May be it’s Dostoevsky.

I don’t remember since when I graduated from comics and superhero books to narrative fiction with a grey sense. And without noticing one day I become master of dark taste when it comes choosing any art form (books, cinema, music, painting etc) for creative inspiration .Now while trying to get rid of all those for some personal reason I did looked back at the genesis of all those taste . May be that attraction was seeded in my formative years.

I was wondering since when?

Or rather who?

I kept thinking who was the first culprit that introduced black literature to me?  

As far as I remember our early childhood heroes were Dem Peha, Supandi, to Tintin Bahadur and all those Chandamama characters. As I was a voracious reader and I finished reading those entire books we had in that charming family book almirah. Gradually there were huge discrepancy between the demand versus supply when it came to reading .One day I came across a dirty thick book upon which it was written ‘Pain is the outcome of sin’-Lord Budhha

We all have to admit –darkness has its own charm .And at those times the unexplored world that is related with sin /sex/ pain/death /drug seemed very appealing .As if you explore those trail you will attain some knowledge that is equivalent to an unexplainable transcendent state of mind.

‘Pain is the outcome of sin’ -The line attracted me.

I started reading the book after few pages I was captivated by the explicit details of the horrendous murder committed by the protagonist, and I kept reading.

I liked (!)  The way writer described his penance and suffering. It was a new thing to my experience.

I thought this is the way in which art should take its turn ….

Now when I look back and someone accuse me of darkness and if I have to deny and project it big I would say ‘it’s not me. May be its Dostoevsky.’   

Short Stories

Links to my short stories that are translated to English and available online:

If interested feel free to click on their name to read:

The Gift (Written 1999,1st Published in Prantik (প্রান্তিক ২০০০),English Translation Kamal Nayan Baruah :,Assam Tribune ,Nov 2009.)
          genre: :fun, comic, simple
Fantasia (Written 2002-2003,1st Published in Sadin (শাৰদীয় সাদিন ২০০৪),English Translation Uddip Talukdar :,melange ;The Sentinel ,Nov 2010.,NE Quest 2011 )
          genre: Sci -fi :
The Post modern Short Story (Written 2006,1st Published in Sadin(সাদিন ২০০৬),English Translation :Uddip Talukdar :Indian review ,2011.)
genre: Philosophy ,literature

The Strike :(Written 2007,Published Jatra) 
genre: :True event nostalgia ,youth hood ,experimentation with narrative style

The Journey (Written 2003 ,Published in Etyadii(ইত্যাদি) (Sunday edition Janasadharan (দৈনিক জনসাধৰণ)),Also a part of Natunar Swaralipi (নতুনৰ স্বৰলিপি)A collection of selected Assamese short stories by twenty five young writers edited  by Mr.Pankaj Thakur and Arindom Borkotoky ,2009,Published in Enajori 

An Evening in Paris  (Written 1997 ,A fun story about young minds in school ) e publication in Enajori

About art history fictionalization 3: Surrealism

Topoema:Palm of the traveler by Octavio Paz

André Masson Automatic Drawing.

It was a long traumatic mental journey. The nerve of fictionalizing Impressionism, Dadaism and then Surrealism was weird, bizarre may be uncalled for. But once started I could not hold back.

It was a big challenge as Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and an abrupt, illogical, unexpected turn.

That was a trap.

I began to read and while going through few of the surrealist history I got to know about Automatism. I was amazed when I saw André Masson Automatic Drawing.

So I thought may be the surrealism started with Automatism as in his painting (!) all he did was to  let his pen flow freely to express itself ….(and many time ,my pen also directs everything …so actually it’s not me, it is my pen (or the key board) doing all the creative work.

The end product may become something like an encrypted maze or a labyrinth very hard to decipher. After this observation my characters started to see some light inside the zigzag puzzle it was in.

‘Eureka’: One of the characters said who was entrapped inside the topoema’s created many decade ago by Nobel laureate Octavio Paz

That’s why while trying to fictionalize Surrealism, I found out the very core meaning of being myself. While expressing oneself in some ISM can be a prisoner’s experience; handcuffed by limitations of definition, boundaries, time and space.  Meaning of any ‘isms’ we should be free and spontaneous.

So the character tried to break free from the rule.

Let the freedom rule over my pen (or the key board, now days) as these are my only weapon in my fight against the organized cliché.

I flipped through my dairy and found resonating verse I wrote may be 15 years back.

Is read:

Breaking the

Linguistics rule

Holding the pen

Unplanned

If we could build a new scenario,

Undefined Characters, Society,

Avenues, shores, cities, songs and others.

Spontaneous but sovereign;

And without a reason,

Every incident

Every moment,

Everyone,

Every day!

Dismissing mental calculations for ever,

Flowers

Colours

Rivers & clouds.

Whatever, whenever!

Also read DADA, Impressionism 

The Eternal Optimist

 

Photo from net uploaded by Atlaf Majid

Growing up in Assam in gloomy eighties had a toll on our psyche. The otherwise hyperemotional people didn’t have a single positive thing to think about. Already we gained a reputation for our step motherly attitude to humour and laughter; I clearly remember we felt guilty if we were enjoying something.

May be it is not normal to enjoy as everything is going from bad to worse.

All the schools, colleges, streets, shops buses- mostly remained closed.

Unexpected deaths were (still is) daily headlines so were the sense of losing identity prevailing everywhere.  

The effect of surroundings was terrible and on top of everything –the bombardment of negative, egotistic, remunerated news.

Conflict had no end  but the intolerance were at its peak  –among people /language /religion /media house/views ,politicos /students  parents and from left right centre and periphery everyone were against each other.

Those who had the power either betrayed or exploited our faith.

The situations lead to an era of darkness.

What we all wanted was little bit positive news. (ভাল খৱৰ, শুভ সংবাদ)

But there weren’t any ……

At that time two greats of contrasting characters came out with similar prayer-.

One was Bhabenndra Nath Saikia ,who accepted the society as it was but never given up and tried to bring changes being a part of the system.He wrote a full length play শুভ সংবাদ meaning Good news for  the moving theater of Assam so that prayer can be herded across the Bramhaputra valley

The other person I am talking about was a different person altogether .A master in his craft and far ahead of any other contemporary in case of the momentum of his thinking. So naturally when it comes to personal feeling about the surrounding; he was very cynical and far more frustrated than any one else.

 I have never met him but neither any other person in this universe .As the great craftsman  Sourav Kumar Chaliha lived in complete obscurity .The man whom we have known as the man who knew SKC best Surendra Nath Medhi was by mean less noteworthy  . Though petrified with the moronic behavior of natives it doesn’t mean that they (SKC and him) shy away for their responsibility for the society .Both SKC and Surendra Nath Medhi (the man who knew SKC best) were fierce critique of the all evils without any kind of fear. Be it insurgency (Like on death of journalist Parag Das ,or on issue of insurgencies ), or intellectual vacuum in the valley both of them came out with article/stories that can open the window of knowledge .  

Two decades ago may be still not old enough to wake up with a hangover on New Year’s dawn ; I was enjoying the sunshine with news paper in one hand and morning cup of tea on another. As a new kid on the block we had upbeat dream but due to the situation we couldn’t think out of out of that sense of nihilism.

The news paper had a front page news article –Good news (ভাল খৱৰ) by SKC.

It was neither about negativity nor an optimistic article talking about a utopian tomorrow.

But after reading it I felt better and it made me believe that there can be a better tomorrow while living with the darkness at hand.

Demystifying the best seller’s techniques

Down, alone and having time to kill after failing in doing anything creative I looked for some inspiration. I surfed through my 200 GB of world classic movie collection –Pier Paolo Pasolini. Claude Chabrol   Jean-Luc Godard (from 1980 onward); well…after few hours I couldn’t concentrate on any one and most of them had a negative affect on me as well.

I was down and the theme, content, negativity of those entire movies was nauseating.

In past also I had gone through passes like this (dark)  I stopped and tried to finish Terra Amata by French author and Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio.

I found it was about nothingness  my recurring theme. It’s been six months and I am halfway through the book, it seems I will need three more months (and three bout of depression) to finish it. Nothingness and the negativity associated with it were becoming repulsive, so I kept the book aside.

Thankfully after a couple of days I fell sick and this time I didn’t dared  to venture into the mistake I made just 2 days before.

Again I had to kill the time this time I decided to do it with something light and palatable.

I opened R 2020.

By evening I finished the book.

And after finishing it (me Mr. dark painter as my friend decodes me for my passivity) I too had some good vibes.

Mr Bhagat has become a phenomenon .You may love him or you may hat him, but you can not ignore him, what makes him what he is, I pondered.

After many months I picked up my pen started writing it down on my diary.

As I was blank so I thought of typing and uploading those 11 points (read 5.5 x2)

I wrote:

He is what he is because he could hold the nerve of the Indian reader because He

1. Writes in (simple) English
2. Use short sentences (the Nobel aspirants consumes one paragraph for one sentence) with words that most of us use when they are (ab) using English.
3. The most of the narratives are in conversations, not about subplot or mental mind game, smell, taste, scenery of the place. For all those he uses only one or two sentence so that reader can understand where the characters are and what they are feeling about. Thankfully most bad times pass very fast keeping the reader happy.
4. Love / romance will be there -unabashed .Most of the Nobel aspirant will try to write what is real /Mr .Bhagat will write what we fantasize about it-boy meet girl then he meets /hates /fights ….. (and whether movie ,music or popular literature romance sells)
5. The theme will be about something to which common people (read target audience, mostly youth) could relate to.
6. the protagonist tells the common feeling of a young guy (about girls ,sex, rich ,…..or common thought bubble of the youth )
7. Enough of humour and satire in every page so that no one is bored.
8. Sex –at the time when it seems reader are losing the grip, it freshen the mind up, so that writer can give you the final punch.
9. The protagonist will do the thing that most of the target reader do like –eating in Café Coffee day ,loitering in a popular hangout places(CP  , Dasaswamedh Ghat etc)
10. At the end the protagonist (a looser like most of us) become a winner (morally) and also to the eye of the reader (his main objective).
11.  Most importantly  There is a story –an opening ,a climax ,an ending (with a twist )  .He will not try any other new/unknown / zigzag narrative literary style (like most Noble aspirant do)  

Still there are many following the trend written above but this man is far ahead.

There are criticism against him also ,But I strongly feels in a democracy we all follow a cafeteria approach .You have all in the menu but reader have the right to choose /discard among all .

An ode to youth hood (যৌৱন)

An ode to youth hood (যৌৱন) 

After birth – the crying

Then the slumber of forgetfulness

Slowly its adolescence

Thereafter its youth

Youth hood is none but a dream.

And what after the dream?

The dream is better

Let it continue

 

Piece from Jatra (যাত্রা), a collection of creative fiction about journey of a young mind searching exactitude .

Also read:Jatra 

Sans You Bhupenda

artist :Uddip Talukdar

 

Sea of people on his arrival(from net)

On 05 th November when we got the news and everyone were shell shocked.

For All the three corore people who lives or has their roots on the eastern part of India, his existence is always taken for granted over last 75 years at least.

Long back when the new age Assamese brand was evolving only this man announced his arrival by singing in front of crowd at Axom Xahitya Xabha.

From those days till this date his name is synonymous with the Assamese identity.

For all the four or five generation we have taken him for granted .We know he is there as a evergreen figure in the moment of crisis ,in the moment of happiness ,in moments when we have to showcase ourselves and what not.

We can not imagine an entity called Bhupen Hazarika which can be wiped out just like that.

Still we can not imagine him to be an old man not being able to communicate to his people. As too us he is much younger than me, than my parents, grand parents.

Three years back I had my own bout of depression when I saw him as a slightly old man still trying to sing way he has been doing since last sixty years.

After that all of us knew that this day will come, but as it is unimaginable so we brushed this kind of nightmare away and prayed for his speedy recovery.

On the very first time when I got the news by night I thought with time I will be able to recover from the grief state of mind.

But it’s been three days and I am more grief stricken that before, as life sans Bhupen Hazarika will become a reality in the time to come.

As an individual I thought it is time for all of us to become more responsible in the time to come.

But on the very next moment, I become angry at my impudence,

How can anyone ever think of taking responsibility of such a big vacuum? 

If you closely observe –last three days not a single mind in the valley is at peace, all of us are restless as no one can ever imagine we can exist sans the Jajabor .

Who echoes (Prtidwani) the existence of a valley /a region / a contemporary entity called Assam.