On being Bengali

Rabindranath has said in his timeless creation "shesher kobita" - the last poem that knowledge is a diamond, but that rays that come out of it is culture. Knowledge has mass, culture has brightness. (কমল হীরের পাথরটা কে বলে বিদ্যে আর ওর থেকে যে আলো বেরোয় তাকে বলে কালচার । পাথরের আছে ভার আলোর আছে দীপ্তি । ). With Durga Puja just round the corner, Bengalis all over the world would feel a tug in their hearts and get nostalgic over the simple things that remind them of the Durga Puja at home.

Shiuli

Little white cumulus clouds floating through the clear blue sky, a cool breeze heralding autumn that blows over green paddy fields creating gentle waves, shiuli and kaash flowers blooming and through the fields in the villages would walk a throng of dhakis (drummers) beating their dhaks in the typical Bengali rhythm, the rhythm of festivity, the one that tells everyone Durga is coming from her husband's place in the Himalayas to her parents' little mud huts in Bengal. Durga is not really a goddess vanquishing the demon, for us, she is that daughter who brings her four children to visit her family once a year for five days.

Dhaaki

Mahalaya acts as the threshold for this. The people of Calcutta, for the last eighty years have been waking up at dawn on the day of Mahalaya to listen to this radio program of Mahisashuramardini - "annihilation of the buffalo demon" - where chants are read from the religious text Chandi by the famous Birendra Krishna Bhadra. I cannot describe the feeling, but the fact that it is still going strong for five generations should be enough to clarify its popularity.

Bengalis pride themselves on the culture aspect. That's the reason of my opening line. But culture is something that should shine from a person, it is something that would define us. It can't be imposed upon. I have seen many Bengalis here, who on trying to impose this "culture" on their second generation kids, drag them along to anything that is Indian, including Bollywood parties or make them grudgingly wear traditional clothes at Bengali Association events. What's the outcome? They start hating the "culture" thing and shirk away from that very concept which should have actually made them proud. One hour of speaking Bengali at home would not help, a general understanding of Bengal should be the key.

What did Rabindranath say? The first thing needed is knowledge. That's the diamond. If knowledge is absent, what would you shine with? That knowledge would come from reading and being exposed to your own roots as well as of the rest of the world. If you fear other cultures, it means you don't have enough confidence in your own. You are worried about them taking over your own. However, if your roots are strong then you would not have any fear of spreading your wings to fly off to the distant horizon. As you know that what has been imbibed in you would always be in there to enrich you.

Bengal - home

I am known to be quite an "international" person. I never go to the local Bengali Association, nor has the local Hindu temple seen me. I see no reason to gang up with the Indians simply because they and I belong to the same country. However, the tradition passed down from the Bengal Renaissance is still somewhere inside. That's what makes me try my hand at cooking and carefully noting (in English, for May and Mota's wife probably) old traditional Bengali recipes. That's the thing that makes me read Sarat Chandra's works on my PlayBook and doodle Durga's eyes on a piece of yellow post-it as I wait for my code to build.