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Jun 24, 2012 P2
1
A FOUR-roofed building – our main house – was being built at Bejkuchi village in Pat- acharkuchi. Only its upper portion was completed then. There, on the east- ern side, I had put up some old reed walls for a room where I could live and study. The remaining part was all emp- ty; on one end was a chalpeera (a large bench) that was used by our Bihari ser- vant, Chinan, for sleeping. A couple of benches or so and an armchair were also kept there for guests. One night I went to bed after eating food; I was just about to sink into post- dinner sleep when a man came and flopped down on a bench. Chinan was lolling on the chalpeera, chewing to- bacco. Seeing the man, he came to call me. I woke up after he had called out to me once or twice. I saw a tall, stoutly built man, shabbily dressed; he looked like a tribal villager. One could easily guess, by the look of him, that he was overcome with hunger and fatigue. His loincloth hung down to his knees; he had a sleeveless shirt on, and his head was covered with a Kachari gamosa. Before I asked him anything, he said, “Bapu, will I get a little food? I haven’t eaten anything today. My stomach is growling. I have lost my pair of plough- ing bulls. I went around looking for them in Dhamdhamak. You know, pita, I have bad luck. I will have to travel a very long distance.” The man let out a deep sigh. Without saying anything to him, I went to my mother and told her about his pres- ence. I asked Chinan to fetch a plantain leaf. Chinan was a short, thick-set man. How will he manage to reach plantain leaves at night? Yet, he hesitantly went out with a dao. Just then the tall, sturdy man took the dao from him and chopped a leaf off a plantain plant which was near the house. A pani-peera (wooden stool) was already placed on the kitchen ve- randa. The man washed his hands and mouth with the water drawn by Chinan from the well in the front yard. As my mother began to serve him rice, the tall, stout man picked up the plantain leaf from the veranda and spread it in the yard. He said, “Aai (mother), it’s OK. I’ll have food in the yard itself.” He didn’t sit on the pani-peera either. He took wa- ter only from a lota (a narrow-necked water vessel) and asked for a pinch of salt and a few chillies. He seemed to eat the rice contentedly. He also didn’t put the lota to his mouth; he drank water noisily from the lota, holding it vertically above his mouth. Then he swept with cow dung the place where he had taken food. Af- ter that, he smoked a chillum of tobac- co with Chinan. He also chewed a piece of betel nut gratifyingly. The man bowed down to my mother before taking leave of us. “It’s midnight. Where will you go now?” My mother wanted to stop him travelling in the dead of night. He re- fused to obey her, and said, “No, aai! Nothing will happen to me. The night is lit like a day by a full moon, so trav- elling won’t be a problem for me. My daughter is also sick. I can’t but go. Aai, I’m feeling reinvigorated after eating rice here. May God bless you all!” The wayfarer disappeared into the darkness. After getting up early in the morning, I came out to our front yard, cleaning my teeth with a twig (of shawara plant). I saw two policemen going towards the other end of our village. Police regularly patrolled the area like that at night. Af- ter sometime, the two police person- nel returned and stopped near the bars at our gate. “Did you see anyone looking like a leader come this way last night?” they asked me. “No. We don’t know.” “We have heard about Bishnu Rabha visiting this village.” “Bishnu Rabha!” I was speechless! The two policemen went away. We still thought our guest of the previous night was some villager who was hunting for his bulls. Some days later, a rumour spread that Bishnu Rabha knew a boy of a family in the northern neighbourhood of our vil- lage. The boy was not at home that day. Rabha might have come to stay the night in his house. The old man of the family knew that, but he turned the man away, leaving him disheartened. Someone of that family was said to have informed the police of the matter before dawn. Only then did we know that the man who had come disguised as a simple villager in search of cattle was none other than Bishnu Rabha. I remember a few other events that took place in similar situations… It was an incident of another night. We had just had rice; the utensils were yet to be cleared. We used to eat dinner a little late in those days, and by the time we had food at night other villagers would fall into deep sleep. On one such occa- sion, a man arrived at our house. He ap- peared to be a leader-like person. He had a huge body and was wearing a white baggy shirt made of khaddar (home- spun) cloth. His loincloth reached down as far as his calves; a large turban sat on his head. And he was holding a long stick. He was also given food in the kitchen. After having his meal, the man sat in the armchair at the empty house outside chewing betel nut with satisfaction. He also got his hands on Chinan’s tobacco pouch before smoking a roll-up of a chillum of tobacco. Moreover, he joked and shared a few words with us. As the night was growing old, I asked him to lie down on my bed. “No thanks, bopai. I need to get going now. I’ll speak to your mother after she has taken dinner and then leave your house. You know, the police are after us.” On seeing my mother come out of the house, the largely built guest of the night paid obeisance to her, and said, “Aai, I’ll go now. Please don’t mind if I trou- bled you.” At last, he said softly, “I’m Bishnu Rab- ha. Please don’t say anything to any- one at this hour. I’ll have no problem when the day breaks; I’ll be too far away.” The mystery man vanished into the darkness. I had not seen the real Bishnu Rabha for quite a few years since then. ❚ POST script JUNE 24, 2012 SEVEN SISTERS NELit review 2 FIFTH WALL UDDIPANA GOSWAMI Literary Editor Bishnu Rabha, etiya kiman rati? B ISHNU Rabha was a soldier and artist. To free poor peas- ants from the shackles of poverty, he had used all mediums, all weapons: a sten gun, an easel and his talent for acting on the stage and in films. He had realised that there was no greater penance than striv- ing for the freedom of people in its truest sense. To live his dream, he had even taken up arms, but he had never – nor did his companions – used the gun to kill people indis- criminately because he understood that people would one day fight for their own cause. Bishnu Rabha, be- cause of his looks and personality, could blend with the people of As- sam very easily, and that is why he was so loved and could become Pherengadao Abou. Unlike many of his contemporaries – especially mid- dle-class youth – he hadn’t joined the battle for social equality out of a romantic fascination for it; for him, it was the most spontaneous re- sponse to inequalities in society, straight from his heart. During those days, when Rabha used to roam the hills and plains of Assam with a sten gun in his hands, singing songs, the Assam govern- ment had announced a bounty of many thousands of rupees in return for his head. Since he was a ‘com- munist’, most of the middle-class Assamese people had distanced themselves from him. As far as I can remember, the Assamese periodi- cals didn’t publish many of his works, including discussions on them, during his lifetime. It was only when he was bedridden for a while, before his death in 1969, that there were some discussions about his cre- ative works and his activism; they were published in magazines such as Asom Bani, Saptahik Nilachal and Asom Batori. However, the only ex- ception was Amar Pratinidhi, edit- ed by Bhupen Hazarika. I remem- ber in one of the issues of this mag- azine Hazarika had written an edi- torial entitled “Brave Bishnuda” (Rabha was bedridden then). When he passed away, Bhupen Hazarika published a special issue on Bishnu Rabha’s life and works and then, on July 20, another editorial under the title of “Rabha, Moon and Bank”. July 20 1969 was a historic date not just because Rabha’s addya shrad- dha probably took place that day, but also because it was the day Neil Armstrong had landed on the Moon. It was also a historic date for India because prime minister Indira Gand- hi had nationalised fourteen private banks that day. Bishnu Rabha was honoured a lit- tle before and after his death in 1969 by the establishment of As- sam. But it was a different Rabha in 1962. That year, the police dragged him through the main street of Tezpur city with a rope tied around his waist before throw- ing him in jail, perhaps because the government thought he would sup- port China during the Sino-Indian war. (I don’t know if a single soul from the Assamese middle class had protested against his arrest in 1962. I will be happy if somebody proves me wrong.) Later, he was rechristened “Kolaguru” (Guru of Arts), but his fate in 1962 was syn- onymous with that of the exploit- ed peasants, workers and labour- ers of Assam. Rabha was always alert to such an eventuality, and that is the reason why he always kept away from political leaders af- ter India became independent. Rabha knew that the freedom of 1947 wasn’t the freedom for the poor workers and peasants of In- dia and that their fate would re- main unchanged. Since he had a strong inkling of what this ‘free- dom’ would be like, he wrote those famous lines on the walls of Cooch Behar College when he was a student there: Raijye ache duiti patha Ekti kalo, ekti sada Raijyer jodi mongol chao Duiti pathar boli dao. [There are two sacrificial goats in the state/one black, the other white;/if you want the best for the people/then sacrifice both.] On the day India got indepen- dence from the British, Rabha felt that his prediction was coming true. He went to Digheli Village in Tihu, Assam, and announced after hoist- ing a black flag: “Ye azadi jhootha hain” (This independence is fake). He saw India’s independence only as a transfer of power from the white elites to the brown. To him, the skin colour of the rulers changed, not their nature; and the system continued to remain anti- people. He wrote, Majulir deshote khuwar obhabote pelayporiyalok kati Shillong Roadote dekhiba raij mur oi minister xokolor mati. [In the land of Majuli/out of star- vation/a family is hacked to death;/On Shillong Road/you will see dear people,/land owned by the ministers.] Rabha, to realise his dreams of equality in society and freedom for people from poverty, picked up the gun. Jyotiprasad Agarwala also be- lieved that communism was a way to ensure the freedom of the work- ing class, and had told Omeo Ku- mar Das once, “We are leaving the carpet and stepping on the grass and you all are leaving the grass, to be able to step on the carpets.” Both Agarwala and Rabha spoke in a similar vein, worried about the kind of freedom India would be getting. In 1951, Jyotiprasad Agarwala’s memorial service had only a hand- ful of attendees: 21 in all. Curiously, in subsequent years, when the government noticed the increasing and unprecedented pop- ularity of both these cultural heroes among the people of Assam who would also sing their songs, it start- ed celebrating the birthdays and death anniversaries of the two per- sonalities. Suddenly the Assamese middle class became the greatest devotees of Rabha and Agarwala. Practising Jyoti Sangeet and Rabha Sangeet – the songs composed by them – became an important mark- er of middle-class cultural elitism. The class of people who didn’t want to have anything to do with Jyoti and Bishnu became their greatest fans. The opportunism of commu- nists in Assam contributed to this sort of phenomenon; many com- munists used to say that the bour- geoisie parliament was a pigsty, but when they gradually became part of the same parliament they once despised, the democratic move- ments for people’s freedom were shoved to the backstage. But amidst this, the director of All India Radio, Guwahati, Udebul Latif Barua, did something different when he broad- cast Birendra Kumar Bhat- tacharyya’s famous piece of poet- ry “Bishnu Rabha Etiya Kiman Rati”, a poem that underlined the real pic- ture of Bishnu Rabha: the Bishnu Rabha that was despised by the middle class. Gautam Buddha preached Bud- dhisim 2500 years ago to bring the common people relief from the ex- ploitative Brahminical, Vedic prac- tices. But in the subsequent years, Brahminical religion embraced Gautam Buddha as one of the avatars of Lord Vishnu. The same Buddha, who was against idol wor- ship, is now found in many places of the world in the form of gigan- tean idols – as if there is a compe- tition among the countries to con- struct the tallest Buddha statue. Sankardeva, who was against Vedic rituals, is now considered by many as an incarnation of Lord Krishna. Now, anniversaries of Sankardeva, Jyotiprasad Agarwala and Bishnu Rabha are indispensable sarkari holidays. Strange, because all these people placed themselves during their lifetime as anti-establishment and pro-people. ❚ ❘❘❘❘❘❘❚● THE Assamese middle class, who once despised Bishnu Rabha and Jyotiprasad Agarwala, later turned greatest fans of the duo. Jyoti Sangeet and Rabha Sangeet became an important marker of middle-class cultural elitism If you asked him today: Bishnu Rabha, how far gone is the night? He couldn’t say. The night is too far gone, And he is too far away. I walked with him once Through the jungle. He was a fugitive, Spitting away leeches Trudging on, Singing a love song, About a prince, a flower and a bee. When we halted for the night, Every villager came out to meet him: Pherengadao, we love you, they said. And he loved them back, Gave them all the music in his soul, And all the rhythm in his feet. And he left. He loved, but he always left. And they kept on loving him, Their kin, their king Who went from village to village, Stealing hearts, selling songs, Living two steps ahead Of a stray bullet bearing his name; With words, just fiery words, Leading them in fight. What magic! I’d met him earlier On the Kochbihar streets Scribbling anti-Raj slogans On the walls, And thereafter in Calcutta, Benares, Tezpur, At scholar’s meets, and musical nights With dance troupes, at the theatre. I’d seen him on screen, As a man of the soil, And on stage doing Shiva’s cosmic dance Before an Indian maestro And a Russian ballerina. I’d seen him at sports, At letters, at love. And I see him still A different person every day, Bishnu Rabha, man, master, legend – my love. (From We Called the River Red: Poetry from a Violent Homeland) The mystery man FRONTIS PIECE Gurupada Choudhury is a writer and publisher. He has written around six books, the latest being Guru Prasad Dasar Jibanawali Appropriating Rabha: outcast to icon MAYABI MANUHJAN Gurupada Choudhury Bani Prokash, 1992 `15, 64 pages Hardcover/ Non-fiction TRANS: SIBA K GOGOI EXCERPT: ‘THE MAN WHO HUNTED FOR CATTLE’ iNKPOT Surjya Das takes a critical look at the iconic status that Bishnu Rabha holds in Assam today Illustration: Amrith Basumatary
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Transcript of Jun 24, 2012 P2
AFOUR-roofed building – ourmain house – was being built atBejkuchi village in Pat-
acharkuchi. Only its upper portion wascompleted then. There, on the east-ern side, I had put up some old reedwalls for a room where I could live andstudy. The remaining part was all emp-ty; on one end was a chalpeera (a largebench) that was used by our Bihari ser-vant, Chinan, for sleeping. A couple ofbenches or so and an armchair werealso kept there for guests.One night I went to bed after eating
food; I was just about to sink into post-dinner sleep when a man came andflopped down on a bench. Chinan waslolling on the chalpeera, chewing to-bacco. Seeing the man, he came to callme. I woke up after he had called out tome once or twice. I saw a tall, stoutlybuilt man, shabbily dressed; he lookedlike a tribal villager. One could easilyguess, by the look of him, that he wasovercome with hunger and fatigue. Hisloincloth hung down to his knees; he hada sleeveless shirt on, and his head wascovered with a Kachari gamosa.Before I asked him anything, he said,
“Bapu, will I get a little food? I haven’teaten anything today. My stomach isgrowling. I have lost my pair of plough-ing bulls. I went around looking for themin Dhamdhamak. You know, pita, I havebad luck. I will have to travel a very longdistance.” The man let out a deep sigh.Without saying anything to him, I went
to my mother and told her about his pres-ence. I asked Chinan to fetch a plantainleaf. Chinan was a short, thick-set man.How will he manage to reach plantainleaves at night? Yet, he hesitantly wentout with a dao. Just then the tall, sturdyman took the dao from him and choppeda leaf off a plantain plant which was near
the house. A pani-peera (wooden stool)was already placed on the kitchen ve-randa. The man washed his hands andmouth with the water drawn by Chinanfrom the well in the front yard. As mymother began to serve him rice, the tall,stout man picked up the plantain leaffrom the veranda and spread it in theyard. He said, “Aai (mother), it’s OK. I’llhave food in the yard itself.” He didn’tsit on the pani-peeraeither. He took wa-ter only from a lota (a narrow-neckedwater vessel) and asked for a pinch ofsalt and a few chillies. He seemed to eatthe rice contentedly.He also didn’t put the lota to his
mouth; he drank water noisily from thelota, holding it vertically above hismouth. Then he swept with cow dungthe place where he had taken food. Af-ter that, he smoked a chillum of tobac-co with Chinan. He also chewed a pieceof betel nut gratifyingly. The man boweddown to my mother before taking leaveof us. “It’s midnight. Where will you go
now?” My mother wanted to stop himtravelling in the dead of night. He re-fused to obey her, and said, “No, aai!Nothing will happen to me. The nightis lit like a day by a full moon, so trav-elling won’t be a problem for me. Mydaughter is also sick. I can’t but go. Aai,I’m feeling reinvigorated after eating
rice here. May God bless you all!” The wayfarer disappeared into
the darkness.After getting up early in the morning,
I came out to our front yard, cleaningmy teeth with a twig (of shawaraplant).I saw two policemen going towards theother end of our village. Police regularlypatrolled the area like that at night. Af-ter sometime, the two police person-nel returned and stopped near the barsat our gate. “Did you see anyone looking like a
leader come this way last night?” theyasked me. “No. We don’t know.”“We have heard about Bishnu Rabha
visiting this village.”“Bishnu Rabha!”I was speechless! The two policemen
went away. We still thought our guestof the previous night was some villager
who was hunting for his bulls.Some days later, a rumour spread that
Bishnu Rabha knew a boy of a family inthe northern neighbourhood of our vil-lage. The boy was not at home that day.Rabha might have come to stay the nightin his house. The old man of the familyknew that, but he turned the man away,leaving him disheartened. Someone of
that family was said to have informedthe police of the matter before dawn.Only then did we know that the man whohad come disguised as a simple villagerin search of cattle was none other thanBishnu Rabha. I remember a few other events that took
place in similar situations… It was an incident of another night. We
had just had rice; the utensils were yetto be cleared. We used to eat dinner alittle late in those days, and by the timewe had food at night other villagers wouldfall into deep sleep. On one such occa-sion, a man arrived at our house. He ap-peared to be a leader-like person. He hada huge body and was wearing a whitebaggy shirt made of khaddar (home-spun) cloth. His loincloth reached downas far as his calves; a large turban sat onhis head. And he was holding a long stick.He was also given food in the kitchen.After having his meal, the man sat in thearmchair at the empty house outsidechewing betel nut with satisfaction. Healso got his hands on Chinan’s tobaccopouch before smoking a roll-up of achillum of tobacco. Moreover, he jokedand shared a few words with us. As thenight was growing old, I asked him to liedown on my bed. “No thanks, bopai. Ineed to get going now. I’ll speak to yourmother after she has taken dinner andthen leave your house. You know, thepolice are after us.”On seeing my mother come out of the
house, the largely built guest of the nightpaid obeisance to her, and said, “Aai,I’ll go now. Please don’t mind if I trou-bled you.”At last, he said softly, “I’m Bishnu Rab-
ha. Please don’t say anything to any-one at this hour. I’ll have no problemwhen the day breaks; I’ll be too faraway.”The mystery man vanished into the
darkness. I had not seen the real Bishnu Rabha for quite a few yearssince then. �
POSTscriptJ U N E 2 4 , 2 0 1 2
SEVEN SISTERS
NELit review2
FIFTH WALLUDDIPANA GOSWAMI
Literary Editor
Bishnu Rabha,etiya kiman rati?
BISHNU Rabha was a soldierand artist. To free poor peas-ants from the shackles of
poverty, he had used all mediums,all weapons: a sten gun, an easel andhis talent for acting on the stage andin films. He had realised that therewas no greater penance than striv-ing for the freedom of people in itstruest sense. To live his dream, hehad even taken up arms, but he hadnever – nor did his companions –used the gun to kill people indis-criminately because he understoodthat people would one day fight fortheir own cause. Bishnu Rabha, be-cause of his looks and personality,could blend with the people of As-sam very easily, and that is why hewas so loved and could becomePherengadao Abou. Unlike many ofhis contemporaries – especially mid-dle-class youth – he hadn’t joinedthe battle for social equality out ofa romantic fascination for it; for him,it was the most spontaneous re-sponse to inequalities in society,straight from his heart. During those days, when Rabha
used to roam the hills and plains ofAssam with a sten gun in his hands,singing songs, the Assam govern-ment had announced a bounty ofmany thousands of rupees in returnfor his head. Since he was a ‘com-munist’, most of the middle-classAssamese people had distancedthemselves from him. As far as I canremember, the Assamese periodi-cals didn’t publish many of hisworks, including discussions onthem, during his lifetime. It was onlywhen he was bedridden for a while,before his death in 1969, that therewere some discussions about his cre-ative works and his activism; theywere published in magazines suchas Asom Bani, Saptahik Nilachal andAsom Batori. However, the only ex-ception was Amar Pratinidhi, edit-ed by Bhupen Hazarika. I remem-ber in one of the issues of this mag-azine Hazarika had written an edi-torial entitled “Brave Bishnuda”(Rabha was bedridden then). Whenhe passed away, Bhupen Hazarikapublished a special issue on BishnuRabha’s life and works and then, onJuly 20, another editorial under thetitle of “Rabha, Moon and Bank”.July 20 1969 was a historic date not
just because Rabha’s addya shrad-dha probably took place that day,but also because it was the day NeilArmstrong had landed on the Moon.It was also a historic date for Indiabecause prime minister Indira Gand-hi had nationalised fourteen privatebanks that day. Bishnu Rabha was honoured a lit-
tle before and after his death in1969 by the establishment of As-sam. But it was a different Rabhain 1962. That year, the policedragged him through the mainstreet of Tezpur city with a ropetied around his waist before throw-ing him in jail, perhaps because thegovernment thought he would sup-port China during the Sino-Indianwar. (I don’t know if a single soulfrom the Assamese middle class
had protested against his arrest in1962. I will be happy if somebodyproves me wrong.) Later, he wasrechristened “Kolaguru” (Guru ofArts), but his fate in 1962 was syn-onymous with that of the exploit-ed peasants, workers and labour-ers of Assam. Rabha was alwaysalert to such an eventuality, andthat is the reason why he alwayskept away from political leaders af-ter India became independent.Rabha knew that the freedom of1947 wasn’t the freedom for thepoor workers and peasants of In-dia and that their fate would re-main unchanged. Since he had astrong inkling of what this ‘free-dom’ would be like, he wrote thosefamous lines on the walls of CoochBehar College when he was a
student there:
Raijye ache duiti pathaEkti kalo, ekti sadaRaijyer jodi mongol chaoDuiti pathar boli dao.[There are two sacrificial goats inthe state/one black, the otherwhite;/if you want the best for thepeople/then sacrifice both.]
On the day India got indepen-dence from the British, Rabha feltthat his prediction was coming true.He went to Digheli Village in Tihu,Assam, and announced after hoist-ing a black flag: “Ye azadi jhoothahain” (This independence is fake).He saw India’s independence onlyas a transfer of power from thewhite elites to the brown. To him,the skin colour of the rulerschanged, not their nature; and thesystem continued to remain anti-people. He wrote,
Majulir deshotekhuwar obhabotepelayporiyalok katiShillong Roadotedekhiba raij mur oiminister xokolor mati.[In the land of Majuli/out of star-vation/a family is hacked todeath;/On Shillong Road/you willsee dear people,/land owned bythe ministers.]
Rabha, to realise his dreams ofequality in society and freedom for
people from poverty, picked up thegun. Jyotiprasad Agarwala also be-lieved that communism was a wayto ensure the freedom of the work-ing class, and had told Omeo Ku-mar Das once, “We are leaving thecarpet and stepping on the grassand you all are leaving the grass, tobe able to step on the carpets.” BothAgarwala and Rabha spoke in asimilar vein, worried about the kindof freedom India would be getting.In 1951, Jyotiprasad Agarwala’smemorial service had only a hand-ful of attendees: 21 in all. Curiously, in subsequent years,
when the government noticed theincreasing and unprecedented pop-ularity of both these cultural heroesamong the people of Assam whowould also sing their songs, it start-ed celebrating the birthdays anddeath anniversaries of the two per-sonalities. Suddenly the Assamesemiddle class became the greatestdevotees of Rabha and Agarwala.Practising Jyoti Sangeet and RabhaSangeet – the songs composed bythem – became an important mark-er of middle-class cultural elitism.The class of people who didn’t wantto have anything to do with Jyotiand Bishnu became their greatestfans. The opportunism of commu-nists in Assam contributed to thissort of phenomenon; many com-munists used to say that the bour-geoisie parliament was a pigsty, butwhen they gradually became partof the same parliament they oncedespised, the democratic move-ments for people’s freedom wereshoved to the backstage. But amidstthis, the director of All India Radio,Guwahati, Udebul Latif Barua, didsomething different when he broad-cast Birendra Kumar Bhat-tacharyya’s famous piece of poet-ry “Bishnu Rabha Etiya Kiman Rati”,a poem that underlined the real pic-ture of Bishnu Rabha: the BishnuRabha that was despised by themiddle class.Gautam Buddha preached Bud-
dhisim 2500 years ago to bring thecommon people relief from the ex-ploitative Brahminical, Vedic prac-tices. But in the subsequent years,Brahminical religion embracedGautam Buddha as one of theavatars of Lord Vishnu. The sameBuddha, who was against idol wor-ship, is now found in many placesof the world in the form of gigan-tean idols – as if there is a compe-tition among the countries to con-struct the tallest Buddha statue.Sankardeva, who was against Vedicrituals, is now considered by manyas an incarnation of Lord Krishna.Now, anniversaries of Sankardeva,Jyotiprasad Agarwala and BishnuRabha are indispensable sarkariholidays. Strange, because all thesepeople placed themselves duringtheir lifetime as anti-establishmentand pro-people. �
��������
THE Assamese middle class, who once despisedBishnu Rabha and Jyotiprasad Agarwala, laterturned greatest fans of the duo. Jyoti Sangeet andRabha Sangeet became an important marker ofmiddle-class cultural elitism
If you asked him today:Bishnu Rabha, how far gone is the night?He couldn’t say.The night is too far gone, And he is too far away.
I walked with him onceThrough the jungle.He was a fugitive,Spitting away leechesTrudging on,Singing a love song,About a prince, a flower and a bee.
When we halted for the night,Every villager came out to meet him:Pherengadao, we love you, they said.And he loved them back,Gave them all the music in his soul,And all the rhythm in his feet.
And he left.
He loved, but he always left.
And they kept on loving him,Their kin, their kingWho went from village to village,Stealing hearts, selling songs,Living two steps aheadOf a stray bullet bearing his name;With words, just fiery words,Leading them in fight. What magic!
I’d met him earlier On the Kochbihar streetsScribbling anti-Raj slogans On the walls, And thereafter in Calcutta, Benares, Tezpur,At scholar’s meets, and musical nightsWith dance troupes, at the theatre.I’d seen him on screen,As a man of the soil,And on stage doing Shiva’s cosmic danceBefore an Indian maestroAnd a Russian ballerina.I’d seen him at sports,At letters, at love.And I see him still A different person every day,Bishnu Rabha, man, master, legend – my love.
(From WeCalled the River Red: Poetryfrom a ViolentHomeland)
The mystery man
FRONTIS PIECE
Gurupada Choudhury is a writer and publisher. He has written around six books,the latest being Guru Prasad Dasar Jibanawali
Appropriating Rabha:outcast to icon
MAYABI MANUHJANGurupada ChoudhuryBani Prokash, 1992`15, 64 pagesHardcover/ Non-fiction
TRANS: SIBA K GOGOIEXCERPT: ‘THE MAN
WHO HUNTED FOR CATTLE’
iNKPOT
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