The bongo is a great instrument; not only does it make for feet-tapping music as an accompaniment device but this percussion piece is perhaps the only one which has to be necessarily held between the knees for maximum effect.It would be quite futile to dwell on any innuendo that the bongo might suggest, but in these days of prose and worse, anything goes in the name of hardsell. The bongo is now being used for camouflage, for plotting, for stooping...only those interested in the marketing of the bongo as a propaganda device would be able to say when some enterprising headline-maker in one of the widely-read English language newspapers, The Telegraph, to be precise, will select innuendo from the most innocuous.
But this is not a platform for cocky debate on a non-negotiable subject as the historicity behind the change of Calcutta to Kolkata which is being made out to be a political exercise in the columns of that same newspaper (July 22 and July 25); the use, or misuse, depending on which side you are on, of the bongo and its phonetic similarity with the name of our mother-state and the language should not be trivialised. For some writers of good prose and upholders of greater morality, Bangla comes through as a ``strange name'' and conjures, at its best, most probably, visions of popular country liquor bars once frequented by ``hungry generation'' writers and intellectuals. There is talk of ``street slang'' and one senior journalist, with roots in hallowed academia, has said that ``Bangla'' for him has ``always'' meant country liquor. The important word to note here is the ``always''; if a teacher-turned editor, with at least some history of societal responsibility thrust on him by his profession and ethics, can taste only the bubbles of liquor _ and country at that_ in Bangla, then there could be at least some saving grace left for those of us who think that there is more to Sunil Gangpodhyaya and his ilk than just their links with the frothy liquid. Obviously, Sunil's spearheading the Bangla movement, if at all, it can be called one, has ruffled quite a few feathers and Buddadev Bhattacharya's enthusiasm in making it government legacy has hurt a section of those for whom the English language is a very private affair, to be exercised and practised within a circuit where country liquor and dogs are most probably not allowed.
The problem is essentially one of resistance to change; change which can affect the smug pattern of a colonial, very private, society in which editors come to office in chauffeur-driven air-conditioned cars and recline in armchairs to key in copy after copy on morality and public probity. These editors have no touch with reality, they are hundred times removed from the air that Kolkata breathes. They have computers handy; Mamata Banerjee's face is blanked out to make a point that the clinical and ahistorical change of name of this metropolis shall alter nothing. There is a valid point in the use of computers; after all, what use is the human brain if it cannot make magic out of still life? And what greater use can a computer be put to than establishing in the reader's early morning blues that everything with a hint of red is necessarily bad? The game is,as Conan Doyle would have put it, afoot; the violin-playing , cocaine-addicted Sherlock Holmes would not have taken more than a few minutes to establish that. There is a propaganda in the air; slowly it shall take root, spread its branches, create a destructive debate, stoop to conquer and then withdraw its tentacles when the game is over. It all falls within the usual parameters, the same logistics, the same behaviour, the perfect strategy. Only, this time, may be_ just may be_ the slip is showing. And the bluff should be called before the people are blinded by the usual rhetoric.
But, our emotions get the better of us, we digress. Buddadev Bhattacharya's English has been faulted. Mind you, there was no slightest need to point that out in the article; it would have made its point without this little nugget of information. But no, the protecters of the Queen's English cannot _ and will not_ allow such frailities in the man who needs to administer more than he is expected to take tutorials in English; they will need to point out such errors to make sure that their thrones are left untouched; their degrees obtained with some ease in Oxford and Cambridge vindicated daily and the stautettes of Victoria and Curzon on the mantlepiece in their homes and hearths are dusted regularly.
We understand that some people are uncomfortable with the advent of Kolkata and Bangla. All of us have our own fears, our private hell holes where we dare not even peep. That is natural. But journalists, as we have been led to believe all these years, have a duty towards their readers. Journalists have every right to resist change which they feel is harmful for their immediate surroundings; this becomes, however, dangerous when some choose to alter this to suit personal concerns. When a journalist thinks only of his tribe and his personal concerns and plays the bongo in a wardance that justifies only his particular brand of self-protective jingoism, then that becomes positively disastrous.
It is in these troubled waters that politicians are famous for fishing; one word of country liquor, of Stalin and his qualified misdoings and a full thesis on history or the lack of its understanding can set the cat among the pigeons as was expected to anyway. Suddenly, Ms Mamata Banerjee, never to miss such a glorious uncertain moment, has become alive to the need for a national debate on the floor of the Lok Sabha, nothing less will do for her, and sundry parties and intellectual conglomerates, the avowedly leftist SUCI among them, have woken up to the gross injustice and historical immorality in the action of the government in doing away with Calcutta and West Bengal. The jigsaw puzzle had been scattered all over the floor; now the child is up and about, he is set to put it in place. But by now, he knows the pieces by heart. A scar here, a wrinkle there, one corner telling all...in minutes, the puzzle will turn into a solution. It is a timetested puzzle; slowly even the solution is becoming dog-eared by use.
Journalists, quite understandably, have a fulltime job to keep. They have their sarkar bosses. They have to write pulp which sells; and that is an agenda set out in the morning meetings. So much so, that wins by wide margin in municipal elections are made out to be pyrrhic victories where the victors' loss is greater than that projected by the statistics which should normally be enough reason for celebration. The English-language editors thus know that they are the slaves of a dynasty where English has to be fed and nurtured not for its richness as a language and definitely not for the benefit of Shakespeare fans but for some very personal, vested business interests. English sells, the queues in front of English-language schools are growing by the day, and these are the future readers; and so why not feed them with a rationale which will not only vindicate the existence of armchairs but also breed anathema for a government which refuses _ sadly for Ms Banerjee_ to lose elections?
But again, our emotions get the better of us and we digress. There is a need for Bangla as much as there is a need for Kolkata. Why should a city continue with a name which was given to us by a people which dealt out an unrelenting, oppressive hand for 200 years? Why should we persist with a name which has become an anachronism after the advent of Bangladesh? Calcutta was handed over to us because the Englishmen could not pronounce Kolkata; Banga was never allowed to be used because there was a state in a neighbouring country which was better known in these parts as East Bengal. But the English have left, and Bangladesh is proud that it has a name worthy of its character and language. But Calcutta and West Bengal have continued and it is time now to change a social as well as historical aberration. Yes, there can be healthy debate on that; we do not have to play the bongo to announce that Calcutta had only two streets in 1706 and that the dear paleface lords and viceroys brought us roads, trams, Chivas Regal and the rest of a single-track colonial civilisation to Bengalis. And that it still requires a degree from Cambridge or Oxford to get a glorified clerk's job in a newspaper. All that is known; but_ and there is an intended emhapsis in that `But'_ we will choose not to live with this any longer. Our children will have to know Bangla, they will have to read Bangla, they will have to live in Bangla. That is not a diktat; it is a wish, a longing which comes from deep down when you come across an editor's son saying that he would rather ride a mobike to a discotheque on Pochishey Boishakh than go to hear Suchitra Mitra at Rabindra Sadan. It becomes sadder when you see this new generation grow up unfettered in this dealt-out anarchy; while they quite rightly have no time for country liquor, they unfortunately are becoming sad victims of their fathers' colonial follies. Yes, Pochishey Boishakh _ and indeed, Poila Boishakh _ should be thrust on the new generation, Tagore should be made compulsory reading, for those who have not even heard of two men called Bankim Chandra and Sarat Chandra, there should be detentions after school. And forget the French class in the evening.
Time forgives no one. The children of today will become parents of tomorrow. If at all they grow up without a clue to their culture, then we will have no place to hide. No, not even in guilded, mounted photographs which are symbols of very personal histories in themselves. If Tagore and Bankim are to be forgotten because the market economy allows for more and more posters of Leonardo Dicaprios in study halls of teenagers, then we will have to blame ourselves for an aberration which is not as miniscule as a Bengali minister speaking wrong English. The error is to be judged in its entirety; street slang cannot be used at home, neither can gutter language be drawn into living room conversation or public debates. If you have to play the bongo, play it well; don't play around with it. Your fingers will hurt as much as the ears of others. Chivas Regal is as bad as country liquor, even if it is indicative of social status.
Consumption of liquor, like future history, is not open to negotiation. Let's be clear about that.

^{26th July 1999.}