It is a tribute by a fanboy who would memorise and recite many poems of Pritish Nandy (Da) for the reason that Seventies. Dada, journey nicely in your ‘Lonesong Avenue’.
“Whenever you’ve crossed the bustling mainstreets of everever land
You attain a lonesome sandstrip known as the nevernever strand
Then you definately take the turning left
And you’re taking the turning proper
And the place the twilight breaks you flip your ragged sight…
Around the duskfall the place it is blue
Lonesong Avenue waits for you…”
When He Attended My Father’s Funeral
As an adolescent in highschool in Calcutta, I at all times carried a dominated train e-book (khata) in my college bag. Poems needed to be composed. That is what desires have been product of. The inspiration was by no means TS Eliott, or WH Auden, or Robert Frost. Our folks hero, Pritish Nandy, was in his twenties. He wrote poems in regards to the metropolis he lived in and beloved. It’s unbelievable that 5 a long time in the past, he launched an audio album of his poems learn by Mallika Sarabhai and himself, with music composed by Ananda Shankar. At the moment’s iTunes and Spotify followers who can add a track with just some clicks will discover it troublesome to even perceive or comprehend the extent of dedication and keenness that was required to provide an audio LP (vinyl) 50 years in the past.
Pritish da was a smorgasbord of data, erudite, incisive, and at all times entertaining. The humorous factor was, he was too previous to be my buddy and too younger to be my father’s buddy. But, Pritish da at all times had time for the O’Briens of Kolkata. I used to be overwhelmed when he landed up, unannounced, for my father’s funeral in 2016. In the midst of summer season, he attended the service in Church and was on the burial: “I simply needed to be right here to say farewell to your father, Neil”. And because the solar set on that balmy summer season afternoon on the Decrease Round Street Cemetery, in central Kolkata, there stood Pritish da close to three of my uncles who have been English professors. We weren’t shocked that the beat poet of our technology was nonetheless quoting strains of immortal verse. How completely acceptable. Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Nation Churchyard.
“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary method,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.”
Poet, painter, writer, producer, parliamentarian, Padma Shri, he was a maverick within the truest sense of the phrase.
We had an extended chat just a few months in the past throughout the pujo of 2024. I used to be making an attempt to persuade him to jot down his autobiography. There have been so many tales that needed to be informed:
- A aircraft trip from Mumbai the place he was seated subsequent to a media baron. The possibility assembly modified his life
- The story behind Balasaheb Thackeray sending him to the Rajya Sabha on a Shiv Sena ticket in 1998
- His favorite anecdotes from his days as editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India. Additionally, Filmfare, The Unbiased
- The creation and progress of Pritish Nandy Communications
- His love for stray canine
- The great girls in his life (chuckle)
In the course of the name, I bear in mind asking him what he would most wish to be remembered as—poet, writer, editor, film mogul, pet lover, or media character. He was very clear: being a poet topped all of them.
Let’s go away you with a poem Pritish Nandy wrote a couple of metropolis he deeply beloved, regardless of all its imperfections.
“Calcutta in case you should exile me wound my lips earlier than I’m going
Solely phrases stay and the light contact of your finger on my lips Calcutta burn my eyes earlier than I’m going into the evening
The headless corpse in a Dhakuria bylane the battered youth his brains blown out and the silent vigil that takes you to Pataldanga Lane the place they may gun you down with out vengeance or hate
Calcutta in case you should exile me burn my eyes earlier than I’m going
They are going to pull you down from the Ochterlony monument and torture every damaged rib beneath your upthrust breasts they may tear the anguish out of your sullen eyes and thrust the bayonet between your thighs
Calcutta they may tear you aside Jarasandha-like
They are going to tie your fingers on both aspect and cling you from a wordless cross and when
your silence protests they may execute all of the phrases that you simply met and synchronised
Calcutta they may burn you on the stake
Calcutta flex the vengeance in your thighs and burn silently within the despair of flesh
If you happen to really feel like suicide take a rickshaw to Sonagachhi and share the sullen pleasure within the eyes of girls who’ve wilfully died
Watch for me outdoors the Ujjala theatre and I’ll convey you the blood of that armless leper who went mad earlier than starvation and dying met in his wounds
I’ll present you the fatigue of that lady who died close to Chitpur out of sheer boredom and the cages of Burrabazar the place ardour hides within the wrinkles of virgins who’ve aged ready for a sexless struggle that by no means got here
Solely obscene lust stays of their eyes after time has wintered their exacting thighs
And I’ll present you the hawker who died with Calcutta in his eyes
Calcutta in case you should exile me destroy my sanity earlier than I’m going”
(Derek O’Brien, MP, leads the Trinamool Congress within the Rajya Sabha)
Disclaimer: These are the non-public opinions of the creator