Bengal is where my heart is!

           I always had such a respect or rather a feeling of reverence for Bengal and it’s people. Coupled with reverence, a sense that Bengal is  mystically beautiful also come up in my mind whenever I hear or read something about Bengal. And what to say of Bengali people, I find them to be the nicest people India has. Have you ever listened to a Bengali boy or girl talk and especially a girl talking in Bengali, it is the sweetest thing to witness and one of the most soothing voice your ears will ever hear. In languages, I love listening to russian poetry as well but  if I compare listening to russian and listening to bengali (though both are greek and latin to me ), I would love to hear bengali more and more. Nothing parallels the charm of listening to our sweet bengali people talking.

             Now coming to bengali people, no body can dispute that there is something unique in them which makes them special. First things first, bengali people have always been known for their  intellect and I believe that the tradition continues till today.  If you look, the genesis of modernity in the India of 18^th Century or so happened in Bengal. After all the great Raja Ram Mohan Roy was from Bengal and so was Ishwar Chand Vidya Sagar. Not only that, the revolutionaries activities too started in Bengal, for example the Anushilan Samiti and it’s members like Kudi Ram Boss and Prafulla Chaki, they were bengali too with a distict genre of revolutionary spirit. Arbindo Ghosh is another fine name. On the top of all sits the most reverent Rabindra Nath Tagore, whom I regard as one of the finest people India will always be proud of. His lines where the head is held high… are so inspiring for me whenever I read them, in fact they are the best lines I find, the most influential  use of language you will ever go through, something similar to the awe and inspiration you get by reading the lines of American Declaration of Independence.  In today’s times, I heard so many times Pranab Mukherjee presenting budget in the Parliament, it is so lovely to watch him speak, he is a combination of intellect and sweetness, otherwise intellectual people are so infamous for being so seriously boorish. Come more closer, what a delight it is to hear Amartya Sen speak or sometime read his works, that is a true intellect expressed in words.

                      Moving further, you find that Bengal was the cradle of our independence movement too. The Swadeshi Movement of 1905  is known to be the first organized movement India witnessed, though it slipped into a revolutionary movement at later stages, but the way it was organized in the beginning is a matter of great appreciation. Women came out on streets in the times of 1905 and they were respectfully given a place by the fellow people in the movement. See the beauty of bengali people that in their movement also, they could not do away with literature and poetry. Amar Shonar Bangla… which is the national anthem of Bangladesh originated in this movement only and was crafted by none other than Rabindra Nath Tagore. Move further, we know that Bengal played a important role in the national movement till the very last be it 1921 Non Cooperation Movement or the Civil Disobedience of 1932 or the Quit India of 1942.

                 Moving on to their culture, though I don’t know much about that, but still it is one of the loveliest India has to offer. I had just looked at some photos of one of my friends from  west bengal and how cute it is to find that they call the festival Durgo Pujo, not Durga Puja. I loved to pronounce that again and again. And then we all know the Roshogullas of Bengal are famous, in fact my mouth just started watering while I wrote that...haha. How beautiful it is notice the big red bindi, women in bengal put on their forehead. Or see a bengali marriage taking place (again I have seen that in Facebook photos only.), it is such a wonderful chain of rituals. Moving further there can not be any end to appreciating bengali culture if we start talking about rabindra sangeet and rabindra paintings.

            Well, there may be so many other things in the land of Bengal, a land which I didn’t have the fortune to visit till now. Wish I will go to Kolkata soon, see the yellow cabs and the trams and the white uniformed police and the Ganges and the jute cultivation and eat roshagullas and do things after things after things. I have such a intense desire to also go the Kalibari Temple, where none other then the famous son of India Vivekananda and his guru Swami Ram Krishna Paramhansa lived their life, how blissful that place would be I can only think sitting here so far in Nainital.

          What inspired me to write all this so suddenly while many other works are pending on my desk is my good fortune to meet yesterday somebody very charming from the land of Bengal and then many things about which we talked and talked and talked. And then suddenly, there is a book review of a new  biography of Raja Ram Mohan Roy published in latest issue of India Today which too is open right at my desk. See even today Raja Ram Mohan Roy is being read, discovered and rediscovered and explored…. I am right in saying so many letters of praise for the land of Bengal and it's people.
             To conclude, I am adding this little piece of music from Bengal, I have always loved listening to this fine music and I am sure you will too....

Whither Development?

        Development is something we all aspire for. Nations are busy in devolving themselves. Even those who have reached zenith of development have not stopped pursuit to develop further. Development will never satiate the needs of development consumers i.e. we the humans.  
    But as we all will agree that development is not a unidirectional phenomenon, it is multi-pronged, multi-dimensional and having countless expressions. The physical development or what we call ‘Infrastructural development’ is the highest priority in developing countries as no doubt countries have changed their destinies and lives of millions by merely creating infrastructure in the country or the physical development. China and Dubai are the best examples of it. And other nations like India are working round the clock to gain it.

       But there are so many other dimensions to development. As of now I like to write about intellectual development or what we can call the development of mind and the development of ideas, of thoughts, of thinking patterns, of traditions, of values and so on. In nutshell, the invisible development, the intangible development, something which you cannot see but certainly can feel.

    Now, which society or nation is worthy of being called developed. One who excels in physical development or one who excels in the intangible infrastructure I wish to talk about. The questions sounds very simple so does it’s answer. In a fit of romanticism, anybody will go for the development of mind as the supreme development. But another point is that if you become realistic and shun romantic thoughts about the great ideas of justice, equality and equity, then certainly physical infrastructure will take a edge. Now here it is very difficult to prove the later point to those who have never actually felt the misery of having little or no physical development. Well, no more elucidation on these two views, and let me say what I am thinking about.

       What prompted me to write today was a session of some talks with people who are highly educated, who are occupying chairs of honour and respect, they are reasonably rich too, they talk high and loud in terms of that what should be done to India to make it more developed and above all they are complacent people regarding the ideas they possess and the views they broadcast. But for me it was such a pity to have a glimpse of their minds and to hear their views about many topics which for me comprise that invisible development, the intangible development.

      I don’t understand why Indian society is not allowing the penetration of ideas which in one word be called modern (I don’t mean western). This is despite the fact that efforts to inculcate modernity started almost two hundred years ago in India. The efforts of Raja Ram Moham Roy, of Ishwar Chandra Vidya Sagar, of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and those of Rabidranath Tagore started centuries ago but still their ideas are all Greek and Latin to many of the Indians or rather majority of Indians. Listen to the views of these people about woman, about what is woman empowerment and what is gender quality. Listen to views of people about the supremeness and infallibility of those so called Indian Values, Invite the views of people about caste, listen to them regarding self –suiting Indian culture on marriage, children and divorce etc. listen to them regarding religion, it looks like India was never ever the land which sometime produced thinkers like Tagore and philosophers like Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Their views are still rudimentary to core, unflinching in their belief, extreme in their darkness and above all unwilling to change and avoiding all talks of change. Is this that India for which Tagore wrote his poem calling for that heaven of freedom where India shall awake, is this the land where words are coming out from the depth of truth? Is this the land where the mind is without fear and the head is held high. Today after listening to the views and ideas of those people, I shook my head in shame that My India is still not free from the shackles of ignorance and the chains of complacency. Even in this century of reason, there are people for whom what is reason is nothing but the dark tradition and darker values for which they stand and will not change. May hundred Tagore(s) be born in this land, but we will not change.

            It was painful to see, pitiable to ponder upon that how narrow minded people can be. How resentful to change they can be. A subject as private as religion determines every thing in India from your birth to death. Is life a flow of reason or religion? Unfortunately People in India will still live and die for religion than for reason. Someday before Andre Beteille wrote a article to argue that constraints of castes have eased in India, but I say not every where it has happened, caste may have been deleted on paper, but it is still so relevant in minds of people. Woman is still not liberated in India, things like women empowerment are still resisted. If you talk to how women have been mistreated in our society, then they will claim that they were not mistreated but rightfully treated as that is the treatment they deserve. They will invoke the words of mythological texts to prove their point and thus for them when mythology speaks all should shut up. Come to the great values which again many people will live and die for. Values which are not touched by reason what to say of originating from reason. Youths still carry on with the structured aims and see the doctored dreams. Many enter into the covenant of marriage and remain in that covenant just out of unreasoned social values and customs. It is so painful to see all this going on in our society. I understand many societies have gone through such things, the British society too in 18th Century was mistreating woman as is reflected by novels of Jane Austin and those of Mary Wollstonecraft . But change did occur in these societies and they left all those things behind. But Why it is taking so long for us, I don’t understand. If this is our pace, I don’t know how long we will take.

        What emanates respect from me for European societies is the sense of Justice, and the ideas of equality and equity, and those of freedom they have been maintaining for so long. I respect them for that. However some months back while talking to a girl from Portugal she did say that not everything is not so good, but I still say those societies are million years ahead of us. What I will admire about these societies is that they have managed to live upto those ideas of freedom and fairplay and have indeed excelled in that intangible development. But caution myself and caution you, that European societies are causing loss to this achievement when you find that they discriminate on the basis of colour. Their practice of racism is not good in this perspective. But I understand, that this distinction between black and white owe it’s origin to economy rather than social mindset.

          To conclude, my vote goes for the development of ideas, thoughts and thought processes. I believe that a society which has not witnessed this intangible development will remain a underdeveloped society no matter how much roads, bridges and electricity you built. I will go on to the extent of saying that a nation who cannot adopt reason over religion and where spirit of inquiry and inquisitiveness donot become the order of the day will never be able to cause any other kind of development. Oh My countrymen and women! Let us not be left behind, let us not be complacent, let not our optimism fade, let us not fail and forget the ideas and vision with which we started our journey to take our country into that heaven of freedom where she rightfully belongs.