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Two Shakespeare-Wallahs, Sixty Years Apart
Of my many childhood memories, one has endured for half a century—I thought it would be better to write it down before Dr Alzheimer’s visit and save it in a storage, safer than the one between my ears.
If I had to choose one favorite Sunday activity during my boyhood days, it would be visiting the Chor Bazaar(Flea market) in the Jama Masjid neighborhood and the second-hand book bazaar in Darya Ganj with Baba(my father). For the unfamiliar, Jama Masjid and Darya Ganj were vicinities in Old Delhi that defined the syncretic essence of Old Delhi. I use the past tense deliberately, as both areas still exist but sans the Sunday Bazaars.
The flea market had its set of attractions—a list of not-so-usual suspects would include a horseshoe magnet made from a worn-out horseshoe; a wire puzzle; a Meccano toy set; 78 RPM vinyl records; gramophone stylus pins; a mechanical combination lock; and uncountably more items. Baba, a radio enthusiast, would hunt for valves and aerials to repair his beloved(and proudly unbranded) radio. My apologies to the readers born in the 70s and after—you would need to Google some of the terms I used.
On alternate Sundays, we would skip the flea market and hit the book bazaar. It was like ignoring Phantom’s first treasure chamber, containing valuables(gold, diamonds,…) and going for the second, containing invaluable stuff(Solomon’s sword, Nefertiti’s goblet,…) while on a tour of the Skull Cave. Given the modest means and a large family, books figured lower in the budget line items below utility bills, rents, and school/college fees. But then, reading was deemed as essential as Roti, Kapda, Makaan in our house. Neighborhood libraries and second-hand book shops came in handy and filled the gap.
On one such Sunday, Baba hit a jackpot when he got a quatercentenary special edition of “Shakespeare Complete Works” in mint condition at a less than throwaway price. My familiarity with Shakespeare till that time was through Charles and Mary Lamb retellings, and I failed to appreciate his excitement. He was totally in love with his purchase, and after bringing home the book, he decided that his trophy would need special protection. He sat on the sewing machine, cannibalized an old pair of pants, and created a glove-fit sleeve for the book. I hope the pictures below depict the love Baba had for the book and the exquisite sleeve he created. I use an inordinately large number of words to describe a seemingly mundane and unworthy event, as it taught me two important life lessons.
- Happiness can come in small packages, even a second-hand book.
- If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing it well — even if it be sewing a book sleeve.
Flash forward fifty years—my 16-year-old son declared that he would read all of Shakespeare’s plays in the original. I couldn’t help but think, “Oh no! The Bard strikes again.”
And so, Shakespeare reentered our home—not in hardbound majesty, but through six “No Fear Shakespeare” paperbacks, with modern English on one side and the original text on the other.
Much has happened in the 16 years since that intent declaration. The declarer has moved home, is pursuing a career as an Electrical Engineer, and is juggling many other balls. I am not sure if the Bard project is on track, on hold, or completed. But then, I do not care—I am just happy that the literary gene has reappeared in the family genealogy after skipping a generation. These days, I’m happily rereading his eclectic collection—Rowling, Bhagat, and Shakespeare—and reminiscing about those Sunday Treasure Hunts with you, my readers.
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North Bengal Newsletter April 2025 Vol 1
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North Bengal Bird Newsletter Vol. 4 No. 3 and 4, January 2025
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Kichirmichir (Vol 2, No.2, September 2024)
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Eliminative Patterns
Various patterns in governance have emerged, or so the opposition claims have emerged over the last ten years. Hitherto not-so-common terms like Crony Capitalism, Majoritarianism, Clientelism, and Rent Collection have entered the public lexicon. Even new expressions like Antinational and Urban Naxal had to be invented to counter this discourse. Perhaps in more genteel times, such debates would be considered healthy democratic dialogues but not in these intolerant times of the new millennium.
A rather disturbing and novel pattern in governance has surfaced and this pattern or tendency is observable in most government policy pronouncements or actions. As the concept is relatively new, it has not been researched extensively nor has it been named. We will call this eliminative pattern or eliminative tendency and define it as a tendency to selectively implement the law or restructure the law with the express intent of eliminating or decimating alternate POVs that do not align with the government’s views. This pattern prevails across the two branches —the Legislature and the Executive. Let us look at examples to see how this eliminative pattern manifests across the two branches of the government.
The Legislature
The ruling coalition had a comfortable majority of 330+ members after both the 2014 and 2019 elections. Despite the comfort in numbers, the treasury benches felt threatened and resorted to some extraordinary manoeuvres to restrain the opposition, as evidenced by three cases in particular.
In the first case, a senior leader of the opposition was dismissed as he was sentenced to two years in jail. The dismissal order was legitimate, and the Lok Sabha Secretariat could not be faulted for executing the order. What made it remarkable was that the conviction was for an election speech of four years vintage, that the case was filed and adjudicated in a state other than the state where the speech was given, that the sentence of two years was unprecedented in defamation cases, and that the two years exactly met the criterion for dismissal.
In the second case, around 150 MPs, constituting around 20% of Parliament (Lok Sabha + Rajya Sabha), were suspended from the parliament. The presiding officers of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha must have had valid reasons for doing what they did. Still, it was very convenient for the government to pass three important bills during this suspension. Three laws governing the criminal justice system of the country were passed with minimal discussion — normally such bills would invite referral to a select committee and days of discussion.
In the third case, a most vociferous and articulate opposition MP was expelled from the Lok Sabha on charges of “Cash for Query” and “Security Breach.” Some may have felt that the materiality of the gift value was overlooked and principles of natural justice were ‘not applied by not questioning the bribe-giver’s intentions. But this remains as the most above-board of the three cases and the MP had to pay for her indiscretions. That it helped get rid of the government’s most virulent critic, was just an accruing collateral benefit.
The Executive
Eliminative patterns are difficult to detect and pinpoint in the Executive branch’s activities, but certain designs are noticeable. Watchdog positions like CEC, CVC, and Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) provide for checks and balances in the system. Earlier, these positions were selected by a committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition(LS), and the Chief Justice of India — this was a healthy tradition whereby the three branches of the government had an equal say. Even the CBI chief was selected using the same process. At present, this committee comprises the PM, the LOP, and a senior cabinet minister. So, the Executive has 2 votes, the Legislature 1, and the Judiciary has none — decisions are majority-driven!
Even absurder theatre is playing out in the Ministry of Education. In 2023, as a part of its “syllabus rationalisation,” NCERT made some revisions to the school curriculum. The three most talked about revisions were removing some Mughal History chapters from Class 12 history books; the removal of Pythagoras theorem from Class 10 mathematics textbooks; and the removal of Mendeleev’s periodic table from Class 10 chemistry textbooks. Without going into the claimed goodness or badness of these revisions, it must be pointed out that Education is a concurrent list item and the states may or may not take up NCERT recommendations. So, depending on their state of residence, the students will learn about Pythagoras theorem or not know about it.
These patterns are disturbing but they remain subjective conjectures and do not constitute actionable evidence. At the same time, patterns are critically important and society cannot ignore them. One can only hope and pray that the eliminative tendencies remain restricted to alternate POVs and do not lead to the physical elimination of the alternate POV holder. We, as a nation, have still not recovered from the consequences of such a physical elimination after 74 years. In 1948, the assassins were disowned and called fringe elements — status quo ante persists in 2024.
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North Bengal Bird Newsletter Vol. 4 No. 2 July 2024
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North Bengal Bird Newsletter Vol. 4 No. 1 January 2024
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Kichir Michir ( Vol. 2, No. 1, March 2024)
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North Bengal Bird Newsletter Vol. 3 No. 4 January 2024
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আমার দুই রংবাজ মাস্টারমশাই
আমি রাইসিনা স্কুলে ভর্তি হই সাইন্স নিয়ে ক্লাস নাইনে আর আমরা ছিলাম এগার বছরের উচ্চ মাধ্যামিকের শেষ ব্যাচ| সেই কারণে আমি এক সীমিত সংখ্যক মাস্টারমশাই আর দিদিমণিদের সংস্পর্শে আসার সুযোগ পাই| আজ তিন কুড়ি এক গণ্ডা বছর বয়সে এসে, কোন এক অজানা কারণে তাঁদের প্রণাম জানাতে ইচ্ছে করল| প্রণাম জানাই শম্ভু স্যার, এনবি স্যার, নারায়ণ স্যার, শ্যামল স্যার, রুচিরা দিদিমণি, রসময় স্যার, প্রভাত স্যার, সান্যাল স্যার, রবিন স্যার, মধুসূদন স্যার আর রাইসিনার সমস্ত স্যার আর দিদিমণিদের| রবিন স্যার আর শ্যামল স্যার আমাকে একটু বেশীই স্নেহ করতেন — আজ তাঁদের কথা ভীষণ বলতে ইচ্ছে করছে|
রবিন স্যার
শীত, গ্রীষ্ম, বর্ষা নির্বিশেষে রবিন স্যার ক্লাসে ঢুকতেন, পরনে ধুতি, শার্ট, বোতাম খোলা গলাবন্ধ কোট, বাঁ হাতে আধ পোড়া চুরুট আর ডান হাতে চকের বাক্স নিয়ে| একটা পিরিয়ড যার জন্য আমরা সবাই — রোল নম্বর ১ থেকে ৪০ — অপেক্ষা করে থাকতাম|চল্লিশ মিনিটের ক্লাসে স্যার প্রথম কুড়ি মিনিট পড়াতেন আমাদের সিলেবাসের পাঠ্য “A Tale of Two Cities”| দ্বিতীয় কুড়ি মিনিট স্যার শোনাতেন বিশ্বসাহিত্যের থেকে বাছাই করা কিছু গল্প|এই বাছাইয়ের পরিসর ছিল বিস্তৃত — Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Daphne Du Maurier, Arthur Conan Doyle আর অনেক লেখক যাদের নাম আজ ভুলে গেছি| অনেক গল্পই এক পিরিয়ডে শেষ হত না আর আমরা আরব্য রজনীর শাহরাজাদ/দুনিয়াজাদ এর মত হা-পিত্যেশ করে বসে থাকতাম পরের পিরিয়ডের জন্য|
এবার আসি স্যারের খাতা দেখার গল্পে| আমার প্রথম ক্লাস টেস্টে স্যার কমেন্ট দিলেন “Yours is a fair attempt”| দ্বিতীয় টেস্টে কমেন্ট পেলাম “There is a scope for improvement”| ঘটনাচক্রে দুবারই আমি পেয়ছিলাম ২৬/৪০| স্যারের প্রশংসা আর তিরস্কার এর মধ্যে ছিল এক অতি সূক্ষ্ম রেখা| এই ছিল তাঁর পরিমিতি বোধ, তাঁর রংবাজি — এই ছিলেন আমাদের রবিন স্যার|
শ্যামল স্যার
শ্যামল স্যার ক্লাসে ঢুকতেন এক হাতে বেত আর এক হাতে ডাস্টার নিয়ে| বেতটার নাম দিয়েছিলেন ট্যাঞ্জেন্ট গ্রাফ — Trigonometry একটু-আধটু মনে থাকলে বেতের আকারটা কল্পনা করে নেওয়া যায়| এই বেত অবশ্য কারও পিঠে পড়তে দেখিনি| বেতটা ব্যবহার হতো অনেকটা বিচারকের হাতুড়ির মতো, ক্লাসের শৃঙ্খলা রক্ষার জন্য| ক্লাসে এসেই বোর্ডে সেদিনকার পাঠ্য অঙ্কগুলো লিখে ফেলতেন| হাতের লেখা ছিল মুক্তোর মতো আর ওঁর মতো ফ্রীহ্যান্ড সার্কেল আঁকতে আমি অন্য কাউকে দেখিনি|
জানুয়ারি ১৯৭৭, সিলেবাস শেষ হয়ে গেছে, রিভিশান চলছে| স্যার দশ বছরের প্রশ্নপত্র করাতে গিয়ে বললেন, “১৯৭৫ এর এই অঙ্কটা তোমরা করতে পারবে না, কারণ Apollonius Theorem তোমাদের সিলেবাসে নেই”| ঘটনাক্রমে আমি অঙ্কটা আগে দেখেছিলাম, উঠে দাঁড়িয়ে বললাম, “স্যার, অঙ্কটা Pythagoras দিয়েও করা যাবে”| “বটে, বোর্ডে এসে সল্ভ করো”, বলে আমার দিকে চকটা এগিয়ে দিলেন| তখন আমার ধরণী-দ্বিধা-হও অবস্থা — কেন যে মুখ খুললাম! তাও, কোন ক্রমে ব্ল্যাকবোর্ডে গিয়ে অঙ্কটা এঁকে বললাম, “পয়েন্ট P থেকে লাইন AB তে একটা পারপেন্ডিকুলার আঁকতে হবে”| এটুকুর পরেই স্যার বললেন, “বুঝেছি, বস”| তারপর অঙ্কটা নিজস্ব ভঙ্গিতে Pythagoras দিয়ে করে বললেন, “ঠিকই তো, অঙ্কটা Pythagoras দিয়েও করা যায়”| ক্লাস শেষে আমাকে বলে গেলেন, “দুর্বল, তোমার হবে”(দেবপ্রতাপ না বলে, স্যার আমাকে দুর্বল নামেই ডাকতেন)| জীবনে অনেক আশীর্বাদ পেয়েছি, কিন্তু শ্যামল স্যার এর আশীর্বাদ এখনও মনে গেঁথে আছে|
ভালো থাকবেন স্যারেরা ও দিদিমণিরা| প্রণাম নেবেন|
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