Bengali Quotes

যখন মানুষের খুব প্রিয় কেউ তাকে অপছন্দ, অবহেলা কিংবা ঘৃণা করে তখন প্রথম প্রথম মানুষ খুব কষ্ট পায় এবং চায় যে সব ঠিক হয়ে যাক । কিছুদিন পর সে সেই প্রিয় ব্যক্তিকে ছাড়া থাকতে শিখে যায়। আর অনেকদিন পরে সে আগের চেয়েও অনেকবেশী খুশি থাকে যখন সে বুঝতে পারে যে কারো ভালবাসায় জীবনে অনেক কিছুই আসে যায় কিন্তু কারো অবহেলায় সত্যিই কিছু আসে যায় না।

যে মানব সন্তান ক্ষুদ্র কামনা জয় করতে পারে সে বৃহৎ কামনাও জয় করতে পারে।

Despite the business and auto-rickshaws and bantering Bengalis just beyond his brown front door, Sanjit cultivates a distinct learning environment and energy, one created and galvanized above the tile floors, within the thin walls, below the imperative ceiling fans, and embraced by books.

The truth is you already know what it's like. You already know the difference between the size and speed of everything that flashes through you and the tiny inadequate bit of it all you can ever let anyone know. As though inside you is this enormous room full of what seems like everything in the whole universe at one time or another and yet the only parts that get out have to somehow squeeze out through one of those tiny keyholes you see under the knob in older doors. As if we are all trying to see each other through these tiny keyholes. But it does have a knob, the door can open. But not in the way you think...The truth is you've already heard this. That this is what it's like. That it's what makes room for the universes inside you, all the endless inbent fractals of connection and symphonies of different voices, the infinities you can never show another soul. And you think it makes you a fraud, the tiny fraction anyone else ever sees? Of course you're a fraud, of course what people see is never you. And of course you know this, and of course you try to manage what part they see if you know it's only a part. Who wouldn't? It's called free will, Sherlock. But at the same time it's why it feels so good to break down and cry in front of others, or to laugh, or speak in tongues, or chant in Bengali--it's not English anymore, it's not getting squeezed through any hole. So cry all you want, I won't tell anybody.

I love you যত সহজে বলা যায়- "আমি তোমাকে ভালোবাসি" ততো সহজে বলা যায় না।

ভীতি কখনোই প্রীতির মতো স্থায়ী ফলদায়ক ঔষধ নয়, তবে তাতে সাময়িক উপশম অবশ্যই হয়।

মেয়েদের অনেক গুণের মধ্যে বড় গুণ হলো এরা খুব সুন্দর করে চিঠি লিখতে পারে। কথাবার্তায় নিতান্ত এলোমেলো মেয়েও চিঠি লেখায় গোছানো। মেয়েদের চিঠিতে আরেকটা ব্যাপার থাকে - বিষাদময়তা। নিতান্ত আনন্দের সংবাদ দিয়ে লেখা চিঠির মধ্যেও তারা জানি কী করে সামান্য হলেও দুঃখ মিশিয়ে দেয়। কাজটা যে তারা ইচ্ছা করে করে তা না। প্রকৃতি তাদের চরিত্রে যে বিষাদময়তা দিয়ে রেখেছে তাই হয়তো চিঠিতে উঠে আসে।

দিনকাল পাল্টে গেছে, এখন আর মানুষ আগের মতো নাই।মওলানা ধরনের মানুষের দিকে এখন আর আগের মতো ভয়-মিশ্রিত শ্রদ্ধার চোখে কেউ তাকায় না। মওলানাও যে বিবেচনায় রাখার মতো একজন, কেউ তাও বোধহয় মনে করে না। ছল্টুফল্টু ভাবে।

Of course, I couldn’t explain this vector calculus concept and so, slightly embarrassed in front of Rahul and the other Bengali students, I told Sanjit just that; he had cornered me, and honesty emerged as my only option. Simultaneous to my humiliating disclosure of the truth, Sanjit gradually inched toward where I was sitting. After hearing my reply, he slowly returned to his teacher stool and whiteboard, his back turned away from the class, the suspense building and his words impending, before turning around and breaking into speech, “Don’t trust your interior monologue. If you are asked something and you know it, then express or demonstrate it. Don’t just nod or say yes because then you are lying to yourself. Any ass can say yes, but not all asses can express it.” I modified my first impression: Sanjit was full of explicit aphorisms. Humbled, those words encouragingly rang between my ears for quite some time.

এ ভুল করো না, এ ফুল ছিঁড়ো না, তিলি তিলে গড়ে উঠুক এ উদ্যান।

আমি কখনো অতিরিক্ত কিছুদিন বাঁচার জন্য সিগারেটের আনন্দ ছাড়ার জন্য প্রস্তুত ছিলাম না। আমি ভেবে রেখেছিলাম ডাক্তারকে বলব, আমি একজন লেখক। নিকোটিনের বিষে আমার শরীরের প্রতিটি কোষ অভ্যস্ত। তোমরা আমার চিকিৎসা করো, কিন্তু আমি সিগারেট ছাড়ব না। তাহলে কেন ছাড়লাম? পুত্র নিনিত হামাগুড়ি থেকে হাঁটা শিখেছে। বিষয়টা পুরোপুরি রপ্ত করতে পারেনি। দু-এক পা হেঁটেই ধুম করে পড়ে যায়। ব্যথা পেয়ে কাঁদে। একদিন বসে আছি। টিভিতে খবর দেখছি। হঠাৎ চোখ গেল নিনিতের দিকে। সে হামাগুড়ি পজিশন থেকে উঠে দাঁড়িয়েছে। হেঁটে হেঁটে এগিয়ে আসছে আমার দিকে। তার ছোট্ট শরীর টলমল করছে। যেকোনো সময় পড়ে যাবে এমন অবস্থা। আমি ডান হাত তার দিকে বাড়িয়ে দিতেই সে হাঁটা বাদ দিয়ে দৌড়ে হাতের ওপর ঝাঁপিয়ে পড়ে বিশ্বজয়ের ভঙ্গিতে হাসল। তখনই মনে হলো, এই ছেলেটির সঙ্গে আরও কিছুদিন আমার থাকা উচিত। সিগারেট ছাড়ার সিদ্ধান্ত সেই মুহূর্তেই নিয়ে নিলাম।

An Indian lies in the eyes of the beholder…what you choose to see. You can travel the length and breadth of India, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Mumbai to Kolkota, and not see a single Indian. You will see Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, etc. You will see Maharashtrians, Gujaratis, UPites, Biharis, Bengalis, Tamils, Telugus, Malayalis, etc. Or you will see Indians.

জীবিতদের কেউ মানুষ, আবার কেউ অমানুষ! আর মৃতরা শুধুই লাশ! সেখানে কোনো মনুষ্যত্ব নেই!

It was the English word she used. It was in English that the past was unilateral; in Bengali, the word for yesterday, kal, was also the word for tomorrow. In Bengali one needed an adjective, or relied on the tense of a verb, to distinguish what had already happened from what would be.

হিমু কখনও জটিল পরিস্থিতিতে পড়ে না। ছোটখাট ঝামেলায় সে পড়ে। সেই সব ঝামেলা তাকে স্পর্শও করে না। সে অনেকটা হাসেঁর মত। ঝাড়া দিল গা থেকে ঝামেলা পানির মত ঝরে পড়ল। আমার খুব শখ বড় রকমের ঝামলায় পড়লে সে কি করে। কাজেই হিমুর জন্য বড় ধরনের একটা সমস্যা আমি তৈরি করেছি। এবং খুব আগ্রহ নিয়ে তার কান্ড-কারখানা দেখেছি।

The joke is that one Bengali is a poet, two Bengalis is an argument, three Bengalis is a political party,

যারা মদ খেতে চায় না আমেরিকানরা কখনওই তাদেরকে সেটা খেতে জোরাজুরি করবে না। তবে মদ-খাওয়া বাঙালিদের কথা আলাদা। তারা নিজেরা সেটা খায় বলে অন্যদের খাওয়ানোর জন্যে বাড়াবাড়িতে ব্যস্ত থাকে। বাঙালিদের আসরে তারা অন্য বাঙালিদের জোর করে, তাদের চাপ দেয় এবং না খেলে তাকে নিয়ে টিটকারি-ঠাট্টা-তামাশা করে।

যে মানুষগুলোকে আগে কখনও দেখিনি তাদের থেকে বিদায় নেবার সময় সবার চোখে পানি– এ রকম বিচিত্র ঘটনা বাঙালি ছাড়া অন্য কোনো মানুষের জীবনে ঘটেছে কি না আমার জানা নেই। মাঝে মাঝেই মনে হয়, ভাগ্যিস বাঙালি হয়ে জন্মেছিলাম, তা না হলে কত কিছু যে অজানা থেকে যেত!

If a writer starts worring about what he or she has left out or forgotten, they might not be able to write even a single line.

There was a time when the Bengali language was an angry flood trying to break down her door. She would crawl into a closet and lock herself in, stuffing her ears to shut out those sounds. But a door was no defense against her parents' voices: it was in that language that they fought, and the sounds of their quarrels would always find ways of trickling in under the door and thorugh the cracks, the level rising until she thought she would drown in the flood...The accumulated resentsmnets of their life were always phrased in the language, so that for her its sound had come to represent the music of unhappiness.

আঁধারে প্রেতাত্মাকে তবু বিশ্বাস করা চলে; দু'নম্বর মানুষকে বিশ্বাস করার কোনো কারণ নেই!

Human mental identities are not like shoes, of which we can only wear one pair at a time. We are all multi-dimensional beings. Whether a Mr. Patel in London will think of himself primarily as an Indian, a British citizen, a Hindu, a Gujarati-speaker, an ex-colonist from Kenya, a member of a specific caste or kin-group, or in some other capacity depends on whether he faces an immigration officer, a Pakistani, a Sikh or Moslem, a Bengali-speaker, and so on. There is no single platonic essence of Patel. He is all these and more at the same time.

While Pakistan plunged into civil war, Kissinger looked for massacres committed by Bengalis, to generate a moral equivalence that would exonerate Yahya. It would be convenient for Nixon and Kissinger to be able to say that both sides were equally rotten.

This tradition doesn't exist for Bengalis, naming a son after father or grandfather, a daughter after mother or grandmother. This sign of respect in America ad Europe, this symbol of heritage and lineage, would be ridiculed in India. Within Bengali families, individual names are sacred, inviolable. They are not meant to be inherited or shared.

In Bengali class, Gogol is taught to read and write his ancestral alphabet, which begins at the back of his throat with an unaspirated K and marches steadily across the roof of his mouth, ending with elusive vowels that hover outside his lips

মৃত্যুকে সবচেয়ে বেশি ভালোবাসেন ইশ্বর! নইলে মৃতদের সকল দায় নিজের কাঁধে নেবেন কেন?

If Bengali cuisine were Wimbledon, the hilsa would always play on Centre Court.

In her book Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, Carol Tavris recounts a story about a Bengali cobra that liked to bite passing villagers. One day a swami—a man who has achieved self-mastery—convinces the snake that biting is wrong. The cobra vows to stop immediately, and does. Before long, the village boys grow unafraid of the snake and start to abuse him. Battered and bloodied, the snake complains to the swami that this is what came of keeping his promise. “I told you not to bite,” said the swami, “but I did not tell you not to hiss.” “Many people, like the swami’s cobra, confuse the hiss with the bite,” writes Tavris.

In a sense, I'm used to a kind of linguistic exile. My mother tongue, Bengali, is foreign in America. When you live in a country where your own language is considered foreign, you can feel a continuous sense of estrangement. You speak a secret, unknown language, lacking any correspondence to the environment. An absence that creates a distance within you.

আমরা আমাদের ব্যবসায় ইনভেস্ট করি টাকাপয়সা। কিন্তু আমরা খেয়াল করে দেখি না যে আমাদের জীবনও একটি ব্যবসার মতো। এতে লাভ বা ক্ষতি রয়েছে। কিন্তু এই ব্যবসার মূলধন কিন্তু টাকাপয়সা নয়। জীবনের যে ব্যবসা তাতে মূলধন হলো সময়। আমাদের প্রত্যেককে কিছু সময় পৃথিবীতে মূলধন হিসেবে দেওয়া হয়েছে। এই মূলধনকে কাজে লাগিয়ে আমাদের এ ব্যবসায় লাভবান হতে হবে।

সত্যকে নিজের দাস মনে না করে নিজেকে সত্যের অনুসারী হিসেবে দাঁড় করাতে হবে।

পৃথিবীতে কেউ কারো নয় শুধু সুখে থাকার আশায় কাছে টানার ব্যার্থ প্রত্যয় আর দূরে চলে যাওয়ার এক বাস্তব অভিনয়”।

The intention (of the puja pandals) is not so much to entertain as to disorient and astonish; to tap into the Bengali’s appetite for the bizarre, the uncanny.

Bengali philosopher, poet and composer Rabindranath Tagore: It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.

জীবনযাত্রার মান নিয়ে মানুষের রুচি এবং সংস্কৃতি বিচার এবং তার ভিত্তিতে পরিবারবিশেষের সামাজিক অবস্থান নির্ণয় (যা সবসময়ই নিজেদের তুলনায় নিম্নস্তরে) মধ্যবিত্ত বাঙালি জীবনের এক করুণ প্রহসন।

India's linguistic diversity surprises many Westerners, but there are nearly thirty languages in India with at least a million native speakers. There are more native speakers of Tamil on our planet than of Italian. Likewise, more people speak Punjabi than German, Marathi than French, and Bengali than Russian. There are more Telugu speakers than Czech, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Slovak, and Swedish speakers combined.

A little smile on your face, because you’d just untangled a new translation.” He cleared his throat. “Like this one. Tumi amar jeeboner dhruvotara.” She tilted her head, puzzling over the phrase. “That’s not Hindustani.” “Bengali. It means ‘You are my life’s bright star’ in Bengali.” The sweet words were edged with frustration, not tenderness. His knuckles cracked. “Obviously, I was saving that one. For the right morning.

তাদের খবর কেউ রাখে না এই শহরে; যে সব মানুষ চুপ ক'রে যায় হঠাৎ ক'রে।

ঠিক সময়ে ঠিক কথা বলার দাম এক টাকা, ঠিক সময়ে চুপ করে থাকার দাম দু'টাকা।

Being a Bengali, one is surprised when all the endless spume and froth of talk suddenly reveals itself to be the front of a gigantic wave of action.

The Bengali was the Marwari of the early nineteenth century.

The terrible sacrifice offered to Kali in the name of religion enhanced my desire to know Bengali

She does speak Bengali, doesn't she?" Morrow had asked over the phone. "Sure," I'd said. Actually, Amrita spoke Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, and a little Punjabi as well as German, Russian, and English, but not Bengali.

The Bengalis saw endless bloodshed and trouble from 1947 to 1971 and this culminated in the Liberation War of 1971. The blood of 3 million Bengalis helped earn this freedom and also proved that religion could never be the foundation of a national identity. Language, culture and history provide the foundations for a national identity.

I’ve felt infinity too, late in my twenties, when I discovered a word in English I’d only ever known in Bengali. Or when I spot, with hours still left in the day, the moon’s hazy thumbprint. How the moon enjoys debunking the day.

The Bengali tends to run to brains rather than brawn and does not take kindly to the discipline and order of a hard life; at the same time, he lacks neither courage nor ability, and shines in the higher ranks." Sir Charles Tegart

একটা ভুল মানুষকে হয়তো অনেক কাঁদায়, কিন্তু মনে রাখতে হবে জীবনে এমন কিছু ভুল আছে যা ভবিষ্যতে হাজারটা ভুল থেকে বাচায়”।

পৃথিবীতে কঠিন বাস্তবের মধ্যে একটি বাস্তব হলোঃ মানুষ যখন সাফল্যের দ্বারপ্রান্তে এসে পৌছায় আর তখনই তার প্রিয় মানুষটি হারিয়ে যায়”।

সে কেন জলের মতো ঘুরে-ঘুরে একা কথা কয়?

সবচেয়ে দুর্ধর্ষতম বীরত্বেরও ঘাড়ে একদিন মৃত্যুর থাপ্পড় পড়ে সবচেয়ে রক্তপায়ী তলোয়ারও ভাঙে মরচে লেগে এই সত্যকথাটুকু কোনো মেঘ, কোনো বৃষ্টি, কোনো নীল নক্ষত্রের আলো তোমাকে বলেনি বুঝি?

Sur un même ring de boxe sont réunis Mike Tyson, le champion du monde en titre des poids lourds, et un chômeur bengali sous-alimenté. Que disent les ayatollahs du dogme néolibéral ? Justice est assurée, puisque les gants de boxe des deux protagonistes sont de même facture, le temps du combat égal pour eux, l'espace de l'affrontement unique, et les règles du jeu constantes. Alors que le meilleur gagne ! L'arbitre impartial, c'est le marché. L'absurdité du dogme néolibéral saute aux yeux. (p. 193)

What Raja Ram Mohun Roy began as a reform movment early in the 19th century Devendranath Tagore made into a religion. It transformed the Bengali middle class. Rabindranath Tagore expanded that religion into a culture. And that culture became Nehru’s politics.

In 1879 the Bengali scholar S.M. Tagore compiled a more extensive list of ruby colors from the Purana sacred texts: ‘like the China rose, like blood, like the seeds of the pomegranate, like red lead, like the red lotus, like saffron, like the resin of certain trees, like the eyes of the Greek partridge or the Indian crane…and like the interior of the half-blown water lily.’ With so many gorgeous descriptive possibilities it is curious that in English the two ancient names for rubies have come to sound incredibly ugly.

On 23 June 1757, marching through a drenching rainfall at the head of 900 Englishmen of the 39th Foot and 2000 Indian sepoys, an audacious general named Robert Clive routed the army of a troublesome Nawab in the rice paddies outside a Bengali village called Plassey.

আমি সেই অবহেলা, আমি সেই নতমুখ, নীরবে ফিরে যাওয়া অভিমান-ভেজা চোখ, আমাকে গ্রহণ করো। উৎসব থেকে ফিরে যাওয়া আমি সেই প্রত্যাখ্যান, আমি সেই অনিচ্ছা নির্বাসন বুকে নেওয়া ঘোলাটে চাঁদ। আমাকে আর কী বেদনা দেখাবে?

Samir Singh frequented the pleasure houses of Hazi and Nasreen whenever he had business in Agra. There, Muslim noblemen, Bengali businessmen and Hindu doctors and lawyers smoked hookahs, and ate and drank as the courtesans recited ancient poetry, sang sweet, nostalgic ghazals and performed

অন্তত যথেষ্ট সফলই বলা উচিত এসব 'মাস্টারমাইন্ড' নামধারীদের। কারণ, তাদের প্ল্যান মেধাবীদের পরিণত করেছিল ম্যাশিনে, বীরযোদ্ধাদের অলস নাগরিকে; সেনাপতি হয়ে গেলো বিশ্বস্ত দাস আর লেখক কিংবা আর্টিস্টরা হলেন পোষা প্রাণী অথবা ট্রফি।

Bengali leader, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (who served as Pakistan’s prime minister in 1956) had noted as early as March 1948 that Pakistan’s elite was predisposed to ‘raising the cry of “Pakistan in danger” for the purpose of arousing Muslim sentiments and binding them together’ to maintain its power.

In my case there is another distance, another schism. I don’t know Bengali perfectly. I don’t know how to read it, or even write it. I have an accent, I speak without authority, and so I’ve always perceived a disjunction between it and me. As a result I consider my mother tongue, paradoxically, a foreign language, too. As

It’s not the type of thing Bengali wives do. Like a kiss or caress in a Hindi movie, a husband’s name is something intimate and therefore unspoken, cleverly patched over. And so, instead of saying Ashoke’s name, she utters the interrogative that has come to replace it, which translates roughly as “Are you listening to me?

স্বপ্নেই শুধু দ্বিতীয়বার ফিরে পাওয়া যায় শৈশব। সব ধুলোবালি খোলামকুচি, সব উড়ে-যাওয়া আঁচল রঙিন পরকলা জুড়ে জুড়ে আঁকা সব মুখচ্ছবি বৃষ্টি বাদলের ভিজে গন্ধের ভিতরে লুকিয়ে কাঁদার সুখ। স্বপ্নেই শুধু আরেকবার অগাধ জলের ভিতর থেকে মুখ তুলে তাকায় ছেলেবেলার লাল শালুক।

সবাই মানুষ থাকবে না। কেউ কেউ ধুলো হবে, কেউ কেউ কাঁকর ও বালি খোলামকুচির জোড়াতালি। কেউ ঘাস, অযত্নের অপ্রীতির অমনোযোগের বংশানুক্রমিক দূর্বাদল। আঁধারে প্রদীপ কেউ নিরিবিলি একাকী উজ্জ্বল। সন্ধ্যায় কুসুমগন্ধ, কেউ বা সন্ধ্যার শঙ্খনাদ। অনেকেই বর্ণমালা অল্প কেউ প্রবল সংবাদ।

Besides, there are always pet names to tide one over: a practice of Bengali nomenclature grants, to every single person, two names. In Bengali, the word for pet name is daknam, meaning, literally, the name by which one is called, by friends, family and other intimates, at home and in other private unguarded moments. Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood; a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder; too, that one is a not thing to all people. These are the names by which they are known in their respective families, the names by which they are adored and scolded and missed and loved. Every pet name is paired with a good name, a bhalonam, for identification in the outside world. Consequently, good names appear on envelopes, on diplomas, in telephone directories, and in all other public places. Good names tend to represent dignified and enlightened qualities. Pet names have no such aspirations. Pet names are never recorded officially, only uttered, and remembered. Unlike good names, pet names are frequently meaningless, deliberately silly, ironic, and even onomatopoetic. Often in one’s infancy, one answers unwittingly to dozens of pet names, until one eventually sticks.

The shefali will not bloom until it is time for the pujas.

অতি বিত্তবানদের কাছে রূপ বড় কিছু না কারণ রূপ তারা চারদিকে দেখছে। রূপ তাদের কাছে সহজলভ্য। রূপ নিম্নবিত্তদের জন্যে গুরুত্বপূর্ণ।

ফিরতে পারবো কিনা  - এই ভেবে কত পথ  হাঁটাই হল না।  

যে জানালা আজও বন্ধ আমার, এবারে তা যেন খুলতে পারি। যে রয়েছে শুয়ে ধূলিশয্যায় যেন হাতে ধরে তুলতে পারি। পিছনে যা আছে পিছনেই থাক্, যেন পিছুডাক ভুলতে পারি।

কোথায় লুকাবে মুখ কোন্ নিঃস্ব হৃদয় গভীরে কোথায় মেলাবে তুমি দৃষ্টিভ্রান্ত বিক্ষত হৃদয় যতবার তুমি চাও মেঘ ভাঙা রৌদ্রের বিভাস সন্ধ্যার সন্ধানী হাত খুঁজে আনে রাত্রির সংশয়।

ঘরেই যারা যাবার তারা কখন গেছে ঘরপানে, পারে যারা যাবার গেছে পারে; ঘরেও নহে, পারেও নহে, যে জন আছে মাঝখানে সন্ধ্যাবেলা কে ডেকে নেয় তারে?

যে ভালোবাসার মাঝে হারানোর ভয় থাকে আর সে কথা ভেবে দুজনেই কাঁদে সে ভালোবাসা হচ্ছে প্রকৃত ভালোবাসা”।

সব কথা শেষ হলে ফিরে যাবো, একটি চোখ রেখে যাবো শিথানের জানালায়। সব কথা শেষ হলে করাঘাত জাগাবে তোমায়, তুমি এসে খুলবে দুয়ার— দ্যাখা হবে না।

কবিতা, তোমাকে ছেড়ে কতকাল বেঁচে-বর্তে আছি! তা-ব'লে আমাকে কিন্তু তুমি ছেড়ে থেকো না, আমাকে তোমার বুকের মধ্যে হেলায়-ফেলায় পুষে রেখো। তুমি ঘর ছেড়ে গেলে আমি কোন্ বানপ্রস্থে যাবো?

মনে পাপ থাকার এই একটা লক্ষণ। মনে হয়, সকলে বুঝি সব জানে। সাপ উঠিয়া পড়ার আশঙ্কায় কেঁচো খুঁড়িবার চেষ্টাতেও মানুষ ইতস্তত করে।

What had driven the litigation-loving Bengali to turn his gentle green valley into a pocket edition of hell?' John Younie, the judge who tried the Chittagong Armoury Raid Case.

আমাদের দুঃস্মৃতিগুলো গেঁথে ফেলার ছুঁচ আমাদের মন্থরতাগুলো উস্কে দেওয়ার ছুঁচ আমাদের বিভ্রান্তিগুলো রিফু করার ছুঁচ আমাদের দুঃস্বপ্নগুলো গেলে দেওয়ার ছুঁচ তুমি কি হাতে পেয়ে গেছ? সত্বর জানাও

The Demon Slayers and Other Stories: Bengali Folktales by Sayantani DasGupta (that’s me) and Shamita Das Dasgupta (that’s my mom). New York, NY: Interlink, 1995. The Ghost Catcher by Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss. Atlanta, GA: August House, 2008. The Buri and the Marrow by Henriette Barkow. London, UK: Mantra Lingua, 2000. Tuntuni, the Tailor Bird by Betsy Bang. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books, 1978.

I think that a kind of guilt works at a subconscious level in the minds of the Bengalis regarding the women tortured during the Liberation War. The War went on only for nine months, it was the responsibility of the people of that liberated nation that the period of torture was lengthened beyond that for these women. This is presented to the reader in my novel Talaash, by narrating the story of 30 years of that post-War abuse. Maybe because there was a subconscious guilt about it, readers didn't reject it, they've tried to assimilate it to their own emotions. Such an indication is quite clear in the testimonials of the jury board, reviews of Talaash or reader feedback that I've received on a personal level. Talaash is perhaps a successful book in that it awakened sleeping consciences. But if such a situation should arise again, there's no guarantee that they're not going to behave the same way. In fact, it's more than probable that they will. Because the fault at the root, that issue of satittyo or the honor of women—that remains unresolved. (Interview in Eclectica Magazine, 2007)

In Bilaath, I said. Bilaath, or Vilayet as it has otherwise been transcribed into English, derives from Persian and Ottoman Turkish, in which the word meant governorate or district. In Bengali, the word is used to refer to Britain. In fact, one English colloquial name for Britain, Blighty, somewhat archaic these days and mainly reserved for comedy, is derived from the word Bilaath, which was current in India in the time of the British Raj.

The truth is you already know what it’s like. You already know the difference between the size and speed of everything that flashes through you and the tiny inadequate bit of it all you can ever let anyone know. As though inside you is this enormous room full of what seems like everything in the whole universe at one time or another and yet the only parts that get out have to somehow squeeze out through one of those tiny keyholes you see under the knob in older doors. As if we are all trying to see each other through these tiny keyholes. But it does have a knob, the door can open. But not in the way you think. But what if you could? Think for a second — what if all the infinitely dense and shifting worlds of stuff inside you every moment of your life turned out now to be somehow fully open and expressible afterward, after what you think of as you has died, because what if afterward now each moment itself is an infinite sea or span or passage of time in which to express it or convey it, and you don’t even need any organized English, you can as they say open the door and be in anyone else’s room in all your own multiform forms and ideas and facets? Because listen — we don’t have much time, here’s where Lily Cache slopes slightly down and the banks start getting steep, and you can just make out the outlines of the unlit sign for the farmstand that’s never open anymore, the last sign before the bridge — so listen: What exactly do you think you are? The millions and trillions of thoughts, memories, juxtapositions — even crazy ones like this, you’re thinking — that flash through your head and disappear? Some sum or remainder of these? Your history? Do you know how long it’s been since I told you I was a fraud? Do you remember you were looking at the respicem watch hanging from the rearview and seeing the time, 9:17? What are you looking at right now? Coincidence? What if no time has passed at all?* The truth is you’ve already heard this. That this is what it’s like. That it’s what makes room for the universes inside you, all the endless inbent fractals of connection and symphonies of different voices, the infinities you can never show another soul. And you think it makes you a fraud, the tiny fraction anyone else ever sees? Of course you’re a fraud, of course what people see is never you. And of course you know this, and of course you try to manage what part they see if you know it’s only a part. Who wouldn’t? It’s called free will, Sherlock. But at the same time it’s why it feels so good to break down and cry in front of others, or to laugh, or speak in tongues, or chant in Bengali — it’s not English anymore, it’s not getting squeezed through any hole. So cry all you want, I won’t tell anybody.

Their primary idea was the old Bengali idea of the Motherland, the idea that Bengal had given to the rest of India, Debu said: the idea that India had to be a country one could be proud of. The idea had decayed in Bengal since independence, Debu said. ‘In my class the idea is still there, but it is a remnant of the past – considered an anachronism – and in the class above, the industrialists and businessmen, the idea exists more or less as a negative quantity.

বিদেশে বাঙালি মানেই সজ্জন, একথা যেমন সত্যি, তেমনি বাঙালি বিদেশে গিয়েও দলাদলি ভুলতে পারে না, সেটাও সত্যি। বাংলাদেশ থেকে কেউ আমেরিকা গেলে, যে শহরেই যান, সেখানকার বাসিন্দা বাঙালিরা তাঁদের আদর আপ্যায়ন সংবর্ধনার কোনো ত্রুটি রাখেন না। আবার আমেরিকার বাঙালিরা একসঙ্গে মিলেমিশে একটামাত্র সমিতি বা দলের মধ্যে থেকে কাজ করতে পারেন না। বাঙালি অধ্যুষিত প্রায় শহরেই দেখা যায় - একের অধিক সাংস্কৃতিক সংগঠন রয়েছে। এক দলের সঙ্গে অন্য দলের মৌখিক সদ্ভাব থাকলেও ভেতরে দলাদলি রেষারেষি রয়েছে।

এসো। ছোঁও। সম্পূর্ণ পাথর হয়ে গেছি কিনা, দ্যাখো। পাথরের বুক থেকে মাংস নাও, পাঁজরের রিডে রিডে চাপ দাও দশটি আঙুলে, আমাকে বাজাও তুমি বিঠোফেন-বালিকার হাত, বলো— আমি প্রত্ন নই, নই অন্ধ, জমাট খনিজ, বলো— সব শেষ নয়, এখনও আমার কিছু সম্ভাবনা আছে।

বাড়ি বানানোর জন্য মানুষ রড-সিমেন্ট ইত্যাদি ব্যবহার করে ঠিকই। কিন্তু বাড়ি বানানো বাদ দিয়ে যদি মানুষ এসব রড, সিমেন্ট, কংক্রিট বা সুরকি পেয়েই খুশি থাকে, এগুলোই কিনতে থাকে আরও বেশি করে এবং এ নিয়েই গর্ব করতে থাকে, তাহলে ভাবুন ব্যাপারটা কত হাস্যকর হবে। আল্লাহকে খুশি না করে দুনিয়ার ভোগ বিলাসে মত্ত হয়ে থাকা বা এ নিয়ে প্রতিযোগিতায় লিপ্ত থাকা এমনই একটি হাস্যকর কাজ।

Shafiul's English, it must be said, is limited (although as one wag pointed out, not as limited as his interrogators' Bengali). So when he was asked whether he had deliberately tried to disrupt Trott's elongated guard-taking procedure by aborting his own run-up, he insisted there had been no plan. Pushed moments later on whether [Jamie] Siddons had spoken to the team about the need to disrupt Trott's elongated guard-taking process, Shafiul nodded jubilantly. We were left none the wiser.

In her book Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, Carol Tavris recounts a story about a Bengali cobra that liked to bite passing villagers. One day a swami—a man who has achieved self-mastery—convinces the snake that biting is wrong. The cobra vows to stop immediately, and does. Before long, the village boys grow unafraid of the snake and start to abuse him. Battered and bloodied, the snake complains to the swami that this is what came of keeping his promise. “I told you not to bite,” said the swami,

The truth is you've already heard this. That this is what it's like. That it's what makes room for the universes inside you, all the endless inbent fractals of connection and symphonies of different voices, the infinities you can never show another soul. And you think it makes you a fraud, the tiny fraction anyone else ever sees? Of course you're a fraud, of course what people see is never you. And of course you know this, and of course you try to manage what part they see if you know it's only a part. Who wouldn't? It's called free will, Sherlock. But at the same time it's why it feels so good to break down and cry in front of others, or to laugh, or speak in tongues, or chant in Bengali--it's not English anymore, it's not getting squeezed through any hole.

এক একদিন ঘুম ভাঙার পর মাথায় বেঠোফেনের অগ্নিজটাময় চুল, আর মুখের দুপাশে মায়াকভস্কির হাঁড়িকাঠের মতো চোয়াল, চোখের ভিতরে বোদলেয়ারের প্রতিহিংসাপরায়ণ চোখ, মনের ভিতরে জীবনানন্দের প্রেমিক চিলপুরুষের মন, আর হাসির ভিতরে রেমব্রান্টের হিসেব-না-মেলানো হাসির চুরমার!

অকৃতজ্ঞতা মানুষের জন্য একটি কমন ব্যাপার, এটি তার অন্তর্গত একটি রোগ। যদি অন্তরের দেখাশোনা সে না করে তাহলে অন্তর সৃষ্টিকর্তা ও পালনকর্তার প্রতি অকৃতজ্ঞই থেকে যাবে। এ অনেকটা আপনার বাসার ধুলোর মতো। ফেলে রাখলে ধুলো জমতেই থাকবে। এমন নয় যে ধুলো জমাতে হলে আপনাকে কিছু করতে হবে। বরং ধুলো পরিষ্কার করার উদ্যোগটা আপনাকেই নিতে হবে। আপনাকেই প্রতিদিন ঘর পরিষ্কার করতে হবে। নতুবা ধুলো জমবে। আমাদের মনও যেন আমাদের ঘরগুলোর মতোই। ফেলে রাখুন, তাহলে সে রবের প্রতি অকৃতজ্ঞ থেকে যাবে। আমাদেরও তাই নিয়মিত মনের অবস্থা পরীক্ষা করে সেটাকে ঘষে-মেজে অকৃতজ্ঞতার ময়লা সরাতে হবে। এমন নয় যে মনকে ফেলে রাখলে সে নিজে থেকেই কৃতজ্ঞ রয়ে যাবে।

That it’s what makes room for the universes inside you, all the endless inbent fractals of connection and symphonies of different voices, the infinities you can never show another soul. And you think it makes you a fraud, the tiny fraction anyone else ever sees? Of course you’re a fraud, of course what people see is never you. And of course you know it’s only a part. Who wouldn’t? It’s called free will, Sherlock. But at the same time it’s why it feels so good to break down and cry in front of others, or to laugh, or speak in tongues, or chant in Bengali- it’s not English anymore, it’s not getting squeezed through any hole.

a country which would never exist except by the efforts of a phenomenal collective will—except in a dream we all agreed to dream; it was a mass fantasy shared in varying degrees by Bengali and Punjabi, Madrasi and Jat, and would periodically need the sanctification and renewal which can only be provided by rituals of blood.

মনে রাখব না এই আকাঙ্ক্ষার তীব্র ভাষাগুলি, তীব্রতর সুখ আর তীব্রতম যন্ত্রণার কথা— রক্তের গভীর স্রোত ঘিরে থাকবে অপার শূন্যতা, বর্ণহীন অন্ধকার মেলে ধরবে অস্থির অঙ্গুলি। সব ফেলে একদিন চলে যাব, প্রেম-স্মৃতি-ঘৃণা— আনন্দ-বিষাদ, সব ; জানবে না তুমি কোনোকালে। পরবাসী হাওয়া এসে বলে যাবে, হে করুণাহীনা, বিচ্ছেদের শেষ স্পর্শ থাকবে কোন্ তমালের ডালে।

He admired his servants’ compassion and was not about to stop them. Blood later said: We were also harboring, all of us were harboring, Bengalis, mostly Hindu Bengalis, who were trying to flee mostly by taking refuge with our own servants. Our servants would give them refuge. All of us were doing this. I had a message from Washington saying that they had heard we were doing this and to knock it off. I told them we were doing it and would continue to do it. We could not turn these people away. They were not political refugees. They were just poor, very low-class people, mostly Hindus, who were very much afraid that they would be killed solely because they were Hindu.

Honesty never was the best policy.That proverb was only intended for those who had no money,no dignity and no suitable standard of living.Don't give me such shoddy talk.Honesty breeds objectionable implications.If we were always honest with each other,we would have more enemies,there would be no point in achieving our goals,there would be more suicides and above all every person's weaknesses would be exposed.

Can’t say my Uttarpara ancestral home isn’t my homeland, I know unidentified bodies, their eyes plucked out, float by in the Ganga. Can’t say my aunt’s Ahiritola isn’t my homeland, I know abducted girls are bound and gagged in Sonagachi nearby. Can’t say my uncle’s at Panihati isn’t my homeland, I know who was killed, and where, in broad daylight. Can’t say my adolescent Konnagar isn’t my homeland, I know who was sent to cut whose throat. Can’t say my youth’s Calcutta isn’t my homeland, I know who threw bombs, set fire on buses, trams. Can’t say West Bengal isn’t my homeland, I’ve the right to be tortured to death in its lock-ups, I’ve the right to starve and have rickets in its tea gardens, I’ve the right to hang myself at its handloom mills, I’ve the right to become bones buried by its party lumpen, I’ve the right to have my mouth taped, silenced, I’ve the right to hear the leaders sprout gibberish, abuse, I’ve the right to a heart attack on its streets blocked by protestors, Can’t say Bengali isn’t my homeland.

In her book Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, Carol Tavris recounts a story about a Bengali cobra that liked to bite passing villagers. One day a swami—a man who has achieved self-mastery—convinces the snake that biting is wrong. The cobra vows to stop immediately, and does. Before long, the village boys grow unafraid of the snake and start to abuse him. Battered and bloodied, the snake complains to the swami that this is what came of keeping his promise. “I told you not to bite,” said the swami, “but I did not tell you not to hiss.

Did I regret Cyrus’s whiteness? Truth be told, sometimes I did. If Cyrus was Bengali, I wouldn’t have to explain why chewing on the end of a drumstick was perhaps the best part of a meal, or why there were outside clothes and inside clothes and in-between clothes that you wore when you got home but weren’t ready for bed. I wouldn’t have to explain all the complicated rules about where you can and can’t put your feet, and that he could maybe kiss me in front of my parents but not on the mouth and certainly never with tongue. But what I found infinitely worse was trying to gauge whether a man had just the right amount of brown in him. He had to know about drumsticks and shoes and not hate himself, but he also couldn’t be too in love with his mother or imagine that I would change more diapers than him or ever, ever be charmed by the thought of me in a hijab. He had to be three parts Tagore, one part Drake, one part e e cummings, and that’s not even getting into whether I got a rise from smelling his face. So no, I didn’t want to ponder Cyrus’s whiteness, I just wanted to enjoy his scent and his perfectly sized dick and the fact that, of all the people I had ever met in my whole life, he felt the most like home.

Shubha let me sleep for a few moments in your violent silvery uterus Give me peace, Shubha, let me have peace Let my sin-driven skeleton be washed anew in your seasonal bloodstream Let me create myself in your womb with my own sperm Would I have been like this if I had different parents? Was Malay alias me possible from an absolutely different sperm? Would I have been Malay in the womb of other women of my father? Would I have made a professional gentleman of me like my dead brother without Shubha? Oh, answer, let somebody answer these Shubha, ah, Shubha Let me see the earth through your cellophane hymen Come back on the green mattress again As cathode rays are sucked up with the warmth of magnet's brilliance I remember the letter of the final decesion of 1956 The surroundings of your clitoris were being embellished with coon at that time Fine rib-smashing roots were descending into your bosom Stupid relationship inflted in the bypass of senseless neglect Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah I do not know whether I am going to die Squandering was roaring within heart's exhaustive impatience I'll disrupt and destroy I'll split all into pieces for the sake of Art There isn't any other way out for poetry except suicide Shubha Let me enter into the immemorial incontinence of your labia majora Into the absurdity of woeless effort In the golden chlorophyll of the drunken heart Why wasn't I lost in my mother's urethra? Why wasn't I driven away in my father's urine after his self-coition? Why wasn't I mixed in the ovum-flux or in the phlegm? With her eyes shut supine beneath me I felt terribly distressed when I saw comfort seize Shubha Women could be treacherous even after unfolding a helpless appeareance Today it seems there is nothing so treacherous as Women and Art Now my ferocious heart is rinning towards an impossible death Vertigoes of water are coming up to my neck from the pierced earth I will die Oh what are these happening within me? I am failing to fetch out my hand and my palm From the dried sperms on my trousers spreading wings 300000 children are gliding toward the district of Shubha's bosom Millions of needles are now running from my blood into Poetry Now the smuggling of my obstinate leg is trying to plunge Into the death killer sex-wig entangled in the hypnotic kingdom of words In violent mirrors on each wall of the room I am observing After letting loose a few naked Malay, his unestablished scramblings.

The years of disillusion, the long debate of who-belongs-to-who, gathered at the mighty feet of the Bangladesh Liberation War like flood waters rising, gathering thick weeds and crusty dirt and pulling it all in one direction. At times, when the body count was high and the air tasted like bloody ash, the way mass graves smell, Sariyah had wondered what progress was supposed to taste like. Often it tasted like unanswered questions, stuck in the teeth. Bangladesh had given her the true answer, though: progress at its best is home-grown. It should taste like joy – pure, unhindered joy. Like the freshest sun-ripened mango on a tree, a little sunrise in her palm.

What was the name of that editor of Janata? 1961: On the front page, he wrote: “Won’t last, won’t last!” Him? Maybe he is called Mogambo. Then 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966 Who was that short man, wrote in the daily literary supplement “That? How long will that last? Won’t last.” What was his name? That man, at the Esplanade book stall Can’t remember? Where did he go, that man? In a famous little magazine he wrote— Him? Maybe he is called Dr Dang Then 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 Can’t recall? Thick glasses, a swift stride— Him? Maybe he is called Gabbar Singh Why can’t you remember the names their fathers gave them? Forgotten in just 50 years? Where did they go? And that fellow who wore loose trousers and a bush shirt And wrote so many times: “Won’t last, won’t last.” Then 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 What? Can’t remember yet? What a strange fellow you are! So many writers, editors, poets repeatedly Wrote: “Won’t last, won’t last, won’t last too long People will forget soon.” And yet you struggle To recall their names? Then let it be! Let Mogambo, Dr Dang and Gabbar Singh Be their names in the history of Bengalis.

The Bengali poet Ganga Ram in his Maharashta Purana gave a fuller picture of the terror they inspired. ‘The people on earth were filled with sin,’ he wrote, ‘and there was no worship of Rama and Krishna. Day and night people took their pleasure with the wives of others.’ Finally, he wrote, Shiva ordered Nandi to enter the body of the Maratha king Shahu. ‘Let him send his agents, that sinners and evil doers be punished.’29 Soon after: The Bargis [Marathas] began to plunder the villages and all the people fled in terror. Brahmin pandits fled, taking with them loads of manuscripts; goldsmiths fled with the scales and weights; and fishermen with their nets and lines – all fled. The people fled in all directions; who could count their numbers? All who lived in villages fled when they heard the name of the Bargis. Ladies of good family, who had never before set a foot on a road fled from the Bargis with baskets on their heads. And land owning Rajputs, who had gained their wealth with the sword, threw down their swords and fled. And sadhus and monks fled, riding on litters, their bearers carrying their baggage on their shoulders; and many farmers fled, their seed for next year’s crops on the backs of their bullocks, and ploughs on their shoulders. And pregnant women, all but unable to walk, began their labour on the road and were delivered there. There were some people who stood in the road and asked of all who passed where the Bargis were. Everyone replied – I have not seen them with my own eyes. But seeing everyone flees, I flee also. Then suddenly the Bargis swept down with a great shout and surrounded the people in their fields. They snatched away gold and silver, rejecting everything else. Of some people they cut off the hand, of some the nose and ears; some they killed outright. They dragged away the most beautiful women, who tried to flee, and tied ropes to their fingers and necks. When one had finished with a woman, another took her, while the raped women screamed for help. The Bargis after committing all foul, sinful and bestial acts, let these women go.