Calcutta Chromosome - Do we carry Bengal in our genes?

Very recently, I ransacked all the social networks looking for one of my bosom schoolmates but could not find her anywhere. Investigation is such an infectious pursuit that it feeds its virus within the investigator until he unravels what he is looking for. After putting some good amount of effort with the very inevitable google search engine, I could finally discover one document (rather a resume) submitted by that mate to some government college applying for the post of an Assistant Professor in the department of Bengali. I smiled at my own victory of discovering her contact number.

                    

                     She was appointed as the "Prefect" (the most honorable designation among the monitors of all standards) in our final year of schooling. Being suave, placid, gentle at that young age, she was really the apt choice for getting that honor. I was just the contrast who used to spend more hours standing outside the classroom getting punished for all mischievous activities. My very first scope of mingling with her became evident during the course of punishment. Even though I was childishly fickle at that young age without any sign of maturity, I started liking her for her qualities, mainly for sticking to her own principles. Things went well till our school days, but sooner she became a fictitious character figured out on the basis of 'what-others-are-gossiping' losing out her real identity. Her tenth Board examination marks were good but she joined an ordinary high-school. In subsequent years, for some reasons, her twelfth Board examination scores plummeted dramatically. Perhaps, that was the reason she got into some non-reputed college; or perhaps, the reason was something inexplicable that she could not reveal to other people around. She went extinct, allowing the people around her to concoct many stories about her, for example: "she had no choice left except pursuing a degree in Bengali"; "miserable will be her life as Bengali itself is a miserable subject altogether" etc. Even at that very young age, I could sense that Calcuttans are so bizarrely hypocrite! They sing songs like "Bangla bhuli ki kore/ Bangla buk-er bhetore" (How can we forget Bengali? It is in the center of our heart) but they completely trash it out as a language when comes to reality. My schooling was done in a Bengali-medium school and apart from Mathematics and Science, I scored letter marks in Bengali grammar too. Unfortunately, I couldn't pursue humanities during my higher studies since it didn't trigger my fascination that much at that young age, otherwise I'd have been happier if I could pursue a degree in Bengali and could present myself as an elementary exception despite having good grades throughout my academics.

                  In this era of globalization, Calcutta has become a city with all multi-storeyed MNC buildings crawling with low life. A high wall has erected a pillar of separation between the convent-educated elite children and the middle-class children of government schools; between the international movie-viewers sitting comfortably in the air-conditioned multiplexes and the day-to-day ordinary movie-watchers enjoying the local chartbusters in the sultry theater halls. Atop that pillar of separation stretched some rows of barbed wires, from various points of which sagged torn perceptions of people containing diverse range of hallucinations in different stages of decomposition.

                      My little cousin studies in a convent school, she hallucinates to live a life among US pop-stars and bears ultimate disregard for Tagore. Since she keeps on showing petrifying hatred towards reading and writing Bengali, she is completely unaware of Tagore's literary prowess or his winning of Nobel for being a literary giant. Though I had never been an avid reader, but during our budding days, my list of bengali books would mostly include Bibhutibhushan and Sunil Gangopadhyay - whose style of writing were lucid enough to grasp. On suggesting her with those writers' names, I could only discover that her parents think going through Bengali books is as pathetic as plunging into a garbage dump. Her list of movies never showed any glimpse of Satyajit Ray or Mrinal Sen. However, I did not take a vain attempt to suggest her with Ray's movie-names again just to come across another humiliating comment on Bengali. Once on her vacation, she came to spend some days with me and was discussing some part of modern history included in her syllabus. I asked her "What is Swadeshi Movement and why did it start?" She answered aptly by characterizing it with the usage of all indigenous products so as to oppose the British ones who were our contemporary enemies. I chuckled. Pointing at her, I said "Beware! The enemies are back, and this time they are double formidable since they're not outside-invaders, they've grown within us! And it's impossible to banish them". Not sure whether she got the pun or not.

                      Forgive my mindless waffles in between, the circuiting narrative again pulled me back to that old schoolmate. I tried to reconnect, but she did never receive the call. Then I sent her a message, she replied back mentioning her recent news of grabbing a job in a government college as a faculty. I congratulated her on her success; afterwards, I asked her to join me and other schoolmates on a proposed date of meet-up. She showed complete reluctance and gave an alibi of being too much busy. I stopped nudging her as I genuinely felt that she needed some space, and though apparently she didn't have any reason to keep herself aloof from other ones, but she might not like to face all the taunts once again from her old friends. I kept my reply very short and wrote her "Call me at any of your convenient time, I will always be there to respond your call". Through my unspoken words, I so wished that she'd come unabashed and meet us as a proud Bong with true 'Calcutta-Chromosome'.. I so wished that she'd become a harbinger, a trend-setter and Bengal would soon get fulfilled with flocks of her replica who not only make spontaneous career decisions that come straight from their hearts but also act as the saviours who help surviving Bengali as a rich language which has now become an endangered one.