“Lal fite shada moja/school school uniform/notar siren shonket syllabus a monojog kom./Pora fele ak chhut/chhutte rastar more/dekhi siren miss kora dokanira day ghorite dom./Erpor ak rash kalo kalo dhoa/school bus a kore tar druto chole jawa./Erpor bishonno din/bajena monobin/oboshade ghire thaka/she dirgho din./Hajar kobita/bekar shob e ta/tar kotha keu bolena/she prothom prem amar Neelanjana” (Red ribbon, white socks/that uniform really rocks./Stalks my syllabus 9 a.m. siren/I missed her bus/as do all men./All day I felt broke/as hopes went up in smoke./A thousand poems tried/but all belied/Neelanjana/my first love Neelanjana).
I hummed those lines every morning as my first love’s school bus whizzed past. As is the case with all first-love stories, the girl never came to know of my feelings. Not that I seriously wanted her to. First love is too innocent to demand reciprocation. That song, therefore, was one of my songs of innocence, and the lyricist knew exactly what innocence sings and how. So for teenagers like me in those early years of 1990s, that lyricist was god himself. We could give and take lives for Nachiketa.
It was not long before I graduated to songs of experience. From school girls, my eyes turned to college girls. As I started looking for fresh i.e novel words to express my love, I came across Suman Chattopadhyay, almost my father’s age, who had already bowled over my father, singing:
“Ak cup chaye ami tomake chai/Daine o baye ami tomake chai/dekha na dekhay ami tomake chai/na bola kothay ami tomake chai” (Want you with a cup of tea/on left and right I want thee/want you seen, unseen/want you unsaid I mean).
I knew instantly that these were my words. The man had very little hair left on his head and his beard had already started to go grey but the youth of his songs was infectious. He was marvellous because he not only sang my songs, he turned my songs into everybody’s songs. I did not have to sacrifise my exuberance to be his fan, neither did my elders, who were already his fan, sacrifise their wisdom. Suman satisfied all, but like all great artists, he did not have to try to satisfy his audience. That is why his music was popular yet soulful.
If Nachiketa was penetrative, Suman was sublime, Anjan Dutta was next door. He knew my day-to-day crises like no one else. Nobody before him in the history of Bengali music wrote:
“‘Paray dhukle thang khora kore debo’/bolechhe parar dadara/onno para diye jachchhi tai/Ranjana ami ar ashbona” (‘We’ll break your leg/if you come this way’/said the dadas who hold the sway./I prefer staying away).
Together they were a revolution. For the first time, we saw that proficient singers could pen path-breaking lyrics and set unforgettable tunes. For a few days, they had a name for this revolution --- jibonmukhi gaan (can be roughly translated as songs from life) but brilliant as they were, they soon realised all songs are born out of life, and contrary to what a few pundits predicted, the trio’s music had had a long life. There was more to it than good voice and contemporary subject.
But there was. That is the sad part. The men whose music stayed with me through every moment of happiness and sorrow as I turned into a less emotional man from a naïve school boy, have deserted their music. One has been busy experimenting with marriage, religion, politics etc, another has shifted allegiance from dada to didi and has been the main singer at her public meetings. The third has somehow found more happiness in films, the place he came from.
Had their songs been companions during only a delicate period in the lives of the people of my generation, I would only be casting half-hearted looks at the cassettes stacked in my cupboard today, I would not have cared to write about what I have lost in the form of politician Kabir Suman, pro-changer Nachiketa and film director Anjan. Their songs did strike very fine and different chords in the hearts of many, including me.
Going up to Nachiketa, showing him one of my badly-written poems was definitely adolescent arrogance but even today as a grown up, when I hear Anirban, a song about his friend who lost his life during the Naxalite movement, I do feel he shares my pain for young lives lost during a failed revolution. Even ask the 60-year-olds, who thought 1977 was a new dawn, about Anirban and you’ll know what Nachiketa gave us and what we are missing now. If he feels he is actively serving Anirban by singing at a political party’s meetings, so be it. But hasn’t anybody told him that Salil Chowdhury did not stop composing songs for films and albums despite being a prominent member of the Indian People’s Theatre Association? Many of the maestro’s compositions have inspired leftist movements for ages but he is still remembered more for Ja re ure ja re pakhi, Akash pradip jwale, Maine tere liye, Dil tadap tadap ke etc.
Suman, perhaps, was the most gifted of the three. He had a celestial voice and a versatile pen. Who else than a real poet could have written lines like: “Ichchhe holo ak dhoroner gangaphoring" (Wish is a grasshopper)? Hence it is painful to see him sing: “Kojon dilo ijjat/kojon dilo pran/ar kichhu noy badhchhe shomoy Chhotrodhorer gaan” (How many got raped/how many got killed/time is scripting Chhotrodhor’s saga). These lines are anything but poetic. In fact, many slogans are more poetic than this. Suman Chattopadhyay’s metamorphosis into Member of Parliament Kabir Suman might have made him happy but has been disastrous for his art. In a way, Chhotrodhorer gaan is a good sign. The attempt, even though a failed one, perhaps shows that after almost a decade, Suman has realised his biggest weapon is his pen, his voice; neither his religion nor his party affiliation. After all, Mayakovsky’s biggest contribution to the Russian revolution is his poetry.
Anjan might maintain that he never really gave up singing, and that would be true for all practical purposes because he has been doing live shows all these years, but when did we last hear him create something new? But I can spare this hero my harsh words because he has been faithful to his art. He was never somebody who wanted to make a name for himself as a singer or music composer. He took to music mainly because of his love for it. He was already a renowned actor when he became singer Anjan. Moreover, his filmmaking has given me almost as much pleasure as his music. Still, I could have done with a little bit more of “shei odbhut beshuro shur” (that cute tune without rhythm) as only he was there by me in my typically middle class disasters.
Only he knew I called up a girl after getting my first job and said: “Chakrita ami peye gechhi Bela shunchho/akhon ar keu atkate parbena (Bela I’ve got the job/nobody can force us to stop), to be confronted by an eloquent silence from the other side.
But maybe nostalgia is a superstition and I am wasting my time discussing why some good things ended, while the truth is --- all good things end one day. Anjan did warn me back then, singing: “Fire to jawa jayna je ar shekhane” (can’t go back to those days).
Translations my own
Published in The Sunday Post (supplement of The Bengal Post) on April 24, 2011
