Death of a Bangalee

In a video that has recently gone viral in the Bengali inter-webs, noted Bengali intellectual Chandril lets loose on the moribund state of the Bengali language. To sum up his arguments: Bengali as a language is progressing to its death. This is because speaking in English and Hindi has a premium feel to it, while Bengali, in its most traditional form, reeks of “I am sorry, I couldn’t do any better in life”. While recognizing the inevitability of a language changing, he draws a distinction between a type of change that is inevitable, like developing a bald spot, and the type of change that is death, like having the head cut off. Bengali, he posits, is on the latter path, and while one may have issues with his basic premise, one cannot but be amazed by the way he delivers it, the turn of phrase, the Bengali he himself uses, and the examples he digs out to support his contention. 

Chandril on Bangla Bhasha

For me personally, the change in Bengali is disquieting, in the way many other changes to Calcutta and Bengal are. I first started being aware of this change through the lyrics of Bengali movie songs like “Yeh haowa silky silky bole jaaye baatein dil ki, chalo na bheshe jaai jowaare, rubaro, masti maange dil maahi ve” and “Ooh lala I love you my Soniye ooh lala” where the sheer number of Hindi words overpowered Bangla. And then I happened to watch some Bengali movies, and listen to Bengali celebrities talk, and it’s not just the words that hit me in the stomach, it was the effing pronunciation. For some strange reason, Bengalis born and brought up in Kolkata can’t seem to pronounce Bangla anymore.

Where I disagree with Chandril is on the concept of death. A language does not die as long as it is used by people. Here his counterpoint is that just because a language is used by a lot of people, does not mean it is alive, it matters only if it is used by rich people. This to me is elitist Bangla has mutated, no doubt, and this makes many of us uncomfortable, but that does not de-legitimize what it has become.

And to me what’s important is not that Bengali has mutated, but why it has mutated. It is because the classical model of the pure tongue has failed, decades of Communism by name and now Communism by proxy, has led to flight of those who spoke in classical Bangla, to other states and to other shores. Calcutta, the bastion of the fair tongue whose demise Chandril laments, has been gutted of its middle class, leaving either the super-rich, many of whom non-Bengalis by birth, or the poor, immigrants from Bihar and UP and Bangladesh, and the mutations of Bangla, the influx of Hindi words and the twisting of the pronunciations, reflect that shift in the underlying demographics.

What Chandril ends up doing is articulating, in a very articulate way, the anger of the last vestiges of the intellectual middle class still in Calcutta, the reduction in prominence manifesting itself as rage at the change in what was once a comforting constant, the words they hear.

Which also explains why there is the strong whiff of persecution-mania that runs through this argument that , Bengalis are ashamed of Bengali. As I had once said in a debate with the editor of Desh, the language you will find most Bengalis want to learn is Java, (and yes Java has all the characteristics of a language, there is good code and there is bad code and there are rules of grammar), and it’s not because they feel ashamed of the languages they know, but because Java is the language that affords them the most opportunities. Bengalis write in English because they want to be read by more people, not because they find it downmarket.

If there is something the Bengali intellectuals should be angry at is the manifestation of the mutation, but what caused it, and most importantly, their own continuing complicity in that very change. To put it simply, you can’t go on lobbying for BongoShonmans by anointing Mamata Banerjee as Rabindranath Tagore reborn and then turn around and rue the fact that people use “keno ki” as a surrogate for “kyon ki”.

Kolkata Kaleidoscope

From Personal Achives

In the modern day of urbanization, most of the modern cities in India love to call themselves cosmopolitan and not just mere cities thriving around the periphery of an Indian state. Tell someone who lives in Mumbai that he lives in a Maharastrian city; he will immediately correct you as being a cosmopolitan. The same goes with people living in other parts of the country.

 Not the case with Calcutta. The city is essentially Bengali and leaves no stones unturned to preserve the Bengali culture. Surprisingly, people living in Bengal are proud about the fact that Calcutta hasn’t lost its old world charm. If you delve deep into it, you’ll find that the city’s weaknesses and strengths that echo a unique Bengali character.

From Personal Achives

The city has its own drawbacks, from the sudden bouts of passion through cheerful pandemonium to fiery reaction to a smallest provocation.  However, these flaws are strengths in disguise.  Calcutta incarnates the Bangalee love in the name of culture, the triumph of intellectualism over avarice, the warmth among people, disdain with which hypocrisy and insincerity are treated and the supremacy of emotion over all other aspects.

This gives ‘the city of joy’ uniqueness and it is not meant for everyone. You want your city green and clean; go to Delhi. You want your city to be impersonal and rich, stick to Mumbai. You want your city to be hi-tech – Bangalore is the answer. But you want a city which has soul – come to Kolkata.

Calcutta grows on you.  It’s just not the lush Maidan, the grandeur of Victoria Memorial, the hustle-bustle of Burrabazar or the brilliance of second Hoogly Bridge. It is more than the usual bricks and mortars; it’s about the ‘people’. And no one can replicate the essence of the city’s dwellers.

From Personal Achives

Calcutta is about subtle emotions, art, culture, passion and ideas. Here, people don’t talk about stock market, but about the latest political gossip reported on a newspaper. They talk about Robi Thakur and Mamata Banerjee with the same exuberance. Each evening,  a true-blood Bengali will want fish on his table, his children will be encouraged to take up a new form of art, he will appreciate good book – something that still bind every Bangalee with his culture. For him, religion and culture will be in inextricably bound together.

From Personal Achives

Talking about religion, tell anyone about Pujo in Kolkata and they’ll scoff. Puja is religious they’ll say. Contrary to the belief, the world-famous Durga puja is just not about chanting hymns or worshipping the Goddess. It’s about the varied emotions of the city – like a grand carnival. It has little to do with meaningless ritual or sinister political activity. The essence of Puja is that all the passions of Bengal converge: emotion, culture, the love of life, the warmth of being together, the joy of celebration, the pride inartistic expression and yes, the cult of the goddess. There’s no place you’ll find where children cry on Dashimi as Maa Durga bids farewell to the lesser mortals. Where else would the whole city gooseflesh when the dhakis first begin to beat their drums? Which other Indian festival - in any part of the country - is so much about food and pandal hopping?

To understand Calcutta, you need to understand the very essence of Bangla.  It’s not easy, but as time goes by you start falling in love with the city. And after a while, you’ll realise that the city has stolen your soul. Wherever you go, you’ll carry a bit of the ‘city of joy’ with you. Such is the essence of Calcutta – a feeling that never fades away!