Saturday, December 27, 2014

জবা



এই অ্যাতো রাতে, তুমি, জবা
আমার চৈতন্য নির্বিকার
তুমি অলক্তচরণে, আমার চৈতন্য ধূধূ,
সেখানে বেড়াল, ধুলোট রাস্তাঘাট, প্রভৃতি।

এই অ্যাতো রাতে, তুমি, জবা
আমি যন্ত্রে জারিত দিনমান
তুমি নিশুথি নীরবে দুধপুকুর রক্তপুকুর দুইটি পাড়ে
ঠিকরে ভাসে, নতুন নৌকায় শতাব্দীপ্রাচীণ মাছ

শনি নীল ও অবাক
শতাব্দীপ্রাচীণ নৌকায় নতুন জ্যান্ত মাছ
এই অ্যাতো রাত আত্মঘাতী ভোর হলে আকাশে নদীতে কুসুমবিলাসী উষ্ণতায়
সূর্যকে উষ্ণীষ পড়িয়ে দেবে, জবা,
ততোক্ষণ থাকো?

জবা, বিরহনগরে মোচ্ছব ঘোর,
অস্তগোলায় ধান নাই, ক্ষেত নাই, পুকুর নাই
চোখ পেতে বসো, ওপারার খ্যাপাখেপি এলে স্নিগ্ধ বাতাসা খাবো একত্রে
জবা, বিল্ব হল কানা
জবা, সে এক বিরাট কসাইখানা
মটরশুঁটি ও সাবুদানা জোগাড় হলে
বিরহনগর অতীতের কচি বাতাবির ঘ্রাণে ঢুলুঢুলু,
রেখাপাত করে মনে, করপুটে, বালিচরে

মর্গের চুরাশিনম্বর নম্বর ড্রয়ারের অসনাক্ত মরাদের কপাল খারাপ, ওখানে কিছু পিঁপড়ে আছে ক'প্রজন্ম হল,

আমি দেখি, রক্তচোখ বৃংহণে চাঁদ চন্দ্রুমল্লিকা একাকার মেঘে মেঘে রাগী রাগী ষাঁড়
আমি দেখি, রক্তের সুখস্বাদে পিঁপড়ের হানিমুন, অন্নপ্রাশন, ইত্যবিধ বালছাল।
জবা দ্যাখো জড়াজড়ি করে দুই আদিবট, একচোখ, জ্ঞানচোখ, আদিবাবা
ধীবরেরা জাল ফ্যালে, বেলেহাঁস, পাতিহাঁশ, হেলেদুলে কিছুমাস, ফের কিছুমাস, ফের
ভোঁদড়েরা জেলেদের ভালোবাসে,
ফরেস্ট ডিপার্টমেণ্ট, ফিশারিস, এবং গুরুত্বভার বন্যপ্রাণ সংরক্ষকেরা জেলেদের ভালোবাসে না,
এইসকল উপায় অবলম্বনপূর্বক,
যুদ্ধে চলে জবা
যুদ্ধে বাজে শাঁখ
যুদ্ধে জাঁহাবাজ
কাকের হাগুতে পুষ্ট নাগরিক গাছ, জড়িয়ে জড়িয়ে হ্যাণ্ডবিল, নাকি নাকি সুরগুলো চেনাচেনা। গাছেগাছে বোর্ডমারা শহরে
কলকাতা শহরের চে’ প্রাচীণতর বৃক্ষ খুবসম্ভব শহর অঞ্চলে নেই।
ইতিহাসে আগামারা ডগামারা আগমার্ক কাণ্ডে অকাণ্ডে অকালকুষ্মাণ্ডে
সে’সকল বৃক্ষের ছমছমে আবডালে ব্রহ্মদৈত্য ও মামদোভূতের সাম্প্রদায়িক সম্প্রীতি, জোনাকি ও প্রেতের জীবক-বিপরীজ্জীবক দেওয়াল টপকানো হত আকছার
জবা থাকতে, ব্যাঙ্গমা থাকতে, ব্যাঙ্গমী থাকতে
ডালিমকুমার থাকতে (কঙ্কাবতীর জ্বর হয়েছিল সেইবার পৃথিবীর কারণে)
জবার জ্বর হলে পৃথিবীর কারণে তুলকালাম হয়,
তাই যন্ত্র যন্ত্র দিনমান
যুদ্ধ হলে শঙ্খ বাজবে
তাই গম্ভীর মুখ করে বসে আছে হিমদলবাবু
মাটি চাল না দিলেও কারখানা দিয়ে যাবে দোকানে দোকানে সাবু
জবা মাটি ভালোবাসে
জবা কারখানা ভালোবাসে
জবা দোকান ভালোবাসে
জবা চাল ও সাবু বা দুটোর যেকোনো একটা ভালোবাসতেই পারে, বা একটাও নাও বাসতে পারে

জবার ঘাড়ে আল্পনার মতো ভালোবাসার ভুত অনন্তকাল চেপে
অন্য কিছু চাপতে এলে পৃথিবীর কারণে তুলকালাম হয়,
অতএব, সাধু, সাবধান।।



Saturday, December 20, 2014

An Open Warning to the Saffron Brigade That is Running Amok in Calcutta Today

The communal nationalist forces that are trying to mess with Bengal must beware. Yes, initial successes will come on your way. A significant section of the urban middle class will get the communal-national high like they did in the urban seats of Maharashtra a couple decades after the pseudo-independence, but the urban-middle class of Calcutta is of a slightly different nature. In Maharashtra, this class stayed high. In Bengal, they won't. It's not because many Bongs got displaced due to communal shitkicking during the pseudo-independence, but because of the great unwashed out here runs on 'hujjat-e-Bangal', which, for lack of a better term, is also known as chaos. 


The urban middle class hangs to the weathercock of time because it's scared of standing against the winds, the urban toiling masses believe in street-violence whenever their rights are messed with, and in the villages, it's about saving the land and submitting to whatever it takes to save the land. Agriculture is messed up here, and the lands where the people, according to Herodotus or some other wise ancient firang, traded in gold-dust, is staring at a severe crop-deficit. One season of bad rain had led to two of the worst recorded famines ever at a space of a century and a half, and the possibilities of occurrence of another one within a couple of decades  have reared their ugly heads. Like it is almost everywhere else in the Third World, children of farmers do not dream of filling the lands with golden crops when they grow up. They would rather be contract-labourers in towns and cities, because the lands, ravaged by inorganic everything, won't yield gold anymore. Folks from villages have been pouring into industrial bases for the last few decades and the rate of their movement is increasing every passing day. Chances are that this pace of displacement will accelerate so much so that one day it will all end in a huge ball of chaos, perfect anarchy, and gallons of blood washing the streets of Calcutta, the original sin city of the world. And that won't be half an ounce of romantic for anybody. The romantic rhetoric of a Revolution has proved to be a bag of bad gas throughout the state in any case. Pain is never romantic.   


Your coming to the helm of political power in one half of Bengal, which is  a possibility in a year and a probability in six, will not slacken the pace of the spiral our history is taking us through. It will, given your approach to politics, increase the speed and hasten the arrival of this chaos. And being a rhetoric driven ideological outfit, you are most spectacularly ill-equipped to save your asses when that happens. You have been the cause of much blood-shed throughout the pseudonation and, if track records are anything to go by, you have gained political currency and have not shown the slightest remorse for your ill-doings. It Is true that you have a bit of wind behind your sails in the western piece of Bengal. The nearly monopolised media, like all profit-driven media throughout india, is by your side and you have been giving the dogs all the meaty bones. But one day, you will run out of all the bones. Everyone does. 


Let me tell you a story. Long long ago, around two thousand and three hundred years ago, there stretched a mighty empire where the Ganga meets the Bay. It was so prosperous because of all the alluvial deposits that some ancient firang historians thought that the people there traded in gold-dust. And the army there was so big and had so many elephants that another firang general from Macedonia did not dare to secede the empire, gave up on his world domination plans and retreated from around a thousand and a few kilometers away from that kingdom. Now the gold is gone and so are the elephants. That might give you hope. To wit, a much of the 'ancient scientific wisdom' you harp about, came from these parts. Thirty kilometers to the North-East of Calcutta, you will find a mound named after the scientist who analysed space time and cosmology and his wife whose wisdom on society made a prophet out of her and doomed her forever 


But rest assured, it is a false hope. The ideologue whom you swear by, a certain coinage of whom your near ancestors had used to unleash bloodbath and cut the land in two not so long back in history, had once sighed 'Bengalis have no history' (বাঙালির ইতিহাস নাই). Now, had you people not been so busy reading history in terms of the elephant god's plastic surgery, the monkey god's heroism as a vanvasi, and Eisenhower's uncertainty principle, you would have noticed that historians have subsequently proved your ideologue wrong. You were also too busy banning these historians to actually notice what path history has curved for these geographies and demographies. 


You must also know this that the seats in Bengal where your neo-polarisation drive has seen some success are full of people who fight, so much so that those seats were once known as the land of the wrestlers (মল্লভূম). Your Bhim had once slain one of those wrestler kings and had married his wife and sired a child, and your Krishna had once danced in joy in a battlefield when that child, who sided with you and your Bhim and your Krishna in that battle, fell. Being stabbed from behind will surely not be a new experience to these people, and it won't take very long for them to spring back. 


You must also know this that when things got too chaotic for them, these people of Bengal said 'screw it', came together and elected a human being, giving him the power and the responsibility of restoring order. But when one of his successors caused inequities with the fisherfolks out here, history started curving its own path yet again. The rest of the history has been pretty well documented because by then , thanks largely to a handful of poets, the place had got its own script to write stuff by then.  Fortunately for us and unfortunately for you, you are too busy thinking of the the elephant god's plastic surgery to read into much of that. You feel happier banning historians and other nice folks who talk about these histories than reading these. It is precisely because of these reasons that you are and will be making spectacular fools out of yourself, political domination notwithstanding. 


You do not fit in to the processes of history of these geographies. You have no presence in the memories of people. The Hindutwa people who came here ever since the firangs had begun making their presence felt were the marauding looters from Maharashtra and then, a couple centuries down the line, as bigots from within Bengal, one of whom died starving in a Kashmiri prison. Ironies of history are many. If you insist on continuing to ignore those ironies like you are doing today, a gorier destiny might await. Your presence in the western pound of Bengal's flesh will hasten famine and chaos, and there is enough history and enough rationale floating all around you to show how and why. Those of you who came from outside will flee. Those of you who are from Bengal and are supporting this tragedy as it unfolds will get obliterated in entirety once the tragedy unfolds in its entirety. 


I am not prophesizing. I'm just reading into history to tell you why you will get screwed regally after your initial successes in west Bengal. That great empire before the reputation of whose strength Secunder from Macedonia had to flee fell, and it fell after the religious elements, the Hindus who would lick royal asses and the Royalty who would lick Hindu asses slashed out the tongue of the prophet lady I was talking about. The successors of that king who got elected by the people who wished to put an end to anarchy managed to rule for a while in the name of divine providence from the one you have usurped as your ninth avatar. (That the adherents of your ninth avatar doesn't give a damn about your interpolation is another story, an equally interesting one). But then they messed with the fishingfolks and the huntingfolks in the name of religion and got screwed over. The staunch Hindus who came to rule next and filled up the lacuna of Brahmindom by creating a nuovo Brahmin class and allowing them to marry, own and copulate with as many women as their hearts and other organs wished to, got screwed over so much so that their last scion chickened out and fled his lunch in disguise when twelve riders rode down from Turkey. Such was the tale of bravery of the kings whose ideology you resonate with. Poor guy couldn't even complete his lunch, had to masquerade as a commoner and take a boat straight to the eastern climes - climes where people hate you with all hatred their guts can summon. History has kept on flowing through all its streams and meanders ever since. Some of it got trapped in the ox-bow lakes of forgetting and some of it stayed on, in bits and pieces. The dudes from Abyssinia, who, like you, understood little of the place, couldn't last beyond two decades. It would surely be a great irony if, somewhere down the multitudinous tides of history, an analogy is to be drawn between their fate and yours. You do hate the non-Aryans, don't you? (well, you also hate the people who stay in Central Asia from where the Aryan identity came to be because of their religion. You hate so many people and you seek to harm those people whenever possible in so many ways that it's nt even funny. The Turkish dudes at least took the effort to learn bits and pieces from whatever history the place had. They had that very force by them which you fear as your mortal enemies - the Sufi fakirs. But with time even those kings lost the plot and had to make way for the firangs, whose entry and exit were marked by two of the most hideous famines in recorded history - the first one involving people eating people in the name of the stomach and the second one involving people killing people in the name of religion. Despite what your 19th century Bong ideologue says, Bengal does have histories, and those histories speak against you. You are too deaf to hear that speech or any speech that does not come out of your own. That will be your undoing in future.  


You see, us Bengalis, we love to eat and terrible things happen when we can't. Our fields yield gold and pure, perfect chaos unleashes when they stop to yield the gold - like they are stopping now. You are not equipped enough to deal with that. All you are good enough at is unleashing more brutality and violence, slashing off tongues that lash, fists that clench and hands that rise against you, choking out voices that speak and blotting out symbols and signifiers that scream against your order of things, your idea of domination, profit and oppression. That will make rivers of blood flow and rices of wrath burn. You will drown in that river. You will burn with the rice. 


Back in the early nineteenth century, a dewan who had bribed his way to the epithet of Rajah but then did some nice stuff like helping the firangs make laws that stopped the burning of women in their husbands' pyres - yet another of the many colourful contributions to the ideological heritage that you adhere to - had written a song, a sentence of which has suddenly become very popular because it has been quoted in a different context by a political clown whom everyone thinks to be very important because the media that you carry in your pocket has been very  meticulous in creating all these smokescreens and allowing for you and your to spread your tentacles in sheer silence, far away from the limelight over the past year and a half. But now that you are careening closer and closer to the limelight every passing day, i would like to remind you of that very sentence: মনে করো শেষের সেদিন ভয়ংকর/ অন্য বাক্য কবে কিছু তুমিই রবে নিরুত্তর (Remember, that last day is terrible/ Others will speak and you will have no answers). 


Take it as a warning from history. Back off.  

Thursday, December 18, 2014

যেদিকে তাকাও

যেদিকে তাকাও, ফুটেজ খাবার ধান্দা
যেদিকে তাকাও, মলিন ঝুলবারান্দা
যেদিকে তাকাও, জাগার ভানে ঘুম
যেদিকে তাকাও, দুখিন বাঙলাভূম।

যেদিকে তাকাও, মেরুণ মরারুণ
যেদিকে তাকাও, ঘুমচুপসারে খুন
যেদিকে তাকাও, ধর্মজিরাফষাঁড়
যেদিকে তাকাও, হাসিমুখ গদ্দার


যেদিকে তাকাও, উঠছে সবাই জাতে
মারছে কিছু, মরছে অনেক - ভাতে;
যেদিকে তাকাও, দাউ দাউ বিষ ক্ষেতে
খুদকুশী এক মজার খ্যালা,  উঠ লো সবে মেতে


খেলতে খেলতে সমস্ত পথ রক্তে লালোলাল
রক্তে জাগো, রক্তে হাগো, রক্তে বালিখাল
বসুন্ধরার স্তনের বোঁটায় বিষের লাখো ধারা
পরম বলতে দুইটি ওজর - মরা এবং মারা


যেদিকে তাকাও, হুহুফাটফাট মাটি
যেদিকে তাকাও, মেধামেধ পরিপাটি
যেদিকে তাকাও, ফুলঝরা মরশুম
ঠাণ্ডানিথর চোখ পেতেছে ক্লান্ত বাঙলাভূম

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Heartbreak Hounds

They are always around, right across the next bend
and then the next
and then the next,
like lost voices echoing on lost walls.
The best and the worst
are always clubbed together
to keep the calm fogs fixed across certain timeless brows, ever knit in anger,
or perhaps remorse.
then there are these books of wisdom, firmly closed
Pandora pirouetting through open and shut monstrosities
such as trees, nests and houses burning,
through flames that turn blue in love and pain
faces of ghosts that come up and fade
faces of foxes in foglight across a deep, pale valley
butchered by mirages, killed by the chimes.
all because the mirrors are always too damn many
and the humans are always too damn confused
and all roads lead to too much shit for one life, half a reckoning
it's like a threesome in the snow, too many colours
and then mist eats them all
and then the foxes and the leopards come out from the caves
and funny little people come out from the caves of mind
and they all light a fire, a happy one
where Pandora doesn't matter
and nothing else does. Such shit we go through to keep our minds off those hounds
as they wait for their turn, in placid certainty
blue, in love, pain and hunger
big, like the world with all its stars and time
inching closer by the hour, like all cold razorblades do when all stuff comes together and cease to be anything but all stuff coming together.