Aju
Mukhopadhyay, IN
Unknown
Among the Known
Karina Klesko and John
Daleiden, the editors of Sketchbook, have
awakened me to my everyday unconscious brooding over the
very subject which they have
suggested for writing and thus helped me to sit before the
computer as I
am doing now:
A
Correspondent Feature may take the form of a reflection
piece about the sights, sounds, traditions, mores and
distinguishing characteristics of a writer’s country. The
correspondents may describe what they see, hear, and feel
as they step outside their doors to go about their daily
life.
I am surely in
my country, India, but my country is very big consisting
of many countries. Though there is a cultural,
geographical and historical link and now firm political
link among all Indians, they are different by their
regional cultural choice, by their different thought
process and voice or voicelessness.
I emigrated
from the capital of the eastern province, West Bengal, to
the capital of this southern coastal Union Territory, a
small political unit; from Kolkata to Pondicherry. The
usual language difference between the two places is as
apart as Bangla and Tamil though linked by Sanskrit. The
speakers of the two languages do not usually understand
each other as they live some 2000 kilo metres away with
different food and other habits.
Ever since Sri
Aurobindo came and settled here, about 100 years ago, many
of his followers have come from different parts of the
country and globe and have settled here, taking it as a
great spiritual centre with Sri Aurobindo the yogi and
philosopher at the centre of it, with the hoary religious
and spiritual past of Pondicherry. People from various
cultures have mixed to bring a new understanding among
themselves creating a composite culture to make
Pondicherry really cosmopolitan.
Pondicherry is
the capital of the Union Territory called by the same name
but recently it’s name has been changed to Pudhucherry,
comprising of four parts scattered in three southern
provinces of India. Surrounded by provinces, these small
costal villages/towns were the areas the French captured
and made parts of French India. It had another town in
Bengal, called Chandernagore; It did not remain with the
French but merged with West Bengal with the freedom of the
country from the British rule.
It is on the
Bay of Bengal. The eastern part of the town overlooks the
sea. The French made nice parallel roads on the eastern
part of the town for their habitation. There are still
some big, high ceiling buildings, samples of French
architecture available in the town. Together with some old
typical Tamil houses, they make the heritage of
Pondicherry. Now the Governments have become very
enthusiastic to invite tourists and make places of tourist
attraction to earn money by all means. Pondicherry, with
the sea, the French legacy and the world famous Sri
Aurobindo ashram, has become an important tourist centre;
more so because it is more peaceful than the northern
towns, than even some southern towns. It enjoys a
reputation of a peaceful sleeping fishing village. But
gone are the village days. It is a town with a population
of about a million, nearing to be raised to a city status.
The small town has French citizens and a large number of
retired settlers. The density of population of this small
place is one of the highest in India. But the popular
Governments do not go for any restrictions here. Wine
flows with full flavour in this erstwhile French town
drawing all drunkards close. With easy registration
process and shop windows for all types of vehicles, the
town has vehicles galore, overflowing the streets. The
roads and lanes are jammed with different types of
vehicles; from biggest vans to three, two wheelers and
rickshaws. The road is the garage for many of them. It is
difficult sometimes to walk on the roads. There are shops
aplenty everywhere in the town with matching buyers.
Shopping has become a hobby for most of the populace.
So,
Pondicherry is a shopper’s paradise as well as a haven for
the retired persons. Tourists find solace here mainly for
the existence of large numbers of shops, restaurants and
bars. Seaside is their temporary refuge. It is important
to note that due to port activities and nature’s whims the
sea beach has been lost into the sea and the Government
has constructed an artificial beach made of boulders and
sands. The promenade is wide but recently they have
developed a plan to make it of granites. All sorts of
construction activities are ruining nature everywhere as
in Pondicherry.
This time of
the year is marked for festivals, one after the other. And
it is time for Deepavali or Diwali, one of the greatest
festivals of India which involves almost all Indians in
different ways.
The earth is
bathed in light during Deepavali, celebrated almost in all
parts of the country with lamps (Deep) and crackers,
feasts and merriment. Deepavali is a festival of lights.
It is a movement from darkness toward light, from evil
toward goodness. The sights and sounds of Deepavali are
light, fire, smoke and crackers, creating fracas. It is a
complex affair, connoting values of different dimensions
to different people. If we get down to the nitty-gritty of
it, we shall find that it contains legends galore; it has
links with festivals and rituals of the other peoples,
other countries of the world. Lakshmi the Goddess of
wealth is worshipped during this festival in many parts of
India but Kali, the Shakti or the Goddess of Force and
Power, is worshipped in Bengal.
Lighting lamps
is like showing an illumined path to the ancestors. Fire
has been held as the symbol of rebirth and resurrection.
On the Christian All-Souls-Day in Mexico, in the month of
November, it is said that the beings already dead join
their family. All flock once in a year. In Japan, during
ancestor worshipping, all flock to the cemeteries and
light lamps all around the place. China has a lantern
festival on the full moon day and in Cambodia people offer
their ancestors food, as in India, on some occasions. In
Belgium, a day in early November is fixed to remember
their ancestors. In Bengal they float lamps on the water
bodies as they do in Thailand. All these festivals and
observations occur around this time, October-November of
the year. And then comes Christmas followed by New Year.
They too have their past connected to Babylonian culture
and myth.
Diwali is
auspicious for beginning a new financial year, so it is
for closing financial transactions, nay, for declaring the
business enterprise as closed, Deulia. It is a time marked
for financial changes in some parts of India.
But this much
may be enough for the festival as the issue is different.
The climate is autumn. After the summer and rains the
earth gradually changes it routine, led by the Sun. South
India is comparatively hot throughout the year. But here
too we discern a very slow yet sure movement in nature,
the severity of summer gradually giving way to winter. The
winter will never be severe in the whole of South India
except in hilly stations but it will be comfortable. It is
time for transition.
In the
mornings we find housewives making some designs with chalk
powder before their houses after cleaning the area with
water. The drawings—pictures
of flowers or animals or simple designs—are
quite attractive. This is called Kolam in Tamil. This is
an essential ritual on festival days but for many houses
it is a daily ritual. As we go out in the evenings we find
boys and girls gathering on streets lighting some
fireworks. The sounds of crackers, loud sometimes, stuns
us. We become careful lest some spark of fire may ignite
some part of our dress or body. Loud songs through
amplifiers are now the essential part of any festival.
Commoners may enjoy but we feel it a tyrant.
A poet and
writer usually has a different fate, especially when he
writes in a language, which though international and of
increasing popularity in India, is not the language proper
of any people of this country, especially since he has
migrated from a distant place, may be India but certainly
from another cultural ethos. Even in one’s own place how
many people know a poet, unless a huge publicity hype or a
big boom makes him known to the people? A writer of an
alien language is rarely known to the common people. This
is the way I know the people around me—daily
we see each other’s faces, do marketing together and try
to assimilate each other’s culture, as everywhere in
India, but our acquaintances are very shallow. Shallow is
the ordinary people’s curiosity to know the other.
Ethnicity has spread a deep route in spite of the blow of
the global village idea. And I must say that the modern
way of living has separated people, even families, tending
towards nucleus family units, as in the West. We are not
much concerned about the other, living in apartment
buildings, moving in our own vehicles.
Under these
abiding conditions I am a bilingual poet and writer who
rarely now-a-days writes in Bangla, his mother tongue as
well as of such other creators like Rabindranath Tagore,
Nirod C Chaudhury, Satyajit Roy and Jhumpa Lahiri. Away
from Bengal I write in English. I have enough connections
with Indian literary magazines, international ezines and I
have a Presence in many of the websites. I have so far
written many hundreds of features, essays, a good number
of stories and poems in magazines all over India and some
abroad, in some daily newspapers in India; with some 12
books in Bangla and 14 in English published. I am known to
some extent to some local readers and some writers, poets
and others who matter in the literary field. There are
some local poets and writers in the town who know me. Some
enthusiastic people of my community know me but I have
friends mostly in other towns of India and abroad. I am
busy really doing different types of writing, including
critique, cooperating with fellow writers and editors in
India and abroad. I cannot say that I have gained
publicity to make me at once known by name but I am on the
way. Active in the internet, writing in literary magazines
that hardly reach the common readers, writing in English
mostly, I am becoming more known to the literary world in
general but not much known to the people around me who are
the source of my knowledge about human character and
culture. Though I take my lessons of life from Nature, it
is ever indifferent about the coming and going of people
like the ever growing town, always oblivious of its
citizens unless man makes some of them immortal. I am
indebted to all my surroundings whether they accept me or
not. I am a product of my country and age, world wide. I
know my neighbours, they know me, we exchange smiles and
goodwill, we talk, agree or disagree but they do not know
my proper identity. I am unknown among the known.
Aju Mukhopadhyay, 2009
8, Cheir Lodi Street, Pondicherry-605001
