Finchu Mama

Then rumours started flowing in. Any and everyone coming from any direction was telling one story or another and some of which was that the muslims were mustering all around the town and the outskirts for attacking the Hindus in the town. In Jalpaiguri town the Hindus were a vast majority. There were hardly more than ten percent muslims after independence and partition of the country. Some ares in the outskirts and adjoining villages there were a number of muslims who were mostly poor farmers with one or two landholders among them. The elders congregated in a meeting on the varanda of Ghatak Bari and after much deliberation it was decided that all women and children would be sent inside the jail compound for their safety and all youngmen would stand on guard at all the places of entrance to our locality with whatever weapons they could gather. Though we were college students but we and all our friends were given the duty of guarding the streets, lanes and by-lanes within the Para mostly guarding our own houses. Jiban Gati Ray, with his double-barrelled gun stood on the ist floow varanda of his huge mansion. My father with his single barrel gun was posted on the crossing in front of Umagati Vidya Mandir. A group under the leadership of Sambhu Mukherjee took position near Raikut Bari More (Street crossing). A group took position near Dinbazar Post Office just near the Bazar er pool. Two other groups assembled at Dhardhara bridge near sub-area school and on the road from Walkergunge. It was a scene when the ladies of our locality with their gold and jewellery bound in a corner of their sarees and small children in hand started walking towards the jail compound water pouring profusely from their eyes and lamenting loudly at the loss of everything in their lives and at the same time giving solace to each other.

Finchu Mama

It was end 1949 or early 1950. I was in Ist year. Gora was my class mate but in science stream. Finchu Mama was in class IX. He was two years my junior. He left Zilla School and was admitted in Fanindra Dev Institution. The political tension was mounting between India and Pakistan. A riot started in East Pakistan. Actually it was not a riot. The muslims in East Pakistan was literally slaughtering Hindus, torturing Hindu women, driving them out by force. Almost lacs of Hindu people were flooding West Bengal every day. They were coming by train, by road, on carts and even on foot. Then a few trains arrived the border and also Sealdah station with a number of wounded and slaughtered dead bodies consecutively for a few days. Obviously the tensions were mounting in West Bengal also. We were getting the news thorough newspapers. There were stories and photographs every day in all the papers. Then suddenly a few dead bodies arrived at our town by train from east Pakistan consecutively for two days. Darjeeling Mail in those days was still following its old route from Sealdah to Darjeeling via Barrackpore, Naihati, Ranaghat and then through Darshana, Poradaha, Iswardi, Santahar, Parbatipur in the then East Pakistan (and now Bangladesh) and then entering India again at Haldibari and reached Siliguri (Siliguri Town Station at present) passing Jalpaiguri on its way. These dead bodies arrived in Darjeeling Mail. The situation in our otherwise very calm and sober town was very tense. Classes in college remained suspended. Then one morning news reached us that looting has started in the Dinbazar area. There were some shops belonging to some muslim people on the main road just in front of Nawab Palace. Some miscreants, taking advantage of the political and communal tension, started looting those shops. One of friends, Laxmi, who went for daily shopping, instead of vegetables and fish etc. was coming back with shoes loaded in his shopping bag. We stopped him in front of our house. When his bag was unpacked we found a number of shoes and sleepers but could not find even a single pair which could fit both feet of a person. Luxmi told us that when he reached the place, looting was in full spree and he just collected and bagged whatever he could lay his hands on. Luxmi felt very ashamed in front of all the people many of whom were the elders.

Finchu Mama

Finchu Mama had a wonderful sense of humour. I shall narrate here a few such examples. The first one is like this : One day Finch mama asked me whether I know how a sikh greets another person or how a sikh is usually greeted by any other person. I did not know. I told him so. Then Finchu mama told me that it is the practice to greet a sikh with the words "Sasuragal Mundia". He also told me "Minu, whenever you see a sikh, greet him with those words. He will be very happy." I was not sure and at that time I did not know any sikh gentleman. After a few years when I visited a tea garden for some work and was in the midst of a discussion with the manager, a sikh gentleman came and met the Manager of the tea garden. The Manager was a marathi. He greeted the sikh gentleman with the words "Sat Sri Akal". The sikh gentleman returned the greetings with the same words "Sat Sri Akal" but his pronunciation appeared to me somewhat like "Satsrigal". In my leisure I pondered over it and then it struck me why Finchu Mama told me to greet a sikh with the words "Sasuragal.....". Most probably he also heard a sikh pronounce the word "Sat Sri Akal" in the same diction as I heard that day and twisted it a bit for me. But even then the word "Mundia" eluded me. It so happened that the same sikh gentleman came to the garden again next day and started a general conversation with me. In no time I became at ease in his company. Then casually I asked him about "Sat Sri Akal". He explained me the meaning of it and admitted that his own pronunciation "Satsrigal" is not very correct, but that is the common practice with many north indians. Then in between conversation I casually asked him about the word "Mundia". He told me that it means "cleaned shaved" and I came to know that a sikh who maintains the five rituals of Kada, Kesh, etc. feel offended if anybody call him "Mundia". When I came together face to face with Finchu Mama, we had a great laughter over it.

Finch Mama

Here is another instance of Finchu Mama's translation hobby. In those days there was a very popular modern bengali song which ran as : Prithibi amarey chaye. Rekhona Bendhe amay. Khule dao priya, kule dao bahu dore.

Finchu Mama translated it : "World wants me, Don't bind me, Open my dearest, Open thy binding."

I now do not remember the other lines. But in the same song there was another line which ran as : "Kato Bodhu kande, Kande koto ashahay". The translation was " How many wives cry, cry how many helpless."

Both of us laughed to our heart's content and enjoyed the exercise.

(more on Finchu Mama to follow......)

Finch Mama

Here is another instance of Finchu Mama's translation hobby. In those days there was a very popular modern bengali song which ran as : Prithibi amarey chaye. Rekhona Bendhe amay. Khule dao priya, kule dao bahu dore.

Finchu Mama translated it : "World wants me, Don't bind me, Open my dearest, Open thy binding."

I now do not remember the other lines. But in the same song there was another line which ran as : "Kato Bodhu kande, Kande koto ashahay". The translation was " How many wives cry, cry how many helpless."

Both of us laughed to our heart's content and enjoyed the exercise.

(more on Finchu Mama to follow......)

Finchu Mama

We were in school in those days. Most probably we were students of class vii or class viii. Finchu Mama suddenly developed a new hobby of translating bengali songs into english and translating names of english/hollywood films into bengali. At this age I do not now remember all. But I can recollect one or two. A new Hollywood film named "Random Harvest" was released. It was a very popular film. We did not see the film but were acquainted with the name of the film. In Finchu Mama's vocabulary the word "harvest" was absent and he therefore thought it to be "Her Best". I do not blame him for this. I knew a number of people in those days who would pronounce it as "Landrum". Finchu Mama was loudly thinking of how "random harvest or " random her best" in his mind could be best translated into bengali. After some deliberations for sometime, he told me "Minu, I think random means "Tal Betal" meaning "no rhyme or reason" or something like that. What do you think?" "May be.", I murmured. So Finchu Mama finally concluded and translated it as "Taal Betaal - i tahar bhalo." (more to follow)....

Finch Mama.

Compared to Finchu Mama, I was a damn bad actor. Yet, I tried my hand in it. My attempt was during a Rabindra Jayanti festival. I was then a student of class VII or class VIII. Gora planned to stage Rabindranath's Dakghar and Badal Da wrote a drama on the early life of Rabindranath when he was mostly kept in charge of the servants in the Tagore House. My sister Bulu played Rabindranath in Badal Da's play and Amal in Dakghar. Finchumama was Amal's Pishomashay and I was doing the role of "Dada Thakur or Kavi" in Dakghar. Gora arranged my dresses with white hair, beard and mustache made with white cotton. The beard and mustache was attached to my chin with some kind of sticky gum. Badal Da's play was very good and all the actors did very well and Bulu was really superb. Dakghar was also going on very well. Then my entrance came. I was wearing a silken cloth in the fashion of a lungi over my half-pant and a punjabi belonging to Gora's father. I looked like a big handi placed on the head of bamboo stick with my beards and all. I was not at all feeling comfortable with my lungi and the beard and mustache. Then the climax happened. It was the scene where I was sitting on a chair beside a cot where Amal was lying. Pishomoshai (Finchmama) and Kaviraj Mashai was attending to Amal. My first dialogue was "Chup karo abishwasi. Some cotton from the mustache was trying to enter my mouth and I was trying to blow it out. I did not use my hand because Gora, our Director, repeatedly told me not to move my limbs too much unnecessarily. So, I was trying to blow it out. My mother, who was sitting on the second row, was trying to draw my attention and ask me not to do what I was doing. After she failed to persuade me to desist from it, she lost her cool, stood up and shouted out " Ei Minu, Hochche ta ki. Sei tokhon theke bosey bosey phu phu korey jachchis?" I thought it discourteous of me not to explain my predicament to my mother's querry. So, I started to get up to reply. In those days it was not considered a good behaviour to give reply to elders while sitting when the elder is on her feet. My lungi fell to the ground and I stood there with a very big punjabi on a half-pant with cotton-white hair, beard, mustache et al on the stage. Everybody including the audience was mesmerised for a moment or two and then burst out laughing. It was a roar. Gora, somehow, managed to draw the drop scene down.