SATYANESWAN

রুদ্র বাবু খোসমেজাজি মানুষ ।  সুযোগ পেলে জোরে জোরে হাসা ই তার স্বভাব । তবে তেমন সুযোগ কি আর সবসময় হয় ? কত্ত  কাজ থাকে সারাদিন। কি কাজ ? সারা বাড়ি গুছিয়ে রাখা ই তো ওর কাজ। মা - বাবার তো এই কাজটা করার সময় ই নেই । ওকে  তাই এধার ওধার হেটে চলে এখানের জিনিস ওখানে আর ওখানের জিনিস এখানে করতে হই। খাটনি কি কম? কিন্ত  সবাই বুঝলে তো ?  ভাবে উনি বুঝি কিছু ভেঙ্গে ফেলবেন। আচ্ছা , উনি কি বাচ্চা নাকি?এ ই নিয়ে যা অশান্তি ।তাতে ই উনি যা একটু রাগ দেখান আর নালিশ করেন। বাবা-মা রুদ্রাবাবুকে একটা বই কিনে দিয়েছে । ভালো বই । তাতে জিরাফ , জেব্রা , মান্কি সবার ছবি আছে। ওদের কথা ও আছে । রুদ্রবাবু বইটাকে খুব ভালো ও বাসেন। তবে কিনা বই টা বেশ একটু মোটা আর ভারী । বইটাকে একটু হালকা না করলে তো হাতে নিয়ে চলা-ফেরা করাই মুস্কিল ।তাই উনি বুদ্ধি করে পাতাগুলিকে আলাদা আলাদা করে অনেক কটা বই বানিয়ে নিলেন । বেশ একটা কাজের কাজ হোলো । কিন্ত আবার সেই বোঝার গন্ডগোল । বাবা হৈ হৈ করে উঠলো ,"...

“Once upon a time, in a faraway part of Europe ,behind seven mountains and seven rivers, there was a beautiful country called Yugoslavia. Its people belonged to six different nations, and they were of three different religions and spoke thre different languages. They were Croats,Serbs,Slovens,Macedonians,Montenegrins and Muslims yet they all work together ,went to school together, married each other ,and lived in relative harmony for forty-five years. But because it is not a fairy tale, the story of this beautiful country has no happy ending. Yugoslavia fell apart in a terrible and bloody war, a war that claimed some two hundred thousand lives – mostly in Bosnia – displaced two million people, and produced several new states : Slovania,Bosnia,Croatia,Serbia and Macedonia. Albanians and Montenegrins are still struggling for heir independence.” The Croatian author Slavenka Drakulic in her book , They would never hurt a fly , gave a befitting caption to this introduction : Not a fairy tal...

At last, I could meet my river. How can someone meet a river? You perhaps doubt my sanity. Have I gone out of my mind? I accept that the statement made is grammatically wrong but still,grammar has its limitations. You would claim one can see, find or at the most locate a river. Some illustrious persons used to discover rivers too but they did not leave one for me to discover. You can only meet people. How on earth can you meet a river? The fact is, we, at this remote part of the Universe never took rivers as non-living, non-animated natural phenomena. Our poets,lyricist amd commoners,be they rich or poor ,over the years, engaged them into conversations, listened to their rumblings and asked them to take good care of us. Our oarsmen devised a mode of singing to the tune of river’s low tides and those folk songs came to be famous as Bhatiali throughout the world. The rivers remained, in our lives, as living as we all are. Some of them are mothers to us and some others, daughters....

Badal da was never considered a responsible person. While in school he preferred to avoid first few benches. He loved to read a lot but not the text books for which he developed a strong aversion since he was a kid. He had a keen interest for anything printed on paper anything beyond his syllabus be it a book ,magazine or newspaper. Though he was never a dull boy he hardly got good marks in examinations and lagged behind his contemporaries as a consequence, He was neither strong nor aggressive enough to bully others of his age. His acumen in sports was limited to the game of caroms where he felt comfortable. His not-so-affluent family possessed a cycle and Badal da was mostly available on wheels. His other preferred mode of movement was walking. He was compelled to walk long distances and that way came to know even the corners of Kolkata streets, lanes and bye-lanes. He was gifted with a powerful memory and he memorized all the bus routes, destination of trams and places, e...

--> We met the octogenarian and his wife in the train on our way back to Kolkata from Puri on his eighty second birthday. I and my wife, both suffering from problems in flexing knee joints, were allotted upper berths. While purchasing the tickets, I agreed with an expectation that we would find at least some one younger at one of lower berths who might be requested to exchange. But on board we found none and started exploring the best possible ways to go up .. The elderly couple occupying the lower berths was the patient listeners to our discussion. The gentleman smilingly appreciated our apprehension and informed us that he would prefer to help if he were just ten years younger. His brave declaration prompted me to ask his age and we were introduced. Shri.Kalidas Ghosh, born on August, 7, 1927 and got his Masters Degree in Bengali Literature from the University of Calcutta in 1950 and took teaching as his profession. He had been with Bramhananda Keshab Chandra (po...

Kolkata and West Bengal suffered a devastating cyclone on May 25, 2009. As reported, at least 80 people were killed and over one lakh people rendered homeless. The storm which is named Aila had a wind speed of 100 kilometers per hour hit the city at around 2 p.m and, thereafter, blew through Howrah, Hoogly and Burdwan districts and moved towards further north into the hills. The scale of devastation were so severe that the Army was deployed for rescue operations in affected parts of North and South 24-Parganas.Several thousands of houses washed away in tidal waves in the coastal areas. The city witnessed uprooting of hundreds of trees which blocked roads for hours dislocating traffics for the day. Air, train and tram services got disrupted for hours. Ananda Bazar Patrika, the Bengali daily, informs from the available records that this city witnessed cyclonic devastation of this extent only on September 30,1737 and October 5,1864.I observed that the report had overlooked the incidence...