Melodious sub-continent

Painting by Jean Kigel

Everyone knows the national anthem of their own country. Some people know something about their anthem, like who wrote and composed it, when it was adopted, what it means and so on.

Very few people know the national anthems of other countries, or care to. But that's to their own loss! For everyone, their own national anthem is something very special. So by knowing another's anthem, one connects with an essential part of them. Its like a people's deep signature. Besides some of the anthems of the world are simply glorious to hear.

We people of the sub-continent of South Asia should hear and learn and know one another's anthems. If nothing else, they are all so melodious, and can be sung with so much feeling. Knowing something of the shared languages of this land, I cannot but be moved to tears by the anthems of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. I like to think all the national anthems of the sub-continent are siblings, which indeed they are, in a very profound sense. And the newest entrant to this melodic family is the anthem of Nepal.

I am reminded of the anecdote in the autobiography of musician Yehudi Menuhin (whose siblings were also accomplished musicians), about someone telling his mother, "Madam, you have a very musical womb!"

So here are the anthems of the sub-continent, in alphabetical order.



Amar Shonar Bangla is the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was adopted in 1972. The song was written and composed by Rabindranath Tagore in 1906. It is in Bengali.

Amar shonar Bangla,
Ami tomae bhalobashi.

Chirodin tomar akash,
Tomar batash,
Amar prane bajae bãshi.

O ma,
Phagune tor amer bone
Ghrane pagol kôre,
Mori hae, hae re,
O ma,
Ôghrane tor bhôra khete
Ami ki dekhechhi modhur hashi.

Ki shobha, ki chhaea go,
Ki sneho, ki maea go,
Ki ãchol bichhaeechho
Bôţer mule,
Nodir kule kule!

Ma, tor mukher bani
Amar kane lage,
Shudhar môto,
Mori hae, hae re,
Ma, tor bôdonkhani molin hole,
Ami nôeon jôle bhashi.

My beloved Bengal
My Bengal of Gold,
I love you.

Forever your skies,
Your air set my heart in tune
As if it were a flute.

In spring, O mother mine,
The fragrance from your mango groves
Makes me wild with joy,
Ah, what a thrill!
In autumn, O mother mine,
In the full blossomed paddy fields
I have seen spread all over sweet smiles.

Ah, what a beauty, what shades,
What an affection, and what a tenderness!
What a quilt have you spread
At the feet of banyan trees
And along the banks of rivers!

O mother mine, words from your lips
Are like nectar to my ears.
Ah, what a thrill!
If sadness, O mother mine,
Casts a gloom on your face,
My eyes are filled with tears!



Jana Gana Mana is the national anthem of India. Composed and scored by Rabindranath Tagore, it was first sung in 1911. It was adopted as the Indian national anthem in 1950. The music for the current version is said to be derived from a composition for the song by Ram Singh Thakur. It is in Sanskrit.

Jana gana mana adhinayaka jaya he
Bharata bhagya Vidhata
Panjaba Sindhu Gujarata Maratha
Dravida Utkala Banga
Vindhya Himachala Yamuna Ganga
Ucchala jaladhi taranga
Tava subha name jage
Tava subha asisha mage
Gahe tava jaya gatha
Jana gana mangala daayaka jaya he
Bharata bhagya Vidhata
Jaya he jaya he jaya he
Jaya jaya jaya jaya he!

O! Dispenser of India's destiny, thou art the ruler of the minds of all people
Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat, the Maratha country,
in the Dravida country, Utkala and Bengal;
It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,
it mingles in the rhapsodies of the pure waters of Yamuna and Ganga
They chant only thy name.
They seek only thy auspicious blessings.
They sing only the glory of thy victory.
The salvation of all people waits in thy hands,
O! Dispenser of India's destiny, thou art the ruler of the minds of all people
Victory to thee, Victory to thee, Victory to thee,
Victory, Victory, Victory, Victory to thee!



Sayaun Thunga Phool Ka Hami is the national anthem of Nepal. Adopted in 2007, the lyrics were written by poet Pradeep Kumar Rai, alias Byakul Maila. The music has been composed by Ambar Gurung.

Sayaű thűgā phūlkā hāmī, euṭai mālā nepālī
Sārwabhaum bhai phailiekā, Mechi-Mahākālī
Prakritikā kotī-kotī sampadāko ā̃chal,
Vīrharūkā ragata le, swatantra ra aṭal
Gyānabhūmi, śhāntibhūmi Tarāī, pahād, himāl
Akhaṇḍa yo pyāro hāmro mātṛibhūmi Nepāl
Bahul jāti, bhāṣhā, dharma, sãnskṛti chan biśhāl
Agragāmī rāṣhṭra hāmro, jaya jaya Nepāl
Byakul Maila

We are hundreds of flowers, the one garland - Nepali
Sovereign, spread out from Mechi to Mahakali.
Amassing nature's millions of resources
By the blood of heroes, independent and immovable.
Land of knowledge, land of peace, Terai, hills, mountains
Indivisible this beloved, our motherland Nepal.
The diverse races, languages, faiths, and cultures are so extensive
Our progressive nation, long live Nepal.



The Qaumī Tarāna or Pāk sarzamīn shād bād is the national anthem of Pakistan. Adopted in 1954, the lyrics were written by Hafeez Jullundhri, and the music of the anthem was composed by Ahmed Ghulamali Chagl. It is in Urdu.

Pāk sarzamīn shād bād
Kishwar-e-hasīn shād bād
Tū nishān-e-`azm-e-`alīshān
Arz-e-Pākistān!
Markaz-e-yaqīn shād bād

Pāk sarzamīn kā nizām
Qūwat-e-ukhūwat-e-`awām
Qaum, mulk, sultanat
Pā-inda tābinda bād!
Shād bād manzil-e-murād

Parcham-e-sitāra-o-hilāl
Rahbar-e-tarraqqī-o-kamāl
Tarjumān-e-māzī, shān-e-hāl
Jān-e-istiqbāl!
Sāyah-e-Khudā-e-Zū-l-Jalāl

Blessed be the sacred land
Happy be the bounteous realm
Symbol of high resolve
Land of Pakistan!
Blessed be thou, citadel of faith

The order of this sacred land
Is the might of the brotherhood of the people
May the nation, the country, and the state
Shine in glory everlasting!
Blessed be the goal of our ambition

This flag of the crescent and star
Leads the way to progress and perfection
Interpreter of our past, glory of our present
Knowledge of the future!
Symbol of the Almighty's protection



Sri Lanka Matha is the national anthem of Sri Lanka. Adopted in 1951, the words and music were written by Ananda Samarakoon in 1940. It is in Sinhala.

Sri Lanka Matha, apa Sri Lanka,
Namo Namo Namo Namo Matha.
Sundara siri barini,
Surendi athi Sobamana Lanka
Dhanya dhanaya neka mal pala thuru piri, Jaya bhoomiya ramya.
Apa hata sapa siri setha sadana, jeewanaye Matha!
Piliganu mena apa bhakthi pooja,
Namo Namo Matha.
Apa Sri Lanka,
Namo Namo Namo Namo Matha
Obawe apa widya, Obamaya apa sathya
Obawe apa shakti, Apa hada thula bhakthi
Oba apa aloke, Aapage anuprane
oba apa jeewana we, Apa muktiya obawe
Nawa jeewana demine
Nnithina apa Pubudu karan matha
Gnana weerya wadawamina ragena yanu
mena jaya bhoomi kara
Eka mawekuge daru kala bawina
yamu yamu wee nopama
Prema wada sama bheda durara da
Namo Namo Matha
Apa Sri Lanka,
Namo Namo Namo Namo Matha.

Mother Lanka we salute Thee!
Plenteous in prosperity, Thou,
Beauteous in grace and love,
Laden with grain and luscious fruit,
And fragrant flowers of radiant hue,
Giver of life and all good things,
Our land of joy and victory,
Receive our gratefull praise sublime,
Lanka! we worship Thee.
Thou gavest us Knowledge and Truth,
Thou art our strength and inward faith,
Our light divine and sentient being,
Breath of life and liberation.
Grant us, bondage free, inspiration.
Inspire us for ever.
In wisdom and strength renewed,
Ill-will, hatred, strife all ended,
In love enfolded, a mighty nation
Marching onward, all as one,
Lead us, Mother, to fullest freedom.

Samran's story

Samran sent me the link to her short story "Amar pichu chadey na" and suggested I translate this.

I started reading it, and began translating it immediately.

The story is like an exquisite kantha. With great simplicity, skill and subtlety Samran deftly weaves a unique and beautiful tale, encompassing diverse threads and images, a story about herself, a story of the land. I would like to think that the world of writing, the world of literature, has found a fresh new voice, which is rooted in the soil and yet speaks to people, and women, everywhere. Bravo Samran!

......

Ever shadowing me

by Samran Huda

I never trust cats, they are vehicles of ghosts. As there’s no way of recognising which one’s a cat and which one a ghost, all cats were in my suspects list. And if a cat ever somehow passed by my feet, then death was certain. Neither would anyone get the slightest hint of how the death would take place, and when. Why, just recently, a ghost in cat’s guise actually killed a friend of father’s. Simply dug into and tore his throat. And that Tareque uncle couldn’t do a thing. How could he? Can anyone stand up to ghosts and djinns? Hamdu aunty (Hamid uncle’s wife) had come during youngest uncle’s marriage. She taught that whenever one senses a ghost nearby, the mantra must be recited. Apparently the ghosts would then become aware that this person possesses the great mantra, that no harm can be done him.

Ghostie’s my laddie
Witch’s my maid
O my dear cheap thief
What’ll you do to me?

That’s why I never give any cat a chance to pass beneath my feet. When I sit to eat, I sit with both my legs raised and folded on the chair. But the cats too don’t stop following me. Whenever they get the opportunity they stare intently. They let me know that they know my motives. I’ve been timid from my childhood. Fragments of incidents narrated by friends of my age; the kadam tree standing in one corner of the field, solitary in night’s darkness; the dark of night; all the true-false tales told by the maidservant aunties - all made me permanently timid.

That day returning home drenched in the pouring rain I saw mother was sleeping. Glancing from the veranda I saw the rain water flowing like a waterfall down the second-floor tin roof. Checking once again to see if mother was indeed asleep, I was under that waterfall. The rear of the house was usually quite dirty. Even though the rear courtyard was fairly large, it was not used for anything other than throwing garbage. Just beside the spot where I was standing and bathing in the water of this waterfall was a narrow open drain. As I’d slipped and fallen into it earlier, I knew there was really murky foul water there, which came to my knees. Now, in this torrential rain it had turned into a wide stream.

Fee fie foe
To uncle’s house I go
Aunty gave me milk and rice
Ate till I was full so nice
Uncle comes with a mace oh me
Oh lets flee!

I didn’t notice that an unknown cat came and stopped on the sunshade beneath the second-floor railing. As soon as I spotted it, forgetting all about the rain waterfall bath I became statue-still. I stared unblinking at the cat and the cat too gazed specifically at me with its cold fixed eyes. As soon as my wits returned, just as I was about to scream out Mummy and run, as soon as I put out my foot one leg fell straight into that drain. Mother heard the scream as well as the sound of falling. Rushing there and not finding anyone, she shouted out, Who’s that? What’s happened? I somehow managed to utter, Its me Mummy! By then the cat had disappeared. Having slipped and fallen into the drain, I had hurt myself quite a bit, and on top of that mother first landed two round blows on my back and then dragged me along to the water-tap.

I believe girls’ open hair is loved by evil djinns. Granny said that at twilight (just before and after sunset) all the djinns and ghosts roam around. Hence I was not to go out after evening with my hair open. As soon as the evil djinn spotted open hair it came and made a nest. And if the djinn took a liking to that girl then it was an even graver problem. The djinn married the girl, and started a family with her. Humans cannot see djinns with their eyes. Only those whom the djinns wished to be seen by could see them. The girl would talk to and laugh with the djinn. Cook for him. Even while living among everyone, the djinn remained unseen and so people thought she had become mad. And then she was done for! Stratagems for curing the girl’s madness would start. The moulvi sahib would come. He would make her wear many talismans. Reciting the Surah Fatiha, he would impart water sanctified with his breath. "All praise belongs to God alone, Lord of all worlds …" Reciting the Astagafar and blowing repeatedly into a black braid, he made nine knots and tied it to the djinn-possessed girl’s hand. So that the djinn wouldn’t be able to come near the girl any more.

Astag firullaha rabbi min kulli jambi watubu ilika la howla wala kuyata illa billa hil aliul azim

Despite drinking the sanctified water, the girl did not get well. The djinn was not going to leave the girl at any event. Then there are many djinns who take away the girl they fancy. Who are never found again.

That’s why as soon as its evening I tie up my hair tight. I don’t want to go to the veranda after dusk. The kadam tree in the corner of the field is clearly visible. Darkness nestles thickly on this kadam tree. If for some reason I need to go to the veranda, I force my eyes to keep away from this kadam tree. All the time I think someone watches me from there. Two red eyes. Unblinking, as if they are staring at me, as if were I to dare to look, it would call me with a gesture. Night after night, I keep my eyes away from this kadam tree. As soon as its evening I shut the room’s window. The cat that mews and roams around nearby at daytime, and creeps in and sits under the dining table – at night, the same cat sits perched on this kadam tree. Its eyes are red then. It gazes unblinkingly at me.

But when the kadam blooms during the rains, then on most days, I go with Hena, Mili and Setu to pluck those blooms. Setu too loves kadam flowers. Mili and others sing a ditty:

Moon’s risen
Flowers bloomed
Who goes under the kadam tree?
Little girlie will be wedded
With her head fully covered.

Sometimes I go alone too. The kadam tree really draws me. When I wake up in the morning and go to the veranda, my eyes first settle on that kadam tree. Then I can’t see two red eyes. Then it’s not a nest of any evil djinns. Then it’s just a kadam tree. Its branches and leaves sway in the breeze. Rain falls on the flower-bedecked kadam tree. On some days, right in the morning I go out all alone, across that small field, to the base of the kadam tree. My heart thumps in fear. Yet I go. I can’t stay away. That kadam tree really pulls me.

Noni’s dad says, Afa my dear, don’t leave your home at all at night. I see all that happens at night. I ask Noni’s dad, Old Mian, don’t they say anything to you? Noni’s dad, our old watchman answers, but I recite prayers and blow sanctifying breaths over my body and keep my body shut. That’s why they can’t do a thing to me. Otherwise they’d have finished me off long ago! I plead with Old Mian to teach me to shut my body. I too want to go out at night. I want to go beneath the berry tree. I want to pluck that large safeda from the slender winding branches of the safeda tree. I want to stand leaning on the railing of the second-floor and gaze at the night sky. If Old Mian doesn’t teach me body shutting, then I wouldn’t be able to go out at all. All the time I’d have to stay the way I now do, if I ever awaken at night, keeping my eyes shut tight and lying curled up. How Old Mian, turban on his head, staff in hand, walks around the house all night long! Deep into the night, he recites the Darud tunefully:

Nur mohammad sallallah
Mafi kalfi gairullah
All recite with pure hearts
La ilaha il allah

My sleep breaks, I lie with my eyes shut. Does Old Mian see them right now?

I can’t speak to anybody about this fear and anxiety of mine. At exactly nine thirty in the morning Setu appears. Its time to go to school. Setu and I study in the same school. White salwar-kameez, pleated white odna tucked into the broad green belt on the waist. Hurriedly grabbing the tiffin money from mother I go out. Setu and I go to school by cycle-rickshaw. My most favourite class is Rubina Apa’s class. Rubina Apa taught Bengali. Most of the girls felt thirsty during the class. For Rubina Apa was very nice. She didn’t make any girl stand outside the class. As many times as the girls asked questions about the subjects, so many times did she explain.

Not a home, but a bird’s nest, a cataract of torn leaves
Just a little bit of rain and the water drips.
Just a bit of breeze and the shanty quivers
Beneath that live the angels all year long.
Can’t eat to belly’s fill, the few bones sticking out of her chest
Are witness to the days she’s gone without food.
Sweet face, lit bright by her smile
Extinguished by the slap of great deprivation.
Clad in a patchwork of hundreds of torn cloths
That mock the golden hue of her colour.
Not a trace of laughter in your two black eyes
From where a flood of tears flow.

Jasimuddin

She told us stories on the pretext of study. Holding the thread of the tale or poem taught she would wander to a land of many more tales. She spoke of poets. Spoke about writers. The question arose in my mind: so beautiful looking was Rubina Apa, didn’t any djinn take a fancy to her? Rubina Apa didn’t wear a head-scarf. So did Rubina Apa know how to shut her body? I ask Setu. Setu says a djinn’s going to take you away for sure one day!

Every Thursday night Old Mian sees them. Apparently there are four or five of them. Really tall. Moving their immense legs they walk over our house and go towards the hillock behind. My sleep is broken again and again on this night. Even if the curtain moves in the wind of the fan I think someone’s in the room. I recite the Ayatul Kursi and blow on my chest:

Allahu la ilaha illa-aa huyal haiyul quaiyum. La ta’khuju hu sina tu wala naum. Lahu ma fis sama wati wama fil arad …

The night seems terribly long and vast.

Felicitation

I was dwelling on the idea of organising a quiet felicitation programme to commemorate and celebrate 40 years of Subimal Misra’s writing. Various people likely to be interested would have to be contacted, involved and invited. A small public hall could be hired, like Students’ Hall, or Mahabodhi Society Hall, on College Square; or why not in Coffee House itself?! A suitable chief guest could be thought of. There would be a few speeches, tributes and reminiscences. Some extracts would be read out. If one is ambitious, one could even think of a documentary film on Misra being screened (provided someone makes one!). Or a theatrical adaptation of something by him performed. And Subimal Misra would be honoured, with a flower garland, a bouquet of flowers, a shawl and a scroll – in Bangla calligraphy, expressing his readers’ and fellow-citizens appreciation, regard, gratitude and good wishes for him. A readers’ / citizen’s award.

I thought about an appropriate date for this. There must surely be something like “World Literature Day”, which would be a fitting date. So I googled, and discovered that while there is no “World Literature Day”, there is a “World Book & Copyright Day”, instituted by UNESCO. This is on 23 April. “By celebrating this Day throughout the world, UNESCO seeks to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright.”

But this would not be suitable at all! Because Subimal Misra does not believe in copyright. So either some other befitting date should be determined – or this can be done on 23 April, with the aspect of Misra’s lifelong shunning and defiance of commercial publishing, and rejection of “copyright”, being highlighted using the occasion of this date.

Perhaps 21 February, the day commemorating the martyrs of the Bengali language movement, known in Bangladesh and West Bengal as Bhasha Andolon Dibosh (Language Movement Day), would be the best date. Since 2000, this is celebrated by UNESCO as "International Mother Language Day". After all, Subimal Misra is most fundamentally a Bengali writer. While being completely rooted in the vernacular, and therefore inevitably in the subaltern, he is at the same time abreast with and speaking of, and to, humanity at large. He looks at the world through the prism of the city of Calcutta and Bengali society and culture.

If it is 21 February – then that will have to be in 2008. And 23 April 2007 is just a week away, that’s too soon! If a really appropriate date in 2007 suggests itself – that would settle it.

Wishful thinking …

Jessore Road

Samran pointed me to a video on YouTube of Bangla singer Moushumi Bhowmick’s song Jessore Road.

I first heard this at a concert of Moushumi’s in Calcutta two years ago, with her group Parapar. The song is inspired by Allen Ginsberg’s long poem September on Jessore Road.

Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road - long bamboo huts
Noplace to shit but sand channel ruts

Millions of fathers in rain
Millions of mothers in pain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of sisters nowhere to go …

An audio recitation of the poem by Allen Ginsberg is accessible here.

The lyrics of Moushumi's song:

Shoto shoto chokh akashta daekhe
Shoto shoto shoto manusher dol
Joshor road-er du'dhaare boshot
Bansher chhauni, kadamaatijol

Kadamati makha manusher dol
Gadagadi hoye akashta daekhe
Akashe boshot maura ishwar
Naalish janabe ora bolo kaake?

Gharheen ora, ghum nei chokhe
Juddhe chhinno ghar-bari-desh
Mathar bhitore bomaaru bimaan
Ei kaalo raat kobe hobe shesh?

Shoto shoto mukhe haay ekattor
Joshor road je koto katha bole
Ato maura mukh, aadhmaura paaye
Purbo Bangla Kolkata chole

Shomoy cholechhe raajpath dhore
Joshor Roadete manush michhil
September, haay ekattor
Goru gari kada, rasta pichhil

Lokkho manush bhaat cheye moray
Lokkho manush shoke bhese jaay
Gharheen bhashe shoto shoto lok
Lokkho janani paagoler praay

Refugee ghare khide-paoa shishu
Petgulo shob phule phenpe othe
Eituku shishu ato boro chokh
Dishehara ma kaar kachhe chhote?

September, haay ekattor
Ato ato shudhu masher mukh
Juddho mrityu tobuo shopno
Phashaler maath phele asha shukh

Kaar kachhe boli bhaat-ruti katha
Kaake boli koro koro koro traan
Kaake boli ogo mrityu thamao
Moray jaoa buke ene dao praan

Kando kando tumi manusher dol
Tomar shorir khoto diye dhaka
Jananir kole aadhpeta shishu
E kemon bancha, benche moray thaka?

Chhoto chhoto tumi manusher dol
Tomar ghareo mrityur chhaya
Gulite chhinno deho-mon-maati
Ghar chhere chhoto maati michhe maya.

September, haay ekattor
Ghar bhenge gechhe juddher jhore
Joshor Road-er du'dhaare manush
Ato ato lok, shudhu keno moray?

The third and fourth stanzas of Moushumi’s version (the concluding lines in the video clip) in my poor translation:

They are homeless, their eyes sleepless,
Shelter-Home-Nation wiped out by war,
Bomber planes inside their heads.
When will this black night come to an end?

Hundreds and hundreds of faces, O ’71!
Jessore Road tells so many tales!
So many dead faces on half-dead feet,
East Bengal walks to Calcutta.

The tragedy of East Bengal in 1971, leading to the formation of Bangladesh – I was a 11-year old in Calcutta then. In the summer of 1971, my aunt Indu, a physician in London, had come as a volunteer doctor to work in the refugee camps near Calcutta. Such devastation nearby and such a sea of humanity converging in and around Calcutta. I will never forget, and that tragedy binds together the hearts of people of Bengal across the two sides of the border.

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"We can create a poverty-free world"

Professor Muhammad Yunus with Grameen Bank
loan holders, mostly women.

Here's an extract from the Nobel Lecture delivered in Oslo on 10 December 2006 by Muhammad Yunus, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006.

The full text of the lecture is available here.

The video version is available here. Professor Yunus starts his Nobel Lecture with a few words in Bangla.


We get what we want, or what we don't refuse. We accept the fact that we will always have poor people around us, and that poverty is part of human destiny. This is precisely why we continue to have poor people around us. If we firmly believe that poverty is unacceptable to us, and that it should not belong to a civilized society, we would have built appropriate institutions and policies to create a poverty-free world.

We wanted to go to the moon, so we went there. We achieve what we want to achieve. If we are not achieving something, it is because we have not put our minds to it. We create what we want.

What we want and how we get to it depends on our mindsets. It is extremely difficult to change mindsets once they are formed. We create the world in accordance with our mindset. We need to invent ways to change our perspective continually and reconfigure our mindset quickly as new knowledge emerges. We can reconfigure our world if we can reconfigure our mindset.

We Can Put Poverty in the Museums

I believe that we can create a poverty-free world because poverty is not created by poor people. It has been created and sustained by the economic and social system that we have designed for ourselves; the institutions and concepts that make up that system; the policies that we pursue.

Poverty is created because we built our theoretical framework on assumptions which under-estimates human capacity, by designing concepts, which are too narrow (such as concept of business, credit-worthiness, entrepreneurship, employment) or developing institutions, which remain half-done (such as financial institutions, where poor are left out). Poverty is caused by the failure at the conceptual level, rather than any lack of capability on the part of people.

I firmly believe that we can create a poverty-free world if we collectively believe in it. In a poverty-free world, the only place you would be able to see poverty is in the poverty museums. When school children take a tour of the poverty museums, they would be horrified to see the misery and indignity that some human beings had to go through. They would blame their forefathers for tolerating this inhuman condition, which existed for so long, for so many people. A human being is born into this world fully equipped not only to take care of him or herself, but also to contribute to enlarging the well being of the world as a whole. Some get the chance to explore their potential to some degree, but many others never get any opportunity, during their lifetime, to unwrap the wonderful gift they were born with. They die unexplored and the world remains deprived of their creativity, and their contribution.

Photo: © Grameen Bank Audio Visual Unit, 2006.

Contraception and birth control

A vast section of India's population does not practice any form of birth control or contraception. Hence the high birth rate in the country.

Birth control in India, where practiced, is still predominantly and overwhelmingly female-based (i.e. intra-uterine devices & pills) and terminal means-based (i.e. either abortion or ligation).

Bringing about male responsibility and contraception among the poor and low-income is one of the most acute challenges.

Change in this scenario, in terms of enabling reproductive health choices of women, improving family welfare, greater responsibility taking by men - cannot come by fiat. It will be achieved by reaching out to the people, and especially the women, in their micro-environments. Where this has been done, positive improvements have followed. The most celebrated example is of course Kerala.

In poor and low-income environments, one can see dramatic change in reproductive behaviour within one generation - when the woman is question enjoys education.

Literacy, education, social, health and reproductive health awareness, vocational skills and livelihood opportunities for women - it is in this nexus that it is strategically most important to intervene. And the most crucial group to focus on - are adolescent girls.

Similarly, in order to change the behaviour of males, it is vital to reach out to them when they are children, when they are teenagers, and thus plant seeds in them of a different being.

This will have a transformative impact on the society.

In this context, it is pertinent to point to the impressive performance of Bangladesh. Successive UNDP Human Development Reports, assessments by the World Bank, and scholars such as Jean Dreze, all corroborate the general trend that Bangladesh is outperforming India as a whole and West Bengal in particular, in a whole range of social indicators in health, education and gender equality.

Its a shame that all the talk of "Bengal's revival" by Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee and the obsequious media - does not dwell on such things.

So, looking at the future of South Asia - it is Bangladesh one should bet on.

Reflections: 1

The Sachar committee report has documented the abysmal condition of India’s Muslims. Download the report here. Backwardness of the Muslim community is most acute in West Bengal. The report has only corroborated what grassroots activists and researchers in India have been crying hoarse about for years, only to be labelled “communal”.

The govt has appointed a high-level committee to look into the recommendations of the Sachar committee, its deadline being 30 January 2007.

Across the western border, Pakistan has decided to change the history texts and discard the “two nation” theory, and speak instead of the deprivation suffered by Muslims in British India. But the Sachar report can also be seen as vindication of the view that Muslims could not get their just share in society in India. And that therefore a separate nation was necessary. It may have to be admitted by Indians that the human and social development enjoyed by Muslims in the subcontinent is largely the result of first Pakistan and then Bangladesh being created. Acute poverty and disparities exist in Pakistan and Bangladesh; but whatever social and economic fruits are being enjoyed by the people of these countries are surely only the result of their independent nationhood.

Awesome advances have been achieved by India too. But the Muslims of India have been left behind. All the achievements of India are rendered hollow for that.

Sight cannot be described to the blind. Similarly, it is impossible for educated Hindus, including highly educated and socially, economically and culturally empowered people, to realise how bigoted, prejudiced, and communal they really are. The very notion of “Muslim appeasement”, so widespread and deep-rooted in the Indian Hindu upper caste psyche is proof of this. The reality of Muslims in India has been laid bare before us. So much for appeasement.

Every kind of indignity, closure, discrimination has to be faced by the average Muslim in every sphere of life. But to mention “Muslim” as a specific entity to focus on in development efforts and benefits – is called “communal”. But clearly the non-communal, purely “human” definitions and directions have not worked as far as Muslims are concerned. So why are Muslims dropped from “human”? Obviously for the same reason that a pogrom aginst Muslims was unleashed in Gujarat: to eliminate and crush them.

After assuming that at least some people, among those I knew, would have humane and dignified perspectives, I am perpetually surprised by finding this and that person also being full of his / her own hate. Its only among those one knows that one feels comfortable to say what one feels. Otherwise we don masks and play deceits. So I don’t have to look far to find such people. They are there in my family, in my friends and social circle. I have stopped being bothered about this. I simply see it as a deformity in the people, something to ignore. I will not waste my time in any serious discussion about socio-cultural-economic matters with them.

The very mention of “Muslim” – conjures up for them someone about whom all kind of stereotypical notions are emphatically believed. And what is the source of the person’s beliefs or knowledge? Simply received wisdom, gossip, socialisation, hateful bigotry. Very few go through the experience of observing their own habitual embrace of various notions; or examining honestly and systematically the extent to which these believed notions are true. They do not see anything wrong about all this.

The average Hindu, upper caste, educated, middle or upper class person – those who have enjoyed in full measure the fruits of India’s development – would typically not know a single Muslim in any intimate fashion. Though Muslims are all around him, he chooses not to see the reality of the acute poverty and deprivation suffered by Muslims. The Muslim areas - outside which they are not allowed to live in Hindu India - are not places where the "respectable" ever go to. But he doesn’t think that this disqualifies him from holding forth on the peculiarities, idiocies, irrationalities, obscurantisms, cussedness of Muslims / Islam.

The media has of course played a demonic role in this regard. The education system too has failed. More fundamentally, India has failed to even consider the questions of how to be a plural nation; how to educate children to live in peace and partnership with other communities; how to co-exist and thrive amidst diversity.

Pluralism allows communities to see themselves through one another's eyes. And thus grow in stature.

Do we want to be a plural nation? Do we want dignity and justice for all? If we don’t, then further partitions may be the result. Just as crime and terrorism are natural outcomes of the deprivation suffered so far.

I shout ...

Naeem Mohaiemen is a filmmaker and media artist based in Dhaka and New York.

In his blog, and in an article in The Daily Star, he has written about being a “minority” in Bangladesh.

I salute Naeem’s sensitive heart, his conscience, and his rage at the apathy and inhumanity of his fellow countrymen.

Naeem writes:

My uncle used to tell the story of the maulana who stood in front of a temple in 1940s Noakhali, using his body to defy those who wanted to burn alive the Hindus who had been their former neighbors. This is in Noakhali of all places, a blight in 1940s partition narratives for so many examples of brutality, including the apocryphal story of Muslims who slaughtered Gandhi's goat (is it true? I have never been able to find any evidence). If that village elder found an interpretation of religion that taught compassion, how are we in this backwards trap fifty years on?

He concludes his article with the cry:

I shout at all of you with rage, because I refuse to accept a haven for me that is a nightmare for others. There is still time to stop this with our words, our actions and our bodies.

Did we want this Bangladesh?

Sadly, I find myself in a similar position here in India, in West Bengal, where the Muslim minority languishes, is reviled, manipulated and used, and their dreams and dignity crushed under the prejudice and apathy of my countrymen.

So it was gratifying to read Annu’s comment on Naeem’s blog, which I reproduce here.

"Unfortunately, this is true of West Bengal too. Even if people refuse to acknowledge it, the childhood taunts against minorities transform themselves into open discrimination in adulthood. Recently, when my father and sister went flat-hunting in Kolkata, one of the owners said ‘this is a good decent building, we don’t rent out to Muslims or Christians’ maybe assuming from my sister’s Hindu name ‘Savitri’ that we were Hindus. Increasingly, Muslims in West Bengal are using non-Islamic names such as ‘Gulabi’, ‘Sonali’ to ‘pass off’ and not be discriminated against by the Hindu majority.

Of course what also adds to discrimination in West Bengal is caste and one’s rural origin. When I stayed in the Sundarbans, I was surprised to find that the few successful relatives of people living there had changed their rural and low-caste surnames - such as ‘Pod’, ‘Aulia’, ‘Majhi’, ‘Pramanik’ - to ‘appropriate’ Brahman-Kayastha ones. I also found that school teachers there had forcefully changed the names of Hindu children with ‘Muslim’ names such as Ghazi and Jorina. When I asked why, I was told that their parents didn’t know the difference between Hindu and Muslim names and had ‘mistakenly’ named their children and it was their duty to rectify the ‘faults’ of these rustics.

More recently, when I went back to Bangladesh (after 10 years), I was surprised to note how this time people obsessively asked me my religion. When I refused to answer I was asked my name. This was as much in Dhaka as in little villages. And to think that barely a hundred years ago, many of the villagers of southern Bengal did not know whether they were Hindu or Muslim (if you look at the early censuses it is fascinating to note how in some years people categorised themselves as ‘Muslims’ and in some others as ‘Hindus’ – even O’Malley remarks on this!!)."

Thank you Annu for pointing this out. I think I know this Annu! She wrote last year about how the West Bengal govt betrayed the East Bengal refugees and the poor and marginalised.

Read Sandip Bandopadhyay's article on caste in West Bengal here.

Threads

After my posts yesterday on Religion, I was chatting with my friend Dr Mrinal Bose. He is a practising physician, a man of science and rationality, a secular man, and a humanist. And an aesthete, at least in regard to literature.

As a medical man, he is aware of human psychology, and in his training had spent some time in clinical psychiatry and been quite drawn to this work. He knows his physiology and biochemistry! Yet we can talk about matters like “spirituality” or “Religion”. He knows I am sharing my personal experience when I say something, and accepts and respects this. But he has his views.

He said: “If man had not created religion, the world would have been a better place.”

My response was: If man had not created religion, there would still be natural law, and Religion (with a capital R) is nothing but that. There is also self-knowledge, of body-mind, states, and self-realisation, which man has attained for thousands of years. The marriage of Religion to worldly concerns, of power and wealth, is another matter, and also inevitable. But that need not stop someone from looking at Religion differently, even specific religions and their associated beliefs, practices and rituals, and seeing all of this as something magnificent, which raises humanity to living light. For instance, how can someone know what a pilgrimage is for the inner-world of the devout?

Dr Bose also referred to something a renowned Bangladeshi writer had said in an interview, to the effect that only people who had the time engaged with religion. Peasants and workers did not have time for religion.

I agreed with him. I remembered the Buddhist teaching about a human life with the opportunity to learn - being as rare an occurrence as if a deep sea turtle which surfaces once in millenia came up precisely inside a tube that happened to be floating by at exactly the same time and place! And hence the necessary injunction, to utilise this life to the fullest, to strive to come to awareness, and to help bring other living beings to light.

I also mentioned that it was humble labouring folk, peasants, craftsmen and workers, who exhibited faith and devotion, and the "spiritual" impulse (in the innate sense, rather than any particular sect) was also found among the labouring folk. Hence a person like Kabir, the 15th century weaver, poet and mystic of India. He was heard and revered by the common folk, in whose language and idiom he gave voice to his deep spiritual feelings and insights. Not surprisingly, he attracted people of diverse faiths, and particularly Hindus and Muslims; his own faith was always ambiguous; he quoted Hindu and Islamic precepts, and also forswore external rituals and formal piety and places of worship. His songs and poems still resound in vast parts of India.

When I relate to Dr Bose, I see him as a friend, someone I like and respect and think well off. Because that is what my relation to him has occasioned. Yes, there are some things people could say, which are likely to shock and hurt me, and make me distance myself from them. But equally, there are matters on which I don’t let people’s words or views interfere with my relationship with them, and interfere with the fine commonality shared in other matters. That view is only one small part of them. We can still be one in essence.

I feel a commitment to try to think deeply about what someone I like says, which seems to run counter to my own thoughts and feelings, to see whether that statement can very exactly represent some aspect of my own view on that subject. And very often one finds that there need not really be any disagreement. Besides, merely hearing something one does not like to hear, which offends, or irritates – one need not then let this harden into a feeling of resentment or ill-will against the person.

Dr Bose is very blunt. And disarmingly so! I once sent him a set of synopses of stories (for films) that I had worked on over the years. He said: “Be original dammit, these are formulaic shit” (or something to that effect). I did get a bit of a start! But now, I am supremely grateful for that honest feedback. That helped to open up for me a new dimension of being. And so I always like to get some sharp critical outburst from him!

Dr Bose had also introduced me to the name and work of the Bengali writer Subimal Misra. That led to my taking up translation of his short stories. He also pointed out the parallels between the work of Misra and that of Elfriede Jelinek, the Austrian writer. Through Dr Bose’s feedback about originality, and my exposure to the writings of (and about) Misra and Jelinek – though I’ve been a serious reader for more than half my life, and nursed a wish to write (literary fiction, non-fiction) for years, for the first time in my life I awakened to some fundamental questions, some new considerations and discernments, some new realisations, decisions and choices.

Why write? Write what? Why? For whom? Why? How?

Have mercy

I wrote yesterday about our own innate natural urges and faculties, such as that of turning to, or seeking refuge, at times of acute duress and distress.

So there could be “secular” expressions of that inner voice.

Last year, I had heard the Bengali singer Moushumi Bhowmick – and had been overwhelmed and mesmerised by her voice and songs. Rooted in the local Bengali soil and symbols, they took me to another plane altogether, of mood, feeling and fragrance.

Moushumi is also part of an ensemble, Parapar. Their site on MySpace is here.

The first song of Moushumi Bhowmick I heard was a prayer, a song by Ranen Roychowdhury, from Sylhet (now in Bangladesh). The song begins 'Mayani rakhibay moray’ (Keep me with affection). What feeling she impregnated into this humble expression of folk devotion, though she herself is presumably "secular" and non-religious!

Here's the song.

03 Track 3.wma

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Hear more songs of Moushumi and Parapar here.

I searched for her albums, bought several copies and gave them to my relatives and friends!

One of her songs is Doya koro (Have mercy). That can also be seen as a “prayer”, independent of “religion” or “God”.

In my ecstatic enthusiasm listening to Moushumi Bhowmick’s songs, I translated a few songs, so as to be able to share my own delight and entrancement with others who did not know the Bengali language, who I knew would be powerfully drawn to her songs and would want to sing them. This was not a polished literary translation, but more like a literal translation, which would enable someone who loved a song to know each word of it and thus understand something of the feeling expressed by the singer's voicing of each word.

But the songs are very difficult to translate, because simple common words are so full of nuance of meaning and cultural connotations and associations. Nevertheless, quite insensitively and immodestly, I posted my translation on a public discussion board on the internet, besides sending it to the writer / singer. Thankfully, she responded shortly thereafter, expressing her unhappiness with my “translation”, and especially the song Doya koro (Have mercy), and with my having gone public with this.

I immediately apologised for and retracted my “translation”. Through this experience I got a good introduction to what translation entailed, when it came to literature. That has stood me in very good stead in the translation of Subimal Misra’s writing, which I took up soon thereafter.

But I do want to share the words of the song Doya Koro, through English, with my non-Bengali friends, to illustrate a “secular prayer”. The deceptively simple text of the original, which masks the subtleties conveyed by various words, phrases and tones is very hard to render into any other language, without making it sound prosaic. And this is definitely not the case with the original. My literal, aural conversion into English does not do justice to Moushumi Bhowmick's work. Yet I want to share the words, because I know even that is so rich.

So with a prayer for mercy, I give that below.

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Have mercy
this drought has burnt my whole body
to ashes
have mercy
this city, body, time
all burnt to ashes
have mercy
O dear rain,
shower down
on the thirsty body in the bosom of the city
O dear rain
have mercy,

Have mercy
the blind closed body and mind inside this room
so have mercy
the paralysed sultry suffocation
inside this room with closed doors
where the air can’t play
have mercy
these wall-boundaries
the Picasso scroll hung on the wall
has become salted over
have mercy
O dear storm come
and strike and break down everything
have mercy

Have mercy
this nice luv-luv-loving
I’m tired of playing
have mercy
this being nice, loving, doing good
does not feel very nice
have mercy
I will stand outside just once
once, just once
so have mercy

Listen to more songs by Moushumi Bhowmick here.

Salaam Pakistan!

The Economist had carried a "Survey of Pakistan" in its 8 July 2006 issue. When I read that, I realised that if I had been a thinking Pakistani citizen with a sense of self-dignity, I would have been angered and offended by much of what had been written. In short, the analysis is clichéd and superficial, and does not really present what the people of Pakistan are thinking or doing.

Thanks to the seeds of dissension and strife sown by the British in India – on a soil already fecund with the divisions of caste, class, power and ethnicity – the anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, popular, pluralist, secular, democratic and pro-poor struggle and legacy of the subcontinent was ruptured. Though people in today’s Pakistan and Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) had actively fought for freedom from colonial rule, yet, because of the Hindu-Muslim conflict, power-politics, partition and the resulting riots - this legacy was overshadowed and forgotten.

This evening I was reading the 12 August 2006 issue of The Economist. Right at the beginning, in the "Letters" page, I saw six rejoinders to the Survey. Two were from Pakistan and four from Europe, presumably by persons of Pakistani origin. Reading these really warmed my heart. They have expressed the kinds of things I wanted to hear. They have stood up for, and done their people proud.

Today is Pakistan’s Independence Day. I really felt like shouting out: Salaam Pakistan! (I salute you, Pakistan!)

My heartiest greetings to my brothers and sisters in Pakistan.

Soils

I was born in a Tamil family. And I grew up and have lived all my life in Bengal.

10 years ago, on a holiday in the Nilgiri hills in south India, through a sequence of melodic encounters and experiences, one after another - I felt that the Tamils were essentially a race of bards, and had been so through centuries of history and circumstance, right through to the present day, expressing their unstoppable melodic urge in religion after religion. And I felt that blood running through my own veins. I could understand anew the lyrics of the beautiful song "Putham pudhu bhumi" that I'd been captivated by (from the Tamil film Thiruda Thiruda, set to melody by AR Rehman) :

"Want a fresh new land,
Want one meal every day,
Golden rain must shower,
And the cuckoo must sing Tamil."

Here's a video clip of that song.



A couple of years later, I made a chance visit to Bangladesh, spending two days in Dhaka. I spent some time at a seminar organised by the Department of Sanskrit & Pali at the university. I came upon the Charyagiti, the earliest extant Bangla poems, and the songs of Lalan Fakir. I learnt about the Tantrik, Buddhist and Islamic heritage of the folk of east Bengal. I felt the unique sensibility of that soil, that has endured through millenia, and which has moulded folk devotion. If one wants to see the highest kind of human being, the most refined sensibility, the most lofty, sweetest and child-like face of humanity - it is the golden soil of Bangla that produces this. The national anthem of Bangladesh begins:

My Bangla of gold, I love you!

If my Tamil blood makes me sing - it is of Bengal that I sing, and the humble Bengali Muslim peasant's rare sensibility that I venerate. I am supremely fortunate indeed, and doubly blessed, by these two precious soils.

Here's the Bengali folk songs group Dohar's song offering to the soil of Bengal.

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