Meeting Tapan Ghosh
Maulee Senapati is an award winning filmmaker from Assam based…
This narrative captures a chance encounter between the narrator and Tapan Kumar Ghosh, a cycle rickshaw puller in Guwahati, delving into themes of identity, migration, and existential struggles. Through their conversation, the story explores the shared experiences and perspectives of individuals from different backgrounds facing similar challenges in life.
Rushing out in a hurry to visit the bank I stepped out of the house in Guwahati and headed straight to the neighborhood cycle rickshaw stand. I prefer this mode of communication when required to run errands etc. from neighbouring locations because of the opportunity I get to converse with the working class.
As I jumped onto a standing rickshaw in zest, the man plying it asked me about my destination in Hindi. Invariably I am mistaken to be either a north Indian or from down south because of my feature. I replied to him in Assamese making the sunburnt face turn towards me while the man’s narrow, elongated eyes radiating a mysterious radiance took a firm glace at me, as if scanning my mind.
“You speak decent Hindi”, I said in genuine appreciation of the man’s fluency in the language. “Well, I lived in Delhi for eight long years plying cycle rickshaws “, the man replied in Hindi, still hesitant to talk in Assamese. “Where in Delhi?”, I asked. His was a one word reply, “Yamuna Ghat”.
The moment the man started speaking in Assamese, one could easily make out his native identity, promoting me to swiftly shift to Bhatia, the language spoken by the Mymensingi community of Assam who are largely dwellers of the chars or sandbars dotting the Brahmaputra river. “Apnar ghar kon jaigai?“, Where are you from?, I asked him. Pat came his reply in Bangla instead, “I am from Jashor”. After a slight pause synchronising with slowing down of the speed of paddling the rickety rickshaw, the lean bodied man twisted his body like an old vine to look at me, poised to shoot a sharp question. “Have you heard this name before?” Among various interests in life my engrossment towards studying and understanding human migration and subsequent situations of rootlessness has been an abiding engagement.
Jashor in erstwhile pre Partion Bengal, Anglicised as Jessore by the colonial rulers, is now a part of the Khulna division of Bangladesh. The moment he uttered Jashor, I knew that he is yet another immigrant among millions of others, who were forced to move out of one’s own moorings leaving back hearts and home, to eke out a living in an adopted fatherland. ‘What’s your name? ‘, I asked him. “Aamar naam Tapan Kumar Ghosh”, he replied. I could make out that he isn’t a Bhatiali with roots in Mymensingh as I had initially thought. The fact that I thought so reflects the lacking in many of us: how easily we give way to stereotypes when it concerns identities of people in this part of the world which has in contemporary times witnessed multiple flows of human movements, some carrying the scars of the Partition to more contemporary situations induced by climate change. The only thread that connects each of these rootless folks are their existential compulsions with poverty central to all. Far away from these familiar terrain, my recent visit to a far prosperous Malaysia too presented glimpses of the man’s existential chasm though overshadowed by sky-piercing towers and skycrapers built with capital gained through oil and real-estate trades.
Unperturbed by the mounting traffic, Tapan Ghosh, who seemed unwilling to end our conversation easily, and not particularly satisfied by my earlier reply, repeated his question: “What do you know about Jashor?” This time, even before I could respond, Ghosh himself replied his question. “It’s the birthplace of Michael Madhusudan Dutt”. And quickly added, “You are an educated person. I am sure you know this name”. I responded “Yes”.
In the midst of the urban cacophony as I was still being driven by Tapan Ghosh, few names came floating to my ears. “Meghanad”, after a deep breath he uttered, “Krishna Kumari”, followed by “Padmavati”, these are important “shristi” of Michael Madhusudan, the man affirmed as he once again turned his head into a one eighty degree to look into my sunglass covered eyes. I could clearly see in Tapan Ghosh’s eyes a sparkling radiance as he looked at me. “What to do, shaar… I was a good student, but had to leave studies after appearing in Madhyamik”, the man regretted.
I forget names now you see, getting old “, he sheepishly added. Wearing a smile on my face I kept absolutely mum while listening to Tapan Ghosh catch up a fabulous flow.
“How old are you?”, I asked Tapan who was by now sweating under the afternoon sun. “Shevintyaight”, he said with a firm boldness in his voice. Seventy eight!, I exclaimed. “Yesh!”, he reacted in English again. ‘You don’t at all look that old ‘, I said. Ghosh concluded with a single line premise for every struggling life: We, laborious lots, can’t afford to age easily. Else how would the prosperous lot survive?” A week back, while being driven from the Kuala Lumpur airport to the Taylor’s University where my good friend Anindita, a senior Professor, was waiting to receive me, I got into a long and engaging conversation with the cab driver, a local Malay. In course of the pleasent conversation, when I found out that both of us are of the same age, I told the man that he looks far young than me. Far across the Bay of Bengal, in Kuala Lumpur, the cab driver echoed similar sentiments as he humbly and politely said, “It’s, after all, our lifestyles Sir. Particularly since the Covid life hasn’t been kind to people like me. One has to stay active to survive.” After a long pause while driving through the highway running through Malaysia connecting Singapore on one hand with Thailand, the man sighed, “There are little choices for us”, as he matched the eyeline with me on the rear mirror with a self consoling smile.
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Maulee Senapati is an award winning filmmaker from Assam based in Rohtak, Haryana (India). An alumni of the prestigious FTII, Pune, he is also a film academic, presently engaged as Professor, Film Direction, at Dada Lakhmi Chand State University of Performing and Visual Arts (SUPVA), Haryana. Prior to studying at FTII, he pursued a career in journalism working as a sub-editor and reporter for "The Sentinel", then the leading English language newspaper published out of Assam. His experience in journalism includes covering of two anti insurgency operations against militancy in Assam besides other challenging experiences.