RANJAN RUMMINESS
Ranjan and prayer
Ranjan was deeply moved by the scene of the heart-rending wail
of a forlorn, panic-stricken child in the glitzy and colourful reportage, on a
colour TV, of the barbaric assault on some country by the another and its
allies. The child was a four-year-old boy who probably lost his parents and his
entire family in consequence of the bombardments.
His little headpiece was bandaged with blood-stained gauge. And
he was shouting like a demented person, tremendously, applying the entire
energy at the disposal of his tiny, weakened body. Sitting before the TV,
making a pair of clenched fists with his helpless hands, Ranjan muttered to
himself, on that day like many other days : "God! Oh, God!"
Ranjan's dream
One day, while skimming through heaps of bit and pieces of text
spread over several diaries, written by Ranjan, I chanced to discover the
following lines:
I wanted not to be the sunshine,
I wanted to be a friend.
I wanted not to be the peace of a monsoon night,
I wanted to be a lover.
I wanted not to be the roar of the sea, nor the sound of a
waterfall,
I wanted to be a singer.
I wanted not to be a statue,
I wanted only to express myself ...
"Got it all wrong, Me Lord!"
One day, at a friend's place, Ranjan came to know that a known
writer, famed to be a protestor, had recently penned a moderately sized
ad-reportage in a famous magazine, praising some fairness creams.
Later, while on his way home from that friend's place as Ranjan
started regurgitating the matter, a quote from a famous Hindi anecdote surfaced on his mind : "You've got it
all wrong, O Rama!"
Ranjan's ethnicity
One evening, Ranjan and some of us his friends had a tough
debate on the present status and the probable future of Bengali literature and
culture. After several comments and arguments, Ranjan suddenly remarked:
"Look pal, I don't follow this stuff like Bengali and all, nor do I want
to! If you can set aside words like Bengali, Bihari, French, Parsee, and still
talk, then come!"
Someone retorted, rather excitedly: "But you are a Bengali,
Indian, Hindu. You are not German or French, not a Christian or a Muslim, not a
Jew or a Shintoist. Mustn't you admit this?"
Ranjan replied back with the same excitement : "I am
neither Bengali, nor Gujrati, nor Japanese, nor British."
"Goodness! What the hell are you then? Rhinoceros?"
"No, no! Of course not! I am certainly a human being!"
"Meaning?"
"Meaning a live instance of the offspring of the most
intelligent species belonging to the latest phase of the biological evolution
of a planet named Earth among the several million planets moving along their
orbits in space."
Barely one or two seconds after this the adda was over. One by
one everybody left the place, saying "Anyhow, let's part now" and
similar things.
Ranjan and sorrow
Once I, while discussing with a friend about some of his
familial problems, told my friend with a pacifying tone: "Always remember
this, that the deeper the darkness, the nearer is the possibility of
light." Hearing this Ranjan, who was so far listening silently to my
friend, commented: "Look, such words sound good, no doubt, but one can't
rely on them."
"Why?" I enquired.
"Look!" - Ranjan answered grimly, -"That the Sun
comes after the dark night is a natural phenomenon. No question there. But the
darkness that is of a deep unrest of the mind, the darkness that is lack of
love, the darkness that indifference, insult - how can nature's light penetrate
that darkness?"
I could not find an appropriate answer to this.
Ranjan on literature
One morning I had a long discussion with Ranjan about writing,
literature and the like. Among many topics raised came up the topic of the
success of writing, of the acceptability of writing to the readers at large.
During the discussion, Ranjan said to me: "Look, people at
large are already bored to the back teeth with scores of assaults - and if on
top of that you ... I mean ... you depict in your writing "one drop of
tear", people will read that piece ... but try writing about the tears of
thousands, of millions of people, about the drying up of their tears - you'll
surely back out! ... In that muddied flood of tears your writings shall simply
drift away! ..."
"But then how can you tell about this deep stream of the
accumulated sorrow of all the people over the entire world?" - I asked
him.
"Who the heck has made you promise to tell about that? That
stream exists around you and me, and everybody. Do you have the idea that
unless you the writers come along and point that out, people won't even sense
that stream of sorrow? I would say that that idea is wrong!"
"That means, you want to steal the daily bread of the
writers?"
"Heck, no, why? Say rather that I want to kill the racism
of the writers."
"Then tell me what the hell a writer would do!" - I
enquired.
"Why? The writer shall carefully write what he or she would
write. - And then with humility float his or her work down the river of life.
Period. The writer's work is done! Thereafter, whereto the writings shall
drift, reach whose hands, what gain anyone will make out of them, what anyone
will achieve therefrom ... all this will be fixed by the current of that river.
Making much ado about these isn't quite becoming of a writer. ..."
Ranjan and the name
One day I showed Ranjan all these notes named "A few more
words on Ranjan and his whereabouts". Feigning consternation, Ranjan
glanced through a few paragraphs, and then said : "What's the point in
writing these? Who'll ever read 'em?"
"Just so!" - I said - "Call it a bit of catharsis
if you like, or else simply a little practice of literary writing!"
"Hmm! And you've placed others' stories on my shoulders in
quite a few places, as I see!" - Ranjan commented.
"So what? A writer can surely do that!"
"That he can, of course." - Ranjan said. And he fell
silent for a little while. Then he started muttering, slowly, like a thinker:
"In fact, my tales are certainly your tales ... just as yours are mine ...
many words of many of us are sure similar ... you've done the right thing that
way ... and besides ... perhaps it's only our names that are different ...
perhaps we are all ... nameless ... and so one can use any name to call me ...
you ... anyone among us ..."
"Ranjan! ... I'm supposing that Ranjan IS your name! It's not a class on Philosophy ..." - I
protested.
"Oh goody goody goody!" - Ranjan said, smiling, -
"No ... what I was driving at ... a name for your work could
be - "A few words on the whereabouts of some persons" ..."
[to be continued]
Someslal Mukhopadhyay
0 Comments
