“Can I please take the aisle seat if you don’t mind?’ a voice laden with sweetness rattled from behind as I was about to put my bag on the overhead lockers of Emirates EK572. As I turned to look I could see the smiling face of an elderly, slightly balding gentleman standing behind me. He was comically dressed in a tweed jacket and matching brown trousers. A look at him can assure anyone that he was not in the habit of wearing such clothes, but probably wore it to keep up the decorum of an International flight. I returned the smile back and gestured that I was more than happy to give him my seat. As a matter of fact I never did like aisle seats. To me they were very inconvenient. Especially you have to always get up to let the other passengers in and out, not forgetting the added disturbance of being the point of communication between the inward passengers and the cabin crew. I preferred the window seat since I was a kid. I loved to see the ground slowly drifting away from me in an almost allusive way, almost making me believe that I was magical Hellenic character and travelling on a magic carpet. At forty I still get the same feeling of excitement as the jet starts its run on the runway. I enjoy seeing the carpet of clouds outside the window and most importantly I enjoy my uninterrupted solitude. This was a six hour flight back to Dubai from Calcutta. This visit to Calcutta was a quick one as I had to come to meet my lawyer about some family properties and quite a stressful one. I was looking forward to sleeping through the entire journey. I was still suffering a terrible hangover from last night’s bout with Joydeep. It’s a clear sign from nature that I have to give up believing that I am still young and can still carouse throughout the night and still be in time for college. As we took off I was drawing the blinds to get to sleep as per plan when suddenly my co-passenger, the gentleman with whom I had exchanged my seat smiled welcomingly at me and asked “Bengali?”
This has been the staple mode of initiating a conversation for thousands and thousands of Bengalis since time immortal. Its peculiar that we have delicately maintained this trend in spite of the overall global overhauling that Bengal has been known to observe in the recent times. I was in no mood for any in-flight small talk. My head was throbbing and I thought I would even give reading the new Shakti Chattopadhyay Kobita Samagraho a miss, which I had bought from College Street in spite of my tight schedule. Well my middle class neuro-linguistic learning on etiquette from my mother made me smile back and say “yes.”
“I was sure of it” he leaned invitingly towards me. “The moment I saw the Kabita Samagraho (Collection of Poetry) in your hand. You know sir in this age of Cable Television, Violence and Shopping Malls; the only people who still read poetry are the French and us – The Bengalis. These are the two races in this world who have kept alive the enchantment of real poetry. They have Rimbaud and we have Rabindranath.” Well I was really in no state of being to discuss the cultural semblance of Bengal and France but I nodded acknowledging the same and carried on fixing my seat for a slant.
“So what do you do?” he asked, completely oblivious that I was trying to sleep. I impassively replied that I was a content writer for an IT firm. That I stayed in Dubai and my other declarable details. In a pretext, that I would be spared further interrogations across the flight time. It was not that I did not enjoy talking to a co-passenger but today I needed to sleep. Joydeep in order to recreate nostalgia had got “Bangla” the famous hooch of Bengal last night. Across excitement, Baul music and Joydeep’s enticing company we drowsed 2 and half bottles over Tulika’s delectable “Topse Maach Bhaja”. But the results were evident this morning when my head felt like an H-Bomb.
“A Writer” my co-passenger exclaimed in a manner as one would do on meeting a Bollywood matinee idol or a cricketer. “My God! It is really a privilege to meet a writer in flesh and blood. It is people like you that have silently been the inspiration behind all great moves and movements of history. It is you who bring colours in the regular mundane lives of the millions whose lives are dull and restricted. All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer”
“Actually I am not that kind of a writer.” I tried protesting. But he seemed to take no heed of my protest and went on as if by himself. By now he knew my name and I his. My fellow passenger was called Shri Billopallab Palit. “You know Banerjee Saheb” he continued. “It was my deep desire to meet a write in flesh and blood, but never got a chance. Today luck seems to be on my side. I am really happy that for the next 5 hours I would be sitting next to a person of such eminence”. “You are making a mistake” I tried to intervene. But Mr. Palit seemed completely unruffled.
“Let me introduce myself to you Banerjee Saheb. It’s not sufficient to mention that I am also in the same professional faculty as you. Well not as significant like you. Oh yes, what would you like to drink? Emirates still serves genuine Scotch whiskey” The stewardess had already come with the drinks tray. By this time I had realized that my fellow passenger would not let me sleep so I tried the next best alternative to a hangover – alcohol against alcohol.
After the drinks were laid out, Mr. Palit continued “I am also a writer”. Well I felt even more embarrassed as I could not remember reading anything by him and looked down miserably at the food tray.
As if by reading my mind he added with a chuckle, “Don’t feel embarrassed Banerjee Saheb. It is only natural that you haven’t heard my name. I don’t cater to your kind of readers. There is this publishing house called Star Publishers – that’s mine.”
“Have you ever seen any books by Star Publishers? Well it may have caught your eye – in trains, Sealdah station, market places these books are sold, price ranges from Rs. 10 to Rs. 15. It usually has very colourful covers with provocative pictures of women on it. There are pictures of nude women also on the inside – mainly photographs. The Bengalis have given a very nice title to these books – Bot Tolar Boi (Local Pornography). Sadly pornographic literature never got its due in our society. But you know in the Victorian society it had been deemed at par with all other forms. There was even a similar publication called Pearl during those days. My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky. So I stuck to pornography. Well the amount spent in producing one is quite nominal and profits are good. Each book goes for around 3000 editions. Some more whiskey Banerjee Saheb?’ I noticed that the stewardess was back for a refill. There was this very peculiar feeling that I was going through being seated next to a man who produces pornographic novels, something that was popular amidst us during high school and college. It had steamy pictures of nude voluptuous women and illustrated steamy sex stories. But was definitely not something that can be termed as Literature. I was uncomfortable. Hypocritically so as my middle class puritan background that never objected me reading those novels during my most desirous moments of puberty, now was objecting to being seated next to someone who produces them.
But Mr. Palit seemed completely unaffected and ignorant of my uneasiness and went on “The books sell well. Especially students and people from the rural areas have high demand for them. Till date 65 books have been published; I have written 40 of them. I am sure you have not heard of even a single book as these books can’t be advertised on Anandabazar you see” he chuckled at his own joke. “For advertisements I have my own paper “Lashyomoyee” – it has a subscription fee of Rs. 50 annually and there are 3 pages of all sorts of adverts that don’t come out on regular papers, including those of my books.”
“Well off course someone like you would not consider them literary. The sect of people who subscribe to Lashyomoyee, they love my writing and I write for them. I write what they want, they way they want it. I am their writer. The writer of the perverted. Sometimes I print catalogues and send it to all my subscribers. Besides recent publications it also caries adverts for some medicines.” Looking at the surprise on my face he laughed, “Oh no Banerjee Saheb, I am not a doctor; my medicines are for hair loss, improving sexual potency, alcoholism, fidelity etc – you don’t need a degree in medicine to make these. Believe me Banerjee Saheb; these medicines are in demand.”
“Ha Ha you are laughing Banerjee Saheb?” he said seeing the look of amusement in my face. “Yes it’s a kind of fraud. But you would surely agree that it’s terribly unfair not to cheat people who are desperate to be cheated. Besides to survive in this world you need to cheat nowadays or be cheated. And when this fraud is done in a very large scale it becomes a matter of social prestige and pomp. The petty thief always goes to jail Banerjee Saheb, but one who cheats and swindles on a big scale gets felicitated by the society. If it’s done properly, this business of fraud not only gets overlooked but is deemed as a virtue. The world is being ruled by those virtuous few who have this virtue in amplitude.”
“I am sure that by now you have realized that I am no author. I am a businessman. The only similarity I have with writers like you is that even I earn my bread through pen and paper. But I am an outcast in your literary circa. I have lost my status in this world of art. But I have chosen this path, fully aware of its consequences. So I never put any effort ever to redeem my status. The only plead to all this is that I never read what I write. I could never get myself to it. Whenever I feel like reading I read the ones written by celebrated writes such as you. But I am not complaining, for with this compromise I have found affluence – Which is quite essential nowadays. I have given 15 best years of my life to this and now it has started giving results. I have bought a flat at South City. I used to have a cycle when I started and now I drive a Ford, with a chauffeur. People come to see me from all over West Bengal. They are courteous to me. You know Banerjee Saheb you can’t get everything you want in life. But whatever little I have – I am quite contended. I have all material comforts that one can possibly desire and for that I had to make that one little compromise in my life- believe me Sir I have no regrets.”
I had forgotten about my hangover by this time and I was listening to this sixty something, short, balding man with rapt attention. He took a couple deep swigs from his plastic airline glass and finished the whiskey and rang for the stewardess. Wiping his lips on his shirt sleeves bluntly he continued “You see business is business; there should be nothing in between. Whatever the market demands, what your customers need you have to supply to stay in business and literature my dear Sir is no exception. The European renaissance is the biggest example of it. If you keep art aside and just focus on the fact, majority of the people want crude and cheap thrills in literature and films nowadays – so that’s exactlywhat you have to give them, cheap trash. I understand that you are completely ignorant of this thriving market. I personally hate these books. But it gives me money. It pays for my expensive habits. Some of my most popular books are “Boudir Protyasha (My Sister-In-Laws desires); Mashir Kamona (Luscious aunty) Amar Joubon (My Lust) amongst others. I can’t seem to remember all their names. Believe me Banerjee Saheb it disgusts me, but that’s where the money is and money you’d agree, is necessary. All the stories revolve around illicit relations, middle aged women. There is pattern to it, almost like a formula and just a permutation and combination is needed and anyone can write book after book. It takes me 2 to 3 days to write one book. Lately you get most of your material from the internet porn, add the local spice to it and you have a best seller. The simpler the language the more popular it becomes, for my readers aren’t professors or artists. Lately I have been publishing them myself which has ensured a broader margin. Overall life is good.”
He stopped to look around other passengers to see if anyone was listening to his narrative and continued. “You would probably be thinking that money isn’t everything – not by bread alone is the phrase. Yes I agree to that. You can’t live by bread alone. Bread needs a layer of butter, jam, things of comfort and luxury. Just surviving on bread and water for the sake of it is not worth it. I am sure that I won’t love my bread if it is not layered with the best butter and ham and for that extra layer of butter – Oh no your glass is empty you must refill.” He launched himself to call the stewardess again.
“I don’t know Banerjee Saheb how much importance you give to money, but there are people whom money can’t lure. Some say that money is proportional to happiness – this concept is a fallacy. But I could never overlook money as I came from acute poverty. My struggles during childhood would provide a fantastic fare for any Bengali novel. It was with a lot of hardship that I finished school, but what I had was freedom. Freedom to do as I pleased for there was no one to look after me. There was no one I could depend on so I had to fend for myself from a very early age and I have been doing it till date. You look young and you don’t seem to have faced much anomalies of life so I won’t tire you with my growing up stories.”
“Since school I loved writing and I nursed a fool’s desire of being a writer someday. I had a friend. He was also very poor. We were classmates till college. He wrote poems – presumably quite good ones. We would dream of making it big someday in the world of literature like Sukanta, Baudelaire, and Elliot. In spite of acute poverty and hardships those dreams would remain alive in us. We were very close – like brothers, inseparable. I could have done anything for him. Sometimes I wonder why I loved him so much. When we were in college, we published his book of poetry with the contributions from our classmates. Those days his poetries created quite a ripple in the literary world. It was long time back – when you were but a child. I wonder if you had seen that book “Blood Red Sunsets” – albeit it was a little ahead of the times. Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. Here was one such piece.”
This name I was familiar with. Anyone who had had a fetish for Bengali Leftist poetry knew the existence of this book by Nirupam Shome. It had created revolution in the Bengal poetic circles. By this time I was really interested and I excitedly exclaimed “Yes I have read it, it was brilliant. I still remember a few lines from it. I had tried even this time to get my hands on a copy of that book, but it seems it’s out of print since the 70’s”.
He seemed pleased at my words “You read the book? You liked it? Really?” There was genuine happiness in his face. “It pleases me that people have still remembered him. I don’t say it for he was my friend but I did genuinely believe in his talent. I still do. He did have fire in his pen. I had hoped that he would do something big. Real Big. But he couldn’t do anything. “
“He never wrote anything after that?” I implored.
“Maybe but they were never published. As far as I remember after his first book was published he didn’t write. His first book made 250 copies of which almost 150 were distributed and hardly 20 copies were sold. Maybe the publishers sold of the rest to the Kabaraiwalas (Junkyard). It was never printed again.”
“After college I and Nirupam started looking for work, for we needed money to survive. I wasn’t worried much for myself as I was for him. I had realized that I was tougher than him and if he could expose his talent through me I would be happy. I decided that I won’t let him face any hardships I would take charge of the ship. It is impossible to survive in our country writing poetry Banerjee Saheb and Nirupam was not made to do a clerical job. I wanted him to write poetry. I would look after him. But those days my means were limited. Those days it was not very difficult to get a reasonable job, but I decided to fight. To conquer.”
“I tried putting to test whatever literary talent I had. I started writing a novel. After many hardships I came up with my first novel. It took me even more austerity to find someone who would want to publish that novel. I did find one. He bought my manuscript for Rs. 100. It was one of the happiest days of my life. I started writing my next novel. The first novel did well. Many newspapers came up with various reviews – some positive, some detrimental. But people got to know my name. Amidst all this I finished my next novel. The best publishers bought it and I got quite a good amount for it. Those days the number of publishers was few and it was difficult to have your work published if you didn’t have a dedicated publisher. I couldn’t stop writing as I needed the money. It’s not that I loved this mass production, but I would console myself that this was better than being a clerk. After my second novel I wrote another one – my third. This was lengthier and I had given it my all. I still believe that I had done a good work. Maybe even you would have liked it.”
“What happened to that book?” I asked earnestly.
“Well no one was ready to print it. Those days no one would touch anything that was faintly leftist. My novel was a love story of a Naxalite leader. It had pro-Naxalite sentiments. Naturally nobody would want to touch it. So it was back to streets again. Well alongside this rejection came acrid poverty. I shoved that manuscript inside an old trunk and wrote my first pornographic work “Deher Khide (Hungers of the Body)”. I realized that twenty years from now I would be more disappointed by the things that I didn't do than by the ones I did do. So I throw off the bowlines and all the baggage’s that I had and tried to catch the trade winds in my sails. After much inquest I found this shady publishing house in North Calcutta that was ready to print my work. The press used to publish everything from Upanishads to Pornography. The Publisher needed someone like me and I needed him. Within 3 months my “Deker Khide” was published. Then I was printing 2 such novels every month. Well needless to say I was getting financially stronger. And fortune did favor my brave decision. Within 5 years I bought my own press. Then my own newspaper “Lashyomoyee”. Another 5 years I thought I needed more money and I started my medicine business. Well since then there was no looking back. I still have another 20 odd years and I do hope to do something more. This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up.”
Mr. Palit closed his eyes as if in reflection. After a while I asked him “But whatever happened to your friend Nirupam Shome?”
“He died 15 years back.” Mr. Palit mentioned in a low tone.
After that he remained quiet and the flight had already started circling the Dubai skyline for the final part of our journey. Shortly we landed at the Terminal 3. He walked alongside me till we crossed immigration and customs and finally we were out in July Dubai heat. I saw that he was being received by a concierge from Burj Al Arab – one of the most expensive hotels in the entire Gulf. Just before he got inside his BMW he beamed at me and said “It was really a pleasure making your acquaintance Banerjee Saheb. I would be really thankful to you if you come to my house next time you are in Calcutta. I promise I would not want to sell you my books. We can just talk. Well till we meet again”
As he got inside his car he quickly pushed his card inside my hand. I looked at the card as his car vanished amidst the midday traffic. It was written
Mr. Nirupam Shome
1040 -1041 Tower B,
South City Complex
Kolkata.
This has been the staple mode of initiating a conversation for thousands and thousands of Bengalis since time immortal. Its peculiar that we have delicately maintained this trend in spite of the overall global overhauling that Bengal has been known to observe in the recent times. I was in no mood for any in-flight small talk. My head was throbbing and I thought I would even give reading the new Shakti Chattopadhyay Kobita Samagraho a miss, which I had bought from College Street in spite of my tight schedule. Well my middle class neuro-linguistic learning on etiquette from my mother made me smile back and say “yes.”
“I was sure of it” he leaned invitingly towards me. “The moment I saw the Kabita Samagraho (Collection of Poetry) in your hand. You know sir in this age of Cable Television, Violence and Shopping Malls; the only people who still read poetry are the French and us – The Bengalis. These are the two races in this world who have kept alive the enchantment of real poetry. They have Rimbaud and we have Rabindranath.” Well I was really in no state of being to discuss the cultural semblance of Bengal and France but I nodded acknowledging the same and carried on fixing my seat for a slant.
“So what do you do?” he asked, completely oblivious that I was trying to sleep. I impassively replied that I was a content writer for an IT firm. That I stayed in Dubai and my other declarable details. In a pretext, that I would be spared further interrogations across the flight time. It was not that I did not enjoy talking to a co-passenger but today I needed to sleep. Joydeep in order to recreate nostalgia had got “Bangla” the famous hooch of Bengal last night. Across excitement, Baul music and Joydeep’s enticing company we drowsed 2 and half bottles over Tulika’s delectable “Topse Maach Bhaja”. But the results were evident this morning when my head felt like an H-Bomb.
“A Writer” my co-passenger exclaimed in a manner as one would do on meeting a Bollywood matinee idol or a cricketer. “My God! It is really a privilege to meet a writer in flesh and blood. It is people like you that have silently been the inspiration behind all great moves and movements of history. It is you who bring colours in the regular mundane lives of the millions whose lives are dull and restricted. All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer”
“Actually I am not that kind of a writer.” I tried protesting. But he seemed to take no heed of my protest and went on as if by himself. By now he knew my name and I his. My fellow passenger was called Shri Billopallab Palit. “You know Banerjee Saheb” he continued. “It was my deep desire to meet a write in flesh and blood, but never got a chance. Today luck seems to be on my side. I am really happy that for the next 5 hours I would be sitting next to a person of such eminence”. “You are making a mistake” I tried to intervene. But Mr. Palit seemed completely unruffled.
“Let me introduce myself to you Banerjee Saheb. It’s not sufficient to mention that I am also in the same professional faculty as you. Well not as significant like you. Oh yes, what would you like to drink? Emirates still serves genuine Scotch whiskey” The stewardess had already come with the drinks tray. By this time I had realized that my fellow passenger would not let me sleep so I tried the next best alternative to a hangover – alcohol against alcohol.
After the drinks were laid out, Mr. Palit continued “I am also a writer”. Well I felt even more embarrassed as I could not remember reading anything by him and looked down miserably at the food tray.
As if by reading my mind he added with a chuckle, “Don’t feel embarrassed Banerjee Saheb. It is only natural that you haven’t heard my name. I don’t cater to your kind of readers. There is this publishing house called Star Publishers – that’s mine.”
“Have you ever seen any books by Star Publishers? Well it may have caught your eye – in trains, Sealdah station, market places these books are sold, price ranges from Rs. 10 to Rs. 15. It usually has very colourful covers with provocative pictures of women on it. There are pictures of nude women also on the inside – mainly photographs. The Bengalis have given a very nice title to these books – Bot Tolar Boi (Local Pornography). Sadly pornographic literature never got its due in our society. But you know in the Victorian society it had been deemed at par with all other forms. There was even a similar publication called Pearl during those days. My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky. So I stuck to pornography. Well the amount spent in producing one is quite nominal and profits are good. Each book goes for around 3000 editions. Some more whiskey Banerjee Saheb?’ I noticed that the stewardess was back for a refill. There was this very peculiar feeling that I was going through being seated next to a man who produces pornographic novels, something that was popular amidst us during high school and college. It had steamy pictures of nude voluptuous women and illustrated steamy sex stories. But was definitely not something that can be termed as Literature. I was uncomfortable. Hypocritically so as my middle class puritan background that never objected me reading those novels during my most desirous moments of puberty, now was objecting to being seated next to someone who produces them.
But Mr. Palit seemed completely unaffected and ignorant of my uneasiness and went on “The books sell well. Especially students and people from the rural areas have high demand for them. Till date 65 books have been published; I have written 40 of them. I am sure you have not heard of even a single book as these books can’t be advertised on Anandabazar you see” he chuckled at his own joke. “For advertisements I have my own paper “Lashyomoyee” – it has a subscription fee of Rs. 50 annually and there are 3 pages of all sorts of adverts that don’t come out on regular papers, including those of my books.”
“Well off course someone like you would not consider them literary. The sect of people who subscribe to Lashyomoyee, they love my writing and I write for them. I write what they want, they way they want it. I am their writer. The writer of the perverted. Sometimes I print catalogues and send it to all my subscribers. Besides recent publications it also caries adverts for some medicines.” Looking at the surprise on my face he laughed, “Oh no Banerjee Saheb, I am not a doctor; my medicines are for hair loss, improving sexual potency, alcoholism, fidelity etc – you don’t need a degree in medicine to make these. Believe me Banerjee Saheb; these medicines are in demand.”
“Ha Ha you are laughing Banerjee Saheb?” he said seeing the look of amusement in my face. “Yes it’s a kind of fraud. But you would surely agree that it’s terribly unfair not to cheat people who are desperate to be cheated. Besides to survive in this world you need to cheat nowadays or be cheated. And when this fraud is done in a very large scale it becomes a matter of social prestige and pomp. The petty thief always goes to jail Banerjee Saheb, but one who cheats and swindles on a big scale gets felicitated by the society. If it’s done properly, this business of fraud not only gets overlooked but is deemed as a virtue. The world is being ruled by those virtuous few who have this virtue in amplitude.”
“I am sure that by now you have realized that I am no author. I am a businessman. The only similarity I have with writers like you is that even I earn my bread through pen and paper. But I am an outcast in your literary circa. I have lost my status in this world of art. But I have chosen this path, fully aware of its consequences. So I never put any effort ever to redeem my status. The only plead to all this is that I never read what I write. I could never get myself to it. Whenever I feel like reading I read the ones written by celebrated writes such as you. But I am not complaining, for with this compromise I have found affluence – Which is quite essential nowadays. I have given 15 best years of my life to this and now it has started giving results. I have bought a flat at South City. I used to have a cycle when I started and now I drive a Ford, with a chauffeur. People come to see me from all over West Bengal. They are courteous to me. You know Banerjee Saheb you can’t get everything you want in life. But whatever little I have – I am quite contended. I have all material comforts that one can possibly desire and for that I had to make that one little compromise in my life- believe me Sir I have no regrets.”
I had forgotten about my hangover by this time and I was listening to this sixty something, short, balding man with rapt attention. He took a couple deep swigs from his plastic airline glass and finished the whiskey and rang for the stewardess. Wiping his lips on his shirt sleeves bluntly he continued “You see business is business; there should be nothing in between. Whatever the market demands, what your customers need you have to supply to stay in business and literature my dear Sir is no exception. The European renaissance is the biggest example of it. If you keep art aside and just focus on the fact, majority of the people want crude and cheap thrills in literature and films nowadays – so that’s exactlywhat you have to give them, cheap trash. I understand that you are completely ignorant of this thriving market. I personally hate these books. But it gives me money. It pays for my expensive habits. Some of my most popular books are “Boudir Protyasha (My Sister-In-Laws desires); Mashir Kamona (Luscious aunty) Amar Joubon (My Lust) amongst others. I can’t seem to remember all their names. Believe me Banerjee Saheb it disgusts me, but that’s where the money is and money you’d agree, is necessary. All the stories revolve around illicit relations, middle aged women. There is pattern to it, almost like a formula and just a permutation and combination is needed and anyone can write book after book. It takes me 2 to 3 days to write one book. Lately you get most of your material from the internet porn, add the local spice to it and you have a best seller. The simpler the language the more popular it becomes, for my readers aren’t professors or artists. Lately I have been publishing them myself which has ensured a broader margin. Overall life is good.”
He stopped to look around other passengers to see if anyone was listening to his narrative and continued. “You would probably be thinking that money isn’t everything – not by bread alone is the phrase. Yes I agree to that. You can’t live by bread alone. Bread needs a layer of butter, jam, things of comfort and luxury. Just surviving on bread and water for the sake of it is not worth it. I am sure that I won’t love my bread if it is not layered with the best butter and ham and for that extra layer of butter – Oh no your glass is empty you must refill.” He launched himself to call the stewardess again.
“I don’t know Banerjee Saheb how much importance you give to money, but there are people whom money can’t lure. Some say that money is proportional to happiness – this concept is a fallacy. But I could never overlook money as I came from acute poverty. My struggles during childhood would provide a fantastic fare for any Bengali novel. It was with a lot of hardship that I finished school, but what I had was freedom. Freedom to do as I pleased for there was no one to look after me. There was no one I could depend on so I had to fend for myself from a very early age and I have been doing it till date. You look young and you don’t seem to have faced much anomalies of life so I won’t tire you with my growing up stories.”
“Since school I loved writing and I nursed a fool’s desire of being a writer someday. I had a friend. He was also very poor. We were classmates till college. He wrote poems – presumably quite good ones. We would dream of making it big someday in the world of literature like Sukanta, Baudelaire, and Elliot. In spite of acute poverty and hardships those dreams would remain alive in us. We were very close – like brothers, inseparable. I could have done anything for him. Sometimes I wonder why I loved him so much. When we were in college, we published his book of poetry with the contributions from our classmates. Those days his poetries created quite a ripple in the literary world. It was long time back – when you were but a child. I wonder if you had seen that book “Blood Red Sunsets” – albeit it was a little ahead of the times. Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. Here was one such piece.”
This name I was familiar with. Anyone who had had a fetish for Bengali Leftist poetry knew the existence of this book by Nirupam Shome. It had created revolution in the Bengal poetic circles. By this time I was really interested and I excitedly exclaimed “Yes I have read it, it was brilliant. I still remember a few lines from it. I had tried even this time to get my hands on a copy of that book, but it seems it’s out of print since the 70’s”.
He seemed pleased at my words “You read the book? You liked it? Really?” There was genuine happiness in his face. “It pleases me that people have still remembered him. I don’t say it for he was my friend but I did genuinely believe in his talent. I still do. He did have fire in his pen. I had hoped that he would do something big. Real Big. But he couldn’t do anything. “
“He never wrote anything after that?” I implored.
“Maybe but they were never published. As far as I remember after his first book was published he didn’t write. His first book made 250 copies of which almost 150 were distributed and hardly 20 copies were sold. Maybe the publishers sold of the rest to the Kabaraiwalas (Junkyard). It was never printed again.”
“After college I and Nirupam started looking for work, for we needed money to survive. I wasn’t worried much for myself as I was for him. I had realized that I was tougher than him and if he could expose his talent through me I would be happy. I decided that I won’t let him face any hardships I would take charge of the ship. It is impossible to survive in our country writing poetry Banerjee Saheb and Nirupam was not made to do a clerical job. I wanted him to write poetry. I would look after him. But those days my means were limited. Those days it was not very difficult to get a reasonable job, but I decided to fight. To conquer.”
“I tried putting to test whatever literary talent I had. I started writing a novel. After many hardships I came up with my first novel. It took me even more austerity to find someone who would want to publish that novel. I did find one. He bought my manuscript for Rs. 100. It was one of the happiest days of my life. I started writing my next novel. The first novel did well. Many newspapers came up with various reviews – some positive, some detrimental. But people got to know my name. Amidst all this I finished my next novel. The best publishers bought it and I got quite a good amount for it. Those days the number of publishers was few and it was difficult to have your work published if you didn’t have a dedicated publisher. I couldn’t stop writing as I needed the money. It’s not that I loved this mass production, but I would console myself that this was better than being a clerk. After my second novel I wrote another one – my third. This was lengthier and I had given it my all. I still believe that I had done a good work. Maybe even you would have liked it.”
“What happened to that book?” I asked earnestly.
“Well no one was ready to print it. Those days no one would touch anything that was faintly leftist. My novel was a love story of a Naxalite leader. It had pro-Naxalite sentiments. Naturally nobody would want to touch it. So it was back to streets again. Well alongside this rejection came acrid poverty. I shoved that manuscript inside an old trunk and wrote my first pornographic work “Deher Khide (Hungers of the Body)”. I realized that twenty years from now I would be more disappointed by the things that I didn't do than by the ones I did do. So I throw off the bowlines and all the baggage’s that I had and tried to catch the trade winds in my sails. After much inquest I found this shady publishing house in North Calcutta that was ready to print my work. The press used to publish everything from Upanishads to Pornography. The Publisher needed someone like me and I needed him. Within 3 months my “Deker Khide” was published. Then I was printing 2 such novels every month. Well needless to say I was getting financially stronger. And fortune did favor my brave decision. Within 5 years I bought my own press. Then my own newspaper “Lashyomoyee”. Another 5 years I thought I needed more money and I started my medicine business. Well since then there was no looking back. I still have another 20 odd years and I do hope to do something more. This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up.”
Mr. Palit closed his eyes as if in reflection. After a while I asked him “But whatever happened to your friend Nirupam Shome?”
“He died 15 years back.” Mr. Palit mentioned in a low tone.
After that he remained quiet and the flight had already started circling the Dubai skyline for the final part of our journey. Shortly we landed at the Terminal 3. He walked alongside me till we crossed immigration and customs and finally we were out in July Dubai heat. I saw that he was being received by a concierge from Burj Al Arab – one of the most expensive hotels in the entire Gulf. Just before he got inside his BMW he beamed at me and said “It was really a pleasure making your acquaintance Banerjee Saheb. I would be really thankful to you if you come to my house next time you are in Calcutta. I promise I would not want to sell you my books. We can just talk. Well till we meet again”
As he got inside his car he quickly pushed his card inside my hand. I looked at the card as his car vanished amidst the midday traffic. It was written
Mr. Nirupam Shome
1040 -1041 Tower B,
South City Complex
Kolkata.
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