[Reader-list] tarapadobabu kothay jachchen?

[debjani sengupta]

dear dhatri, kothay jachchen has been translated in
the piece as 'where are you going'. it may also be
marathi as you say. i have no knowledge of marathi so
cannot comment. the piece is not about east bengal's
history it's about the death of a poet. some deaths
diminish all of us. this death does so too. that's why
i thought i 'll share my feelings with all of you in
the reader list. warm regards, debjani
--- we wi <dhatr1i at yahoo.com> wrote:

> as per my knowledge 'Kothay Jachchen"  is pure
> MARATHI word. but tarapadobabu east bengal 
> history???
>   
> 
> debjani sengupta <debjanisgupta at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   A few days ago the poet Tarapada Roy (b 1936) died
> in
> Kolkata. Curiously for the past week even before I
> heard the news, I have been reading his
> autobiography
> 'Tarapadababu Kothay Jachchen? (Where are you going,
> Tarapadababu?) describing his first twenty odd years
> as a young boy in Tangail, (now in Bangladesh) and
> then his sojourn in Calcutta from 1951. Tarapada Roy
> was a poet, a very good one although he was very
> modest about the epithet. He often said that when he
> saw an envelop marked in his name with the words,
> 'the
> poet' he felt a deep thrill. He was also a wonderful
> short story writer, many of them satires or plain
> 'hasyarasatyak' in the vein of Shibram Chakraborty
> or
> Syed Mujtaba Ali.But to me Tarapada Roy was also
> something else. He was the author of some of the
> most
> poignant poetry and stories on the Partition of
> India
> that he had witnessed when he was just ten. In a
> story
> called 'Joe' he talks of a horse that he and his
> brother had looked after and that he had to abandon
> when they left East Bengal for ever. And in a short
> poem written in 1967 the poet describes his first
> view
> of the city where he comes to live:
> 
> 
> Do you remember, Kolkata
> That green passport, my dark green shirt;
> Arriving, drenched, at Sealdah Main
> That day on the train from the border
> I saw a shoeshine boy for the first time in my life.
> 
> It was a thrill, my dream city,
> My first tram-car, my earliest first-class,
> First class Kolkata,
> Where pet clouds hover over every roof.
> Within every window 
> A mystery of darkness and light. 
> My green shirt, my ragged shoes,
> Fear in every step.
> Madmen with beggars, beggars with drunks,
> Processions, rainbow hued, horizon stretching.
> The crowded teashops, the futile mob on the road.
> On windy afternoons dry leaves scatter,
> In the sunlight, tram tracks glisten 
> Pale as ivory,
> Reaching nowhere.
> Sometimes I feel,
> I am no longer within your limits,
> Nowhere can I find that city of mine
> Where, between two lamp-posts, in a long penalty
> kick 
> Someone sends the football moon to space
> While shadowy figures in the gallery yell,’ Goal,
> goal.’
> 
> These twenty years, 
> I have found nothing in common with you, Kolkata. 
> My torn dreams, my ragged pieces of poetry
> In dirty paper bags the tramps
> Have collected them all. 
> Those dream-words
> Have been sold like rubbish.
> Not a single mystery window opened anywhere
> Nowhere could I reach the clouds on the roofs.
> Only the color of my shirt, 
> My shoe size changed,
> Needlessly. 
> 
> (That Green Passport: Tarapada Roy)
> 
> It was also curious that two days ago I heard
> Etienne
> Balibar speak on citizenship that he locates within
> the fundamental right of circulation. Balibar
> stressed
> how the notions of a 'citizen' was being transformed
> within the ontological paradoxes of globalization.
> In
> post national times, borders have become blurred,
> meaningless and ubiquitous populations have emerged
> who are truly citizens of the roads. They are
> citizens
> who are partially free from territoriality, a new
> class of transnational performers who are nomadic. I
> couldnt help but think of Roy's poem when I was
> listening to the exposition. Borders have a real
> presence in so many of our lives, more so when in
> our
> minds they dont exist at all. The underclass of
> refugees who came to West Bengal in the aftermath of
> the Partition had few political rights. Theirs was a
> right to live but that right was circumscribed by
> the
> politics of space.Tarapada Roy belonged to such a
> nomadic citizenship marked by belonging and not
> belonging. The question 'Kothay Jachchen
> Tarapadababu?' thus has a special resonance in my
> mind
> today; it is question that I catch myself asking
> often. Where are we off too?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
____________________________________________________________________________________
> Tonight's top picks. What will you watch tonight?
> Preview the hottest shows on Yahoo! TV.
> http://tv.yahoo.com/ 
> 
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and
> the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to
> reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the
> subject header.
> To unsubscribe:
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list 
> List archive:
> <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
> 
>        
> ---------------------------------
> Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and
> hotels with Yahoo! FareChase.



       
____________________________________________________________________________________
Need a vacation? Get great deals
to amazing places on Yahoo! Travel.
http://travel.yahoo.com/