Author: Bhaswati Ghosh

Seven Writing Questions: A Meme

~ Bhaswati Ghosh ~ 17 Comments
Good friend Lisa tagged me for this one. I enjoyed reading her answers and thought I’d have a go at it.

1. What’s the one book or writing project you haven’t yet written but still hope to?

A travel book that will combine food and journeying and will take me to hidden corners of India.

2. If you had one entire day in which to do nothing but read, what book would you start with?

The twelve volumes of Rabindranath Tagore’s writings. I look at them wistfully every day, but a dozen “important” tasks draw me away from them. On a day meant just for reading, a dozen tomes will draw me—to a lifetime’s feast.

3. What was your first writing “instrument” (besides pen and paper)?

That has to be my PC. Got it around five or six years back—a second hand machine. I was thrilled to have a computer of my own. By then I had good enough typing skills, thanks to years of writing-related jobs, like when I used to do the service of rewriting a paper. The PC was a godsend, not just because it boosted my writing efforts, but because it introduced me to fellow writers from all parts of the world. The internet led me to my first writing forum, enabling me to connect with writers—aspiring and published, while at the same time helping me hone my writing skills, discover my voice, and lend me new dreams.

4. What’s your best guess as to how many books you read in a month?

I am a painfully slow reader. At my best, I can finish two good-sized books (300 pages) in a month. This also explains why I am so ill-read.

5. What’s your favorite writing “machine” you’ve ever owned?

I will cheat here and say what Lisa said. My laptop, which isn’t even a year old (touch wood!). The light black notebook has given my writing life much-needed mobility—even if that only means being able to sit and work in the TV room when cricket matches are on. The laptop aided me well during my Bengal trip—I could download photos, take brief travel notes, check email, and generally didn’t feel internet deprived.

6. Think historical fiction: what’s your favorite time period in which to read?

My limited reading stock doesn’t include much historical fiction, but if given a chance to select a period, I would like to read books reflecting the British Raj and 20th-century India.

7. What’s the one book you remember most clearly from your youth (childhood or teens)?

Gone With the Wind. This book had a sweeping impact on me. Everything in it—the setting, the storyline, the unfamiliar (for me) speech patterns, AND Rhett Butler made the summer of my school-leaving year a hard-to-forget one.

As for tagging, let me at once tag any and every one who would like to do this. Do let me know, though, so I can read your responses. 🙂

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

On a Cloudy Day by Rabindranath Tagore

~ Bhaswati Ghosh ~ 15 Comments
All our days are filled with work and people. At the end of each day, one feels the day’s work and exchanges have said all that needed to be said. One doesn’t find time to grasp that which remains unsaid.
This morning, cluster upon cluster of cloud has covered the sky’s chest. There’s work to be done today as well, and there are people milling about. But there’s a feeling that all that lies inside cannot be exhausted on the outside. Humankind has crossed seas, scaled mountains, dug holes under the ground to steal gems and riches, but the act of transmitting one person’s innermost thoughts and feelings to another—this, humans could never accomplish. PartlyCloudy
On this cloudy morning, that caged thought of mine is desperately flapping its wings inside me. The person within says, “Where is that forever friend who will rob me of all my rain by exhausting my heart’s clouds?”
On this cloud-covered morning I hear the voice inside me rattling the closed door’s fetters again and again. I wonder, what should I do? Who is the one at whose call my words will cross work’s barrier to journey through the world with a lamp of song in my hands? Where is the person whose one look would string together all my beads of pain into a garland of joy and make them glow in a singular light? I can only give this pain to the one who begs it of me with the perfect note. At the bend of which road stands that ruinous beggar of mine? My inner ache wears a saffron robe today. It wants to emerge into a path, which, like the innocent single string of an ektara, chimes within the ‘heart’s person.’
Translated by Bhaswati Ghosh

In Conversation with Ramkinkar: Book Review

~ Bhaswati Ghosh ~ 6 Comments
Yes, I have already blogged about this book. But it’s worthy of two mentions, if not more. Shilpi Ramkinkar Alapchari or In Conversation with Artist Ramkinkar ranks as one of the best books I have read in the last five years. The author, Somendranath Bandopadhyay sure knows how to bring conversations alive on the printed page. For, not one among the series of dialogues this book features reads like a well-structured interview or stiff intellectual discourse. The tone of the book, in itself conversational and informal, makes the animated interaction between the two principal voices even more life-like.

The book’s most overpowering element is the close, personal, and honest view of Ramkinkar, the man. Here is a barber’s son, coming from a financially humble background, pulled by the charm of idol-making in his village, who reaches the zenith of India’s art horizon. This ascension is only a fraction of Ramkinkar, though. What makes it so remarkable is his complete obliviousness to the fame and recognition he achieves. The book presents layer after layer of this lovable artist completely shorn of materialistic or pride-geared ambitions, rooted to the soil for all his life, not overwhelmed while receiving honor, and unfazed in the face of the most shattering despair. I saw a simple man, who never considered himself any special when the whole world revered him as a genius. A man who felt the closest to the people of the earth—the santhal tribal folks—whom he loved and respected from the core of his being for their simplicity, hard working nature and joyful living. I saw an artist so innocent and unadorned that he cared naught for the ways of the civilized world. The same ways he sometimes found so uncomfortable to deal with he calls the people displaying those as “the ones that sound so out-of-tune. “ I also saw a man pulsating with the rhythm of life, radiating warmth, and uninhibited when laughing out loud. Although a book doesn’t carry sound, the power of this one’s words helped me imagine Ramkinkar’s thunderous laughter.

Another day’s story. At the counter of Vishwabharati’s central office. (Kinkarda has) come to the cash section to withdraw his salary. While handing out the pay, the counter colleague politely informs Kinkarda that this would be his last salary packet. Kinkarda is stunned. He says, “Why, why is that?” “You retired a month ago. So…” Hearing that Kinkarda falls off the sky, “What are you saying, what will I eat then? So you won’t give me pay next month?” “No, sir,” the counter official informs awkwardly.

Kinkarda dashes off to the Vice Chancellor’s house. Kalidas Bhattacharya, the VC, was having lunch. Hearing Kinkarda’s voice he rushes out with food-stained hands. After hearing the story he says, “You heard it correctly at the office. The university has to work according to its rules, you see; that’s the problem. But there are provisions for those who retire. You, too, have those. You will receive a pension every month. Besides that there’s provident fund, gratuity…”

Kinkarda is elated. “Ah! I thought the same. There must be some arrangement. See, good thing I came to you. That’s what I was wondering, there has to be a way.”

This man is strange. His anxiety and its release are both worth watching. His mind is detached from all things material. The fists are loose. In those loose fists he’s only held art all his life.

As endearing as it is to see the sculptor’s personality, it’s still not a full view. Without knowing Ramkinkar the artist, the full depth of his inner self isn’t fathomable. Again, the author brings this part of Ramkinkar Baij in all its glory. The conversations mostly hover around the artist’s works and the author’s keen understanding of them. We get deep into the mind and heart of a creator, learning how each of his works came into being—both mentally and organically. Someone who has no artistic acumen, the discussions on Ramkinkar’s finest creations fascinated me with every nuance leading to their origin. To learn that the figure of Sujata, the woman who had served milk rice pudding to Buddha, had actually been inspired by a lanky student at Shantiniketan was not a let down, but a revelation. Especially when one learned the associated story of how the famous Nandalal Bose, Ramkinkar’s mastermoshai at Shantiniketan, advised putting a bowl on top of the woman’s head, transforming her into Sujata.

“Study isn’t done only with open eyes, but with the eyes closed as well. You see beauty with your eyes and with your heart. Only when the two meet is the seeing complete….Your eye’s vision comes near the heart’s, and the heart’s vision moves toward the eye’s. Somewhere in the middle they meet…But this meeting isn’t free from conflict, my dear, it has a lot of friction. And what remains after all the clash isn’t two any longer—the two then merge into One.”

In Conversation…mentions how even Tagore acknowledged Ramkinkar’s genius. One day, the poet summoned the young artist to his room. When the latter answered the call, frightened and nervous, Tagore said to him, “So, will you be able to fill this entire campus with your works?” Probably the greatest prize Ramkinkar received (and he did receive some prestigious awards).

While reading the book I lamented not being born early enough to see this humane, child-like, genius of a sculptor. But I am glad Somendranath Bandopadhyay preserved his essence so lovingly for me to cherish.

Note: All quoted text written by Somendranath Bandopadhyay, translated by Bhaswati Ghosh.

The Impressions Didn’t Die

~ Bhaswati Ghosh ~ 18 Comments
Anyone got a writer in the family? Other than yourself I mean. I ask this because as I dive deeper into the writings of my maternal grandmother, I find myself in the midst of an amazing discovery.

She died when I was fifteen—an age when much of my sensibilities had already shaped by the influences around me. Titti, as I called my grandma, was a major influence. This had to do more with her personality than with the fact that she was a writer. While in school I had taken a liking to writing and was encouraged by some teachers in that direction. It was natural for me to look up to Titti, the writer. But for the growing me, Titti, the loving grandma, who understood the language of our generation, came first. When she was alive, I barely read any of her writing—fiction or nonfiction. Two years before her death, while shuffling some of her stories in her file she told my mother, “Tutun will get my writing published one day.” She couldn’t have been more prophetic. All these years after her death I seem to have found a small but committed publisher in Calcutta who appreciates her work and has shown interest in publishing them. During her lifetime, Grandmother had had limited publishing success. The main cause of this was her lack of proximity to the Bengali publishing world; living in New Delhi, she didn’t have the easy connectivity with prospective publishers that writers living in Bengal did.

These days I am taking out her ink-fading, paper-withering stories and typing them in Bangla so as to get them ready for the publisher. I feel ashamed to admit this is pretty much the first time I am reading most of her writing. And it is through this process that I am getting to know her deeper, while at the same time reliving the warm atmosphere she embodied as a living person. Writer friend Sandra Kring used to tell me no matter what writers write, all their works contain bits of them. I understand the real meaning of that now.

Titti, the person as I saw her, was compassionate. She cared deeply for people around her. Even as she struggled to bring food on the table for her family, she didn’t stop providing lunch to the domestic help who worked in our house. The maid worked in half a dozen homes in our neighborhood, yet my grandmother was the only employer who fed her a full-scale afternoon meal. I remember, on days when Titti had to go out to the bank or post office, she would put the food she had freshly cooked onto a plate, cover it and ask me to serve it to the maid once she was done with her chores. Titti was also highly aware of what went about in the world—be it regarding politics, sports, or entertainment. A great conversationalist, she gelled with people of all age groups, because of her ability to talk about any subject. The country’s politics interested her a lot, and she would often be seen engaged in intense debates with my grandfather who remained rigid about his political affiliations for as long as he lived. Titti, on the other hand, was a rationalist. “I will love those who love my country,” she would say, never attaching herself to any particular party or ideology. And in the end, my grandmother was modern—a woman way ahead of her times—in thoughts, not appearances. Born and brought up in rural Bengal amid village customs and superstitions, she didn’t care much for rituals. Seeing how much venom had been spewed in the name of religion, she felt the world would perhaps be a better place without organized religion of any kind.

Now, as I read her works, I find I knew but a tiny fraction of her when she shared the living space with us. Her writing reveals all the above facets of her persona—but with so much more depth. In her story about a batch of East Bengal refugees living in a government home in New Delhi following the Partition, I get to see her compassion as her real-life role of the home’s administrator enters the narrative, which, though written in fiction format, is hardly fictitious in terms of content. I see, my eyes getting soggy, how deeply she empathized with the refugee women who had lost so much—land, children, husbands—even when they poured their wrath on her. In her story about the lives of women working as domestic help, I see her journalist-like eye to detail, her dispassionate yet sincere voice, which hits the reader, even when it’s not overly sentimental. Something within me stirs when I read her story featuring two soldiers posted on the frontier, where the senior one can’t make sense of the wars he’s fought, especially when he compares them to the “everyday war” his mother and wife fight in their struggle to lead a life of dignity.

I am only in the initial phase of putting together Titti’s writings for the publisher. Yet, I sense I am bonding with her in a way I never did when she was alive. I can see how all her works contain the person she was. It’s hard to describe, but after all these years, I suddenly don’t feel the void that pained me for a long time after Titti passed away.

For, she kept herself intact in those wilting sheets.

A good story is all I need

~ Bhaswati Ghosh ~ 8 Comments


Story Teller by Amrita Shergil, 1937

Long before the concept of “art” originated, we had stories. The earliest cave dwellers and forest tribes shared tales of everyday joys and trials when they were done with the day’s work. As humans made progress with documentation skills, these oral yarns were recorded on leaves and papers, finally evolving to what would be deemed “art” and christened Literature. As the ilk of writers grew, patronized by art loving litterateurs, so did the devices used for storytelling. The writer’s mind, like that of any other human, ever in need for exploration and experimentation, sought to play with new ideas and techniques to enter realms none other had. All through this, one thing remained constant about most of the world’s literature—storytelling. To me, that’s the core.

Tell me a good story badly and I will digest it even if I don’t feel satiated. But give me a superlative piece of writing with no visible story and you would find me flinching with unease and perhaps a good measure of blank expression. My expectations are simple and clear—in music I want good melody before I can appreciate the lyrics; in art, the painting or sculpture must speak to my heart before it teases my aesthetic sense; in writing, the story, despite being about imaginary characters and situations, would make me soar with rapture and sink with helplessness.

Now I am not talking about subtleties and subliminals here. Those aren’t obscurities included just for effect and have been used even by the most ancient of storytellers. In more recent times, Of Mice and Men and The Truman Show come to the mind off the top of my head. Ah, the nuggets of treasure that lie hidden under the veneer of a well-told story. What joy it is to unearth those, even while you relish the story-on-surface itself.

From time to time, though, I run into discussions of things literary that make me balk and retreat to my low brow world. It’s not the content that intimidates me; more often, it’s the tone. It’s one that seeks to speak to the “discerning few,” not the general (read uninformed) reader. Similarly, literature that intends to use obscurity for the sake of it veers off my obtuse mind within minutes.

Two recent readings on the net seemed to resonate with these views of mine. Stephen Hines, a friend, whose agent is shopping his (brilliant) YA novel to prospective editors, wrote this in a recent blog post: “I’ve finished two novels so far. One is in the hands of my agent, and I’m currently about halfway done with the 3rd draft of the 2nd one. Before I got feedback from my test audience I started my 3rd novel. This 3rd novel was going to be artistic. It was going to kick off the training wheels of traditional writing techniques/plot structure and drag the young adult market (YA) kicking and screaming into deeper intellectual waters.” But the more he got into crafting this work of art, the more disenchanted he became with the whole act of writing. It soon seemed like dreaded work for him, something that hadn’t been the case with his earlier two novels. So he decided to halt art for a while and started writing a fourth novel, this one on vampires. He remains ambivalent about book # 3. “I’m still struggling with guilty feelings of “selling out” to the low expectations of the masses by going back to “just” being a storyteller instead of an artiste. Has too much book learnin’ spoiled my perception of the value of just telling a damn good story with great thematic elements?” He ponders.

In the June 17 issue of Chicago Tribune, Julia Keller writes, at the cost of irritating “97 percent of the writers” and losing “a few precious friendships,” “…The arts often come swaddled in snobbery. There are critics, unfortunately, who encourage this snooty exclusivity: If you’ve not attended the symphony for a while, if your nightstand isn’t stacked with literary classics, if you’ve let your Art Institute membership lapse, you’re made to feel as if you really ought to just shuffle along to the ball game, beer in hand, and leave the highbrow stuff to the masters.”

I have let some expensive (by my standards) library memberships lapse and I don’t even have a nightstand. But a good story, whenever I get to read or see (as in cinema) one, does it for me. I feel no need to belong to any elitist group—as a writer or as a reader. I am but a part of the “masses” Stephen talks about. And like he says, my expectations are low. Low as in simple, not crass.

Perhaps there’s a reason why Aesop’s Fables, the Arabian Nights, and India’s epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, continue to live on?

Image:

Sikh Heritage

Monsoon Letter by Rabindranath Tagore

~ Bhaswati Ghosh ~ 10 Comments

Dear Friend,

Living as you do amid the desert country of Sindh, I invite you to imagine the monsoons in Calcutta.

In this letter, I remind you of Bengal’s rain. Of ponds swelling with water, mango orchards, wet crows, and ashadhe tales. And if you can recall the Ganga’s bank, then think of the cloud’s shadow on the streaming water and of the Shiva temple located within the peepul tree under the cloud cover. Think of the veiled village women who fill water from the rear banks, getting drenched as they make their way home through the bamboo briars, passing paathhshalas and cowsheds; think of how the rain splashes in from a distance by placing its feet over the waving crop fields; first on the mango orchards at the end of the field, then on the bamboo backwoods; next, every single hut, every village fades out behind the monsoon’s transparent cover, little girls sitting before huts clap and invite the rain with their songs—in the end, the downpour captures all land, all forest, every village into its snare. Unceasing rain—in the mango fields, bamboo bushes, rivers; on the head of the crouched boatman as he flinches while wrapping his blanket. And in Calcutta, rain falls in  Ahiritola, Kansharipara, Teriti Market, Borobazaar, Shova Bazaar, Harikrishna’s Lane, Motikrishna’s Lane, Ramkrishna’s Lane, Zigzag Lane—on mansion roofs, shops, trams, the head of buggy coach drivers and so on.

These days it doesn’t rain heavily, the way it used to in our childhood. Today’s rain has no grandeur of the past, it is as if the monsoon season is focused on economy—it’s on its way out after sprinkling a little water—just some gluey mud, some drizzle, a bit of inconvenience. One can manage the entire rainy season with a torn umbrella and a pair of shoes from the China bazaar. I don’t see the revelry of the yesteryear’s thunder, lightning, rain, and breeze. Rains of the past had a song and dance, a rhythm and a beat—these days the monsoon seems to be gripped by the jaws of ageing, by ideas of calculation and bookkeeping, by concerns of catching a cold. People say it’s only a sign of me growing old.

Perhaps it is that. Every age has a season; perhaps I am past that. In one’s youth it’s spring, in old age autumn, and in one’s childhood, rain. We don’t love home as much as we do in our childhood. The monsoon season is for staying at home, for imagining, for listening to stories, for playing with one’s siblings. In the darkness of the rain, far-fetched folklores assume a degree of truth. The screen of a thick downpour seems to put a cover on the world’s official activities. There are fewer wayfarers on the streets, fewer crowds, the usual busyness isn’t visible in places—the doors of houses are shut, coverings drape offices and shops…

Bengal rain

…I remember, during rainy days, I would run across our sprawling verandah—the door banged with the wind, the giant tamarind tree shook with all its darkness, the courtyard welled up with water up to one’s knees, water from four tin taps on the terrace gushed forth with a thud to join the courtyard water…Back then, flowers bloomed on our keya tree beside the pond (the tree is no more). During the rains, when the steps on the pond’s bank vanished one by one, and the water finally flooded into the garden—when the clustering heads of the bel flower plant stayed upright above the water and the pond fish played around the water-logged trees in the garden — at that time, I raised my dhuti to the knee and imagined romping around the garden. In rainy days, when one thought of school, what a gloom clasped one’s heart, and if Mastermoshai ever knew what one thought upon suddenly spotting his umbrella at the end of the lane from one’s verandah…

I hear these days many students think of their teachers as friends and dance with delight at the thought of going to school. Perhaps this is a good sign. But it seems there are a growing number of boys who don’t love play, rain, home, and holidays—boys who don’t love anything in this wide world besides grammar and geography lessons. The sharp rays of civilization, intellect, and knowledge, it seems, are making the population of innocent children dwindle, replacing it with precocity.

Ashadhe tales = Improbable, fantastical stories

Translated by Bhaswati Ghosh

A Song in the Cloud–Kajri

~ Bhaswati Ghosh ~ 8 Comments

In his comment to my previous post, Abhay said, “Rains bring some of the most original emotions.” I think that holds especially true in a tropical setting like India, where the prolonged and scorching summer makes the monsoon season one of the most awaited and treasured. Consequently, the metaphor of rain makes its appearance in all things creative–painting, literature, music, cinema. Rains here evoke a host of emotions, from joyous outbursts that sing with the dancing greens to pangs of separation from one’s lover that cry with every burst of lightning and thunder. The latter translates into a particular form of folk/semi-classical music called Kajri.

Sung in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Kajri has a popular legend associated with it. According to folklore of Mirzapur, a place in UP, a woman named Kajli had to live in separation from her husband, who lived in a faraway land. She would miss him all the time, but when thick clouds splashed monsoon showers across the land, the estrangement became unbearable for her. She is believed to have taken her petition to a certain goddess Kajmal with her wailing. The other origin story comes from the Hindi word kajal, meaning kohl. The colour black is related to the dark clouds of monsoon, which in this case, bring relief.

If folk beats and earthy melody interest you, listen to a selection of Kajri here.

Image:

Bovitz

The Wait

~ Bhaswati Ghosh ~ 12 Comments

I waited for you.

I waited through days that won’t turn into nights.

I waited even as others fled, unable to bear the separation.

I waited with the still, suffocating air that drained out my senses.

For you I survived, barely alive, yet expectant, when others died.

I waited when the prophets said you would take a long time coming.

…

And then, you came.

You brought the cool brush of night right into the day.

You embraced me with a smile; my reward for not deserting you.

You changed the very complexion of the air with your every stance.

You put life back into dead, parched souls with your lush strokes.

You came for me, defying the prophets.

You came.


Dearest Rain.

Wole Soyinka

~ Bhaswati Ghosh ~ 2 Comments
Came across a good interview of Wole Soyinka in The Hindu. The Nigerian Nobel laureate makes a couple of thought-provoking points. One: Real writers write, no matter the circumstances they are in or their state of mind at any given point of time. And two, intellectual analysis of a writer’s isolation or persecution often becomes an exercise in fantasizing reality.

He also makes an interesting, if debatable, point on responding to violence with violence.

Read the full interview here.

Living Conversations

~ Bhaswati Ghosh ~ 5 Comments
Capturing the life, sensibilities, and works of a person—that’s what biographies and autobiographies are made of. But could there be another way to bring to life the essence of an individual? If the book I am reading these days is anything to go by, the answer is yes, emphatically at that.

Shilpi Ramkinkar Alapchari or In Conversation with Ramkinkar by Somendranath Bandopadhyay (review promised later) is an amazing read. An intriguing glimpse into the mind and heart of one of India’s most revered sculptor-artists, the book is neither a biography nor a series of interviews; yet perhaps it is more than either. The curious thing is that the book cannot be strictly classified into any type. Like Ramkinkar Baij’s life and art, it transcends stale definitions. As I read through this informal set of dialogues the author and the artist shared over the course of a year, I wonder what is it that keeps me—someone who has no background in visual arts—so hooked to the book? I have nailed some of the reasons:

1) Interesting subject: For me, this is the strongest aspect of the book. The author chose to record his interactions with a person who has such an original voice that is sure to pull a reader. Ramkinkar’s free-spirit, touching diffidence, ability to remain untouched by both praise and censure of the highest order, and his child-like innocence and absentmindedness—all these make him so “approachable” for the reader. The author does an admirable job of bringing Ramkinkar as he was, mainly because he keeps the sculptor’s voice intact.

“To tell you the truth, I have found everything from life—no less than twelve annas, could be more. All these things that surround me, the fields, village people, the everyday life of Santhals—all this. Just see all the drama that goes on through the year. Keep your eyes and ears open—and see—fill your two eyes to the brim—soak in all you want to. How much can an artist take during his lifetime anyway?”

2) Distinct voices: Another facet that makes this ongoing conversation so engaging for the reader is the difference in the author’s and the artist’s voices. Bandopadhyay has done a superb job of distinguishing the two voices—his own marked by cultivated sophistication, Ramkinkar’s by unrestrained expression. This only fits the nature of the book—telling us two different people are talking to each other about a shared interest.

This morning, I am a bit late in coming to him. I enter; a little ashamed. He is looking for something. Every now and then, his hands reach under the pillow. Hearing the sound at the door, he looks up. A lost look.

“Where did it go? I’d kept it here only. Saw it in the morning too. Just a while ago.”

“What is it? Have you lost something?”

“A two-rupee note, my dear—red note, small. Trouble is, there’s no bidi. The container is empty. I think there were some bidis in it. Vanished.”

“Shall I look?”

“Do, please.”

No, Kinkarda’s said red note is nowhere to be found. I search everywhere. At last, a torn-cover notebook comes out—from under the bed sheet. If anywhere, the note has to be inside it. In between the folds of small chits. One says “two matchboxes,” another “Charminar—1 packet.” The dates are very old. Suddenly, I notice a folded red something. Yes, it’s money. Not a two-rupee note, though, but a cheque. After the first figure, multiple zeros stand in a row. But the date? Like in those chits, it elapsed long ago.

“You found it?” Kinkarda eyes it, too. His animated eyes gleam with the joy of discovery.”

“Not a note; this is a cheque.”

“Oh, I thought we found it.” Kinkarda becomes frustrated again.

A fat-amount cheque lies in neglect under the covers. The man is restless over a small red note.

The bidi arrives, though. The co-operative store is right in front of his house.

With a gladdened heart, he rotates a bidi in his fingers before putting it into his mouth. Shaky fingers light a matchstick. He releases the smoke in a long, satisfied swirl.

“What’s that book in your hands?”

“Jacob Epstein.”

“Wah, wah! It has plates, I hope?”

“Of course.”

He looks at ‘Rima’ intently. Then, ‘The Day and the Night’. For a long time. The bidi smoke keeps ebbing out, until it disappears. He dumps the unconsumed dying bidi in the container and holds the book up with both hands.

“Do you see what he has done?”

Loving respect lights Kinkarda’s face. His eyes run over the sculptures so familiar to him, as if he is shedding affection on them with his joyful glance.

3. Author’s passion for the main theme: I believe that’s the basis of this conversation. The author, in spite of serving as a professor of Bengali literature in Shantiniketan, happens to be a passionate art enthusiast and has written an important book on Tagore’s art. His conversation with a great sculptor becomes so lively only because he himself is a lover of the subject and has studied it deeply. The author shows a fine appreciation for Ramkinkar’s works and doesn’t shy away from sharing his unease over a few finer points of some of the sculptor’s greatest works.

“I really like that work (The Storm) of yours. I like it because of its stunning vitality. The pulse of life in the two girls’ figures is of course there, but what really astounds me is the soft smile in that hard rock…

But I have a doubt, Kinkarda. Been having it for a long time now. I have thought of talking to you about it. Couldn’t muster the courage. Now that I have the chance, may I?

That boy’s figure. It feels as if it has been forcibly added. I have seen it carefully a lot of times. Tried to understand the work. Somehow, the boy’s figure isn’t in sync with the rhythm of the women’s figures. Even though I like the figure, I like his stance.”

Kinkarda keeps quiet. For a long time. He must be thinking of something with closed eyes, or revolving around his creation in his mind’s eye.


“There’s vitality in the boy’s figure, too. But I can’t totally dismiss your observation, my dear. No, no, you are right. Right you are…

Listen then.

The folds behind the girls’ saris’ ends—do you know how much those weigh? They are loaded with iron and concrete. It’s very difficult to keep them floating. You are seeing the end is flying; you see it with light ease. And me? I had sunk under the pressure of those folds. How do I keep those ends flying? A sculptor has to think about these practical things. I was harried with those sari ends. Ha, ha, ha. In the end, I added that boy. It’s a support. I even gave him my flute. To stand there, touching the sari ends.”

4. Description of setting: The author’s literary bent comes into full view when he recounts the atmosphere in each chapter. Not just the surroundings, but the atmosphere of Ramkinkar’s face, his typical mannerisms, his loud laughter—all recreate the different hues of moods the author had experience as he chatted with the genius sculptor.

20, Andrews Palli. Kinkarda lives in this house now.

He sits in the front room by the small slice of verandah. Sitting, sleeping—all in this room. The door is ajar. It stays like that all the while. Looking at the near dark, silent room it’s hard to believe Kinkarda is here at the moment. Can he ever be compared to this deafening silence?

The very mention of this name brings up so many images in the mind.

Kalabhavan premises. Kinkarda sits under a tree during some free moments off his teaching. A bunch of curious students from different countries huddle him. A thunderous guffaw booms out of this engrossed assembly and stuns passersby.

Kinkarda stands on an elevated platform. He wears a saffron lungi, a tal-leaf toka on his head, his lips sealed. The tireless hammer and chisel in his hands break the afternoon stillness. A newly-born sculpture faces him with a hard concrete body. There’s no measure of time.

Is it any wonder that the more I read this book, the more I feel I know Ramkinkar, the free man, the marvelous sculptor, intimately?

Note: All quoted text written by Somendranath Bandopadhyay, translated by Bhaswati Ghosh.

Images:

The Speculist
http://www.pbase.com/cassanco/image/48243916