AMAR SHONAR BANGLA
Well researched and elegantly written, Sudeep Chakravarti’s book on one of the largest linguistic groups in the world manages to simultaneously praise and send up Bengalis
The Bengalis by Sudeep Chakravarti landed on my desk with a hurrah, one that promised “at once an existentialist delight and nightmare, cast in perpetual drama.” I have been reading this book for the past week and have been totally immersed in its fast-paced narrative and fine non-fiction storytelling. The book is well researched, elegantly written, witty and sassy and simultaneously praises and takes the piss out of the Bengalis with fairness and a sense of understated irony. The latter is a difficult ploy to adopt as a writer— especially a Bengali writer — as Bengalis tend to have “a roiled history, schizophrenic emotion and heightened sense of self”. But Chakravarti with his elegant turn of phrase and natural wit overcomes any of those problems — in fact he soars over all that with lucidity, style and panache. The author’s use of diacritical marks for Bengali words in the book is critical as it makes it easier for the readers to pronounce the Ba¯ ngla¯ original words/phrases correctly. This is utterly important as inherent in the rightly enunciated pronunciation lie the musicality, lyricism and meaning. This book is divided into three parts or sub-books — Book I titled “Utsho¯ ”: Genesis and More”; Book II: “Sho¯ bbho¯ ta¯ . Osho¯ bbho¯ ta¯ ”: Culture Chronicles; and Book III: “Ogni Ju¯ g”: Age of Fire. And within this triad, he explores the vast array of Bengaliness, traits, obsessions, characteristics, and the wonderfully perennial oxymoron of a split personality. So there is talk of the deification of the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore; obsession with Ma¯ or the mother figure (cleverly called “Oedipus Hex”); food (“Kha¯ i-kha¯ i”), travel (“Sinikbewty”, literally an ironic play on “scenic beauty”), and the pull-and-tug between the idea of the native, the diaspora (“proba¯ shi”) and the foreign (“bideshi”). In the book, delicious work-play punctuates the everyday Bengali words and phrases, eg, “cho¯ to¯ lo¯ k” / “bhadro¯ lo¯ k”. If we were to literally translate “cho¯ to¯ lo¯ k”, it would mean ‘small people’, but it might also allude to the lower class or used as a mild swear word. “Bhadro¯ lo¯ k” translates to “gentleman”, but it can hint to an old-fashioned clichéd version of babudom. The Bengalis carefully balances the Hindu-Mussulman binary, judiciously exploring the various facets and local lores of both communities. The historical origin of Bengalis/Bengal is very well explicated, as are indeed the futuristic aspects.
My only complaint, with this otherwise excellent book, is with Chakravarti’s choice of some quotations from other writers/ sources. I find the author often falling prey to quotes from the obscure works of celebrity writers, as against more pertinent works of perhaps lesser-known writers, to illustrate some of the points he is making about the community at large.
The Bengalis is actually a thinly veiled history book — constructed and presented in an episodic, fast-paced, novelistic mode. Issues of the past, present and future, contemporary politics and culture, societal mores and more, are all discussed in a way that does not seem academic on the surface. And yet, all the facts are well grounded in deep research. The scholarship is worn very lightly on the author’s shoulders, which is a remarkable feat.
The book ends on a positive and secular note — quoting the poet Kazi Nazrul Islam and citing Tagore; culturally knitting together the artificially fractured land of the two Bengals — India’s West Bengal and Bangladesh. ‘Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.’ Chakravarti level-headedly writes that the “Bengalis claim the original was by Tagore, in Bangla. The Chinese claim he was inspired by an ancient saying of theirs. But why should anyone fight over beauty?”
Apart from this book, there are very few non-fiction books by contemporary Indian authors that I have read in one extended sitting and enjoyed them so thoroughly. The Bengalis goes beyond the obvious terrains of Kolkata and Dhaka, West Bengal and Bangladesh to address other areas of “Banglasphere” in Assam, Tripura and the “bideshi” diaspora, for instance. It is a must-read both for Bengalis and “not”-Bengalis alike, for that matter anyone who is interested in one of the largest linguistic groups (“after Han Chinese and the Arabs”) in the world.
Finally, an accessible, grown-up book about the wider Bengali community has been written. This is by far the best non-fiction book from India I have read this year.