Tribute to Harry Belafonte- A true giant, a voice for the voiceless, who walked here in my lifetime Your life, every aspect of it, was like the mythical Philosopher’s Stone- The Paras Pathar, as we call it in India, and on which our own Creative giant, Satyajit, made a film, cast in black and white, as does Your life story,[Read More…]
(Mahatmajir Proti) Sukanta Bhattacharya (1926-1947) Translated © 2022 from the Bengali by Monish R Chatterjee Of our teeming 400 million, I too am one, I know Abruptly in the airwaves I’ve heard the pronouncement – The great moment in my life has arrived, instantly wiping away All apprehension and cowardice. The drumbeats of exultation Ring out in my bloodstream: [Read More…]
Riverine nostalgia in post-partition Bengali music Since river valleys and riverbanks have perennially been the life-giving source of all flourishing human civilizations around the earth throughout history (Indus-Ganges, Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, Mississippi, Amazon and a great many more), it is quite natural that when politically and colonially engineered partitions of the homelands of people residing generationally on those riverbanks occur, beyond[Read More…]
Canons of Character from Shambhu Chandra Vidyaratna’s Vidyasagar Jeevan-Charit O Bhramaniras (This is part II of a 2-part article on one of the leading figures of the 19th-century Bengal renaissance- the scholar, educationist, humanitarian and social reformer, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. (Read Part I ) The translations presented here, and possible future installments are episodic excerpts extracted from the biographical text[Read More…]
Canons of Character from Shambhu Chandra Vidyaratna’s Vidyasagar Jeevan-Charit O Bhramaniras Part I [Translator’s commentary: There were two central pillars at the front end of the nineteenth century Bengal Renaissance and the social reformation movement, a cultural re-awakening considered a direct consequence of the English colonial establishment then on the rise in Bengal and gradually elsewhere in India. On the[Read More…]
This is a follow-up to my 2003 article in defense of Rabindranath Tagore’s Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka as a homage to his Motherland (Tagore and Jana Gana Mana, Countercurrents- https://www.countercurrents.org/comm-chatterjee310803.htm). This is Part II of the same, beginning with my translation of this phenomenal poem in its entirety. Also, for one and all, here is a most soulful rendition of[Read More…]
I was then 14, maybe 15, between studying English and science Spending seemingly interminable days waiting for the variety Of Puja Varshikis; back on our 3rd floor, waiting for that magic Moment for the day’s Ananda Bazar to drop in a corner Of the verandah, launched from the street. And no sooner than The thud was heard, rushing to get[Read More…]
[ I received the news late last night from Counterpunch- one of my favorite columnists- activist, visionary, poet, philosopher, friend of the downtrodden, Andre Vltchek, had slumped into the seat of a taxicab, his wife next to him, while traveling somewhere in Turkey, and never woke up. I truly did not want to believe it- in a worldwide desert terrain[Read More…]
Rabindranath Tagore’s Lyrical Ballad on Freedom and Confinement [Here is a recent performance of this ballad by Lopamudra Mitra and Iman from YouTube: The caged bird was in the gilded cage, the free bird in the wood Perchance, once, the twain met each other, perhaps a quirk in the Maker’s mood. Said the free bird, “Caged bird, dear, come to[Read More…]
Kazi Nazrul Islam Translation © 2020 Monish Chatterjee [A YouTube recitation by the poet’s son, Kazi Sabyasachi: I am the poet of now, not of the Nuevo future Call me poetic, call me prosaic, I accept with nary a word. Some tell me, “Your place is with the earth-bound, The mortal – why do we not witness emerging From your[Read More…]
Part I: The Life-Changing Rabindra-Sangeet He Revealed to Me I was born in a post-renaissance, post-independence Bengal, in the city of Kolkata (erstwhile Calcutta from colonial times), at a time when the Bengal Renaissance, which began with Raja Rammohun Roy (1774-1833) and many would argue reached its zenith with Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), was beginning its gradual descent into mediocrity (in[Read More…]
Kandari Hoonshiar by Kazi Nazrul Islam Unscalable mounts, impassable deserts, turbulent seas These you must conquer in freedom’s quest in the dead of night Sailors, beware! The surf rises in disquiet, the boat heaves, the boatman loses track The sails have ripped, who will steer the course, who has the himmat? Who here is young and brave, come[Read More…]
Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976) The Caste Hooligans – Part II – ( Jaater Naame Bajjati Shob ) Blinded even in daylight, do you see not How every moment of every day, this caste insanity In the grinding stone of its crushing mill Is pounding every one of you to pulp? The weight of your caste insanity is killing[Read More…]
( Jaater Naame Bajjati Shob ) Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976) Translation © Monish R Chatterjee 2020 The caste hooligans have long been at play Caste fraudsters gambling with human life – So touching a fellow human makes you an outcaste Is your caste, then, fragile as candy in a child’s hand? Caste hooligans playing roulette. Hookah water[Read More…]
(Hey Mor Durbhaga Desh) Rabindranath Tagore Translation © Monish R Chatterjee 2020 O my wretched country For each one upon whom you have heaped insult Through insult it is, one day, you shall be their equal! Him you have denied the very rights of a human being Left standing before you, degraded, yet took not into your lap- Through insult[Read More…]
In one of those obscure, seemingly unlikely, yet epoch-making encounters in the grand pageant of human interactions, the paths of three trailblazers of contemporary history- the divinely graceful French actress and singer, Sarah Bernhardt, the Yugoslav inventor-genius par excellence Nikola Tesla, and the Indian cyclonic monk and firebrand Vedantist, Swami Vivekananda, came together in ostensibly mysterious ways towards the[Read More…]
Following the renaissance epoch of Bengali vocal music between 1900-1950, established by key creative figures such as Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Dwijendralal Roy (1863-1913), Rajanikanta Sen (1865-1910), Atul Prasad Sen (1871-1934) and Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976), five compositional geniuses who blazed their trails into musical history, and to whom Bengal’s musical heritage owes its identity to this day–there occurred an expected[Read More…]
Keshta, old manservant of mine (Puratan Bhritya) Rabindranath Tagore- a narrative poem Translated by ©Monish R. Chatterjee (2019) Goblinesque of appearance, he was a fool beyond measure Anything went missing, screamed the mistress, “Keshta stole our treasure.” From dawn till dusk, I swore on his father’s name- barely any heed he paid The caning exceeded his earning, yet witless was[Read More…]
A few distant centuries ago, on a nondescript day I can barely imagine Upon what craggy hilltop, within a dense sunless forest O sovereign Shivaji Lightning-like, across your forehead, there flashed The thought from above- “With a singular religious thread, this torn up, fragmented Bharata, I shall bind in[Read More…]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0gOLaYH-rk A translation of Annada Shankar’s Teler Shishi with commentary The Jar of Oil Annada Shankar Roy Translated by Monish R Chatterjee Little Khuku breaks a jar of oil, And here you are fighting mad Yet you, grown-up kids, breaking up, dividing our Bharat You say ain’t half as bad Well, what then? What then? What then? There you[Read More…]
[This poem was written in remembrance of half-a-century since the passing of my mother, a most remarkable woman the world did not get to know (reminds me much of Thomas Gray’s famous Elegy with the potent lines: Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear: Full many a flow’r is born to blush[Read More…]
[While Tagore wrote extensively on philosophical exchanges between significant characters from India’s great epics, such as the Karna-KuntiSamvad, the vast compendium of his poetry is essentially reflective and non-historic. He did, however, write a few tribute poems dedicated to heroic figures from India’s medieval years, including the Sikh hero, Banda Singh Bahadur, and the Maratha chief, ChhatrapatiShivaji. In this sequence,[Read More…]
That the living experience is akin to a joyous festival with multiple stimuli is made clear literally stanza by stanza in this poem, and requires little elaboration or exposition.
On the subject of SDB’s lifelong allegiance and closeness to the folk traditions of Bengal, there is an excellent interview by SankarlalBhattacharjee (whose transcript is available at the link appended to the end of this essay)- titled The Case for Folk Music, the interview focuses primarily on his experiences in the Bombay film industry. In the interview, he points out[Read More…]
His apparent estrangement from the Tagorean epoch As with many other frontiers, the Bengal renaissance flowered mellifluously in the domain of music as well. An exhaustive account of this creative flowering would of course require the space of several books, suffice it to say that the overarching contributor to this renaissance was none other than the greatest symbol of the[Read More…]
From Education to Incarceration 
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Appeal to withdraw the notification for the public hearing for the proposed Sijimali Bauxite Mining Project 
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Hate Speech Inside Parliament: Reaching a New Low 
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The Angertainer Steps Down: Rupert Murdoch’s Non-Retirement 
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My appeal to Meta’s Oversight Board: Palestinian political and resistance organizations & individuals are not “terrorists” as classified by Israel 
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Pre- and Post-Soviet Language Policy in the East-Baltic States 
Breadcrumb 
Three Indian Movies win TIFF 2023 Awards 
My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
