All that We Write

     Perhaps it was one of those afternoons when you still churn the sedimentary dregs of sleep post your power nap, relish the overdose of melatonin in your blood cells, and sense a profound desolation of indolence. You desperately need something around. Yes, you read it right - something. You don’t need someone, but probably the vision to handle your free will.      And then you call up your satirtha , disciple of the same guru. “Hey, bud! Game for spending some time with Marwa?”      He agrees.      Even after sixty years of His death, you reincarnate the combatant in you with his explanation of raga Marwa while noticing the agile swiftness from dhaivaat to komal rishav. You grasp the undeniable prowess of its dynamism. You stand on its every note and smell how tired and wretched the warrior sounds after a long unwilling battle, which was never meant to be his forte. He lost. But is all lost? ‘The study of revenge? The imm...

I really do not understand why a trainer refuses to be a facilitator of knowledge. I am tired of seeing coaches and trainers, refusing to be mentors or teachers. Mostly they would come ‘prepared with a set of ideas to be articulated and ironically, that backfires. Preparation is an integral part of delivering a speech which is a unidirectional process. There is minimal or hardly any participation from the receptor’s end. Teaching or even coaching someone is not so. Delivering your content or rather, meeting your target does not suffice. You can always plan your session in advance so that you do not run out of content and end up wasting the teaching time, but it behoves you to understand the challenges of your learners in approaching your content, i.e. the topic of discussion. For example, every learner might not face the same sort of challenge to understand the concept of ‘article partitif’ while learning French or the law of supply and demand while studying Economics. It is futile to ...

Dorothea Brande advises aspiring authors to start writing immediately after getting up. The purpose of this exercise is to unlock the subconscious and get it into words as relentlessly as possible. That is precisely why I am here. It is the third day and since yesterday I have started questioning the effectiveness of this exercise. Whereas it really adds to the fluidity of one’s writing skill, at this stage I’m unsure if it helps at all getting our ideas across with the right set of words, communicative and legible sentences, and beneficial for developing the art of fiction writing. In my opinion, fiction writing is less about-it is quite important though- writing correctly and applying befitting words or phrases and is more about building up interest of the reader with intense or subtle dramatic effect while creating a novel insight in terms of plot, characters, and treatment of central theme. What is suggested by her is undoubtedly a good practice for authors of nonfiction, who are s...

  কী যে হালকা লাগছে! অনেকবার বন্ধুরা জিজ্ঞেস করেছে, আমি বাংলা, ইংরেজি, ফরাসি তিনটে ভাষাতেই গল্প বা কবিতা টুকটাক লিখি, তবু ফরাসি কবিতার বাংলায় অনুবাদ করি না কেন। অন্য প্রসঙ্গে জয় গোস্বামী একবার বলেছিলেন, "আপনি গান লেখেন না কেন বলুন তো?" অনেক কথাই জমে থাকে, এসবও ছিল। অনেকদিনের চাপা অপরাধবোধ - সেটাও সম্ভবতঃ জমেছিল নিজের কাছেই। আজ দুপুরে আমার ফরাসি বন্ধু Jacques আমাকে একটি গান শোনায়, আর তার পরেই এই পাগলামোটা চেপে বসে। চেষ্টা করিই না একটা ফরাসি গানের বাংলা অনুবাদ করার! অনুবাদ যদিও গানের হয়নি, কবিতার ফর্মে হয়েছে। আর, বিষয়টুকুই আনতে পেরেছি। ফরাসি ভাষার সাবলীলতা, wit কিংবা হা-হুতাশ - কিছুই আমার লেখায় আসেনি। ফরাসি যাঁরা বোঝেন, তাঁদের জন্য আসল গানটি তলায় তুলে দিয়েছি। কবি-হৃদয় __________ শার্ল ত্রেণের গান ভাবানুবাদ - স্বর্ণদীপ চট্টোপাধ্যায় ___________________________ অনেক, অনেক, অনেক বছর পরেও কবির মৃত্যু হলে ঘুরবে তাঁদের গানেরা, এলোমেলো রাস্তাঘাটের মোড়ে। গাইবে সবাই আপনভোলা নাম না জেনে, কার কথাতে স্পন্দিত হৃদয় তার। গুলিয়ে যাবে শব্দ, লাইন, ধুন "কী ছিল রে, এরপর?" ...

  Despondency The sound of splashing water ceased now.  From my room, I could hear the toilet door latched with a soft click. She came inside, wrapped in a warm towel, sat on my tarnished bed, turned her back and pulled on her jeans.  I lay grabbed by my book, still unveiled and consummated. I waited for her to leave.  She looked at my eyes in the mirror and said, “Say, you love me too.” I left the book open, aside and dozed off. 

     Commodifying academics occurs in numerous ways and often is done so obliquely that it can go unnoticed until an entire generation is disempowered as learners.           Learner-centred education, smart classrooms and tools based teaching replaced a method called 'discourse' in which students were allowed to question everything by discussing an idea propelled by the teacher even in absence of a textbook through a series of questions and counterquestions. They were even allowed to question the authenticity of the method of delivery or the opinion, if any, of the teacher as well. Now what? Here it goes. Show that you care for someone in order to make money. Codify and hegemonise the myriad of possibilities our students are born with only to cripple their imagination. And now this. DPS, North Kolkata doesn't even exist. It has no affiliation!      Such occurrences are evident and obvious too. Fall prey to them. And discover t...

My toys are ageing. My coltish Equus The aged camel With dropping neck And stooping desire, Stares haggardly. I hold them dear. And clean the dust of snippets Of my infantile patrimony. The circle around my eyes Turn sombre As slumber of melancholy grows intense; My withered skin of forehead Pities the rust and moss I gathered so far in rolling Thus, I hold my toys And croon, Age and innocence is such a boon! 9 February 2021 © Swarnadip Chatterjee