How do we hear the approaching peril when the noise of everyday is so unsettling? Bare river banks, dredged river channels, thirsty estuaries and barren origins became the new normal. Before we realised, polluted, dammed rivers became a reality. On some days, its footfall can be heard more surely in uncanny changes that grow upon us. In a substantially altered world, when sea level rise has swallowed Sundarbans and made cities like Kolkata, New York and Bangkok uninhabitable, when the readers and museum-goers turn to art and literature of our time, will they not look, first and most urgently for traces and portents of the altered world of their inheritance? And when they fail to find them, what should they-what can they-do other than to conclude that ours was a time when most forms of art and literature were drawn into modes of concealment that prevented people from recognizing the realities of their plight? Quite possibly, then, this era, which so congratulates itself on its self-awareness, will come to know as the time of The Great Derangement.īut climate change and the collapse of the natural world do not always descend upon us in a crash.
It was while reading Amitav Ghosh’s stellar The Great Derangement that I realised what Bandyopadhyay and many other “riverine” writings in Assamese, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Marathi have given me. Wilderness is so captivating that it shapes Bandyopadhyay’s characters: the way they face the warps and wefts of fate and yet find rare moments of stillness and epiphany. Wilderness is not a setting in his writings, it is a character in itself. Bibhutibhushan’s invaluable body of work from Pather Panchali to Aranyak to Ichhamati is imprinted with forests, rivers, silver bursts of kaashbon, red-thorned Semul trees, blue-purple Bonsim blossoms falling into the river, “immortal” fig trees and many such moments. Pather Panchali (1929) was Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s first novel, Ichhamati (1950) was his last, published in the same year that he passed away. All three are based on Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s novels Pather Panchali: Song of the Open Road and Aparajito: The Unvanquished. The Apu trilogy made by Satyajit Ray consists of three films that are supposed to be some of the best ever made. It is our very own Bengal, the greenest land of all. Where the golden grain sways on sunny afternoons and the blushing lotus blooms? Where is the greenest land of all – where the tender grass your feet must fall? Relying on translations of Bangla novels, short stories, poems and songs, I did not realise when Jibanananda Das’s Rupasi Bangla or Apu’s recitation of Amader Bangladesh from Satyajit Ray’s Aparajito became my own. And yet, few regions have cast their spell like Bengal has. I cannot read or comprehend Bangla beyond a couple of phrases. Diaries of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay from the 1940s I can visualise the countless who have approached this peaceful river bank through centuries. In the past five hundred years, so many fishermen have cast their nets in the river, so many houses have been built, so many babies came in the arms of their mothers to take a dip in the river and then in the old age found their last bed near the cool waters of the river. The banks of my pleasant Ichhamati are dotted with tiny villages, wild flowers, green trees and bird nests. Why babies did not sleep away from their mothers for most of human history.Watch: The moment Bipin Rawat’s helicopter flew into a mist and crashed, as seen and heard by locals.Special report: Why is India seeing a massive dengue outbreak this year?.Watch: Opera singer pauses during song, student joins in from the audience to fill the gap.Liberals must recognise this and re-think strategy Human rights has been weaponised to justify wars.‘Your English in Marathi accent is so sexy’: The popular video trend continues with a new version.The big news: Bodies of 13 killed in IAF air crash brought to Delhi, and nine other top stories.Row after MP senior police officer’s order equates Sikhs, Muslims with terrorist groups.‘I’ll talk in Tamil henceforth, let me know if you can understand’: DMK MP Kanimozhi in Lok Sabha.The science behind why some people find it harder to be happy.YouTuber Maridhas arrested for tweet on chopper crash that killed Bipin Rawat, 12 others: Reports.‘It’s inhumane’: How a clunky US visa system has kept Indian H-1B holders away from their families.