Shubho Oshtomi
এক অষ্ট ধাতু দিয়ে
গড়েছিলাম শান্তি সম
নিশীথ তীব্র তম
লুসি বলেছিল
ট্রেন না ধাতু
কোনটা বেশী ফালতু
আমি বলেছিলাম চামড়াটা
কি শান্ত সেই হাটা
ছুঁয়ে ফেলার পরে ও
কত ঋজু ও যেন
কাল ভৈরবের আদলে
রেকাবি মায়া আসলে
শুধুই কি মানুষ
না আমাদের ধনুষ
কাকে তাক করে আছে
যে দুরে সে তো কাছে
এক অনিবার্যতায় কে কাদতো
শান্ত ধাতু আর যে ভাবতো।
আনন্দজিত
এক উৎসব মানে শাখপলা
লাল সিঁদুর খেলা
ঘরের মাঝে এক যৌথ খামার
অসাম্য শরীর হয় তলোয়ার
বিনা জল, বিনা খাবার
মিডডে মিলে ভাত বাড়াবার
হাতা আর খুনতি খোঁজার
ডাক পড়ে সেই মেয়েটার
যে পুজোর ভোগ রাধে
ইস্কুল দিদিমণির চুল বাধে
সাম্য নিশ্চিত করতে পারি
উমা চলেছে নতুন বাড়ি
আবার হবে দেখা কোনো পুজোর রান্না ঘরে
বা কোন বিছানার লাল চাদরে
শুধু অপেক্ষা এক ছুটির ঘন্টার
মিডডে মিলের সকাল হবার
The first week of October is a cause of celebration of Bapu across India and the world. However, since almost a decade starting from 2014, it has been continuing to be a loss of celebration and cause of void with repeated cycles.
Every year the round of destined incidents, tragedies, personal losses revolving around me has continued with deep consistency. The sinusoidal graph of such a consistent rhythm has never let me down and has only allowed me to laugh more on the magic of life with only a way to look up in a self effacing and affable way.
This year the first two days of October again came out with a tragic loss of a dear friend just like last year and years before that who in a short span of time had touched the deepest core of the dictionary of human empathy. He taught me about that core.
My friend who was an epitome of deepest empathy for everyone around him was the victim of the destiny of mental health. In the last few years, destiny took away some more fellow empathetic cotravellers. Few succumbed to accidents, Covid, few nonhumans to weird IVF but all of them had one aspect in common.
They all showed Public Spiritedness either as a human or as an animal. Hence, their spirits started where consistent rationality assumptions of economics ended. Therefore, they expressed compassion, emotion, altruism, anger, emotions, kindness, big heartedness, void egoless self with naivety. They manifested so called examples of irrationality which in a way were quite binding by cultivating a rules based rationality of practising Public Spiritedness for others including any human being around them.
During the birth week of Mahatma, keeping aside the political consciousness of practising public spiritedness, these humans and non humans were not bounded by a consistent domain of rationality which defines self-optimising behaviour. They were not self centred, neither self aggrandising but a true practitioner of public spiritedness which a reactionary society of India needs deeply at this juncture.
As Ambedkar had mentioned that if without equality, liberty comes to Indian society there will be power and elite capture: and if equality is there without liberty in Indian society, individual rights will be jeopardized.
The losses of these public spirited humans and nonhumans only have left back a lesson to practise more in future. It is a practice of how both liberty and equality can be brought back together to the Indian Society to enthuse, infuse public spiritedness where rationality, bounded rationality ends and rules based rationality starts.
I just wish, I could change the sinosoidal graph of consistency and bring all of them back by changing time to practise more of public spiritedness. In a way, it will cure the destiny and mental health of the society which took them away! It will be a true celebration of 2nd October then in 2023 and in the years to come.
The jostle around any Christopher Nolan film in all social circles is not new. As a movie watcher and a follower of Nolan's work since his first film, I was also equally keen to watch and understand the film - "Oppenheimer".
I watched it and did it very sincerely again and again, frame by frame, text by text before writing this narrative. While watching the film again and again, frame by frame all the instagram announced claims of "Oppenheimer" and "Barbie" as two structural breaks in popular mainstream Hollywood film was also at the back of my mind.
However, the more I repeatedly watched the frames of Oppenheimer, those social media noises about the technical excellence, cultural and structural breaks brought in by the two films were toned down. I started watching the frames of - "Oppenheimer" largely as a frame without knowing that it was being made by Christopher Nolan. The names which were all in the illustrious credits of the film also went to a backburner. As slowly and steadily with repeated watching of the film, when the names and texts went towards a sober silence, objectivity of watching the frames of "Oppenheimer" arose.
The frames of the film cinematically have been touted as one of the best ever due to the following ten reasons (amongst many more) by critics and they are - a) Stellar Performances (which is true), b) Thought Provoking Plot (which is true), c) Mushroom Cloud Like Drama with a grand scale character study (i have my doubts behind it), d) the tension, aesthetic and intricate, delicate structure, grand scale, remarkable sound design, visually stunning cinematography (which is true), e) a bold attempt to have zero CGI in modern cinema (which is again true), f) Powerful Story Telling and Impactful Emotional Moments (they are marked by conformation bias and cognitive dissonance), g) Stellar Reviews (which is true but partially as reviews are marked by biases which are psychologically natural), h) philosophical themes on the dark side of technology, nature of war and responsibility of science and scientists towards society (cognitive dissonance comes the most over here), i) Shooting through IMAX 70 mm Camera (which is true), j) A Spartan Approach of Film Making (which is true). Out of these ten reasons, the set of disturbing questions arise from the reasons - b), c), f), g) and h).
To me after repeatedly watching the film, the reasons b, c, f, g, h are the areas which raise disturbing questions about the objectivity in the film. They do raise thoughts but as we know thoughts of humans are natural to be fraught by cognitive biases and cognitive dissonance. It is over here, let me explain simplistically what do I mean by cognitive bias and cognitive dissonance. Cognitive bias is a systematic process of human brain when we simplify information through instinctive emotional experience and preferences and the brain prioritizes and processes large amounts of information quickly often resulting in irrational emotional, impulsive, amygdale responses. The filtering process can act like a coping mechanism in us. Conformation Bias can arise due to - a) Limits to Mind's Attention, b) Individual Motivation, c) Mental Shortcuts like Heuristics, d) Social Conditioning and Pressures. Often therefore this conformation bias can lead to a Cognitive Dissonance where an individual behaviour doesnot align with values or beliefs. It is a common psychological phenomenon which happens to all of us and I am sure it has happened with the lovers, praisers, haters, indifferent, independent viewers of the film - "Oppenheimer".
But if for a moment, we imagine that the audience who has been mostly human (and not any half human and half robot or an AI or a Machinoid or a Robot with a Human Implanted Memory Chip or the Other Way Round), then naturally the reasons, b,c,f,g,h cannot be ignored. In the next few sections, I will further elaborate on this.
Oppenheimer raises a thought provoking plot but the question is - "It is whose Plot and How the Plot is Potrayed? Isn't the Plot which is written or created by a human being for the movie not full of Conformation Bias and Cognitive Dissonance?" - A thorough look on each frame repeatedly makes it quite clear, that inspite of all the other reasons of the excellence of this cinema (intentionally used the word cinema and not film), it is finally a story and a plot which is largely told through "Oppenheimer's Eyes" and Nolan had put the text behind those eyes.
Hence, if it is told through "Oppenheimer's Eyes", then it has to be a subjective interpretation of a larger disturbing thought of the scale of impact the war made, consequences of Oppenheimer's action, his deceit, his love, his cognitive dissonances as a human being across generation and on the world order. Therefore, if it has this limitation of making the story seen through one human being's eye then it cannot be a mushrooming scale drama of the character. The character by itself is self limiting. It is self limiting in the process of story telling as the character's perspective is ruling the frames. In a way therefore, the power of the story and the emotional impact of the story are also self limiting in itself even though it has been touted as the strength of the film. It is because then the power of the story and its emotional impact is a result of the conformational bias and cognitive dissonance of the character - "Oppenheimer" himself.
Then, how can the character capture the grand scale of the interplay of the war between ethics, morality and immorality in its full and half circle. Since, the film gets trapped in this character itself, the frames therefore also cannot escape this vicious cycle even though all the excellence of the cinema and the film are equally true. Moreover, the story is not a simple story. It is like an epic of War with deep philosophical and disastrous impact on the wellbeing of generations, nations. Therefore, in such a context if the Character of the film gets trapped in this vicious cycle of Cognitive Biases and Cognitive Dissonances driven by the same two facets of the creators of the film, the impact of it is much more on the society in an insidious way without the society knowing it. This will be more true as all the ten excellence points of the film are equally true and therefore the cinema can very surreptitiously play with the dissonances and cognitive biases of a society which generally stays half moral, half ethical in all contexts. It is natural to stay like that as a society and it is not a disease but a psychological phenomenon of the society.
Therefore, as Brandon Shimoda, a Japanese American Poet, who is a writer and professor of Hiroshima Library has rightly said - "Audience of Oppenheimer belongs to this society and they will have differing perceptions about it based on their identity". Even without reading Brandon Shimoda, but by just reading Narayan Sanyal's "Bishashghatak", one can clearly say that the story of "Oppenheimer" is half spoken like a half circle through a half moral and half ethics. The loop of the circle is not closed. In a sensitive geopolitical situation of today and in the post truth context of narratives this is a little disturbing and dangerous as the impacts of the half morality of a powerful story telling with a brilliance of cinematic pleasure can be damaging for a society in a post humanistic sense when the world can move towards societal apocalypse and dystopias.
It is over here, going beyond the ten points and reasons of the brilliance of the cinematic excellence of Oppenheimer and a debate of proving one self that - "I am for Oppenheimer Movie or I am not for Oppenheimer Movie" in all social media platforms, it is important to understand why these different perspectives of Us and Them are arising around a movie which has ten reasons of being the best popular cinema ever made.
Someone, like Late Sunil Gangopadhyay needs to come back and do a thorough travel and interview based book like - "Itihasher Shopnobhongo" in the context of "Oppenheimer Movie". In Itihasher Shopnobhongo, Late Sunil Gangopadhyay extensively travelled across the countries of Europe after the Berlin Wall Destruction and explored why people from different parts of Europe are standing for Socialism to Market Economy to a Democracy from different historical and evolutionary perspectives of their identities. A time has come to carry out a detailed study of interviewing the wider audience of "Oppenheimer" to understand the disturbing thoughts and narratives of - "Why People Are Liking or Disliking or Are Indifferent To The Movie - "Oppenheimer"".
The sooner or later it is done, the better it will be amidst the rising geopolitical tensions and war of post truth narratives between the multipolarities of power centers of the World Order!!
Mu(ffin)rco Polo: A Roff Sketch
Dedicated to Roff Senior, Muffin, Polo, Roff Junior and Marco-Polo
Lyrics, poetry, music, piano, performance - Anandajit Goswami , Anandajit Goswami , Anandajit Goswami
When the world shines
Through your eyes
A Roff Sketch
Muffed with heart wrench
Goes to the sky
Marco comes by
Polo does the later
Marco completes Polo's Adventure
As the humans go to war
The Roff Sketch is drawn through Park-er
A little hope comes to
Talk too
Marco Polo Roff
Solves the scoff
The end gets over
A new dream much higher
A frozen heart of 28th November, 2003 was melted by both Levis Jeans and Shahrukh Khan.
It was a Friday and a big day for many of us residing in Jhelum 2 of JNU. Though the room was meant only for two students - Bikram and Anandajit, it was a hive of at least 8- 10 people at any point of time. The hive unfortunately had no queen bee but was only full of worker bees and the ones who had become the same working class people the moment they entered in the room 2. So, it was almost like a transformational room where any one from any corner of the country or class of the society would walk in and spend quality time over film discussions, debates, fiery arguments over movies, sports, politics, any topic of individual and collective choices and then they would come out as equals in-spite of being a very different worker bee of the same hive with their own unique choice and identity.
Often the discussions were not of high pedestal too but it still maintained the boundaries of the journey of banter to casual leg pulling to bullying with utmost sensitivities. The room of Jhelum 2 had a magic to heal the frozen hearts of everyone starting from Masters to PhD students. No one was termed as a junior or senior. Each worker bee of the hive had got a nick name of their own. The language of calling everyone by the nick name levelised the first epistomological boundaries of the politics of calling any one as - "Junior" or "Senior".
No one was Junior or Senior spatially too within the room too. This was due to severe space limitations and hostel room availability crunch. The scarcity of such availability often ensured that the bed for two became the bed of the proletariat of the working bees of the hive. The workers had no queen to instruct but they still had a discipline of maintaining the thin lines between leg pulling, easy banter and traumatic, scaffolding jerks of humiliation for any worker bee. The sounds of the bees were different but yet it was together even though sometimes the chaos of differences, arguments across the worker bees would be like cacophony to the adjoining rooms of just, fair, legitimate capacities of two individuals.
The bees were students with frozen hearts in different ways and forms with wide range of dreams and aspirations. And therefore, when it came to aspiration, Shahrukh Khan was the one to look upto inspite of his over the tone expressions in any Karan Johar movie.
Hence, 28th November, 2003 was special for the bee hive. Kal Ho Na Ho had released in the PVR Priya Complex of Vasant Vihar and the front row tickets of "Just" INR 45 would be for sale from 9.00 am. On a voluntary basis, a consensus emerged within the worker bees on that day. Hence, one Master Student and a PhD student decided to take the task of skipping any other morning task! This was because, the most important task for them was to buy the 9.30 pm show ticket of Kal Ho Na Ho for the second row for all worker bees of the hive. This was because the price was lowest for those seats and when SRK would arrive on the screen the worker bees could become whistling bees together in a low priced seat based on the affordability of worker bees. They might not also risk of getting up together and dancing, as the bees had no fear of stigma of society or taboo. This was because their only identity in the hall would be - "They were worker bees of Jhelum 2 and they would stand for that in front of everyone within the society. No Master's, No PhD Degree, No MPhil Degree, No Other Pedigree or Stratification, Identity, Degree Mattered."
Hence, as planned, 12 tickets were brought mostly by pooling money but the majority of the cost of buying the ticket to get an access to SRK was ensured by the JRF holder PhD student. He took the onus on him that at any cost - SRK should reach the frozen hearts of all worker bees on that day after the drone of bees would reach PVR once their egg curry dinner would be completed by 9.00 pm. Egg Curry on Friday was a delicacy which was far above the Biriyani of Awadh during the hostel days for the worker bees. This was true even though Biriyani was served in the Hostel Nights of JNU.
As planned, egg curry happened by 9.00 pm. Every one was getting ready to be in their best of the dresses to look fashionable within the crowd of PVR Priya so that before SRK would come onto the screen, the bees could start like semi SRKs with a certain potential energy which would be converted into their kinetic energies of dance and whistle while SRK would arrive on the screen. The tempo was building up. Everyone was well dressed.
However, one of the bees was struggling as he did not have a good trouser to match up with a basic trouser standard of PVR Priya of a Friday night of 28th November, 2003. However, the worker was fine with it and was ready to go on a T Shirt and a normal trouser. But, the JRF Holder worker bee was stubborn and wanted the young frozen heart one to meet SRK on screen in the best style. The JRF Holder had also borne the majority of the cost of the advance ticket of Kal Ho Na Ho on the same day and had cross-subsidised many worker bees of Jhelum 2. The JRF Holder rushed to his room on the first floor of Jhelum Hostel. He took out his own "Levis Jeans", ironed it for the young worker bee and came down with the ironed "Levis Jeans". He ensured that the young worker bee would wear the "Levis Jeans" and would go out with him for "Kal Ho Na Ho" of SRK. The other ten started early as the JRF Holder PhD Student or the worker bee didnot tell any other ten bee the reason of why he was late and why he was waiting for the young worker bee.
The other ten worker bee had set out early towards the light and neon of their dreams which were illuminated at the PVR Priya on 28th November, 2003. They wanted to reach their dream - "SRK" as early as possible. The PhD Scholar, JRF Holder worker bee of Jhelum 2 gradually set out together. They were in Levis Jeans together as the PhD Scholar worker bee had another old Levis Jeans which he wore and gave the new one to the young worker bee. The PhD Scholar remarked with his usual quirky, naughty banter by saying - "It is SRK today on a Friday Night at PVR Priya and you ought to be in atleast in Levis". One worker bee wrapped the other worker bee in the same cloth brand to ensure that their collective identity of worker bee from Jhelum 2 would stand out in the social rigmarole of class - dimensions of PVR Priya of a Friday Night Blockbuster of SRK within the dreamy, leafy lands of New York directed by Karan Johar.
A worker ensured that he took care of the other one to make his frozen heart feel special in the eyes of SRK by being in a stylish "Levis". This was JNU, 2003 and the story of the worker bees of Jhelum 2 of JNU.
Today, when Swapno Deep died in the hostel of Jadavpur University, the story of the bee hive could not escape my mind. Any justification of camaraderie, friendship in any institution or institutional form in exchange of short term bullying favors, tokens of pleasure in subversive forms through scaffolding traumatic memories are unpardonable even often they happen casually, loosely in front of our eyes. The perpetual passing of this bullying abuse knowingly, unknowingly is passed onto us and they thrive, survive and move forward in the society through institutions, class, caste and all layers of the society. The elites of different liberal institutions starting from school, colleges and any other form also knowingly, unknowingly starts to get into a self defense syndrom of justifying it highlighting that something is wrong but suicide is also not an option. Sheena Iyenger has done decades of research on - "The Art of Choice" in which she also has identified how scaffolding memories often lead to a choice even though it is not an option. So in any discussion of choice, option and justification a little informed debate on human psychological boundaries with certain self reflection and science ought to happen without taking a stand or passing an opinion. This is because when an event happens it is an outburst of a social form and a transformation of a social scaffolding in the gyrus, hippochampus of societal memory. Hence, instead of creating a coping mechanism structure of passing opinions and justifications by any one it is more important to understand between the nuanced differences between option, choice and on why certain choices happen. Opinionated discussions only does a personification of a coping structure of the choice where each one projects his or her individuality coping structure through the event. However, to come out of the scaffolding of the society, instead of a projection, what is important is an understanding of the reflection followed by a determined rigour to act on the reflection. A bee hive worker structure referred here can often do that through easy banters too but with a very well thought off definition of the boundaries between banter, leg pulling, bullying, teasing to gradual unknown trauma generations. As a society, each one of us go through this journey but a constant reflection can only free up the society from the scaffolds of that. The hive of 2002-2004 had that.
The hive of 2002-2004 also had banters, leg pulling, constant teasing but not at the cost of a drop of tear. It had light moments, teasing of winners and loosers in a bridge game, cricket or football game but it didnot create a mechanism of an exchange offer where one worker bee is going to give an exchange offer of long term support or friendship at the cost of a short term bullying. The danger lies when the society and even every middle class section start to accept this exchange offer as a norm in every form of institution. Even though many of the worker bees of Jhelum 2 were students of Economics, Physics, they never created any offer curve like that, neither they created quantum models where the sensitive dynamics of bee relations in future would be a function of these offer curves. This bee hive of 2002-2004 was spatially and temporally a trip towards one infinity. The infinity was and is called - "Love" even to ensure that a worker bee would meet SRK with a frozen heart but in a Levis Jeans to feel special on a Friday Night.
I wish - "Shawpno-Deep" would have been fortunate enough to be amongst such a hive which I am sure and will like to believe would exist today and in tomorrow too. Otherwise, Friday Night SRK Blockbusters would only have naked bodies and souls and not a healed, covered waist to legs with the cloth of Levis Jeans!!!
“Look onto
him – He is a weirdo and all the time looking at me with blank, scared eyes as
if I am going to eat him!” – This comment was made on a parent – teacher’s meet
of my school to my mother during my transition from class II to class III. The
comment from the class teacher at the age of six for the first time introduced
me to myself and I thought may be its true that a gigantic human being like my
late erstwhile class teacher can actually eat a lean, docile, numb school boy
like me. I also thought may be Nature has given her that power to eat me
up.
The
introduction was in the form of a reflection of another person about me to my
parent in front of me. This one statement created a plethora of self doubt
about my own identity about myself at a very early age. Later on, when I have
thought about it, I have felt privileged to receive such an identity labeler at
an early age as it helped me. In a way, that was the starting point of a
reflexive, immersive, self centric, narcissistic journey within me to actually
start searching myself through words, ideas, creativity, stories and plots. I
started to search stories about myself at an early stage because I started to
become doubtful about my existence at an early age of six when kids generally
enjoy the childhood. The self-absorption had to find out new ways of writing
through Bengali texts, alphabets, expressions, drawings, sketches, lyrical
rhyming (called Chhoras) and I will use them to self- hum a melody internally.
I created a whole new world for myself in my diaries in which I existed along
with my own characters in that world of my diary.
That world
was preserved in my little diaries (there were many of them) and often I was
creating those worlds of mine frequently when I was travelling in Lal Gola
Express to Krishnanagar or in Bidhan Express or Black Diamond Express to
Durgapur. Krishnanagar and Durgapur used to be my Mashi’s and Pishi’s house. A
movement in train to these places meant to me an entry into a whole new world
and not always like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. I was always in tears when
after seven days I had to leave Krishnanagar (my Mashi’s daughter) or had to
leave Durgapur (my Pishi’s daughter) after a month. I was too vulnerable in
everything and everywhere at the same time. The moment I departed from my world
which was created in the train during the journeys’ to Krishnanagar, Durgapur
and I came back to Kolkata, I was in pain and more self immersed to write through
my diary pages. Often, my mom or whoever will accompany me in the train
journey, very un-harmfully wryly comment that – “Look onto our child author
with the diary pretending to be a thinker on the window side of LalGola
Express”.
But I was
not an author or never been an author for that matter. I was in my world of
vulnerability shaken with the crisis of existence and trying to find out a
meaning of self – absorptive expressions
through my diary pages. Many times, I will write gibberish lines like montage
of a sketchy draft for pages with no meaning of a plot or a story. But yes,
there was a story in each line of them. That practice still continues and my
journey of this crisis of existence still exists and has got more acute over
the years. With a larger crisis of existence, more story books of LUCY Trilogy,
Hema (The Measure of Central Tendency), Shapno (Pink Gender, Pink Gender
Extended) have been born. More characters are coming up every day. However, I am only running short of time in a
span of 24 hours. But the gibberish, chaotic expressions of music, academic
papers, journals, books are rising more everyday and more deviation from the
central tendencies are happening. But the future looks not to be gentle and
will only lead to more such characters even though a time of 24 hours will become short for not an Author
but an Expressionist with An Identity Crisis of Vulnerability.
Disclaimer: To be published in a magazine soon
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