Archive for the 'Bengal' Category

Moonshine Forever

[Long post warning]

[Figure 1: Clip with sub-titles from the movie “Bow Barracks Forever”]

In the long list of grouses (the marginalization of Subhash Bose in the Indian national Congress, the policy of freight equalization, lack of funding for Bakreshwar power plant, Sourav Ganguly’s treatment at the hands of the BCCI, Soumitro Chatterjee being overlooked for the Dadasaheb Phalke Award and “Ami Kolkattar Rosogolla” not being made the national anthem being some of them) that we Bengalis have nurtured over the years like festering wounds that refuse to heal, nothing perhaps rankles more than the fact that Moonmoon Sen was never given the iconic status in Bollywood that she so richly deserved.

People who closely follow Bengali movies noted amazing flashes of brilliance in her performance in “Baidurya Rahasya “where she played a no-nonsense lethal detective who goes undercover as a sexy Vaishnavite priestess with a craving for fish (her famous line “Mamu ami maach bhaja khamu” [Uncle, I want to eat fried fish]) still gives me the shivers whenever I hear it). Soon her flawless pronunciation, unaffected manner of speaking, acting prowess [video] and her overdone femininity (called “nyakamo” in Bengali) had made her the darling of what Taran Adarsh calls the “classes and the masses”.

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The Killing Fields of Bengal

[This is a long post. So be warned. May I also request people to read the whole post if they at all choose to start reading. Update on December 3, 2007: A minorly edited version of this post has appeared in the December edition of Pragati]

Amar naam, tomar naam—-Vietnam

“My name, your name, Vietnam”. Resonating across the streets of Calcutta and the villages of Bengal, this slogan of the late 60s and early 70s was as much a cry of solidarity for the Vietcong fighting the Americans as it was emblematic of the growing popularity of the philosophy of Communism among an entire generation, a political ideology that defined itself primarily by its support for the “little guy”, the downtrodden and the oppressed, as they fought the depredations of the West, evil corporations, landlords and the oppressive rule of the Congress. Tapping into this groundswell of Bengali idealistic passion, came to power a man who had positioned himself perfectly to ride the wave, branding himself as the “Sarboharar Neta” (the leader of those who have nothing).

A man by the name of Jyoti Basu, the leader of the CPIM.

Bengal was never the same again.

After nearly thirty years of Communist dominion in West Bengal, in what can only be called poetic irony, a word that rhymes with Vietnam has come to symbolize the political ideology of a new generation, that defines itself primarily by its support for the “little guy” as they fight the same set of enemies as before but with the oppressive rule of the Congress being now replaced by the oppressive rule of the CPIM.

That word is Nandigram —a human tragedy, an indictment of the extra-Constitutional authority of the democracy-crushing CPIM, and a political dagger in the hands of both the religious right and the “actual” Left to draw blood from their common enemy, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya

Will Bengal ever be the same again?

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Piss Piss Bang Bang

Many of us have often accused the Left parties and their minions in the intelligentsia of pissing on the Indian army and the defense establishment at every possible opportunity. Well, in a disturbing development this “pissing” has crossed over from the world of metaphor in to the world of mice and men in a way that is sure to make even the most news-hardened among you hold your nose to block the stench.

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Modern Times

Raima Sen, one of Moonmoon Sen’s contribution to the tired-world, gives us an interesting insight into a modern “Bengali” upbringing.

However, Raima identifies more with the spunky, modern Sheila of The Bong Connection. “We’ve had a very modern upbringing. We didn’t do pujas at home. We speak in English at home, not Bengali. Most of my friends have been Anglo-Indians.”

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Under Siege

Who would have ever thought we would live to see the day the CPM government would be under fire, not just from the spontaneous bedlam generator otherwise known as Mamata Banerjee but from its long-trivialized Left front partners and the ever-sympathetic jhola liberals, when its activitists would be running scared from villages (the same villages where once their writ ran supreme) and when sharecroppers, small land-owners and minorities, the pillars of their 30 year old rule, would emerge as their most trenchant opponents.

Who would have ever thought this day would come.

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In Praise of Bandhs

What the hell is wrong with Mamata Banerjee? First she calls for a 48 hour Bandh and then postpones it (at least she has not cancelled it) taking into account the entreaties of her Christian brothers !

Postponing a bandh? What kind of lunacy is that? Don’t people understand that the bandh needed to be on 21st (Thursday), 22nd (Friday) so that with the weekend (23rd and 24th) and Christmas (25th) we would have a really really long weekend ? Why is noone thinking about the people who made advance plans based on the prospect of this “Bandh Break” —who will compensate them for their loss? [Left: Picture (from Times of India) of protesting Trinamool hunks]

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Bengali Passion

One of the favouritest past-times of the argumentative Bengali, usually over noisy slurps of tea, bites of aloor chop and intermittent puffs on Gold Flake, is to apportion blame for Bengal’s marginalization in national politics, the economy and even culture in post-Independence India. For politics, the schism between Subhash Bose and Gandhi is considered to be the starting point of Bengal’s steadily decreasing influence over Delhi. The freight equalization policy that took away much of Bengal’s locational advantage and the Congress-party-held Center’s discriminatory fiscal policies towards CPM-ruled Bengal, both as retribution for repeatedly electing a non-Congress party as well as to favour Congress-held states (or states where they had a decent chance of winning) are considered universally (and rightfully) to be two of the major factors for Bengal’s economic marginalization. And lording over these factors is the ubiquitous, inexorable CPM-led militant trade unionism from the 60s to the 90s that led to a massive flight of industrial capital from the state—-though this contributory factor is likely to be debated vehemently by the hard-core Leftists, a breed that is thankfully being slowly supplanted by the pragmatic Leftist as exemplified by Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.

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