Fake IPL player and the intellectual

This post is still brewing...

Chandrika Kanade

When she jerked her grey locks yelling “Begin!” to forty of us in her deep but wavering voice, and we commenced on singing “We three kings…” she seemed a formidable high-priestess of good taste. I can spell it out only now, from the vantage point of adult recollection, for what she inspired was a jumble of reactions ranging from admiration to fear during that weekly ritual called “Singing” class. When she played “Whisper a prayer in the morning…” on the upright piano, she seemed elegance personified, and the elegance and yelling seemed irreconcilable traits even to a four-year-old. And as she hurried through the corridors with her bunch of notations—some new, some tattered—I wondered if the beautiful signs on them would ever mean anything to me. They seemed attractive for they seemed to conceal all the pleasures that the sound of a piano can give. Her huge emerald ring...and then how one fine day all her hair turned jet black... those are my earliest memories of Miss Kanade, as we used to call her.

Those of us who had sisters or cousins for predecessors in school quickly learnt and told everyone else that she had been given the sobriquet “Princess Margaret” once upon a time. She had the same hairstyle as the princess in her youth, and had once performed before her. And then there was the other story of how being told “Miss, you are looking good today,” would invariably flatter her. M— told me the story, and once even greeted Miss Kanade like that as I stood by, to elicit a wave of the hand accompanied by, “ O, that’s an old compliment!” before she vanished into her room in the school building, outside which was a little board with “The Den” inscribed on it… so they say… for when I finally had the chance to check for the inscription, it was no longer there. Then there was the Sound of Music legend. Her stage-production of The Sound of Music was part of CGHS* lore, and as she taught us the songs from the film, one could tell they had a special place in her heart. As I watched her play with her heart and soul, the loose flesh of her arms jiggling at every movement, I could almost imagine her doing the same with the gracefulness of youth.

Other ‘public’ memories of Miss Kanade abound—memories of Investiture services and Founders’ Day services in the Thoburn Methodist Church on hot summer days. Who knew how one might miss the spirited intricacies of Miss Kanade’s rendition of the School Song, or the rousing notes of “Now thank we all our God” years afterwards?... And in other climes... Or even in the later years of school, when she had left. In her farewell speech she had said that people must retire and make way for others just the way furniture must be replaced from time to time. And so she went, and the pianos never sounded the same again.

Who knows with what courage, but I went to her to ask if she would teach me to play the piano. I was six years old then, and hadn’t even asked my parents. She said she would, if we bought a piano. I knew that that wasn’t possible. So I contented myself with watching Miss Kanade closely as she played while we sang, for she was grace itself as she played. She taught me without my knowing then that piano-playing was truly as much to be watched as to be listened to.

As we kept taking singing lessons from her over the years, I sometimes wondered if she remembered the little girl, one of many little girls perhaps, who had asked her for piano lessons. It was her last year in school. We were lining up near the piano as usual in groups of four for the test in singing. The other three in my group had louder voices, and I was just recovering from a bout of pharyngitis and feared being drowned out. And I was. We had to sing her favourite from The Sound of Music, “The hills are alive…” When we finished, she said, without turning, “Sing again, Durba, you weren't yourself... maybe drink a little water first?” So she associated my name with a voice!

I had fallen in love with the piano when I was about two-and-a-half-years old, when I began attending the kindergarten school everyone in our extended family went to. At both schools I attended, I would tinkle at the pianos whenever I got half the chance. And then, literally dreamt of pianos for years. I dreamt the same dream till I was about 24, till I found a way to take piano lessons without buying a piano right away. Above all, it was bliss to be able to finally play La Paloma, that my fingers had itched to learn for years.

It was about the same time that I decided to go on a trekking trip to Darjeeling with two other friends, and having heard that Miss Kanade was then teaching at Mount Hermon School, Darjeeling, made up my mind to meet her, and perhaps tell her I was finally learning, even if twenty years late. MHS was founded by Emma Knowles, after whom my ‘house’ in school was also named, so all the more reason for a pilgrimage. All I ended up seeing were the impressive school precincts, for with the school closed for some reason, there was no one at the gate whom I could ask about Miss Kanade’s whereabouts. The Queen of the Hills was still pretty, and it seemed as though postcards that survived in memory from my first visit when I was four (two years before I asked Miss Kanade for piano lessons:) were leaping into life all about me, and the trek in Rimbik, and the trip as a whole, were very enjoyable. Returning to the din of Calcutta, I inquired among old friends for news of Miss Kanade for naught, and after about a year, just after coming to New York, learnt that she had passed away. So the little girl shall never tell her that she is finally palying. Or that whatever vignettes of her that survive in her memory are so vividly compelling that even if Miss Kanade never knew about it, she did teach her to play.


Gloss:
* CGHS: Calcutta Girls' High School

Ripeness is all

So the fairy tale has ended with the Prince getting out for a golden duck. When once upon a time he got his century-on-debut at Lord’s, TV screens in Calcutta went blank for an hour … some caprice of the cable networks… and we heard next day in the papers how a star was born. I was reading at the dining table that moment, and impatiently channel-surfing for news, and as I learn news of the duck from Cricinfo, I am at the dining table again, reading, but miles and seas away. Drama has forever followed the star, to the moment of retirement. In the land of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, cricketers—batsmen among them, to be precise—are no less than epic heroes. Much will be made of the first-ball duck tomorrow and forever. I would agree, canonically Eng Lit style, ripeness is all.

Nov 20 Elaine Freedgood lecture at Rutgers

The talk has a webpage here


Elaine Freedgood
New York University

That People Might be Like Things and Live
Thursday, November 20, 2008
4:30 pm

Plangere Writing Center
Murray Hall 303
510 George Street, New Brunswick

Autumn in New York

Season of betrayals. The camera just won't work. So with my cameraphone in Central Park...

One Book, Two Places

One sultry September afternoon in 2001 I stopped at College Street like many other afternoons, on my way back from Jadavpur, to pick up copies of Milton criticism that I had ordered at Saha Book Company. Oldtimers know no one is Saha there. When Sahada’s concern had split into three, the man himself having to move to another corner of College Street—a sleepy lane devoid of the feel of the place—by an irony of the logic of commercial metamorphosis, no one in the other two segments any longer bore the name Saha, though all the three concerns carried it. They had split sometime in late July, and I had kept my visits restricted since then to Sahada’s new shop out of a sense of loyalty. For some secondary material I was looking for, it was Sahada who said that those books had gone to one of the other shops when they divided up the property, the one called Saha Book Company, on the other side of Presidency College, and I could ask there. So I had no choice but to order my stuff from them, but thankfully, something of Sahada still survived in that newly independent segment of the old concern, for as I was to discover that day, some characters still had it in them like him to be occasionally generous to cash-strapped college students. With Sahada, it would show as something more than just business sense, for he belongs to a generation of College Street booksellers, now passe perhaps, who would always be remembered by students and academics alike for their ability to provide books at good price. It's a pity he will never have the capital to set up a bigger bookshop and be more mainstream, and would always be frowned upon by more established booksellers for his alternative bookselling practices. When I stepped into that more-than-normally crowded bookshop that afternoon it did not seem that the experience had any chance of being memorable, for then that College Street day seemed extraordinary only in terms of the extraordinarily warm weather. I was almost praying for rain even though I knew a drop of rain from the retreating monsoons would spell trouble with so much printed matter to carry.

I still remember the crowd of new college students in the shop—regulation mob at College Street at that time of the year—shouting out titles from Calcutta University’s undergraduate syllabus, keeping the few staff on their toes, which meant they had little time for other customers. As soon as my pile on Areopagitica descended on the front desk from the mysterious mezzanine regions above, I counted out the money and prepared to leave. Turning away, I spotted on one of the shelves an Oxford volume titled Colonial and Postcolonial Literature by an unfamiliar author: Boehmer. Knowing I could not afford the expensive-looking book with what remained in my wallet after my purchases, I hesitated to ask if I could see the book, and even as I hesitated I remember marvelling at what seemed to me unusual typography on the spine—the font with which ‘Oxford’ was printed, not the usual kerned font. Following my gaze, the man at the desk—Sahada's erstwhile assistant—asked if I would like to have a look at the book. When I said I would rather come back another day for I would not be able to buy it even if I liked, he still insisted and had the book brought out by an assistant. So I watched the book emerge from their newly-made sparkling glass bookcases, drifting over a sea of unknown heads, changing hands twice before I finally held it.

In a few seconds of flipping through, I knew that this was one book to begin with for someone just making first forays into postcolonial studies. The accessibility of Boehmer’s presentation appealed instantly, and the range that that slim volume covered seemed impressive. What was even more interesting for me was that Boehmer seemed to dwell at length on the British modernists. I had just had my first sustained academic exposure to high modernist literature, and was completely swept off my feet by TS Eliot and Virginia Woolf, and even as I quickly read a few of Boehmer’s paragraphs on them, felt terribly shortchanged. Something had vastly changed in those few minutes for me—I did not know how to articulate. In all the confusion of the shop and the heat rising from the ground, as it were, all I could decide was that I needed to read that book whether or not I finally agreed with Boehmer’s assessments, and I had a gut sensation that given the assymetries of book distribution, I would have to buy it to read it in Calcutta, for even if it had been published in 1995, that book wouldn’t be available right then in the libraries even in the city that calls itself the city of booklovers.

I must have flipped through the book for about fifteen minutes if not more, and to my request for reserving the book for the by-then ridiculous amount of 30 rupees (that would have left me with 8 rupees, just enough for some jhaalmuri and the bus-ride home), Sahada’s former assistant responded very generously offerring that I take the book home and pay anytime later. The price came to 620 rupees, after discount, and it was highly unusual for a small business as theirs to allow such latitude even to a regular customer. Having thanked him, I made my way through the lane towards the bus stop happy as a child. True to my fears, a torrential downpour ensued as the bus neared my stop, but I was able to shield my new acquisitions well as I hurried home.

Boehmer opened up several windows, needless to say. It hurt for a long time that modernists were such masked imperialists, and I did not know how to deal with this painful disenchantment—if I loved poco, all that was left me was to love them as one continues to love an affectionate even if ill-tempered grandparent. Boehmer’s book completely defined my experience of Conrad and Achebe, and so much else, and I still find myself going back to that little book with which it all began. I haven’t let go, nor has the book let go of me, for like a faithful, almost talismanic old map, it puts things in place when I am a little mystified, or since I have grown up a little, lets me ask questions that I can then go pursue elsewhere.

5 December 2007. The street outside is called University Place. The unwalled campus and small to medium businesses—eateries and coffee shops and photocopy joints—that have grown up around the university have a strangely Calcutta University-para feel about them, despite all differences. Following Theo d’Haen’s talk on Conrad, I know that Elleke Boehmer and Alison Donnell would speak as respondents. The talk has begun though the respondents have still not arrived. I wonder if they have cancelled, but somewhat morose, I don’t ask anyone. Two women enter, and I know it’s them, but keep guessing who’s who till someone addresses Elleke Boehmer by name when it’s time for questions. They speak briefly after it is all over, and people get chatty over wine. I lurk around, waiting for my chance to talk. For the seemingly endless minutes I stand near her waiting, College Street floods my memory. She turns to me finally, and I ask a small question on Conrad, and after she answers, I thank her for her book, and briefly recount my first encounter with it. All I can manage to say is that I had no money to pay (nor even that I did eventually pay the bookseller—does she think he just gave it away to me?!), and that it was a very formative experience to read her, but nothing at all about how hot it was. She’s delighted to know the effect the book has had on me and wants to know where I am from, and where this encounter took place, and tells me how someone first read her book as a photocopy in Bangladesh. As we finish talking, I glance over her shoulder at the window. It's snowing. The season’s first snow in New York.

Postcolonialism and the Hit of the Real at NYU, 6-8 March, 2008

Food for thought for postcolonialists/poco-sympathetics. Apathetics welcome too! Look at the amazing line-up at www.nyupoco.com. If you plan to attend, be sure to register by email (see below), and if you do not have an NYU ID, please carry a photo ID with you.

Phul phutuk na phutuk...

Below I reproduce one of my perennial favourite Bangla poems. The opening lines literally translated would read "Whether flowers bloom or not / it's spring today." That gives no indication, however, how powerfully the poem is written. 'Powerfully' is the word. I've woken up thinking of the poem--quite possessed by it in fact--only to find that it has snowed heavily, and that I have actually not brought over the anthology from Calcutta, and that I don't have the poem written anywhere. So I called up a friend, all snowed up in Rochester, who first recited from memory, then called up his poetry-loving father in Calcutta to cross-check, and then sent me the poem electronically.
If the font does not display properly but you're dying to read, then you would have to download Avro Keyboard here, which actually downloads pretty fast, and is easy to use.


ফুল ফুটুক না ফুটুক…

সুভাষ মুখপাধ্যায়


ফুল ফুটুক না ফুটুক
আজ বসন্ত

শান বাধানো ফুটপাথে
পাথরে পা ডুবিয়ে এক কাঠ-খোট্টা গাছ
কচি কচি পাতায় পাঁজর ফাটিয়ে হাসছে

ফুল ফুটুক না ফুটুক
আজ বসন্ত

আলোর চোখে কালো ঠুলি পরিয়ে
তারপর খুলে-
মৃত্যুর কোলে মানুষকে শুইয়ে দিয়ে
তারপর তুলে-
যে দিনগুলো রাস্তা দিয়ে চলে গেছে
যেন না ফেরে

গায়ে হলুদ দেওয়া বিকেলে
একটা দুটো পয়সা পেলে
যে হরবোলা ছেলেটা
কোকিল ডাকতে ডাকতে যেত
-তাকে ডেকে নিয়ে গেছে দিনগুলো

লাল কালিতে ছাপা হলদে চিঠির মত
আকাশটাকে মাথায় নিয়ে
এ গলির এক কালো কুচ্‌ছিত আইবুড়ো মেয়ে
রেলিং-এ বুক চেপে ধরে
এইসব সাতপাঁচ ভাবছিল-

ঠিক সেই সময়ে
চোখের মাথা দিয়ে
গায়ে উড়ে এসে বসল
আ মরণ! পোড়ারমুখ লক্ষ্মীছাড়া প্রজাপতি!

তারপর দড়াম করে দরজা বন্ধ হওয়ার শব্দ
অন্ধকারে মুখ চাপা দিয়ে
দড়ি পাকান সেই গাছ
তখনও হাসছে