They are on Chat

Nidhu Bhusan Das : They are on chat – Rumi and Swarup. Rumi is in Siliguri, West Bengal, India. Swarup is in New York, the USA. Far apart they are. Yet they are very near, intimate, with webcams connected. Rumi goes online after supper regularly at 11 p.m. This is the mutually agreed time. I would give you the copy of one such conversation they had last night. You will find it interesting. Rumi began thus: How are you? Swarup wrote back: Fine. What was the menu for supper? Rice, roti, fish curry and chili chicken. The chat continued for an hour. Think how many words they used, how many emotions they shared. Their interaction was like that of a couple in bed or lovers in an arbor. I was with Rumi that time, and was, therefore privy to the exchange. I will not be able to publish for you the whole conversation. I shall reproduce only those portions which I am permitted to make public. And I shall be honest lest I might be sued for defamation. Well, you may think why I was allowed to be with Rumi at night in her exclusive time. I will tell you in time. For now, I can tell you Rumi is a nice girl. She is excellent and adorable. Every peer around appreciates her beauty in physique, gait, talk and the smile she wears. I am not an exception. Many are there eager to have her hand. It is really difficult for her to negotiate her way through the crowd of adorers. What I can say is that she is agile enough to wade through. Onlookers notice her while her eyes scan the air. Everybody thinks he has won her tender heart, nobody knows her heart travels across the Atlantic every night. You may be jealous that I know so much about her. Be it so. I volunteer to place before you the conversation for your perusal and understanding. Swarup (hereinafter S): My God! A glutton indeed. Take such heavy food at night! Rumi (hereinafter R): Not in the least. I follow what the nutritionist advises. S: Hang your nutritionist. Its common knowledge we should avoid heavy food for healthy life. Forget that. What’s the message for me now? R: For Godsake hold your tongue, and let me love, S: Donne, metaphysical. Good. When shall we shed ‘meta’? R: Naughty boy! Have you had lunch? S: It’s Thursday, baby. Didn’t I tell you I fast on the day? R: O! Yes. I forgot. S: You look nice. Had you been to the parlor? R: It’s bad. You don’t recognize I have natural beauty. ‘Phoney’ is the word Americans cling to. I would say you look nice and exuberant. Has there been anything special to make you exceptionally happy? S: I saw you in dream last dawn. I dreamt we were together in bed looking eye to eye. I see you are excited (the picture on the webcam shows her face reddened). R: I have such dreams every night. Ridiculous! Fiction! Fools live in fiction. I am not a fool, am I? S: No, dear. You are quite sensible. I hope I shall not live long in a fool’s paradise. R: When will you have your real paradise, tentatively at least? S: Soon, very soon – maybe, in a couple of months. R: You left after the honeymoon. Seems ages have glided by. S: The waiting will end soon. How is the weather out there? R: I am wrapped in fur. S: Okay then, go to bed, and under the blanket, clutching bolster. R: Good night! Do you feel Rumi will be with anyone of you? I am sure we shall soon find her away. My mother is so sad she will have her only daughter sent away to a continent across a huge landmass and an ocean.

Romantic Story

Crossing the Prohibited Degree

Nidhu Bhusan Das :


They are in relationship. The Facebook profiles of Swapan and Shila tell us about the infatuation they have for each other. This is a surreptious heart-to-heart relation that goes beyond the social mores and code. They are cousins. Shila is the daughter of Swapan’s maternal uncle. Hindu family law does not allow marriage between such kins. A student of Bengali Honors at Dhaka University Shila has a special liking for the epistolary poems of Michael Madhusudan Dutta in his ‘Veerangana Kavya’ wherein prohibited love is dealt with. That love does not conform to the prescription of the society is shown in the poems. The psychology of Shila can be understood from a reading of the poems about the unrequited passion of the heroines. Obviously, Swapan is not unresponsive and has the same intense passion for Shila. Both know they have to cross the barrier of prohibited degree. It is difficult.
They have been friends since childhood. They would play together, quarrel and stop talking again to be eloquent. They got separated when Swapan was admitted in the Collegiate School, Dhaka in class V. Then on, they would meet when Swapan visited his uncle’s house during the summer vacation for a week or so to taste the mangoes of the orchard attached to the residential complex in the village Bhirinda, three hours from Dhaka by train and three miles from the station. The uncle and aunt have great affection for him, and they were particularly happy at the way Swapan and Shila enjoyed the get-together. Of course, the farewell at the end of the visit would be quite sad.
Till their association away from homes in the university campus none of them thought there existed something between them beyond being brother and sister. Swapan is a resident of Jagannath Hall and Shila lives in Shasunnahar Hall across the road that lies between TSC and the British Council. Every afternoon they go out for a stroll and often dash into the Suharawardy Udyan like many other students. One evening whilst eating nuts sitting face to face under a Krishnachuda, they felt something different. They could not talk easy. Silence was eloquent, and the inability to meet the eyes of each other added meaning to the silence. They could not sit there long.Shila offered to leave saying she felt dizzy. Anxious, Swapan suggested he would take her to the University Medical Centre yonder but Shila said she would go back to the hall and have rest. Thus the day ended for them to ponder, and for brain storming over their new passion and the consequences thereof if they decided in favor of honoring what they felt.
Back to the halls they were not as usual. A new passion gripped them. They knew what was in their mind but dared not tell it. The social control through mores and code, they knew, overrides emotions and passions. That night a melancholy visited them as they were aware they had a passion which did not have the social sanction. Their parents would not accept it. If they were to remain true to their passion they would run the risk of being ostracized. Society, riddled with inhibitions would look upon them as anarchists and immoral. Would they be able to stand the social ostracism and possible separation from parents? The thought continued to haunt them throughout the night and into the next day till they met in the cozy corner of the green lawn of the British Council on Fuller Road. Early morning Shila sent him an SMS which read:’ meet me at the british council at 11 a.m. ‘Swapan understood she had taken a decision. It must be a question, as was wont of her. What could be the question? Would she ask ‘Shall we live together for life?’ This could be the question, decided Swapan, as Shila was straight forward. Even when a child, remembers Swapan, she was fond of being candid and desperate. If that was the question what he would say. Will he say, ‘I don’t know?’ Will that be in keeping with his thought and feeling? Does he not the identical passion? Should he deceive himself?
They were on the lawn on time, face to face, melancholic. Silence prevailed for minutes. , ‘What do you think? asked Shila. Swapan looked up, as if, he were knocked out of a reverie, and said, hesitant, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘I mean what you mean. Don’t try to smart under supposed social pressure. Be true to yourself.’ Swapan gave in and answered the question he thought was in the mind of Shila: ‘We shall live together for ever if you are also willing.’ Smile revisited them. None knows they tied knot the next day at Dhakeswari Kali Bari. It will remain a secret till they are on their careers.

Yield of Unaided Reading

Nidhu Bhusan Das :


We usually go by canon and keep in mind what critics have said about a text when we set out to read it.Or,we do not feel at ease unless and until we come to know the opinions of the critics after reading it unaided. There are two types of readers of a literary text- those who read for sheer enjoyment and those who go for critical reading. True, a critical reader is well equipped with the canon and opinions of other critics, if any, on the text. In case the text is new and a critic reads it to assess its worth and significance, he has the unenviable liberty to form his own opinion uninhibited by other opinions which do not exist. Yet the critical reader cannot but go by the canon. The first category of readers is free from any such inhibitions. Whenever a banker, a bureaucrat or an industrialist without literary training, for example, reads a novel, a play or a poem, he enjoys it in his own way, and may have his own opinion about the text. This opinion is also important because, ultimately, the success of the author depends on how the common readers accept the text.

However, canon and critical opinion develop as critical readers are active. One may ask what the utility of canon and critical study is. Well, it is like architecture. As building architecture evolves so does the architecture of texts. It corresponds with the evolution in the realm of thought as well as in the society. The motif and theme of a text depends on the location of the author in point of time. The reference to time is not necessarily to mean conteporanety but the time in the psyche. Though a Victorian in point of conteporanety, Robert Browning looked back to classical Greece .The time in this case is the one in the psyche of the poet. A creative mind may travel back to the past and revive it using his sensibility and insight developed in the present. A critic, on the other hand, looks through the text with contemporary theories in mind. Shakespeare wrote centuries before Karl Marx came up with his landmark theories of Surplus Value, Basic Structure and Super Structure. Yet a Marxian criticism of Shakespeare has been possible. Not only this, Structuralism, Deconstruction, Feminism etc.could be applied to shed new light on the works of Shakespeare.

Even if an ordinary reader reads a text unaided by any critical theory, his appreciation of the same depends on his contemporary sense, sensibility and insight. As the reader is also an author in the sense he finds his own meaning in the text, so a text is always open to new interpretation yielding meaning appropriate to the time of the reader. Is it then reasonable to think that every text is a mystery having in it the potential for umpteen meanings as does have our universe? If this is true, an author is like the creator of the universe which baffles us, and takes us to a realm which we try to grasp but cannot extract a meaning which is absolute. Whenever an author creates a text, (s)he has his/her own frame and architecture of thought, way of looking at and into the thing (s)he deals with. True, creation is a matter and embodiment of joy but, obviously, knowledge; experience and the objective condition in which the author is located form his/her outlook which gives shape to his/her joy of creation. The unaided reader with his/her thought outlook and frame of reference rooted in his/her environment explores in the text meaning compatible with his/her experience and insight.

Now, what could be the nature of the joy of creation and how the critical mind will respond to the existing and new texts in the 21st century, given the dominance of digital technology, biotechnology, genetic engineering and consumerism side by side with the problem of Global Warming and the facts of Globalization and Cultural Imperialism? Surely, this reality will inspire a new frame of thought and the creative and the critical minds will be influenced. The new experience will lead to new insight to produce new types of texts. Walt Whitman was inspired to compose the poem ‘A Passage to India’ after the opening up of the Suez Canal. Maybe, we will have an epic and other works on the explorations in the outer space by NASA, ISRO and such other bodies.