Literature, Truth and Fulfillment
This narrative tells us about how a love for literature, teaching, and translation led to a fulfilling life amidst the vibrant literary circles of Kolkata, marked by significant achievements and meaningful connections of the author.
A huge part of my life want to lose myself within myself. Withdraw! Honesty has been my background and it has made me, outspoken. What I do I love, and what I love I do. This make me at times very impractical but I can stand up with my head held high, and always endorse truths.
As a child I had a lot of inhibitions about holding on to my own and it made me wax wry momentarily as I held my own hands and went about my own path. It was never about breaking stereotypes, it was about seeking freedom to breathe.
I picked up English literature at graduation level in college and cannot express how happy I was during those three years. I just wish (wish even now) that Guwahati had a College Street… and more of the Kolkata mood, to embrace and hug a Literary spell with a heart bent on discussions, exchanges and raptures! Now that I am based here in Kolkata the fulfillment i felt way back, at having Dr Amaresh Dutta Sir ring me up himself and Prabhakar sir too, to tell me that I had performed excellently in my MA (Eng) exam (the second place), and made them proud make me murmur perfunctorily to myself…Well done! And with two kids i stood seventh in my LLB exam, make me chuckle.
In Kolkata IPPL happened to me, and i realise now what it means when one says, that to anticipate satisfaction is to feel alive. I am so sated with all the wonderful members of this organisation who have large minds and flowing pens, all uncaged with a wonderful vibration, that death too for me, at this point of time would be an act of mercy. There is no mist and fog to disorient me. A wonderful petri chor is there in the air…a blessed fulfillment!
It was all about my running into Sanjukta Dasgupta at a translation workshop at Jadavpur University that a bond began to knit itself into a wonderful pattern. I felt as though i had always known her. The list of the wonderful debts i owed to life kept on growing, and my smile grew larger and wider, smelling of roses and cinnamon. This is what i feel living is all about. IPPL is honestly plugged into my life for sustenance since Covid stepped into our lives. We all began to live poems, breathe poems, write poems following prompts, we discuss poems and an ‘adda’ here is an agenda-less free discussion significantly absorbed, staggeringly honest; retrieving the past, looking into our present and analyzing our future. Book launches are superb events. What people spoke here was the truth and they meant every word. They meant each word they spoke.
On the other hand i hold with high regard my eleven years with Calcutta University in the Comparative Literature Department. It is the divine will, that this role as a Visiting Professor brought me closer and closer home to the wondrous land of both Assamese and Bangla literature; so very close, that we lived and breathed together. My students at the University began seeking for English translation of Assamese literary works…and my life with all its beautiful colours, hunger, concentration and prose and poetic centric visions began to be fulfilled. Till date, i have from then onwards translated 14 selected Assamese works, (our legacy)…and was that all? No! I translated 3 excellent Bangla works too!…Dukhe Keora, Kothar Kotha (both by Dr Ramkumar Mukhopadhyay, another excellent one Birasan by Subrota Mukhopadhyay, and at present a fourth one again by Dr Ramkumar Mukhopapadhyay, for which the Russian Consul had met us for a warm discussion.
On the other hand, Suryya Hazarika, our honoured President of Assam’s famed literary oeuvre… Asam Sahitya Sabha met Manisha Barthakur and requested her to arrange for a branch in Kolkata. Manisha rang me up and requested me to be the President of the same. I dithered but finally AGREED. I asked her to call for a physical meeting. She did call. But there is a snoopy body, that wished to throw me far away. Such snoops are always about. Manisha, an excellent human being however lacked the backbone to say it loud and clear, that she has already had my word for the role of President. I will however not name here that small political gadfly group, that gathered voters to vote that day and voting was conducted only for the President’s role. The people seated there ewre strangers. And that is that. 😄 But one thing i have to say, and that is that…”Podaghat kore Gangai fele daowa!” I am now in the blessed waters of the Ganga.
I have quite some work in hand to complete. So, thanks be to Manisha Barthakur’s inability to protest and manifest her backbone to speak out. Gadflies will always be about. Thanks be to me to speak out loud and clear. I do so, and i shall always do.
Thanks be to my reigning happiness and peace of mind. Thanks be to those gadflies!
That’s it.
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