...and so, we meet again

Yes, it's been a long time. Over six months. Not that I've had nothing to say all this time, but time crunch and lethargy together played spoilsport.

I was thinking the other day of the Bengali soul. The soul that comes alive this time of the year, courtesy the great guru's birthday. You start humming bard songs, and paras buzz with "cultural functions". Kolkata Doordarshan dusts and airs archival footage of Tagore anniversary celebrations from the last millennium (if the footage is not archival, the performers are), while the other pretenders, the new news channels on the block, play the TRP game with Rabindra psycho babble.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Overhyped and over the hill. That's what "Pnochishey Baisakh" has boiled down to. Look at those somnabulists droning one Bengali anthem after another, and you would know. Do any of them look like they care? A TV poll asked sweaty members of the audience, "which one of the following Tagore works were made into movies? (a) Charulata; (b) Hemanter Pakhi; (c) Chokher Bali; and (c) Noshtoneer" and a hilarious number of them got the answer wrong.

I remember a random survey by Kolkata Doordarshan's famous Pankaj Saha several years ago, where he roamed the streets of the city and asked people to recite at least one Tagore verse. Very few could remember a Tagore verse to begin with, and even fewer could recite a couple of lines correctly. What a letdown in a city that prides itself on its "cultural" heritage.

But then, it's inevitable. You cannot expect all Bengalis to rattle off Tagore at the drop of a hat, and the popularity of his songs are no measure of the depth of awareness about the poet. His songs are popular because by nature, songs are easier to absorb than an essay, or a verse in iambic tetrameter. Or a 500-page novel about a Hindu activist who finds out he's not a Hindu after all.

The Bengali soul, therefore, is not about knowing your bard by heart. It is the feeling that creeps in one baisakh evening, cooled by a sudden nor'wester, watching the raindrops drip from the window sill, letting your gaze linger on the scattered clouds on the horizon, smelling the wet jui in the fitful breeze. When you feel like expressing that weird sensation inside you, right then and there. When you feel like drawing up a pen and a paper and writing something, anything. When you feel like a poet. That, my friends, is the Bengali soul. Never felt like this? Well, pleased to meet you, Mr Jhunjhunwala!