My mother own village(Sonakur) was about five miles from our village , a river side village and the beauty of that river-side and the joy of my running to that river bank to see steamer passing through, the boatmen's calls, waves ever dancing wild is imprinted on my mind like colour prints of later day-photography.
Any way I am now to tell my forth trist with death wthin two years after the last one told. There was some festive ocassion and my Mejda(elder brother) was asked to cut and collect some banana leaves for the occassion and I joined my brother agaist his will to help him. My mejada was two and half years older than me , very sportive and goodhearted. We entered the guarden and my mejda had a curve 'Dao'(about a pound heavy with sharp edge and tip). I was then a jam-packed -fool and when he aimed to chop the banana stem ,just then ,I ran close to him and that sharp tip of the cutter, with full force landed on the top of my head and sofar I was told,the tip of the cutter got fixrd on my head . The subsequent events I don't remember except that vermillion (mercury) was one of the best emergency treatment and it was packed in the wound and I was not dead nor unconcious,(the tip of that cutter cuould not reach my brain matter-don't know why)!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
MY CHILD - HOOD STORIES V
Even in good games there are half -times or recess allowed . And even in Greek tragedies there are assured 'reliefs' for the sake of play.
So. after those three escapes, let me relax a beat and in lighter vein.........
I am now eighty plus and have earned the right to relax or run to any 'escape' and
as such am a U.S.A -citizen and am relaxing in my son's three-floored house and only two persons to live there, allowing my son to live in chicago with his family and in his another house... That is fun !-for a man, like me, who never saw a train until he was fifteen.
Yes ! what is life ! And I had so much of it in so many ways and so much types that my children or any of modern era should envy me or feel jelous . I feel , as if in my one single life, I have experienced and passed through all phases of evolutiona and changes of civillisation ,from a the remostest colonial village life unto the -'Statue of Liberty'.
Unto the age of seven to eight or nine years , all those near -death situations that told so far, was as I heard mostly from my ggrand mother and affirmed by my mother . Only the few prints of my joy with Chita-Gur buble up like broken memories. Hence on-wards , events shall have participattion of my memories.
So. after those three escapes, let me relax a beat and in lighter vein.........
I am now eighty plus and have earned the right to relax or run to any 'escape' and
as such am a U.S.A -citizen and am relaxing in my son's three-floored house and only two persons to live there, allowing my son to live in chicago with his family and in his another house... That is fun !-for a man, like me, who never saw a train until he was fifteen.
Yes ! what is life ! And I had so much of it in so many ways and so much types that my children or any of modern era should envy me or feel jelous . I feel , as if in my one single life, I have experienced and passed through all phases of evolutiona and changes of civillisation ,from a the remostest colonial village life unto the -'Statue of Liberty'.
Unto the age of seven to eight or nine years , all those near -death situations that told so far, was as I heard mostly from my ggrand mother and affirmed by my mother . Only the few prints of my joy with Chita-Gur buble up like broken memories. Hence on-wards , events shall have participattion of my memories.
MY CHILD - HOOD IV
So neither a dug -out grave nor drowning in a remote village in a big water reservoir (Govt. Pukur) was willing to offer a an 'Exit goor' for me . so I had to continue my living as a biological being. This statement is because of the fact all these happenings were, as I heard after-ward and not as I rememeber. T think I was seven or eight years old when I wa doing my next natural 'self killing' because the act was neither with my ignorage nor with my intelligence.
My father used to do a boarding -house business in Delhi and we i.e my mother and thre other brothers and a sister were living in the village called Shehangal in the distrct of Barisal of Dhaka division of Bengal i.e about 900 miles from Delhi and with our cousin sisters ,Uncle and aunt (then a joint family). My Uncle was a primary scool,teacher and loved me very much ,as his own son ,having no son of his own. He used to somke Hukka (a sort of smoking tobaco through a water pot) and used make tobaco-balls mixing churned tobaco with fermented molases (CHITE-GUR).That was the day when he bought a good amount (one seer or 2 lbs -apprx) from the haatkhola (markrt), kept it uder the cot (khat). Suffering from malaria too often and hoarding all types of worms (krimi)and being ever hungry for anything sweet( I was a all-time sick and thin),I missed not this chance and at night got to the mollases pot ate that thick sweet-bitter almost in full. The result was any body's guess anf for the next month the whole family and my Uncle (elder brother of my father) fought the final game with Yama-raja (king of Death) and snached me back from the grip of DEATH.
My father used to do a boarding -house business in Delhi and we i.e my mother and thre other brothers and a sister were living in the village called Shehangal in the distrct of Barisal of Dhaka division of Bengal i.e about 900 miles from Delhi and with our cousin sisters ,Uncle and aunt (then a joint family). My Uncle was a primary scool,teacher and loved me very much ,as his own son ,having no son of his own. He used to somke Hukka (a sort of smoking tobaco through a water pot) and used make tobaco-balls mixing churned tobaco with fermented molases (CHITE-GUR).That was the day when he bought a good amount (one seer or 2 lbs -apprx) from the haatkhola (markrt), kept it uder the cot (khat). Suffering from malaria too often and hoarding all types of worms (krimi)and being ever hungry for anything sweet( I was a all-time sick and thin),I missed not this chance and at night got to the mollases pot ate that thick sweet-bitter almost in full. The result was any body's guess anf for the next month the whole family and my Uncle (elder brother of my father) fought the final game with Yama-raja (king of Death) and snached me back from the grip of DEATH.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
VIEWING BACKWARDS III
08 oct o9: On this space-tome of evening and 'sunset' , i am trying to remember my life in my childhood, sittinng in my sons's house in delaware in U.S.A.Seems a bit strange Is it nostalgia ? No! It seems to me strange because I was not live so long a life.... I was expected to be dead three or four times before I was ten.
My grand mother told me tha when i was only seven months old my uncle (elder brothe of my father) dug a grave on the canal side of our remote village of the- then- Bengal and waiting and waiting smoking a hukka , for me to breath my last. I was suffering from some severe disease sice birth and my skin was peeling off. I was brought back even when death got tired of waiting for me longer.Maybe it was some sort of post-pertem complication or some un-diagnosed deficiency in me.There was no doctor within five miles radius and giving birth and accepting death was accepted as a natural game of Nature in those very remote rural set up in 1920s.
The second chance offered to me by Death to escape from fife was 'drowning' in the big pond of our home, when i was about five or six year old.This also i learnt from my grand mother. After getting drowned and sometimes after my body floated up for the final sinking and that was the slice of time when my elder bother noticed my body , shouted loud and grand mother came running ,jumped in, saved me by rescuing me and put me on her head,with my belly down-fcing and started revolving and snached be back from death without my chance to expressmy choice.So i was alive again !
My grand mother told me tha when i was only seven months old my uncle (elder brothe of my father) dug a grave on the canal side of our remote village of the- then- Bengal and waiting and waiting smoking a hukka , for me to breath my last. I was suffering from some severe disease sice birth and my skin was peeling off. I was brought back even when death got tired of waiting for me longer.Maybe it was some sort of post-pertem complication or some un-diagnosed deficiency in me.There was no doctor within five miles radius and giving birth and accepting death was accepted as a natural game of Nature in those very remote rural set up in 1920s.
The second chance offered to me by Death to escape from fife was 'drowning' in the big pond of our home, when i was about five or six year old.This also i learnt from my grand mother. After getting drowned and sometimes after my body floated up for the final sinking and that was the slice of time when my elder bother noticed my body , shouted loud and grand mother came running ,jumped in, saved me by rescuing me and put me on her head,with my belly down-fcing and started revolving and snached be back from death without my chance to expressmy choice.So i was alive again !
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
MY CHILD HOOD play -II
In my child hood - on memory lane
through the mirror-like surface of the pond
I used to view my face , alone
with playing -mood and lonliness
all around.
Who was then for me ,or -
what was there for me !
Only my playmate
the shades of mango-grove
On calm wter-surface the cut-piece sky
all the time and year round
the cloud floating in joy
and scanning it's face
was the lone play-mate
that rural child-hood time !(traslated by myself from my Bangali poem)
through the mirror-like surface of the pond
I used to view my face , alone
with playing -mood and lonliness
all around.
Who was then for me ,or -
what was there for me !
Only my playmate
the shades of mango-grove
On calm wter-surface the cut-piece sky
all the time and year round
the cloud floating in joy
and scanning it's face
was the lone play-mate
that rural child-hood time !(traslated by myself from my Bangali poem)
Monday, October 5, 2009
THE REACH
Proceed however far you may
your destination awaits
ever beyond.
This going forward
is the key to success -and
end in itself.
Keep your goal
beyond your search
and - let your quest
exceed your goal.
(poem in bengali by phani Basu ;
translated by Umanath bhattachrya )
your destination awaits
ever beyond.
This going forward
is the key to success -and
end in itself.
Keep your goal
beyond your search
and - let your quest
exceed your goal.
(poem in bengali by phani Basu ;
translated by Umanath bhattachrya )
Thursday, October 1, 2009
MY life & my experiences -- part - 1
I had so much desire to write about my life and my experiences. But ..but Mark Twain stood like a wall between me and my dream and desire , since his ovservations that 'Autobiographers are the greatest 'li'ars' who suprress selectively, some 'truths' from their life and high-light only brighter side and paint it more ' And I believe that.... In my case, too , I know I have so many things to hide because the world will whip me more than appreciating my daring to open myself up and try to be free.AND I am no Reusso nor Gandhi nor have their aura of influencing others.
Yet even it would be so much joyous and enlarging for my self because : I had some unique experiences and a few 'revelation' that perhaps very few had !
My child hood, in the first half of 20th Century (1930s) in a rural set up of the then Bengal where not even a cycle could be seen in the whole of the village and I did not see a Train until I was fifteen-plus and left my District 9barisal) for the first time for Calcutta in 1947, after political partition. I was mostly bare above my loin, with deep passion for fishing and abundance of mosquitoes feasting on my body while my only aspiration and dream in life was to catch fish. Other-times climbing mango-tree for green mango with a slicing snai-shell and playing marble were all that I needed to be happy.
From that 'bright, begining, that was a bundle of joy and happiness ,inspite of 'Malaria as my all time companion , upto the present living in U.S.A and, from experince of famine life of 1950s - to surfing on 'String'-theory of Cosmology and spiritual, Unitary appreciation and expansion within, with natural-'reliefs' in between , is really a treasure- hunt storey of success for me. (contd)
Yet even it would be so much joyous and enlarging for my self because : I had some unique experiences and a few 'revelation' that perhaps very few had !
My child hood, in the first half of 20th Century (1930s) in a rural set up of the then Bengal where not even a cycle could be seen in the whole of the village and I did not see a Train until I was fifteen-plus and left my District 9barisal) for the first time for Calcutta in 1947, after political partition. I was mostly bare above my loin, with deep passion for fishing and abundance of mosquitoes feasting on my body while my only aspiration and dream in life was to catch fish. Other-times climbing mango-tree for green mango with a slicing snai-shell and playing marble were all that I needed to be happy.
From that 'bright, begining, that was a bundle of joy and happiness ,inspite of 'Malaria as my all time companion , upto the present living in U.S.A and, from experince of famine life of 1950s - to surfing on 'String'-theory of Cosmology and spiritual, Unitary appreciation and expansion within, with natural-'reliefs' in between , is really a treasure- hunt storey of success for me. (contd)
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