This Could Have Become Ramayan Chamar's Tale

by Subimal Misra

  ADDITION TO THE INTERVIEW

  Nothing whatsoever is possible on the part of the individual in this social system – when people have easy access to any kind of realist experience, it’s only then that the middle-class conscience finds calm and the solace of contentment.

  The constitution could not be amended without getting two-thirds of a vote. Hitler got an ordinance promulgated by the president, and in the people’s assembly the opposition members were muzzled with the threat that, unless they voted for him, they would be declared traitors. Silence. Fearing arrest, many did not participate in the voting. Those who participated were afraid of voting against, and thereby inviting trouble. Silence. Hitler easily got two-thirds of the votes, and on the strength of that the constitution was amended and his writ was turned into law. Silence. After that no session of the people’s assembly took place at all. Not even for a single day in twelve years. Once again, silence.

  THE PICTURE SPREADS AND OCCUPIES THE ENTIRE WALL

  A band of advancing warriors move towards a safe refuge. With them are elephants, and armed warriors on the backs of the elephants. Somewhat below are many birds, not a single one can fly. The picture of the warriors is full of white colour, the birds are scattered with geometrical proficiency. One can only surmise that they are birds – it’s not a realistic picture. In one place, a band of people has surrounded a white mammoth. So, has the third world war begun? Nearby stands a horseman blocking the road. The perimeter is cordoned off. Is this a trap? The big-tusked elephant has no rider. No howdah on its back. But is the elephant a wild one, and is the scene one of laying a trap for elephants?

  SOME TIME WITH MY NIECE PUPU

  Pupu, let’s see what you have inside your tummy! Show uncle! Let me pull it all out, one by one. About three broken blades in all. One Nataraj pencil. Some intestines. One bra that is now too small. A picture from a previous life, in which Pupu was a landlord’s wife. She was, wasn’t she? And so? Some crumpled five rupee notes, a light blue fragrant letter pad with ‘Go bird, tell him’ written in golden watermark. A nose ring of the latest style. Two sanitary napkins. Nail clippers, made of steel, from abroad. A pair of earrings, possibly made of rolled gold. So there was fear of robbery and burglary at that time too. A pinch of aniseed. One bottle of pills. About three songs of Rabindrasangeet. One can’t discern whether it is three or five, it’s not clear. An almost chewed-up skull of a twenty- or twenty-three-year-old youth.

  At least two dozen popular songs from Bombay films.

  A copy of Devdas with a torn cover.

  A packet of Nirodh, unopened. One bottle of nail polish.

  FOUR-SIDED

  One day God began to make wind blow from the east. It blew the whole day and night. With the wind came locusts, at dawn, wrapped in sunlight. They spread through the whole country – nothing green remained on the fields. Like this, exactly like this, is society … Yes, it changes. But the image of the hero does not change. He’s written a two-volume novel about the nineteenth century. The subject being, in the previous century our forefathers were all drunken scoundrels. The novel is extremely popular. Selling like hot cakes. Was a bestseller for a year and a half. And on top of that, got the Bankim award. If one could release one like that about Subroto and Manjula – that wouldn’t be bad at all.

  MANJULA AND SUBROTO’S CONVERSATION: IN BESTSELLER STYLE

  : ‘It won’t do to forget that we’re two characters in this text.’

  : ‘Whatever people want – is everything for us. Got to do it. What people want.’

  : ‘Been sent here. To the page of this text. For that purpose. That’s it.’

  : ‘In that case what shall we do?’

  : ‘What if we have some sex. Let’s go to bed. Lots of people will be happy.’

  : ‘A little bit of sad-sad as well. Some talk of the poor too. Added to it.’

  : ‘But which one first? Going naked to bed? Or going to bed and then getting naked…’

  : ‘It’s a problem.’

  : ‘There’s no need to get philosophical. Our readers don’t like it if it’s too serious.’

  : ‘But it’s great fun. They call it decadence.’

  : ‘While enjoying it fully.’

  : ‘Look, there’s a person signalling something … look!’

  Light explodes with a flash in the eyes. From the faraway jungles of the Terai, wind blows with a whoosh. There’s a dust storm. The red crocodile breaks through the bluish eggshell, it awakens and roars: ‘Don’t wake me, sister-fuckers – don’t wake me up.’ The red crocodile must be fed now. Where will the red crocodile feed? Left, right, eat from wherever you can, strike and bite. Darkness everywhere, the black-as-pitch darkness of the new moon night dedicated to the worship of Rotontikali, everywhere.

  FROM EHRENBURG’S WRITING, IN THE WAY IT HAD BEEN NOTED DOWN IN THE DIARY

  … Reading is also a creative pursuit, and readers are always reading something or the other. I remember a gathering of readers of the novel Storm. Young students had read the critiques of the novel in advance. In trying to ape the professional critics, they blabbered more about the popular critiques than about the novel itself. All of a very pedestrian and general nature. There was a terrific argument at the end of the meeting. A war of words between two girls regarding the protagonist of the novel. One of them said: ‘I really want to meet a person like Sergei [the protagonist of the novel Storm] in real life.’ The other girl’s answer: ‘I can’t figure out what you see in him! The man’s simply useless, lacks a personality.’ The two of them were of the same age, both had received their education in the same school and college, and what’s more, on all other matters their viewpoints were of the same kind. But each one had read the novel with her own power of imagination, emotional experience and particularities of character. And thus were born two diametrically opposite Sergeis.

  OPERATION FAUSTUS

  Israel invaded Lebanon

  America provided the ammunition

  Provided the fighter planes

  Several thousand Palestinian folk became refugees

  America gave them dollars

  Provided assistance for refugee relief

  It’s ten in the morning

  While rubbing Keo Karpin hair-oil on the head

  I teach tenses to my niece Pupu

  Tense is the most vital thing in English grammar

  And then

  One morning

  While learning about the difference

  Between past and past perfect tense

  Pupu finally says:

  Uncle, I’m not there.

  MY INNER DILEMMA

  A long-standing desire for a ceiling fan in the bedroom. But there was never any money left at the end of every month. Finally, when I couldn’t take it anymore, I bought one a fortnight ago. In today’s newspaper, the same fan company has advertised that a 15 per cent discount is being offered on their fans. That means the fan bought for 360 rupees is now cheaper by more than fifty rupees. After seeing that, I felt terribly annoyed. Fifty rupees! I don’t like the boring drone of talk about literature. Instead, let me now tell the story of a mosquito. This is the mosquito that at some time, unknown to me, sat on my left lung and punctured it, and sucked away everything of me –

  This mosquito now flies over Victoria Memorial. It casts its shadow on the top of the Memorial. The colour of the angel atop the Memorial changes, the shadow keeps spreading in the direction of the Maidan. Leaving behind the vast human settlement in the south, it began to steadily encircle the Maidan. The last of the day’s sunlight there now, sticking to the leaves on trees. Moloy Bhattacharjee lies with his head on Chandana Sen’s lap. This is the Moloy Bhattacharjee who stuffs Number Ten cigarettes in a Wills Navy Cut packet and lights them carefully in front of his lover to show that he smokes Wills – while rubbing his face and neck with a half-wet gamcha the whole evening. To get a reddish tinge. On the cheeks.

  And this is the Chandana Sen who, even at the age of thirty-one
, seeing the lack of effort from home towards getting her married, willingly or unwillingly, regularly feeds honey to the Moloy Bhattacharjees when darkness descends beneath the tree. But she isn’t able to hook anyone. Now the mosquito goes and sits on Moloy Bhattacharjee’s cheek. It lowers its proboscis and sucks it up, yes, that’s right, blood. Then it flies off after some time. Chandana Sen looks at Moloy Bhattacharjee lying with his head on her lap, here, but despite the proximity he was not quite all there, from the corner of his eye, again and again, he looked intently at a buxom young woman walking with her blue sari blowing in the wind – the mosquito now flies northwards, further north, and it then goes and sits on the elbow of a middle-aged conjurer who is performing for a thousand people beneath Shahid Minar. This is the conjurer wearing a black achkan over a jet-black silk lungi, who speaks in a fabricated language made up of an amalgam of Bangla and Hindi. He makes a skull speak and tells simple-minded folk the way to reach Ramrajya.

  The mosquito sits on the conjurer’s elbow and keeps sucking blood as the people stand encircling him. After a while, looking at the conjurer’s face, they sense something, and then each one goes his own way – they keep leaving.

  The mosquito flies off, and with it goes its shadow.

  It goes and sits on the fleshy thigh of Jagmohan of Burrabazar. Now he, Jagmohan, with a telephone receiver in either hand, is engaged in a discussion about the share market. This is the Jagmohan who can discern at a glance gold and silver buried under ash, who buys government goats from the government, and sells them back to the same government with a 1 per cent margin. The mosquito merrily sucks Jagmohan’s blood through its proboscis. When its belly is full, it flies off – the mosquito flies away, taking the large shadow along. It comes and sits on Jhantu Kayal’s shoulder in Baghbazar. Jhantu Kayal, who has fallen asleep in the stifling heat in the course of trying, in vain, to cool himself with a hand-fan after a whole day’s back-breaking labour. This is the Jhantu Kayal who works twelve hours in a lathe-machine workshop in Bantra. At the end of the month he receives a salary of 347 rupees. Returning at night with grease-blackened hands, he tears off pieces of roti and stuffs them into his mouth, labour-fatigued, his eyes close, swollen eyelids.

  The mosquito goes and sits on his elbow, but there’s no blood to suck there. It sits on his back, which is hard and bony, with leathery skin – it can’t prick and insert its proboscis. It sits on the forehead, there’s no flesh there, only protruding solid bone and forehead. Jhantu Kayal is fortunate. The mosquito then flies off. Again. Jet propellers on its wings. Sound. Speed. In the wings. Its body becomes heavy. The shadow keeps spreading. Of the jet propeller. The mosquito’s shadow spreads across the entire Maidan – the martyr’s pillar is in shadow, as is Gandhi on Park Street, and the stone angel atop Victoria Memorial. A gust of wind blows, clouds gather, the symbolic measure of the sun becomes small. No one can see or sense when it goes and sits with a quiet plop on the barrel of the pipe-gun held in an eighteen-year-old boy’s hands.

  On the floor, taking up a lot of space The faded yellow mark from the explosion

  ON THE STREET ALL NIGHT FOR GODARD

  A college-girl who couldn’t get a ticket for Godard

  ‘What’s there to worry, let’s watch any other film and when we return home we can always say: I saw a Godard film.’

  A middle-aged cine-goer crazy about Hindi films

  ‘Why should this be called cinema? Sit on the banks of the Ganga, count the waves and keep writing letters – no one will stop you. Where’s the need to make a film?’

  Discussion in the newspaper

  In the evolution of film grammar, his contribution and influence is comparable only to that of Picasso in the fine arts … this film-maker is committed to serious cinema, bringing together the apparently mutually conflicting poles of sexuality and politics.

  A female feature-writer

  The ordinary cine-goer was flabbergasted seeing Godard’s films. What dismayed them most was the 50-minute film, Letter to Jane. Perhaps seeing the film’s name, they had hoped that the subject of the film would be the love story of some woman named Jane, and there’d be lots of sizzling sex. But when they saw there was none of that, they ran belligerently towards the cinema hall’s manager…

  A VIP in the inaugural ceremony

  ‘I believe all the tickets for Godard’s films sold out in just an hour and a half. From this one can understand that Calcutta’s audience possesses cinematic awareness.’

  A conversation between the state government’s spokesperson and a woman delegate on the agitation in front of the cinema hall before the screening of the film Numero Deux:

  – ‘Tell me, what’s so special about the film that makes the delegates so excited? This week, most of the time, the delegate seats remained unoccupied during the Godard films.’

  – ‘Don’t you know, today’s film is very hot. The whole of Calcutta knows, and you mean to say you don’t? Tickets are being scalped for 50 rupees outside.’

  Reportage

  But Godard doesn’t make films for ordinary people. Nevertheless, why did the ordinary people of Calcutta spend the whole night on the streets, waiting for a ticket, even in this winter cold, braving such difficulties, why? What can the ordinary cine-goer get from his film?

  A story in the Sunday supplement of a newspaper

  Poor Godard. Trying to make a film do the work of an essay, he’s scorched even the bones of the seasoned audience.

  Editorial in a newspaper

  What exceptional capability Godard has in making commercial films. If he had retreated a bit, people could have seen more naked flesh. In that respect he could have scored over any Western commercial film-maker.

  A critique in a Marxist publication

  To explain, we can see that Marxism has been imposed on him, rather than its acceptance being the fruit of a historical process. He is against every kind of stasis, and hence, it was largely out of emotion that he supported the Chinese cultural revolution. In the middle of the film, Mao Tse Tung is quoted spontaneously: Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred thoughts develop. French materialism and Sartre’s existentialism make him elaborate upon and explain human survival, relations, civilization and even sexuality. The contact with Marxism, and at the same time the influence of the French structuralist left, make his thinking ambiguous. In essence, I see in him the tendency of denial of historical materialism and a steady entry into the world of ideology. In this respect, whether it is politics, sexuality or aesthetics – on any subject, when it comes to a conclusion, Godard hints at or shows a tendency in his films towards extreme simplification. That possibly comes from his ambiguous political thinking.

  ARE YOU A MARXIST, SUBIMAL BABU?

  ‘Why do I say there’s no difference whatsoever between the slogan, Inquilab Zindabad!, and the Hare-Krishna kirtan; why is there no difference between the so-called revolutionary movement’s ritual process, that is, formal customs, and religious customs; I humbly ask the elite class of English-medium bhadralok, who are the hereditary guardians of our education and culture; and especially request the middle-class Marxist-Leninist geniuses to think about it.’

  I quote Binoy Ghosh here because, in the name of Marxism, I don’t wish to remain confined to any stagnant water. In the decades of the sixties and seventies, the youth of various countries revolted in different ways against the current society, state and values. Behind the denial of the legacy of custom-bound tastes and education-culture was a dormant seed of social transformation, even though that is only in broad terms. Some think this is a kind of psychological malady, going astray – which is the polar opposite of the struggling mentality. I didn’t exactly see it that way. In the context of the un-Marxist political leadership of our Marxist leaders, and the smugness, betrayal and fulfilment of self-interest exhibited by the middle-class in the name of practising Marxism – the term ‘struggling’ is very synthetic and seems to be a slogan, no more than mere sound, coined by urban babus who have
no relation whatsoever to labouring people. The beatnik poets, the angry generation, the pop singers or artists and directors who were thinking in a new way, could, if nothing else, wound the foundations of prevalent values a little bit. Such wounding is, of course, not everything, but it is needed first. With this is needed a struggling outlook, the assault should come from that rather than be superficial. In this context, those sparkling words of Ritwik Kumar Ghatak:

  ‘In my artistic life, both actively and inactively, I understood that struggle must become the daily companion of the artist’s life and even if any crisis temporarily engulfs the artist it should not lead to a complete defeat, that is to say, we must not surrender our conscience and mind during the crisis.’

  I don’t know whether my writing is Marxist or not, but I do know that my fundamental inclination is to investigate.

  Until now, it is the search, rather than reaching a decision on anything, that I’m more enthusiastic about. I am always aware of my sense of incompleteness, and the inclination to search arises from this sense of incompleteness.

  I look at two broad strata in society (the arrangement of strata is however is not so easy and simple, rather it is quite complex and this is not the place for a discussion on that); a certain class is content with the progress of a few people, while most people, ordinary labouring folk, are merely a means for the progress of the few people. Today, there is an effort to build a society where the progress of the majority of people takes place. There is no end to artful analyses or opinions about this, and to the division into levels as well, but it is clear that my writing and the attempt of my writing is against those who in earlier times had the sole right over culture, and in favour of the excluded people.

  In this context, it is necessary to state clearly that staying away from politics too seems to be a kind of political attitude. We are living in a situation that is changing rapidly, and actually changing each day.