wiping away a heritage

The way we Indians are letting our old assets waste away is an intellectual suicide. One visit to museum or national library will prove the story. There are so many things which are being wasted there, which should not have been done. One visit to the Kolkata museum can leave you fuming. I was a regular visitor of museum till I fell in clutches of a drunk supervisor, I was reading an sms inside the museum and he lectured me for more than one hour. After that, I never dared to visit museum alone, which means I did not went there at all. During that last visit too I saw numbers of priceless antiques lying under the sun and shower getiing ruined. May be this is what happens when every civilisation dies, india has reached its extreme during Middle Ages now it’s the downward swing of the pendulum. But somewhere in the horizon I can feel the changes coming. Changing of human beings toward a better world.

Any way, at present my main heartache is the way our old literature is dying due to negligence of our educated people, by educated I mean those people who have vast knowledge in our ancient literature and have the capacity of translating them to English or hindi.

Well, I have been an avid reader since my childhood, in the long span of my reading history I have read hundreds of books. But lately I don’t have money or time to go to libraries or make a library of my own. And this is the time when I have realized and bitterly regretted the way we are ignoring the vast literary asset created by our ancestors, if we put it on the net in an easily accessible way it will only enhance its popularity and a lot of persons will be enriched by it. People who are eager to know the ancient Indian literature.

Any one who has read our old books like ramayan, mahabharat or bhagvad gita know that these are treasures of wisdom. Apart from these there are so many unsung songs like panchtantras or works of kalidas, chanakya etc. If these things are put up on net in an easily accessible manner I think a lot of persons like me, who want to seriously know our culture in details will be deeply indebted.

I have tried for atleast three or four times to get any site from where I can get the entire Ramayana, Mahabharata, Vedas, Srimadbhagvat gita or panchtantras but failed. It just did not worked. I wanted to know the true story, as written in Mahabharata or ramayan about some not so famous characters like shantanu, ganga, bhishma, bali, hanuman, mandodari, indrajit etc, but could not get it. There were different version of each stories which hardly collaborated with each other and on different blogs or sites like wikipedia, I could not locate any site like Mahabharata or Ramayana.

Nor have I till date located any site which translates the meanings of sanskrit or indian words, whereas a few days ago I was looking for the meaning of a spanish word I got it in the single hit.

If we don’t take care to share this immense treasure, handed over to us by our ancestors it too will waste away like our heritage things. These things are like flowers, they should be cherished and their fragrance should be let to spread wide.

And if I am extremely fortunate and wrong, and there is any such site, from which I can get the entire story of Mahabharata in details, or Ramayana, or Panchtantras, and if any one knows that site, I will be immensely grateful if he or she shares it with us.

Rabindranath Tagore and me

I have too many fond memories attached with this person and the immense treasure of poetry and songs he has left for us, Bengalis. My first memory of him was, I still remember, in my childhood, there was a photo of Rabindranath in his trademark gown, hands folded on his back, with beard in our drawing room. I still remember that pic clearly, even though 28 years have passed since. My mother used to sing marvelous rabindrasangit, a gift she could not pass to her daughters who were extremely eager to learn it, just because she was not a good teacher at all. But her voice is one of the best rabindrasangit voice I have ever heard. I still remember her singing “Chander haasir baandh bhengechhe…”

My childhood was spent in UP, mainly listening to hindi film songs, then I came in touch with Bengalis for the first time in Raisina, I used to return by school bus and one of our teachers had a marvelous voice, I still remember one day he sang the song “akash bhara surya tara” for his friends, and we all listened to his voice in pin drop silence. His voice still rings in my ears after 20 years.

Then I returned to west Bengal and my true romance with rabindrasangit started, I returned to west Bengal in 1985 and for the first five or six years I only listened to rabindrasangit, I was just obsessed with it, listening to the same song over and over again, drinking it with my ears. First it was debabrata and others, then slowly it shifted to suchitra, sagar sen, chinmoy and finally I selected two as my hot favourites shantideb ghosh and kanika, the rest came after these two in various steps.

Being a full blooded Bengali, full of emotion I often find my own reflection in rabindrasangit, so many of his songs speak out my words in a language which I could never portray. Like some one has taken the dream from my eyes and colours from my palette and made a beautiful portrait out of that. All my moods, all my hopes, dreams, desires were captured and portrayed by him.

When some one asks me which one is my favourite Rabindrasangit I am caught in a catch 22 situation. I simply say none, even the list of my favourites is very long, I just cant compare in between them. Like aguner parashmani, anandadhara bahichhe bhubane, krishnakali ami tarei boli, je rate mor duar guli, naha mata naha kanya, ami chitrangada, I just cant make up my mind about which one is best.

Its just like the various seasons of this earth, they all are beautiful and all are indispensable part of the entire show. So many times these songs has cheered me up, given me inner peace, filled up my heart with immense happiness, given me the courage to face the world.

There is nothing in the music world so complete, so fulfilling and so everlasting as the works of this one creator.

Books and their effects

I was born in a home which had minimum luxury in relation to clothe and food but we were blessed with a huge garden, couple of pets and a huge library, containing books of all sorts, starting from medical books to comics. My childhood was dream childhood for any child. My parents never stopped the easy flow of our life. Their only rule was we will have to finish our studies properly. The remaining time was our own.

My first reading started with comics strips and went on to all the books in the library excluding medical books. I realized in my teens that the proverb, books are a person’s best friend, is true to the core.

The fairy tales and adventure books taught me to dream, my childhood was filled with dreams of distant lands and planets and beautiful creatures.

The books like aranyak or tarzan series taught me how to love wildlife and nature, a love which still colours up my life, whenever I see a beautiful bird or tree I get a great pleasure out of that, a joy I have seen a lot of people are deprived of. The way nature was painted in aranyak was a feast for mind, I still can feel the beauty of deep forest portrayed by the author, have read the book for dozens of times and am yet eager to read again.

Books by Maupassant, somerset Maugham, saratchandra taught me human values, compassion, the priceless lesson that human beings are supposed to commit mistake, and most of them are forgivable, one should not expect human beings to be perfect. That is why they are human beings.

Poetry and songs by rabindranath taught me to console my broken heart, to draw a line to human heart’s ever yearning nature. It helped me to develop spiritually, to look for solace into God in times of darkest pain. It helped to control myself with dignity and peace of mind in big storms.

The authors like Bankimchandra can paint picture with their words, I have not read another author who has used Bengali so beautifully. His language is simply out of this world.

When I see today’s children engrossed in TV and computer I really feel sad, because these two mediums deprive them of one of the most beautiful human talents, the talent which only human beings possess, the power of imagination. The fantasy world which we used to create.