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.

Finchu Mama

Finchu Mama was just three months my senior. He was very simple at heart and relied on my judgement in many matters. He was an average student like us but had the unique talent in acting in school days. He was also very good at recitation of poems and every year participated at the "Kala Protiyogita" held at Arya Natya Samaj and earned prizes. I still remember his acting in the role of villain in a drama on the life of Maharaj Nanda Kumar enacted by the students at Zilla School. He was possibly a student of class V or Vi at that time. It was so good that everybody appreciated it. Our friend Gora (brother of Left Front minister and Forward Bloc leader Late Nirmal Bose, our beloved Badal Da.) was Nanda Kumar and another boy did Warren Hastings. Finch Mama's role was comparatively very small as a witness in the case against Nanda Kumar. But he did a wonderful job. In later years, however, he did not persue this line. In fact he never persued those points where he had a talent. There was a time when he started wrting short stories and those were really something wonderful. He became very popular as a story writer, particularly among the girls and ladies. I do not know whether any of his stories have been preserved. Those were mostly published in the magazine published by Danpiteder Ashar and edited by Dr. Sarajit Bagchi. (More on Finch Mama...to follow).

Busy.

I was otherwise busy and could not post anything for quite sometime. I will now try to come back again.

Memoirs of another day - A. Roy Mukherjee.

The other most exciting event of this period was the 1942 movement. We were then at Rampurhat, a small town in the Birbhum district. One day a procession was passing through the street in front of our house. I was standing at the gate of our house. Bhola Da, my father’s official orderly was also standing beside me. There were a number of Santhal adibashis joining the procession and shouting slogans. Suddenly a very tall and stout person from those people took me away on his shoulder and started dancing and chanting slogans. I enjoyed it very much. Bhola Da was running side by side and urging the person to leave me alone. The procession halted near the local Police Station. The agitation increased to a crescendo. Bhola Da, somehow, managed to take me away from that person and we came back home. But we could see everything clearly from our house, as the Police Station was not very far. However, nothing much happened that day and after sometime the procession passed peacefully.