Sharodiya Anjali 2005 - Pujari

__________________________________________________________________Durga Puja 2005
Buddhadeva Bose
(Translated by: Nandini Gupta)
Chapter I: Earlier Memories
Budhhadeva Bose belonged to that generation of Bengali poets of the thirties and forties who fought tooth and nail to
escape the all-pervading genius of Rabindranath and establish a personal idiom. He succeeded, but the fascination,
admiration, or even awe of the older poet remained. In 1941, Bose published the memoirs of his recent visit to
Santiniketan in ‘Sab Peyechhir Deshe’ (The land where I found it all). By the time the book was in print, Tagore had
passed away, and what had been conceived as a gift of gratitude turned into an elegy, one poet’s homage to another.
The book has been a favorite among the Bengali readers ever since.
Santiniketan in this heat Are you
crazy The
guest house
has been shut
down, the
tanks have
dried up, the
days are
unbearable
with the
stinging heat--
- the air was
thick with
statements like
this. The poet was ill; it was doubtful
whether he would be able to see us.
We didn’t worry about the heat or
water-shortage, but the entire point of
the visit was to meet the poet. It was a
long time since we had seen him last.
That was during the Easter of 1938;
Rabindranath had just recovered from
an illness. We stayed at Punascha, the
poet was living in Shyamali then.
Every morning, he would sit on a
cane chair in the shade of a small
mango tree behind Shyamali; the mail
would pile up on the table in front of
him, a couple of torn envelopes
would flutter to the ground and
mingle with dry leaves--- we would
go and sit with him. At that time,
Samar Sen was there, as well as
Kamakshiprasad Chattopadhyay; we
enjoyed their company through the day.
We reached Santiniketan at midnight;
as soon as the taxi came to a halt in
front of the guest house, a window on
the first-floor popped open; first
Samarbabu’s vest-clad upper torso
came into view, then Kamakshiprasad’s
head ---next there were footsteps on the
stairs, Kamakshiprasad appeared with a
lantern in his hand, halfway up the
stairs we met Samarbabu. We all went
upstairs to their room. Not much to
relate, but even today it is a pleasure to
recall the sweetness of that moment of
getting together with friends. The
bigger things in life sink under, it is of
such little moments that magic
memories are born and built.
The night was still, all around us the
trees were silhouetted in the feeble light
of the moon. I can recall that the first
thing that struck me was the chirping of
the birds. The nervous warbling of
moon-bewitched birds was alien to our
unused city-bred ears---as if we had
forgotten that in this world birds sing.
But the fact of hunger is not so easily
forgotten. We asked the manager for
something to eat; he shook his head.
Tea Within a few moments, cups of
tea arrived. On the open roof, in the
blossoming moonlight I found the tea
very refreshing; at the moment, the mind
was suspended in such an unusual state
of fulfilment that we hardly minded
having missed dinner. Samarbabu said,
“Rabindranath readied Punascha for you
and waited for you all of yesterday - you
neither came nor sent word, I think he is
displeased. You should at least have
wired.” We should have, no doubt; but I
could not muster enough remorse for the
lapse, I was feeling so happy. We
occupied the two beds in the room; the
two friends laid out a narrow bed-roll in
the veranda and crawled under a very
low-slung mosquito-net, the sight of
which I shall never forget. Our soft
murmurings had opened up a fine crack
in the deep stillness around, now it
became whole, inviolate again; we went
to sleep with bird-song.
The next morning, we had some tea and
were just preparing to go out, when an
attendant arrived from Uttarayan, and
laid before us a tray covered with a white
cloth. On lifting the cover, we found all
sorts of delicacies, in considerable
variety and quantity. That the news
of our having missed dinner had
reached so early, and such elaborate
arrangement for satiating our pent-up
hunger had been made with such alacrity,
surprised us as much as it pleased us. It
is not in my nature to tarry in the
presence of food, so I fell to it
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Sharodiya Anjali 2005 10 n¡lc£u¡ A”m£ 1412