renamed Kolkata Port Trust in his name and there appears a renewed interest in Mookerjee — the founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh that later metamorphosed into the Bharatiya Janata Party. As the son of the most powerful Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University — Sir Ashutosh Mookerjee — Syama Prasad's academic achievements were under a bit of a cloud in the 1920s.

I have always shied away from gurus and cults, and those who know me well would be surprised at the title that I have chosen. But it encapsulates a deep sense of gratitude to a person who, incidentally, would have roared with laughter had he read these words. When I look back at the seven decades that I have gone through and the many people I have come across, I have absolutely no qualms in acknowledging RP or Shantul Gupta, as a guru without whom the world around would not have been so enriching.

দ্বন্দ্বহীন হয়ে বলতে পারি, রাধাপ্রসাদ গুপ্ত বা 'শাটুলদা'-ই আমার এক ও অদ্ধিতীয় 'গুরু'। স্বীকার করতে সামান্য দ্বিধাও নেই যে, শাটুলদার সঙ্গে দেখা না হলে আমার মনোজগৎ ও বহির্বিশ্ব-চেতনা এতখানি সমৃদ্ধ হয়ে উঠত না। যে বিপুল খ্যাতি এবং মহাস্তরীক ব্যুৎপত্তি তিনি অর্জন করেছিলেন তা সীমাবদ্ধ থাকেনি কোনও একটি বা দু'টি বিষয়ে। অবলীলাক্রমেজ্ঞানচর্চার বহু শাখায় তিনি বিচরণ করেছিলেন।“বহুমুখী প্রতিভাধর" বলতে যা বোঝায়, আমার চোখে রাধাপ্রসাদ গুপ্ত ঠিক তা-ই। পাশাপাশি তিনি একজন অনবদ্য কথক।

১৯৪৮ থেকে ১৯৬২ অবধি পশ্চিমবঙ্গের মুখ্যমন্ত্রী ডাঃ বিধানচন্দ্র রায় আজ থেকে ঠিক ৫৯ বছর আগে জুলাইয়ের এই প্রথম দিনে কলকাতায় তাঁর বাসভবনে প্রয়াত হন। তাঁর সুশৃঙ্খল স্বভাব, নির্ভুলতা, যুক্তিবাদ এবং বৈজ্ঞানিক দৃষ্টিভঙ্গির জন্য তিনি সাধারণের কাছে বহুল জনপ্রিয় এক নেতা ছিলেন। পৃথিবীতে প্রবেশ ও প্রস্থানের দিনটিকে এক রেখে, কীভাবে ঠিক আশি বছর বয়সে নিজের প্রস্থানমুহূর্তটি বেছে নিয়েছিলেন তিনি, তা তাঁর গুণমুগ্ধদের কাছে অনেকখানি অবাক করে দেওয়া এক বিরল ঘটনা নিশ্চয়ই৷

In Writers Buildings, there was a sense of shock when word of Basanta Choudhury’s death spread through the centuries-old corridors of power. This was exactly 21 years ago and many of us moved on to the Nandan film complex, Basanta Choudhury’s workplace in some sense, to express a collective sense of grief. I had known him for over two decades and had become fairly close in the last few years, enough to take cheeky liberties. What all of us really regretted was that he had left us much too early.

In this highly politicised and polarised state, the Left front’s hegemony extended into its culture for 34 long years, and it was followed by a regime that also demanded absolute allegiance to its version of culture and politics for the next decade. Ghosh was among the remarkable few who defied both regimes and held his head high. His clear views were never accompanied by any overt display of belligerence, but appeared through his extremely popular writings and rare utterances. His pithy verses simplified complex issues of politics into eloquent but firm statements that ripped apart the hypocrisy of the ruling elites. The soft spoken poet and essayist had obviously more fire in him than most professional revolutionaries.

After the unending months of 2020, we now feel a bit relieved as we assume, with or without basis, that the worst may be over. As we click the pause button, it may be appropriate to attempt an interim appraisal of the effects and the devastation caused by a microscopic mass-murdering virus.

সৌমিত্র চট্টোপাধ্যায়ের দুঃখজনক মৃত্যুর পর ওঁকে নিয়ে প্রচুর লেখা বেরিয়েছে, আরও নিশ্চয় বেরোবে। এই মাপের একজন অভিনেতা, আবৃত্তিকার বা সম্পূর্ণ বাচিক শিল্পী পাওয়া সত্যিই বিরল। আর তার সাথে সাথে তিনি যে কবি, নাট্যকার ও প্রকাশকও ছিলেন তা সাধারণ লোক বোধ হয় খুব বেশি জানেন না। এত জনপ্রিয় হওয়া সত্ত্বেও তিনি সারা জীবন একেবারে সাধারণ মধ্যবিত্ত বাঙাlলিই থেকে গেলেন। ছিলেন এক স্পষ্ট সহজ স্বচ্ছ মানুষ। আর্থিক উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষা বা পদের লোভ ছিল না বলেই তাঁকে কেউ বাগে আনতে পারেনি। তিনি তাঁর রাজনৈতিক আদর্শ ও স্বাধীনতা সম্পুর্ন না হলেও যথেষ্ট বজায় রাখতে সক্ষম হয়েছিলেন। সংস্কৃতির জগতে এত লোককে দেখেছি তাঁদের নীতি ও বিশ্বাসকে বেচে দিতে, যে সত্যি সত্যি ঘৃণা লাগে। এই রাজ্যে ২০১১তে যেই মুহূর্তে বামেদের ৩৪ বছর শাসনের সমাপ্তি হল দেখা গিয়েছিল এই রঙবদল। খুবই দৃষ্টিকটু আর অনেক খানি নির্লজ্জ ভাবে হয়েছিল।

I never imagined that I would be writing an obituary for someone so full of life as Soumitra Chatterjee. Those who were lucky enough to know him at reasonably close quarters, which is quite a large number, it would really take a long time to accept that he is no more. Rarely has one come across an all-round cultural personality with absolutely no airs. He was in life as he appeared (and will always appear) in his films.

Strange as it may sound, there was a wave of disenchantment about Gandhi ji in West Bengal after Independence and it was passed on to us who were born within a few years of freedom. It stemmed, perhaps, from the shoddy treatment that was meted out to Netaji by a group in the Congress that was close to the Mahatma. Many of us, therefore, began with a negative "opening balance" about Gandhi and that is what makes our turnaround more interesting.

In the performing and the visual arts, there are larger numbers who achieved iconic positions but in the domain of cultural popularisation, theorisation and management, we can recall only very few. Dr Kapila Vatsyayan was the last in the unforgettable trio of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and Pupul Jayakar as her predecessors. Each of them embarked upon separate missions within the vast space of culture.

How does one summarise the life of a patriarch who strode the stage of Indian politics for over half a century? As a titan, he towered well above the rather diminutive height that god given him, along with a razor sharp mind and a phenomenal memory for details and numbers.

When he was picked up by Indira Gandhi in 1969 after his skilful campaign in West Bengal that ensured the electoral victory of her father’s favourite, Krishna Menon, little did either of them realise what life had in store for them.

It was only late last night when the hospital sent me a short report on Hari Vasudevan’s precarious condition that I realised he had a middle name as well, Sankar. Caught between a more placid Vishnu and a temperamental Shiva, Hari must have opted quite early for the tranquil deity, for everything about him was so unflappably cool, soothing and gentle.

Classes were interrupted at will and the college shut down at sporadic intervals, which meant students lost irretrievable academic months and years. But Presidency is Presidency and some teachers dared the violence and gave tutorials in their rooms at considerable risk and others took makeshift classes in their homes.

The year was 1967. I had joined Class X, in the Humanities Section, with an enviable track record of standing last or second last in every class from VI onward. The crowning glory was my failure to pass Class VIII, followed by my close shaves in my second year in the same class as well as in the next class, when I studied Science in the ‘Higher Secondary’ stream, where one had to fight all the time. The other ‘feathers’ in my cap were the several warnings received for ‘poor conduct’, mischief and misbehavior. In other words, I was declared an ideal bad student when I joined, not without trepidation, the first day in my new class.