The Golden Pen

 

The biography of legendary Bollywood lyricist Anand Bakshi penned by his son Rakesh is an engaging read

By Shevlin Sebastian

Pics: The cover of the book; (from left): Singer Mukesh, Anand Bakshi, Lata Mangeshkar and RD Burman in the 1960s

For a book in English, it was unusual to see a Hindi title: ‘Nagme, Kisse, Baatein, Yaadein’ — the life and lyrics of Anand Bakshi.

There were two reasons I picked up the book, which is written by Anand’s son Rakesh. Over the decades, on LP’s, CDs, cinema and television screens, and YouTube, I had always seen the name Anand Bakshi next to the word, lyrics. I realised I knew little about him.

Second, the photo on the cover was eye-catching. The far-away look in the eyes of a young Anand, the curly black hair, the thick ring, the long nose, and the thin, but determined lips. The author’s photograph is by Amit Bakshi. This could be a brother.

The book is an enjoyable read. The one drawback is that there are a lot of Hindi lyrics, but in some sections, there are no English translations in brackets. So, if your Hindi is not strong enough, you can miss out.

It is a story of a poet who chased a dream but faced rejection for a long time. Anand, a refugee from Pakistan, quit his job in the Indian Army and went to Mumbai. In his first attempt, he made no headway and returned home to Delhi.

He made a second attempt, and success eluded him. Anand had a wife and daughter back home. His in-laws stopped supporting him. His parents were dejected. The pressure to return grew intense. He had run out of money.

One day, in 1958, the jobless lyric writer sat at the Marine Lines railway station, writing poetry in a notebook. A Western Railway ticket checker, Ustad Chittar Mal Swaroop, asked him whether he had a valid ticket. Anand replied in the negative. Chittar Mal asked him to pay a fine, but Anand said he had no money.

Chittar Mal noticed Anand had written some poetry. He asked Anand to narrate it. What Anand did not know was that Chittar Mal was a lover of poetry. Anand’s poems impressed the railway employee. When asked about his life story, Anand told him he was on the verge of quitting and returning to Delhi.

Chittar Mal stared at Anand. Then he said, “I live alone in Borivali. My family lives in Agra. It gets lonely, and I would like the company of a poet. You stay with me. I don’t want any rent. You narrate your poems to me. When you get work, you can look for your accommodation.” So, that very day, Anand began living with Chittar Mal at 24H, Jawala Estate, SV Road, Borivali West.

Little did they both know then, but Anand ended up staying with Chittar Mal for the next four years. That was how tough it was to gain an entry.

After several attempts, Anand got an appointment with Roshan Lal Nagrath, who was a leading composer in the 1950s. He was supposed to go to the composer’s house in Santa Cruz at 10 a.m. But the previous night, it began to rain heavily. By the morning, the streets got flooded. The local trains and BEST buses stopped plying.

But Ananad was not deterred. He walked from Borivali West to Santa Cruz, a distance of 19 kilometres. It took him three hours. When he rang the bell, Roshan, on opening the door, looked at the completely drenched Anand and jokingly said, “Are you a man or a ghost?”

Anyway, Anand impressed Roshan when he recited his poems. So, Roshan told Anand to write the lyrics for ‘CID Girl’ (1959). Anand’s first song from that film became a hit. Thereafter, Roshan and Anand worked on many films together.

Several years later, when Anand established himself as a lyric writer,

Roshan’s son Rajesh was making his debut as a music composer. This time Roshan asked Anand to write the lyrics for the film Julie (1975). The songs, Bhool gaye sab kuch, yaad nahi ab kuch and Dil kya kare jab kisi ko, kisi se pyar ho jaye became super-duper hits and remain popular even today. That’s how life turned 360 degrees. The composer who gave a break to a novice then asked him for help on the son’s debut album.

Anand had hit songs for five decades, working with multiple music composers like SD and RD Burman, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Naushad, Kalyanji-Anandji, Anu Malik, AR Rahman and others. Some of his most famous songs could be heard in the films, Bobby, Amar Prem, Aradhana, Mera Gaon, Mere Desh, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Pardes, and Taal.

He had written the lyrics for 4000 songs. And he remained a success right till the very end. The songs he liked the best were from Amar Prem, and he was proud of the one line that became immortal: ‘Kuchh to log kahenge logon ka kaam hai kehnaa’.

Anand died in Mumbai of multiple organ failure on March 30, 2002, at the age of 71. He had remained friends with Chittar Mal over the decades and always remained grateful to his friend. Chittar Mal died in 2001.

Enclosed are quotes from the book:

Good songs exist in good stories.

The actor is the face of the song.

Success and failure are solo journeys. Except that in success, we have the support of people, whereas, in failure, few stand by us.

There is something inside me superior to my circumstances, stronger than every situation of life.

You must adjust to everyone and deliver to everyone.

(As director Subhash Ghai said, ‘Anand’s best quality was not his ability to write profound thoughts in simple, everyday words, but his discipline and respect for time. He never delayed a single song that I asked him to write.”)

I decided I would never show off my talent and success because something within me told me that the day I misuse the gift that was granted to me by God and time, I would be nowhere soon. Never abuse a blessing or gift. Be humble.

I have seen the most formidable and talented people fail overnight — because of an unhealthy attitude towards their work and their success. Because they did not respect what time had brought to their threshold.

Time has never stopped for any power, any emperor, any culture, and any civilisation. Perhaps time is God.

Time has a design for every man and woman.

I let time take its decisions for me.

I will write till time wants me to.

One day, the show will end. My end — every kind of end — is only logical. As I overtook the others, one day, some others will overtake me, sweep my fans off with their new or better styles. Life is a chakra that keeps turning.

Destiny is all-powerful.

I wanted to be someone whose words, however simple, touched the hearts of every man, woman, and child.

Age does not matter in a profession. Talent, discipline, punctuality, hard work and purity of heart matter. 

The Death of A Rain Tree

By Shevlin Sebastian 

Just like that, workers of the Forest Department chopped down the massive rain tree at Padivattom, Kochi, near my house, in the name of development. According to news reports, over 250 trees will be cut,  because another section of the Kochi Metro is coming up. This will connect Jawaharlal Stadium in Kaloor with Smart City 2, comprising 11 stations and covering a distance of 11.2 kms.

The branches of the rain tree provided a welcome canopy during hot summers and rainy days.

For years, a few parents with their children stood under its branches, in the early mornings, waiting for the school bus.

While some came in cars, others arrived in two-wheelers and those who lived nearby walked it. We smiled and greeted each other while the children milled around us in their uniforms and bags.

The tree remained a soothing presence, even as our minds and bodies felt stressed, as we tried to balance jobs, marriage, parenthood, and household responsibilities.

The children began as toddlers and ended up as teenagers. Now many of them have moved on to colleges and post-graduate studies. I haven’t gone to the bus stop in the early morning for a few years. I am out of touch with those parents, too. What are their children doing now? 

I am sure new parents and children are going through the same routine at the same bus stop. The cycle of life continues from one generation to the other. When I saw the fallen tree, I realised time had passed. 

The time when children listened to whatever we said, observed and picked up their attitudes and nuances of behaviour from us. Now they have independent minds and are on the way towards independent lives. Some of us are facing the ‘empty nest’ syndrome, especially wives who were so enmeshed in their children’s lives that they forgot their husbands.

I remember meeting one woman, in her sixties, who told me she felt shocked when the children no longer needed her. Like most mothers, she had focused completely on the children. It is the most fulfilling job of their lives, no matter even when they say they had fulfilling careers. 

She realised the relentless tick-tock of the clock had now pushed her to a new space. A space where children do not exist except on once-a-year visits, voices through the phone, in online chats, and as images or videos on WhatsApp.

Why is she shocked? All she has to do is to look back. She also had to leave her parents and stayed in touch only occasionally. This woman told me she had to work very hard to rebuild her relationship with her husband. Her husband, a sporting man, took her back into the marital embrace. Not all men are accommodating. Marriages have broken up because of this neglect.

But how can you blame a woman? These children have come out of her womb. Hence, she feels a biological and emotional imperative to protect and nurture them. In the early years, it is the mother’s nurturing that is so vital for the all-around development of the child. It is time-consuming and exhausting. More so, if the woman has a career. Former PepsiCo Chairman & CEO Indra Nooyi details this aspect in her recently released memoir, ‘My Life in Full: Work, Family, and our Future’.

Here is an extract:

“I’ll never forget coming home after being named President of PepsiCo back in 2001. My mother was visiting at the time. “I’ve got great news for you,” I shouted. She replied, “It can wait. We need you to go out and get some milk.”

So I go out and get milk. And when I come back, I’m hopping mad. I say, “I had great news for you. I’ve just been named President of PepsiCo. And all you want me to do is go out and get milk.” 

Then she says, “Let me explain something to you. You may be President of PepsiCo. But when you step into this house, you’re a wife and mother first. Nobody can take that place. So leave that crown in the garage.” 

The death of the tree also reminded me of the various deaths I am coming across now. Parents, uncles and aunts, friends of our parents, and relatives. They are all exiting the planet one by one.

One feels a keen sense of mortality. In our fifties, we can no longer pretend life will go on forever. There is a finite nature to it. Sometimes, you feel sad your time is limited.

Some have regrets about the career they chose. A few recounted mistakes that hampered their professional growth. Some underwent financial stresses. 

Others have emotional sorrows. I remember a friend, who passed away a year ago, had told me, “I made the biggest mistake of my life by having an affair. It destroyed my marriage and affected my children. I am no longer with this woman. It was a total loss for me.”

It is a time when we look forward as well as look back. There is a desire among some of us to embark on a second career. 

But surely, a day will come when we will become a physical blank. Like the rain tree at Padivattom. There is a lot of sunlight there, but sadly, I saw blocks of concrete where the tree once stood. 

The vanishing tree is a metaphor for our lives.

We will become dust-laden photographs on the wall. And nobody will look at us. The next generation will be busy with their lives like we had been once. Now our destination is getting closer. Depending on your religion, it’s six feet under the ground or 100 grams of ash floating in a holy river.

Happy Marriages?

By Shevlin Sebastian

During Onam, on social media, there were many photos of happy marriages and families. Husband and wife are smiling and so are the children. It gives the impression that everybody is happy.

But are they?

A former colleague told me of a couple she knew, married for over 25 years, who would step out in public, smile adoringly at each other, and sometimes hold hands. But at home, the husband remains ice cold towards the wife, does not have any physical contact, rarely speaks to her and sleeps in another room.

She told me of another couple who had a fractious relationship for 50 years. They rarely spoke to each other and slept in different rooms. When the husband died, the wife did not go to the funeral, so great was the animosity. So, why did they not opt for a divorce? She is not sure about the reasons for that.

A friend pointed out to me a photo of a couple on her mobile phone. It was taken during Onam celebrations. The husband wore a saffron juba while the wife was in a Kerala-style saree, in a pleasing beige shade. Both smiled happily at the camera. “She hates him,” my friend said. “He is a womaniser. But she has no career, hence, no income, and is afraid to leave, for a life of uncertainty.”

This illusion of ‘happy marriages’ is a staple of Kerala society.

The problem is that it is still not socially acceptable for middle-aged and older couples to divorce. So, they live with each other even though there is no love or joy in their union. The thinking is: too much time has passed. What is the point of breaking up now?

If divorce had social sanction, maybe a few would have opted for it, especially if they are well-to-do. In a paradox, Malayali society has accepted divorce among youngsters.

When a daughter wants to divorce, the parents offer support and even encouragement.

Divorces happen often, and on flimsy grounds. “He snores at night,” was one excuse. “He hid his baldness under a wig,” was another reason for the swift dissolution of the marriage.

So, in Kerala, what you see is not what you get. Behind closed doors, a dramatically different drama takes place. But the fear of public ridicule and snide remarks makes all this remain indoors. But fragments of gossip slip out when the wife might tell a friend who might tell another friend and it goes on.

So, how do you gauge whether you are in a discontented marriage?

One of the surest signs is if the husband and wife sleep in different rooms and refuse to have any physical contact.

A few years ago I went to interview a thirty-something marriage counsellor whose clients were couples in the IT industry. She said, “One of the first questions I ask is if they are sleeping together. If not, it is difficult to save the marriage.”

Sometimes, a physical touch or a hug can provide a healing balm. Just sleeping next to each other at night might help. Most problems are minor irritations that get magnified.

But the man-woman relationship rarely works. They are on two different wavelengths. What she likes and desires, he is not aware of, and vice versa. Plus, spouses get bored with each other. The sexual desire for each other has long faded away. In a consumerist culture, this boredom gets even more acute. Sometimes, husbands and wives slip into affairs. All this is simple to arrange thanks to the mobile phone. But an affair rarely brings any form of satisfaction. It ends in recriminations and sorrow.

One is not sure about the impact of all this on the children.

I know of a teenage daughter who was furious with her mother for divorcing the father. Then the girl got even more upset when the mother married again. “I can’t live alone,” she told her daughter. They rarely speak to one another. So it was a surprise to see a ‘happy’ family photo they posted during Onam on Facebook with the new husband, in a crisp white dhoti and mundu, in the centre of the frame.

Most children of unhappy marriages feel relieved when they get away from the family nest. They escape to the wider world and get busy with their lives and careers.

Maybe the time has come, that once the children have grown up and moved away, the spouses could split up in a friendly manner, and go off in different directions. Why carry on this agonising relationship till the end of time? Life is so short, anyway. Why waste it in frustration and hatred? What do they gain by sticking together?

It is devastating to see the fake drama of closeness of most marriages at social functions. Of course, body language is a giveaway.

At a wedding reception, a couple, probably married for over 25 years, stood to take a snap. The sign that all was not well with the marriage was when the woman leaned her face away from the husband. Happy couples lean into each other.

Why did she lean away? What is wrong with them?

There is an enormous elephant in the room: domestic violence.

Does he beat her up? Is she bearing up with it, for the sake of the children?

Apart from physical abuse, verbal abuse can be equally damaging. It lacerates the heart.

What are the solutions?

Counselling, of course, can help. Meditation too. An easy one like Vipassana can have a calming influence on the psyche. Finally, the time has come for Kerala society to accept middle-aged and older divorces so that people can have a second stab at this elusive thing known as happiness.

The Chattering Mind

By Shevlin Sebastian

The other day I read that, on an average, according to scientists, we think about 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. I am not sure how they had calculated this. For a while now, I realised my mind was an endless conveyor belt of random, silly, and aimless thoughts. 

One day, for about thirty seconds, I noted down what I was thinking: I roamed through 12 different topics and thought about different people. It would have been more, but my mind had become self- conscious. 

When I told a friend about this, she said, perhaps, the brilliant scientist Albert Einstein would have very few thoughts, hence the clarity of his thinking. One thing is clear: the moment you stop thinking, by listening to your breathing, you enter the silence within you. But to silence the mind is a gargantuan task. I believe I spend one minute out of 24 hours in the present. The rest of the time, I am in the past or the future. 

So, in this state of pessimism, it was no surprise when I saw the book ‘Quiet your Mind by American psychologist John Selby at the Ernakulam Public Library, I grabbed it. There was an urgent need within me to silence the mind and expand the abilities of the brain. 

The book is a simple and easy read. I have taken some suggestions and have tried to implement it. The one good thing I gained from reading the book is that now I am conscious of what I am thinking. 

This slows down the mind.  

Here are some quotes from the book: 

Most of our upsetting emotions are caused not by what’s going around us, but by fear-based thoughts, habitually running through our minds. 

All human beings are constantly judging the world around them through ‘automatic’ thoughts. These thoughts judge present situations based on past experience. 

Our thoughts almost always stimulate emotional responses in our bodies. 

Our chronic thoughts: memories of the past, judgements of the present, and imaginations of the future. 

As soon as you consciously accept the truth of the moment, your heart can open, and your intuitive mind can come into play. 

You cannot change the present moment. But reality is constantly evolving, and you can take part in the evolution. 

Anger is always a response to thoughts running through our minds. 

Our thoughts influence our minds. 

The simple act of shifting one’s mental focus from thinking to experiencing changes one’s basic neurological and physiological functioning.

We should purposefully shift from a negative thought to a present-moment sensory input such as breathing, sounds and enjoyable sights. 

Conscious perceptual shifts can change your inner experience. 

In contemporary society, there is a chronic fixation upon deductive thinking as opposed to intuitive reflections. 

In order to enter the higher states of consciousness, we must shift our attention to the physical sensory realm of immediate perception. 

The shift to sensory awareness quiets the usual chatter of the mind so that a deeper intuitive experience can emerge. 

When your inner voice is habitually anxious, it thinks worried thoughts, and these generate fearful emotions, choices, and actions. 

In every situation, consider to what extent you fully process the actual perceptive experience as opposed to projecting what you expect to see in that situation. 

When thoughts stop, the body knows what to do, and does it with perfection and pleasure unknown to the thinking mind. 

The key to deep sensual release lies in quieting the flow of thoughts through your mind while making love. 

Open Vs Closed Societies

 In his thought-provoking book, ‘Open’, published by Atlantic Books, Johan Norberg, a Swedish historian and thinker, has said that a study of human history has shown that societies flourished when it was open and stagnated or collapsed when it became closed. In a closed society, there is a heightened degree of nationalism, an Us Vs Them mentality and the stifling of all critical voices. 

As authoritarianism grows all over the world and with the advent of snooping software that penetrates into the deepest levels of a person’s life, Johan’s book is an important reminder of the dangers we face. 

A section of the blurb: From Stone Age hunter-gatherers to contemporary Chinese-American relations, Open explores how across time and cultures, we have struggled with a constant tension between our yearning for co-operation and our profound need for belonging. 

Here are some quotes from the book: 

The government’s role in an open society is to protect the search for better ideas, and people’s freedom to live by their individual plans and pursue their goals through a system of rules applied equally to all citizens. 

We all have psychological predispositions that push us towards tribalism, authoritarianism, and nostalgia, especially when we are threatened by recessions, foreigners or pandemics.

By glorifying conquest and national superiority an unceasing culture of blood thirst has emerged that will end up undoing civilisations and will surely end in blood and tears. 

Openness makes us uncomfortable and we search for a kind of certainty and belonging that freedom does not guarantee. 

Two-thirds of the average person’s material worth is determined by where in the world they happen to work. If people were allowed to move to the place where their labour is paid the best, the gains to world income would be astronomical. 

Mankind has always been on the move. We have always searched for a better climate, richer soil, or mate. We have always tried to escape hunger, troublesome neighbours and violence. 

Groups that are too similar are afflicted with group thinking. 

Fire grew our brains since cooked food releases more nutrients than raw food.

Some thoughts as I saw myself in a news video

 

By Shevlin Sebastian

When my sister sent a 6:49 minute video from Nanma 24 Channel, I clicked on it. So imagine my shock, when, at the 2:21 minute mark, I found myself in the video walking in a blue T-shirt, shorts and sneakers.

This was what happened. In the evening, as usual, I had gone to Attipetty Nagar for my evening jog, but found a barrier right at the entrance. So I stopped, parked my two-wheeler and walked through. I noticed a man holding a microphone in his hand.

I also observed large perpendicular cracks in the road, next to the Edappally canal, and assumed some road repair was going on.

But that was not true. The road was in the first stages of collapse. The mud beneath it had shifted, thanks to recent rains, and according to the voice-over in the news video, the road could cave in at any moment.

It was an odd feeling to watch myself from the back. I thought I looked a bit fat around the hips. But, when I sent it to a friend, known for her reassuring remarks, she assured me I looked fine. When I enlarged the image, I realised she was right.

It also raised a question for me: what do people think about me when they see me from the back and the front? What conclusions do they come to?

Recently, an aunt of mine met a few friends of hers who had seen me run. They told her they thought I was from North India.

This is partly true since I have spent many years in Calcutta.

One of them added, “Why does he have to run so much? And so fast?”

What do I think of my running?

I am not running very fast. It takes about 600 metres before I can feel my creaking joints get into some sort of rhythm.

So, what I think of my actions, and what others think of it may be the opposite.

It could be a revelation if you were to ask people: what do you think of me?

I also observe people even as I run, my mouth agape, gasping for breath and sweat dripping down my face: So, is that thirty-something couple married? They talk so much. Do married couples speak so much? Not in my experience. Why do they walk slowly? How can there be any physical benefit if they do not put the heart under strain? You need to walk fast, and pant a little if you want to gain something from this walk.

But after their walk, I am sure they would have felt they had done a good bit of exercise.

Another couple in their seventies: I always hear constant bickering between themselves as I speed past them. Looks like all affection and love have been burnt out.

What about the girl in her late twenties in a T-shirt and track pants? Does she not have any friends? Why does she always come alone? Is she married? Or divorced?

What about the pony-tailed woman, a mother of two sons who ride cycles? She is always speaking to somebody on the phone, through her earphones. So I think, ‘Who is she talking to? A woman? A man? Her mother? A colleague? A lover?’ Sometimes I think, ‘Have never seen her husband at all.’

She could say the same thing about me.

This analysis is happening both ways.

One day, a man stopped me and said, “Are you a doctor?”

“No,” I said.

“Oh, a lady walker told me you are a doctor,” he said.

So we spoke. And he was a priest. I would never have guessed that because he was in a collarless T-shirt and denim trousers.

A young nursing student stopped me and said, “What is your name?”

My first name is very unusual in Kerala. So, they play the word over in their minds and nod imperceptibly.

“You run very well,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said.

But do I?

The standard is so low in our state and country. So few do any exercise. So, if someone does a bit, it’s considered great. My cousin from Chicago told me he runs 10 kms a day. So that put me in my place .

Another walker, Rafiq (name changed), a successful entrepreneur, in his early thirties, also put me in my place.

“For a runner, you do have a paunch,” he said.

I looked down at my stomach, not very big, but felt embarrassed by what he said.

I took it as a challenge.

I immediately cut sugar and rice from my diet. Astonishingly, two months later, my stomach is nearly flat, my trousers have become loose, and I had to increase the notches on my belts.

So happy for that put-down by Rafeeq.

I was about to say, “You come with your mother?” when he told me, “I come with my wife. You must have seen her.”

I nod, glad that the question about his mother had been stuck in my throat. Since she was wearing a hijab, I could not guess her age.

So, everybody is evaluating each other as we go about our exercises in the evening, trying to keep healthy.

Interesting, the thoughts that came up, as I saw myself for a few seconds in a news video.

No heart at all

 

By Shevlin Sebastian

Just a day before my mother returned to Kochi, after five months with her daughter and son, following my dad’s passing away, my wife went to her ground-floor flat to do a clean-up.

In the kitchen, she noticed that in the third drawer of a built-in wooden cabinet, five baby rats were scrambling among the plastic bowls and a couple of rolls of cellophane paper. She pushed the drawer shut.

Later, she told me about it. I wondered what to do. Like my wife, I feel queasy when I see rodents.

I took the help of George, a watchman of a nearby building.

He pulled out the drawer, and we took it to the side of the house.

On the other side, there is a one-acre banana plantation.

“Let’s tip them over,” I said.

“Okay,” he said, and did so.

During the day, the mother rat foraged for food and brought it to the babies at night. It probably chose the drawer because it felt it was a safe place. The house had been empty for so long. Outside, in the grassy land, among the teak and coconut trees, there were numerous frogs, snakes, cats, dogs, and an army of centipedes, scorpions and ants. In short, there were too many predators around. I have seen crows pouncing on these baby rats.

George inserted the drawer back into the cabinet. We began searching for the hole.

It was a mystery. There were no spaces under the doors that led to the outside. We checked the windows. They all had wire meshes. But in the work area, beside the kitchen, as George removed a bucket on a cement ledge, there was a circular hole that led to the outside. I assumed it was made to put in the pipe of the washing machine so that the water could run out.

He rolled a piece of thick cloth and pushed it in a few inches. It was now tight and blocked.

“The rat will get the smell of her babies, as soon as she comes near the wall,” said George. “It will not come inside anymore.”

I thanked George, gave him a cash token, and he left.

The next morning, when I came in, I got a shock. The cloth had been pushed aside. I called George. He looked surprised, as he stared at the hole.

“It looks like because of the rains, the mother could not detect the smell of her babies,” he said. “There is also the possibility the crows ate the babies one by one. The mother assumed the babies were in the drawer. She must have made a supreme effort to push the cloth away, to get at her babies. That is the power of the motherly instinct. Since animals live in close touch with nature, they have more intense feelings than us. It is more genuine too.”

Indeed, it would have taken hours to push aside the cloth.

I can imagine the devastation the rat must have felt to see all her babies had vanished. She must have realised she made a horrific blunder by sheltering the babies inside a human habitation.

George stepped outside.

He took a small stone and placed it at the entrance of the hole.

“Because the mother has lost its babies, there is little chance it will come back again,” he said.

He turned out to be right. The stone remains where it is.

And we stone-hearted human beings remain where we are.

We have re-confirmed to the mother rat and her friends we are the most heartless and cruellest beings on the planet. 

An erotic short story set in Kolkata

Thanks to Juggernaut for publishing my short story

https://www.juggernaut.in/books/afternoon-visit

Ordinary people doing extraordinary things

The Calcutta-born and Bangkok-based journalist Ivan Fernandes has written a memorable collection of short stories called ‘Requiem for Calcutta’

Pics: The cover; author Ivan Fernandes

By Shevlin Sebastian

During the years I lived in Calcutta, I would frequently travel through Free School Street on my way to work at the Sportsworld office, near Chittaranjan Avenue. And always, I would go past a huge garbage dump. Expectedly, I took a deep breath moments before, pushed a handkerchief against my nose, and went past.

I always wondered about the group of people who lived in huts right next to the dump. How did they stay next to such filth? Did they get used to the smell? Did it make them sick? It seemed like torture to me.

 

When I began reading ‘Requiem for Calcutta’, a book of short stories by the Calcutta-born and Bangkok-based journalist Ivan Fernandes, I got some of the answers. In a short story titled, ‘The Sex-Crazed Hijra’, Ivan highlights the life of Kiran Mausi, a Bihari eunuch, who stayed next to a rubbish dump in Howrah.

 

Here is his description:

 

‘Here at least 1000 tons of garbage is heaped daily…

 

‘An NGO has reported that 80 per cent of the approximate 10,000 strong squatter community had inhabited the place for at least five generations....

 

‘Without going into details, one can imagine the quality of life here with its inhuman living conditions, unbelievable poverty, crime, vice and exploitation. This dumpsite is also home to a group of hijras, for whom Kiran Mausi is their undisputed reigning monarch. And so, this is where I first met her, in a stiflingly hot and vomit-smelling tin shed.’ 

 

In this memorable collection, Ivan has focused on a wide variety of characters, which is what makes Calcutta such a fascinating place. So, there is Abhra Mazoomder, a fanatic Marxist Bengali, who gets disillusioned as party members gradually lose their idealism and become drunk on power and corruption. The Left Front ruled Bengal for seven consecutive terms, from 1977 to 2011. And they did this by keeping an iron grip on the electorate. So, even if the party workers could not see the way the actual voting took place, they devised ways to figure it out.

 

As Ivan writes: ‘The telephone booth-style cubicles were only half-curtained off from the top, to hide the way a person stamped the ballot. But you could see the person’s legs. The CPI(M), in the long roll of the ballot paper, was listed at the top. If your poll paper was seen touching the floor, you must have voted Communist, because you let the roll drop to mark X, besides the hammer and sickle at the top.

 

‘If you voted for the Congress Party, which was towards the bottom of the roll, your ballot paper was seen not touching the floor as you would raise the roll with one hand to stamp it with the other. Then, of course, you were given a sound thrashing on your way home, irrespective of being male or female, young or old.’ 

 

In another story, Ivan writes about Colleen Rachael Houghtin, who spent her life looking after dogs. The tale focuses on the Anglo-Indian community. Sadly, this community has dwindled because of constant migration and inter-marriage. But who can forget their zest for life, their simplicity and their God-given talents in so many fields, but most notably in music and sports. Many of my close friends in school were Anglo-Indians.

 

Some famous Anglo-Indians, who had their origins in Calcutta, include the the singers Cliff Richards and the late Pam Crain, and the hockey player Leslie Claudius, among many others.

  

Ivan has also written about the Chinese through the life story of — hold your breath — Will Lim Fang Shung Zhangzhao Kan Phin Wun. It’s an unforgettable story with a sad ending. And there is the tale of Raqesh Dalpat Prahladka, a Marwari doctor, who was so inspired by Mother Teresa that he worked for the poor full time. For the Marwari community, which has such prodigious business acumen, to have a member do something like that as his only profession and not make money as the primary occupation, it would have been amazing, to say the least.

In a poignant narrative about Sikh police officer Ekampreet Singh Dindral, who married a Muslim, Ivan’s description of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Calcutta following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards was harrowing:

 

‘This time we saw Inderjit Singh, the elderly Bank of India durwan from across the street, kneeling in the middle of the road, his clothes torn, and without his turban, his long hair all over the place, his face bloodied, an eye as big as a potato, hands folded begging for his life as a mob of about 50 people pulled at his hair, kicked and beat him to an inch of his death shouting, ‘Sala gadhar madarchod bhosri wala’ (arse f…..g treacherous Sikh, born from a rotten c...t)”

 

When asked about the title, ‘Requiem for Calcutta’ Ivan said, “It’s a past that I yearn for. It’s a past that I cherished. It’s a past that cannot be replicated.”

  

The diaspora, which tends to be nostalgic about their homeland, has been enthusiastic about the book. Copies have been sold in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, but also in lesser-known countries like Cyprus and Malta, as well as in France, Spain, and Italy. “It got a mention in ‘The Telegraph’, Calcutta, by a reader who described it as 'a must read book that takes you back in time,’” said Ivan.

 

The writing is so vivid that one got the impression these people are real-life figures. Ivan said he wanted to tell a story not only about a single person but also about the particular culture from where he or she came from. “These are ordinary people doing ordinary things in an extraordinary way,” said Ivan. 

 

The book, however, has a drawback. The publisher missed doing the final proofreading corrections. So, readers will have to overlook a few errors. Ivan promises to make it error-free in the next edition.

 

This is galling for Ivan because he has been a journalist for over two decades. For the past 20 years Ivan has lived in Bangkok, where he is currently the Managing Editor of the online English edition of La Croix, a Paris-based French daily newspaper. It provides content on politics, society, religion, culture, education and ethics.

 

Asked to compare Bangkok and Calcutta, Ivan said, “Both Calcutta and Bangkok are old cities, with Bangkok tracing its roots to the 15th century. Although never colonised by a European power, Bangkok has powerful European cultural influences. Being a tourist hub, Bangkok has a strong cosmopolitan appeal. Tourists come from all over the world.” 

 

Bangkok also has a large Indian-origin population who are Thai citizens but have kept alive their cultural traditions. “So it’s easy to get Indian food or feel like being part of the local population,” he said. “In both cities, the local people are proud of their language and culture.”

 

The biggest dissimilarity is development. “While Calcutta and Bangkok can be similarly chaotic with large crowds, street vendors, neighbourhood markets, monsoon flooding, and traffic jams, it’s the social indicators that make Bangkok superior,” said Ivan. “In Bangkok, there is much more development in city infrastructure, transportation, health services, civic amenities, and cleanliness. It has a greater sense of a positive appeal to human dignity that shields poverty rather than wearing it like a badge of honour as done in Calcutta.”

 

His first book has whetted his appetite. Ivan is now working on a novel that is also set in Calcutta. “I am still grappling with a proper plot structure, characters, the beginning, middle and an end, even though I have already written 50,000 words!” he said, with a winning smile.