"She said to me, 'Now I have faith on you. I know you'll do it.'" ~ The Author. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d The composure of the book is based on Original Documents/Proofs, Albums and Self Analysis on Literature (Edited). Due to certain explanations and medical propositions, it is psychologically inappropriate to read below 14. # Copyright Matters. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d ON 14TH OCTOBER, MY MARKETING CONSULTING TEAM THOUGHT ON LAUNCHING THE BOOK: Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d THE IMMORTAL FLY: ETERNAL WHISPERS (Based On True Events of a Family) 'On Way to America...' "SHE KNEW HER DAUGHTER THROUGH LITERATURE." Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d Copyright © 2019 by Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri. ISBN: Softcover 978-1-5437-0551-5 eBook 978-1-5437-0550-8 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them. Print information available on the last page. To order additional copies of this book, contact Partridge India 000 800 10062 62 orders.india@partridgepublishing.com www.partridgepublishing.com/india Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d vii Thanks to Partridge India: While composing the book the author is bestowed to Partridge International, An Imprint in Association with Penguin Random House and US Copyright Registration. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d ix On Desk Websites recognise 'her' on some other name in English and British Literature. Does World know for who is she today, on discussion to Literature as well as Philosophy? Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d x 'My protagonist Babuli and her Mother (Ma)' [IMAGE: 1, From Album] Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d CONTENTS Literature, for the World... ............................................ 1 Literature and Philosophy ......................................... 24 Immortality .................................................................. 61 The Impeccable Darkness ........................................... 77 "I Will Fly..." (Consequences) ..................................... 89 My Worst Fear .............................................................. 96 Medical Journey and Philosophy ............................ 101 The Immortal Fly ........................................................110 The Chaotic World (Literature) ................................ 146 Around the World ..................................................... 181 Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d xiii THANKS TO AMERICA..... Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d xiv "Everything will be deceased, therefore, with my ashes; I shall allow my daughter only to hold my pen and, she knows that-" ~ The Author. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 1 Literature, for the World... Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 2 [# The Daughter was acquainted to the Mother through Words in Literature. One of the favourite analyses to the mother was Rabindranath Tagore's 'The Kabuliwala'.] Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 3 Adapted and Edited from Rabindranath Tagore's story 'THE KABULIWALA'-. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 4 ''PEACE BE UPON YOU......." Several years passed. The way Mini's inconstant little heart behaved was embarrassing even to her father. She easily forgot her old friend and found a new one in Nabi, the syce. Then, as she continued to grow up, she replaced all her elderly male friends, one after another with girls of her own age. She was hardly to be seen in her father's studio. In a way, I had almost ended all friendship with her. It was Autumn again. Mini's wedding match had been fixed. She was to get married during the puja* holidays. This event will take the joy of our household to her in-laws' house, leaving us in darkness. It was a sunny, resplendent morning. The rain-washed sun of early autumn took the hue of pure gold. Its brilliance made even the dingy, rundown brick houses in the inner lanes of Kolkata look beautiful. The wedding music had started playing in the house since dawn. Each note of that music seemed to come right from my rib-cage in a sobbing tune and spread the sorrow of an impending farewell to the world, mixing itself with the radiant shafts of the autumnal sun. My Mini was to get married that day. There was a lot of hubbub in the house since visitors were continually loitering in and out. A tent was being put up on bamboo poles in the courtyard of the house, Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 5 and the chimes of chandeliers being rigged in the portico of every room filled the air. There was no end to the rumpus. I was going through the wedding accounts in my study, when suddenly a tall, shabbily clothed Afghan street vender, walked into the room and stood before me with a salaam. At first, I couldn't recognise him. He didn't have that customary sack with him over his shoulder or the long hair with a turban on his head and his burly look. Finally, I recognised him through his smile. Living our days through our daily routines in the home, it never occurred to us once how this freespirited man from the mountains was spending his years within the secluded walls of the guardhouse. I asked him, "How long have you been back, Rahamat?" "During last evening," he replied. The words gave me a sudden thrust. I said him on circumstance, ''We have a wedding in the house today, and I am quite busy. It is better for you to go now." At that, he began to leave the house, but as he reached the door, he turned back in hesitation and asked in a faltering tone, "Can't I see the girl for a moment?" Perhaps he was convinced the girl named Mini was still the same little girl and would come out of the house running to greet him, "Kabuliwala, O Kabuliwala,' as Bl ac k ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 6 in the past. Their happy, playful relationship of old had remained unchanged. Remembering their past friendship, he had even brought a box of grapes and a few raisins wrapped in a packet, which he must have borrowed from some Afghan friend because his own customary sack was not there with him. I said once again, ''There is a festivity in the house today. It won't be possible to see anyone at this time." He looked a little hurt by the statement and stood stupefied for a time, gazing at me with a fixed look. Then he walked out of the room abruptly with a simple 'bye'. I felt remorseful and thought I should call him back, but right then I saw him turning around. Standing close to me, he said, 'I brought these grapes and raisins for the little girl, hope you don't mind giving it to her.' I took the fruits from him and was about to pay some money when he grabbed me by the hand and said, ''You're a generous man, Sir, and I'll never forget your kindness, but please don't pay me for these fruits. Just as you have a daughter, I too have one back home. It is remembering her face that I bring these gifts for your child. I don't come here for business." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 7 With that, he shoved his hand inside his huge baggy shirt and brought out a grimy piece of paper from somewhere close to his chest. Unfolding it very carefully, he laid the paper open on the table. I could see the impression of a very small hand on it; not a photograph, not a painting, but the trace of a tiny hand created with burnt charcoal daubed on the palm. Every year Rahamat came to peddle merchandise on the streets of Kolkata carrying that memorabilia of his daughter in his pocket, as if the soft touch of that little hand kept his huge, lonely heart fed with love and happiness. My eyes filled with tears at the sight of that piece of paper. It no longer mattered to me that he was an ordinary fruit peddler from Kabul and I belonged to an aristocratic Bengali family. In a moment I realised that we were both just the same -he was a father and so was I. The print of his mountain dwelling daughter's hand reminded me of my own Mini. I sent word for her to come out to the study immediately. Many of the women objected, but I paid no heed. In her bridal dress and ceremonial make up, Mini came out from the inner quarters and stood beside me coyly. The Kabuliwala saw Mini and became confused; their good-natured humour of old also didn't work out: In the end, with a smile, he asked, "Girl, are you going to the in-law's house?" Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 8 Mini now understood what 'in-law' meant. So she couldn't answer the way she did in the past. Rather, hearing the question from Rahamat, her face became purple in shame and she abruptly turned around and left. This brought back memories of their first meeting; and I felt an ache in my heart. Soon after Mini left, Rahamat slouched on the floor with a long deep sigh...... ******************************************************** My five-year old daughter Mini is a chatty girl and likes to talk all day long. It took her about a year after being born to acquire the talent for language, and since then she has not wasted a single wakeful moment of her life remaining silent. Often her mother chides her to keep quiet, but I can never do that. Seeing the girl mute even for an instant seems so odd and unusual to me that I find it unbearable. That's why my conversation with Mini is often feisty. One morning as I had just started writing the seventeenth chapter of my novel, Mini walked into the room and began, 'Our sentry Ramdayal doesn't even know how to pronounce the word ''crow". He is so backward'. Before I could begin to enlighten her on the differences between languages, she launched into another topic. ''See, Bhola was saying that when elephants lift water with their trunks and spray it from the sky, it rains. Bhola can speak Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 9 such nonsense. He can rant day and night, without making any sense!" Without waiting for my opinion on it, she asked me out of the blue, "Who is mum to you?" Sister-in-law, I thought to myself, but to Mini I replied, avoiding the complicated question, "You go and play with Bhola. I have some work now." At this, she flopped beside the writing table, close to my feet, and began to play a game of knick-knack with her hands and knees, rapidly chanting nursery rhyme. In the seventeenth chapter of my novel, Pratap Singh was jumping off the high balcony of the jailhouse at this time, with Kanchanmala, into the river below in the dark of night. Stopping her game abruptly Mini ran to the window which overlooked the main road, and began calling out at the top of her voice, "Kabuliwala, O Kabuliwala!' A tall, shabbily clothed Afghan street vender, with a turban on his head, a bag, over his shoulder, and a few boxes of dry grapes in his hand was passing through the street slowly. I have no idea what flashed through my daughter's mind at the sight of this man, but the moment she saw him she began yelling. I thought, this nuisance with a sack over his shoulder will show up a moment and I won't be able to finish writing the seventeenth chapter of my novel. But at, the moment the Kabuliwala, at hearing Mini's call, turned around with a smile and approached the house, she dashed inside and couldn't be found anywhere. She had this Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 10 childish fear that if someone looked through the bag of this Afghan man, several living children like herself would be found in there. Meanwhile, the Kabuliwala stepped into the compound and stood at the door with a smile and an Islamic salute. I thought, although the characters in my novel, Pratap Singh and Kanchanmala were in dire straits, it would be unseemly to call the man all the way to the house and not buy anything. I bought a few items and soon I was involved in a rambling conversation with him on various topics including Abdur Rahman, the Emir of Afghanistan and the Frontier Policy of the Russians and the British. Finally, as he was about to leave the house, he asked, "Sir, where is your little girl?" To break Mini's unfounded fear, I called her from inside the house. She came and stood nervously, pressing against my body, and looking suspiciously at the Kabuliwala and his bag. The Kabuliwala took out some raisins and apricots from inside the bag and gave it to Mini, but she refused to take them and remained pressed against my knees with a redoubled suspicion. That was how their first meeting ended. A few days later, as I was leaving the house in the morning for some important work, I saw my tiny daughter sitting on the bench next to the door and speaking non-stop with the Kabuliwala, who was parked next to her feet and listening Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 11 to her with a grin and interjecting now and then in broken Bengali to give his opinion. In her short five-year life, Mini had never found a more intent listener before other than her father. I also noticed that she had lots of nuts and raisins tied up at the loose end of her small sari. Upon discovering this, I asked the Kabuliwala, "Why did you give all these to her? Please don't do it again." With that, I took out a half-a-rupee coin and gave it to him. The Kabuliwala took the money without any hesitation and put it in his bag. On returning home, I found that a full-scale row had broken out over the coin. Holding the white, round, shining piece of metal in her hand, Mini's mother asked her in a rebuking tone, "Where did you get the coin?" Mini replied, "The Kabuliwala gave it to me." Her mother chided, "Why did you take it from him?" Mini answered sobbingly," I didn't ask for it. He gave it on his own." I stepped in to rescue Mini and took her out for a walk. I learnt that this was not her second meeting with the Kabuliwala. He had been visiting Mini almost daily, and by offering her pistachio nuts he had already won a large part of the girl's childish heart. The two friends had a few stock phrases and jokes which were repeated in their conversations. For example, the moment she saw Rahamat, my daughter would ask with a Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 12 hearty laugh, "Kabuliwala. O Kabuliwala, what is in your sack?" Adding an unnecessary nasal tone to the word, Rahamat would roar, ''Hanti." The essence of the joke was that the man had an elephant in his sack. Not that the joke was very witty, but it caused the two friends to double up in laughter, and the sight of that innocent joy between a little girl and a grown man on autumn mornings used to move me deeply. Another routine exchange between the two was whenever they met, Rahamat would tell the girl in his characteristic thick accent, "Missy, you should never go to the in-laws." Bengali girls were commonly familiar with the term 'inlaws' practically since birth. But on, being more modern we choose not to load our daughter's mind with precocious thoughts at such a tender age. That was why Mini could never fully understand Rahamat's advice. But at, to keep quiet and not respond to a statement was contrary to Mini's nature. Therefore, turning the phrase into a question, she would ask, "Will you go to your in-laws?" Making a huge fist with his hand, Rahamat would pretend to punch at his imaginary in-law and say, "I'll wallop my in-law." Thinking of the plight of the unknown creature called fatherin-law, Mini would explode into laughter. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 13 It was still early autumn that time of the year when kings in ancient days used to go out on conquest. Personally, I have never been away from Kolkata which is why my mind always wanders around the world. I am like an exile in my own home as my mind constantly likes to travel to other places. The moment I hear the name of a foreign country, my mind longs to visit that unknown place. Likewise, the sight of an alien person brings to mind the image of a lonely hut beside a river in the midst of a forest, and I begin to imagine an autonomous, exultant way of life. Yet I am so dull and inert that every time I think of travelling out of my little world, I panic. That's why I used to mitigate my desire for travelling a little by talking to this man from Kabul in the morning, sitting in front of my writing table in my little room. The Kabuliwala blared out stories of his homeland in his broken Bengali and I fancied it all before my eyes: tall, rugged, impassable mountains on two sides, red-hot with torrid heat, and a caravan moving through the narrow, dusty passageway in between; turbaned traders and travellers passing by, some on camel back, others on foot; some carrying spears, and others outdated flint-stone guns. Mini's mother is naturally a timid person. Whenever she hears a slight noise from the street, she thinks all the tipplers of the world are rushing towards our house. After living so many years in this world (though not many), she has still not been able to temper her fear that the world is full of all kinds of horrors: thieves, robbers, drunkards, snakes, tigers, malaria, cockroaches and European soldiers. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 14 She was not free of suspicion about the Kabuliwala, Rahamat, and nagged me to keep a watchful eye on him. Whenever I sought to make light of her suspicions, she asked me a few pointed questions: 'Are there no such instances of child abduction? Isn't slave-trade still in practice in Afghanistan? Is it altogether impossible for a giant Afghan to kidnap a little child? I had to agree that those were not impossible, but were improbable. However, not everyone has the same capacity for trust, so my wife remained suspicious of the man. But of, I could not stop Rahamat from visiting the house either because he had done nothing wrong. Every year, in January or February, Rahamat would go back to his home country to visit his family. A money-lender, he was unusually busy during this period collecting dues from his clients before the trip. He had to rush from house to house to raise the collectibles, and yet he found time to visit Mini. It appeared as if the two were involved in a mischievous plot. The day he couldn't come in the morning he came in the evening. To see that huge Afghan sitting in the corner of the house in the dark of evening in his baggy clothes and customary sack would create a sudden fear in my mind. But at, the moment I saw Mini rushing out of the house and greeting her friend. 'Kabuliwala, O Kabuliwala, and the chums of incompatible years engaging in their familiar bantering and innocent laughter, my heart would fill with delight. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 15 One morning I was sitting in my room and reading some proofs. It was the end of winter, but for the last few days, before the season came to a close, the temperature was freezing and almost unbearable. I was enjoying the warmth of a strip of morning sun that had alighted on my feet under the table, travelling through the glass window. It was about eight o' clock, and most of the early risers had finished their morning walk with their necks wrapped in scarves and returned home. Just then, I heard some commotion in the street. Looking out, I saw our Rahamat was 'escorted' by two men, with a whole host of street urchins trailing after them. ........ I stepped out and accosted them, demanding to know what was going on. Putting together details from Rahamat as well as them, I understood that one of our neighbours was indebted to Rahamat for a Rampuri shawl and when the man denied his debt, an argument broke out between them. Rahamat was in the midst of accusing the dishonest man. Just then the little and innocent Mini came running out of the house, shouting, 'Kabuliwala, O Kabuliwala!' In a flash, Rahamat's face was filled with expressions of happiness. Since he didn't have the sling bag, over his shoulder that day, their usual exchange on the subject could not take place. So the little girl, Mini asked him straight off, Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 16 "Will you be going to your in-laws' house?" ''That's exactly where I am going," Rahamat replied with a laugh. When he noticed that the child did not find the answer quite amusing, he pointed to his hands, and added in his heavily accented, patchy Bengali amusingly in a childish manner to the little girl, "I would have punch up the in-law. But what can I do, my hands are tied up." Several years passed ..... *********************************************************** It's obvious to him now that his own daughter had grown up as well and he would have to get to know her all over again. She would not be the same girl he had left behind. He was not even sure what might have happened to her in the past eight years. The wedding music continued to play softly in the courtyard on that autumnal sunny morning, and sitting there on the floor of my house in an alley in Kolkata, Rahamat continued to envision the images of the arid, hilly terrains of Afghanistan. I took out some money and gave it to him. 'You go back to your daughter in Afghanistan, Rahamat, and may the happiness of your union bring blessings for my Mini too, I said. I had to cut out one or two items from the éclat of the festivities for gifting that money. For example, Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 17 the lighting decoration was not as gorgeous as I had wanted it to be, and the band party had to be cancelled. This upset the women, but buoyed by a benevolent spirit, my auspicious ceremony became more luminous. ~ ETERNAL WHISPERS. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 19 Theme of the Book Dear Babuli, "Your gift, 'ETERNAL WHISPERS,' is very precious to me. Spread your wings to reach destiny. I am always with you, as before.... Yours lovingly, The Fly. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 20 My words, as an Author, on Babuli's Ma "A tan brown skin woman was immensely nostalgic and emotional as an embodiment of self personality, beauty and patience along with self education, self determination and with self confidence on her only daughter, Babuli. During a certain recovery, in midst of struggle, throughout long period of 51 days in ICU12, Babuli's Ma had her blissful words to her daughter (as translated from Bengali Language) : 'I believe from self, on what my daughter speaks deeply on own style is 'Hence, for The World.'" Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 21 Babuli's Ma in 2015. "I will fly with you on your success, in America..." [Babuli's Ma to Babuli.] [IMAGE: 2, From Album] Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 22 Elaboration According to Babuli, in her diary named 'Eternal Whispers': "Ma was the student of Philosophy. She had her words to me from Spinoza's Ethics: 'Of human bondage, or the Strength of Emotions.' " Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 23 Philosophy of the Book Imagination and its empyreal [heavenly or have something to do with the sky] reflection is the same as human life and its spiritual reflection...The Prototype [something from which other forms be developed] must be hereafter.' Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 24 Literature and Philosophy Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 25 AMBIGUITY IN NATURE [NATURE AND REFLECTION] Self Analysis by Babuli on the Immortal Literature Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 26 ''If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" ODE TO THE WEST WIND- Percy Bysshe Shelley... Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 27 "Thunder is good; thunder is impressive. But it is lightening that does the work." The poem ''Ode to the West Wind" was written in the autumn of 1819, in the beautiful Cascine Gardens outside Florence and was published with "Prometheus Unbound" in 1820. The poet is himself in a mood of despondency and misery and says that he falls upon the thorns of life and is bleeding. He is seeking reawakening also through the poem and wants the wind to carry his dead thoughts and ideas like it has taken the leaves and wants fresh ideas to take birth. This is possible only if he first gets rid of stale ideas and thoughts and learns to replace them with new ones. In that sense even the poet is feeling a sort of intellectual deaths and is desirous of being given a new lease of life. "This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once wild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions." Nothing can surpass Shelley's poetic description of himself in 'Adonais', as a 'frail form', 'a phantom among men', 'companionless' as 'the last cloud of an expiring storm'Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 28 "The weight of the super incumbent hour, It is a dying lamp, a falling shower; A breaking billow;" The life of Shelley lays worlds apart from that of Byron. His treatment of Harriet apart, his private life was not vicious, but on the contrary in many respects exemplary. As far as the ideas, which he sang, were capable of application to life, he applied them in his own conduct. He preached the equality of man and he proved that he was willing to practice it. He was generous and benevolent to a fault. "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." Shelley holds a unique place in English literature by virtue of his power of making myths out of the objects and forces of Nature. Clutton-Brock has discussed in detail Shelley's myth-making power as revealed in the Ode to the West Wind: "It has been said that Shelley was a myth-maker. His myths were not to him mere caprices of fancy. They expressed by the only means which human language provides for the expression of such things, that sense which he possessed, of a more intense real.ity in nature than is felt by other men. To most of us, the forces of nature have little meanings. But for Shelley, these forces had as much reality as human beings. Have for most of us, and he found the same kind of intense significance in their manifestations of beauty that we find in the beauty of human belongs Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 29 or of great works of art. The nature of this significance, he could not explain; but he could express it with enormous power in his art, and with a precision of statement which seems miraculous where the nature of the subject matter is considered... to Shelley, the West Wind was still a wind, and the cloud a cloud, however intense a reality they might have for him. ...we are not wrought upon to feel anything human in the wind's power; but if we are susceptible to Shelley' magic, we are filled with a new sense of the life and significance and reality of nature." Shelley started writing very early, but his first major work came in 1811. This was Queen Mab, along poem. It is a revolutionary poem, but there is much confusion in the development of the story. The next great poem 'Alastor' came in 1815. In the same year he produced Mount Blanc and Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. These poems expressed the poet's idealism. In the latter of the two poems, the poet expresses his feeling of the presence of a spirit in nature. In 1818-19, came the great drama, Prometheus Unbound. This is a major poem. As a drama it is not much of a success, but both in theme and in its individual songs it achieves greatness. In 1819, came another great play, The Cenci. This play portrays absolute evil as Prometheus Unbound portrays absolute goodness. This was followed by 'The Witch of Atlas 'and 'Epipsychidion'. In the same year published 'Adonais', a lament on the death of the poet Keats. In the last year of his life (1822) Shelley wrote Hellas. Shelley Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 30 left an unfinished poem, Triumph of Life. In addition to these long poems, Shelley wrote a large number of lyrics. The most well-known of these are 'Ode to the West Wind', 'To a Skylark' and 'The Cloud'. It is in these lyrics that we often find Shelley at his best. 'Ode to the West Wind' is a great achievement-a poem in which great thought is combined with great art. Most of his lyrics are love poems. Many of them express the poet's deep joy in life as well as his deep sorrow. Shelley sets up a humanity glorified through love; he worships in the sanctuary left vacant by "the great absence of God" (His youthful atheism lacked warmth and in the end he turned to a type of pantheism). Love, as exemplified in his personal life, is a passionate kind of sensuality which becomes his simple moral code with no duty, blame, or obligation attached. The reign of love when no authority was necessary was his millennium. Most of Shelley's poems are sad in tone and as such he is regarded as "the singer of endless sorrows", but this is not true of all his poems. Whenever he writes of the future of mankind, he turns ecstatically optimistic. "A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable!-" Shelley had believed in a soul of the Universe, a Spirit in which all things live and move and have their being; His most passionate desire was for the mystical fusion Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 31 of his own personality with his spirit. Spontaneity and fluidity are the proof of his wealth of imagination. There is no effect of laborious artistry about Shelley's style at any time. According to Bradley," The language is poetical through and through, not, as sometimes with Wordsworth, only half-poetical, and yet it seems to drop from Shelley's lips. "It is not wrought and kneaded; it flows." In 'Ode to West Wind', the poet begins his invocation in a buoyant mood. He looks upon the Wind as the destroyer of the present order and usherer of a new one. In the course of the poem, Shelley's pessimism reaches its peak. He suddenly remembers his own plight: "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!" The subsequent thought of the future at once turns his melancholy into ecstatic rapture and he ends the poem with one of the most optimistic and memorable prophecies about the future of mankind. The ecstasy arises out of his ardent belief in the imminent regeneration of mankind and the end of all evils. He hopes that all forms of tyranny and oppression will be replaced, in the millennium to come, by all-round happiness. The joyous rapture is born of an intense feeling of optimism: Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 32 "Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;" Most of Shelley's poetry is symbolic. Shelley makes use of symbolism by means of his normal use of images including the personified forces of life and nature. He looks upon the West Wind as a personified force of nature and finds in it various symbolic meanings to suit the purpose of the poem. The West Wind drives the last signs of life from the trees and also scatters the seeds which will come to life in spring. In this way the Wind appears to the poet as a destroyer of the old order and a preserver of the new, i.e., a symbol of change. The Wind also symbolizes Shelley's own personality. When he was a boy he was one like the Wind: "tameless, and swift, and proud." He still possesses these qualities but they lie suppressed under "a heavy weight of hours." "Ideals are like stars. We never reach them but, like mariners on the sea, we chart our course by them." Shelley's sky-lyrics-''Ode to the West Wind", ''The Cloud" and ''To A Skylark"-have all been interpreted as having symbolic significance. The West Wind drives away the old, pale; hectic-red leaves and scatters fresh seeds over the ground. Shelley thus looks upon the Wind as a destroyer of the old order and the usherer of a new one i.e. as a symbol of the forces that will end all evil and Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 33 bring about the golden millennium in which there will be nothing but peace and happiness for mankind. In the poem The Cloud, the brief life of a Cloud has also been constructed by such critics as a symbol of the immortality of the soul. However, there is no doubt that his concept of the Skylark is entirely symbolic. Shelley's Skylark, is not just a bird but an embodiment of this ideal, the poet can hear its song but the bird ever remains invisible. The skylark, by its very nature, also symbolizes Shelley's own poetic spirit. "Poetry is like a perfume which on evaporation leaves in our soul essence of beauty." Among the Romantic poets, Shelley is marvelled for his inimitable abstract ideas, but he is less of an artist .He was aiming not at the poetry of art, but at the poetry of rapture. Keats advised him to be "more an artist" and to "load every rift with ore", but Shelley was aiming at a different effect from that of Keats's richly decorated and highly finished poetry. The poem" Ode to the West Wind" is universally accepted as one of the best poems in English Literature. The poem is remarkable for its theme, range of thought, spontaneity, poetic beauty, lyrical quality, and quick movement similar to that of the wind itself; This poem along with the "The Cloud" and "The Skylark" mark as an abiding monument to Shelley's passion for the sky. Shelley himself writes: Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 34 "I take great delight in watching the change in the atmosphere." The west wind wakes the Mediterranean up from its summer dreams and even manages to shake up the otherwise quite calm Atlantic Ocean. For its path the ocean starts to create cracks and the might of the west wind is so great that even the moss and flowers under the sea begin to tremble with fear. Thus, the west wind acquires the quality of being fearful and creating terror. The clouds are carried by the wind to a tomb and are locked there. During this season, the strong wind does not let the clouds gather easily since it blows them away. Shelley imagines that the wind gathers the clouds in a sepulcher till they have enough strength to burst forth and bring rain. Again the idea of destroyer and preserver is implicit. The clouds are destroyed and without rain the earth becomes barren but then clouds burst bringing rain which brings earth back to life. There is greenery everywhere and earth is rejuvenated. "The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra." Shelley calls the west wind the 'dirge of the dying year' and in these words is hidden the idea of rebirth. The west wind once again brings winter and December but the end of the year implies the birth of a new one since December is followed by January and the New Year with new hopes and resolutions. The poet is himself Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 35 in a mood of despondency and misery and says that he falls upon the thorns of life and is bleeding. He is seeking reawakening also through the poem and wants the wind to carry his dead thoughts and ideas like it has taken the leaves and wants fresh ideas to take birth. This is possible only if he first gets rid of stale ideas and thoughts and learns to replace them with new ones. In that sense even the poet is feeling a sort of intellectual deaths and is desirous of being given a new lease of life. ''Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhereDestroyer and Preserver-hear, O hear!" Shelley's idea of the Islands of Delight as expressed in 'Lines Written among the Euganean Hills', is merely a product of an unfounded optimism and has no logical bearing. Shelley's faith is no doubt genuine and intense, but it comes from his abstract visions, not from sound logical reasoning. He is ever haunted by the Eternal Mind. He constantly endeavours to look beyond the evil of life and chases the invisible and impalpable. He gives various names to this unattainable thing. In his Hymn To Intellectual Beauty, he describes it as the spirit of Beauty pervading the universe. He speaks of it as an "unseen power" that rarely visits human hearts as an 'awful loveliness' that can free this world from tyranny and oppression. Thus, a profound note of yearning for the unattainable is another feature of Shelley's poetry. According to Cazamian, ''The tone of Shelley's poetry is that of a keen aspiration, in which mystical desire, with Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 36 its anguished pangs and spiritual raptures, transcends the joys and sufferings of ordinary mankind." Shelley is pessimistic about the present but optimistic about the future. He believes that regeneration always follows destruction and that a new and utopian order is certain to come when the present degenerate system is ended. His optimism about the imminent dawn of a golden age is genuine and firm and his prophecy of that millennium underlies most of his poems. In Ode to West Wind also this prophetic note is present and present with the greatest intensity of expression. "And, by the incarnation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!" Shelley had a deep interest in ancient Greeks. His enthusiasm for the wisdom of the Greek philosophers is implicit in many of his poems. This gives Shelley a sharper appreciation of natural forms and the theory that artists and poets must try to remove the worldly cover from objects and expose the underlying ideal prototype. Platonism appeals to him most because the guiding power behind the ideal forms serves him in lieu of a religion; In 'Adonais', Shelley's Platonism has found the most elaborate expression. Like the other Romantic poets, Shelley too was an ardent lover of Nature. Like Wordsworth, Shelley conceives of Nature as one spirit, the Supreme Power Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 37 working through all things "The one spirit's plastic distress/ Sweeps through the dull dense world." Again he personifies each object of nature as an individual life, a part of that Supreme Power, Nature. He celebrates nature in most of his poems as his main theme such as ''The Cloud", ''To a Skylark", and ''To the Moon". ''Ode to the West Wind", ''A Dream of the Unknown". The tone of pessimism set in the beginning with 'dead', 'ghosts', 'corpse in grave' reaches its climax with 'I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed'. In the last stanzas the poet moves from the natural to the human misery and the mention of the hearth combines the two because hearth is seen as the centre of the earth where the natural world and the human one merge. The poet is seeking transcendence into the sublime as did Wordsworth in Tintern Abbey. The affinity of temper between them prompts the poet to appeal to the Wind to save him from his present plight. At this hour of distress the poet can look upon the Wind as a competent saviour, a symbol of aid and relief. Finally, the West Wind is treated by the poet as representing the forces that can help bring about the golden millennium, when the miseries and agonies of mankind will be replaced by all round happiness. "The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 38 Shelley shows no sense of history and cannot put forth the cause and remedies of the evils he finds in human society. He has an intense belief that regeneration of mankind is imminent but cannot tell us why and how it is coming. His West Wind is a symbol of the forces that will bring about this regeneration: it is nothing more. He has never told us what these forces symbolized by the wind are in reality. Shelley belongs to the younger generation of Romantic poets. Like the other two poets of his generation, he died young. His poetry divided itself into two distinct moods. In one he is the violent reformer seeking to overthrow the present institutions' in order to bring about the Golden Age. "Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst:-O hear!" Sometimes Shelley becomes pantheistic in his concept of nature when he seems to believe that every aspect of nature is a manifestation of only one and invisible soul or spirit and that after the end of the earthly existence, everything is reunited with that one soul. "...that sustaining love Which through the web of being blindly wove By man and beast and earth and air and sea." Shelley's lyrics are surpassingly musical and sweet. Swinburne was ecstatic in his tribute to this aspect of Shelley's lyricism. Shelley out sang all poets on record, Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg r un d 39 but some two or three throughout all time; his depths and heights of inner and outer music are as diverse as nature's and not sooner exhaustible. He was alone the perfect singing God; his thoughts words and deeds all sang together. Arnold, one of the worst critics of Shelley, admired his music and remarked: "the right sphere of Shelley's genius was the sphere of music." Shelley's careful handling of diction fitting into the sense of his lines enhances the musical quality keeping with the swift, of his lyrics. The rhythm of Ode to the West Wind is thus exactly in gusty march of the wind itself: "O wild West Wind, thou breathe of Autumn's being." Shelley never allows morbidity to overcome the enjoyment in his lyrics. Self-pity is no doubt his favourite theme, but in his lyrics, he presents this self-pity, not as something to be feared, but as an essential part of life. Shelley's readers are never depressed because they are constantly reminded that sufferings lie only in the present and that in future all sufferings will be replaced by pure happiness. His despondency is soon replaced by an ecstatic rapture of joy when he comes to think of the future happiness of mankind, of the millennium to come: "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" Shelley calls the west wind a destroyer and a preserver at the same time. It is a destroyer because it makes the trees shed their leaves making them bare. The west wind is called a preserver since it carries the seeds to Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 40 places where they lie in hibernation during the winter and when the sister of west wind, the east wind blows in spring time, they start to germinate and blossom into many different coloured flowers. Winter is often seen as death since plants die and many animals hide themselves for the season. The earth looks barren and appears lifeless but spring is a time of rejuvenation, flowers blossom and insects and animals begin to start life again. The poet gives the credit of carrying the seeds to a safer place in winter to the west wind. This way it becomes the destroyer and the preserver. "(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in the air) With living hues and odours plain and hillWild Spirit, which art moving everywhereDestroyer and Preserver –hear, O hear!" This co-existence of pessimism and optimism-the swift replacement of one by the other-is a major attractive feature of Shelley's lyric poetry. This poem is considered to be one of the finest lyrics in English poetry because of its sentiments and the perfect technical construction. The poet touches on the four elementsearth, sky, weather and fire and the transition from the wind to himself is very smooth one and does not feel enforced. It is a complex poem because of the number of similes and they do not appear to be enforced or excessive in any way. The movement of the wind from earth to sky and water is observed minutely by the poet keeping scientific facts in mind. The symbolism of destroyer Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 41 and preserver is carried through the poem; first with the wind driving the dead leaves away to make place for new ones, secondly with the mention of pumice isle which was built with the lava from a volcano. Volcano is both a destroyer and a preserver since while it erupts it pours forth fire but once it subsides it leaves behind valuable minerals and fertile material. Finally, the poet's own thoughts are dead leaves to be driven away so that new ones can take their place. The theme of rebirth is thus an integral part of the poem. "A deep resolute mind rises above all difficulties" The poet then describes how the wind carries loose clouds on its stream and spreads them from horizon to the height of the skies. The wind is the funeral song of the passing year because soon after autumn comes winter when the year ends and a new one begins. Winter is often seen as death since plants die and many animals hide themselves for the season. The earth looks barren and appears lifeless but spring is a time of rejuvenation, flowers blossom and insects and animals begin to start life again. The poet gives the credit of carrying the seeds to a safer place in winter to the west wind. This way it becomes the destroyer and the preserver. "Each like a corpse, within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth," Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 42 In his treatment of nature, he describes the things in nature as they are and never colours it. It is true, he gives them human life through his personifications, but he does it unintentionally for he felt they are living beings capable of doing the work of human beings. His mythopoeia power had made him the best romanticist of his age. In Ode to the West Wind, he personifies Nature as the Destroyer and the Preserver, and in "The Cloud", the cloud is a possessor of mighty powers. "Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, Angels of rain and lightening!" Shelley holds a unique place in English literature by virtue of his power of making myths out of the objects and forces of Nature. Beauty, to Shelley, is an ideal in itself and a microcosm of the beauty of Nature and he calls it 'Intellectual Beauty'. He celebrates Beauty as a mysterious power. In the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, he says that when Intellectual Beauty departs, this world becomes a "dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate" and if human heart is its temple, then man would become immortal and omnipotent: "Man were immortal and omnipotent Did'st thou, unknown and awful as thou art Keep with thy glorious train firm state Within his heart." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 43 The West Wind is the breath of Autumn. Dead leaves, black, yellow and red in colour, fly before the wind, as the ghosts fly before a magician. The West Wind scatters the flying seeds. The seeds lie under the ground and when Spring comes, they grow into flowers of different colours and fragrance. The West Wind destroys dead leaves and preserves useful seeds. "Make me thy lyre, ev'n as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own!" The spirit of the west wind is described as 'uncontrollable'. The west wind is unstoppable and it affects everything that falls in its path. It affects the earth, the water in the oceans and the clouds of the sky. It is responsible for carrying them and locking them up in a sepulcher till they burst forth in fury of rain and hail. The poet thinks that the west wind has a free spirit and wanders as and where it pleases. He admires it for its freedom and wishes the wind would carry him along like a leaf or a cloud. Shelley then sums up the spirit of the west wind as 'tameless, swift and proud.' It cannot be kept in check so it is 'tameless', the speed of the west wind is formidable and it is proud because it would not listen to any one. Finally, the poet refers the west wind as 'Spirit fierce' and 'impetuous one' that acts on the impulse of the moment. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 44 "The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear And tremble and despoil themselves: -------O hear!" The Wind blows through the jungle and produces music out of the dead leaves. Shelley requests it to create music out of his heart and to inspire him to write great poetry, which may create a revolution in the hearts of men. He wants the Wind to scatter his revolutionary message in the world, just as it scatters ashes and sparks from a burning fire. His thoughts may not be as fiery as they once were, but they still have the power to inspire men. He tells the Wind to take the message to the sleeping world that if winter comes, spring cannot be far behind. In optimistic note he declares that bad days are followed by good days. "Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers," Idealism is a part and parcel of Shelley's temperament. He is a rebel, like Byron, against the age –old customs, traditions, conventions and institutions, sanctioned only by practice and not by reason. Unlike Byron, but, he is not only a rebel but also a reformer. He wants to reconstitute society in keeping with his ideals of good, Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 45 truth and beauty. According to ComptonRickett, "To renovate the world, to bring about utopia, is his constant aim, and for this reason we may regard Shelley as emphatically the poet of eager, sensitive youth; not the animal youth of Byron, but the spiritual youth of the visionary and reformer." Poetry is the expression of the poet's mind. This is absolutely true of Shelley's poetry. A study of Shelley's poetry is the easiest and shortest way to his mind and personality. The fourth Stanza of Ode to the West Wind is entirely personal and autobiographical. An analogy with the West Wind helps the poet describe his own spirit: ''tameless, and swift, and proud." The poet narrates the change, he has undergone in the course of his life. He was full of energy, enthusiasm and speed in his boyhood, but the agonies and bitterness of life-"A heavy weight of hours"-has repressed his qualities and has put him in an unbearable state. The expression of his sufferings "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!" is intensely genuine, heart-rending, and possibly the most spontaneous of Shelley's emotional outbursts through his poems. The calm Mediterranean was sleeping. The music of the glassy waves lulled the ocean to sleep. It was dreaming of towers and palaces reflected in its water. The West Wind creates furrows on the smooth waters of the Atlantic Ocean. At the bottom of the Atlantic grow plants and vegetation. These plants are dry, without sap Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 46 though they live in water. When the West Wind blows in autumn, the plants on the land wither; the plants at the bottom of the ocean also fade and die. "Quivering within the wave's intenser day," Shelley is describing the approach of the terrible West Wind in the regions of the sky. Shelley's emotional ecstasy fires his brain to that kind of superb conception which made the ancient Greeks fill the earth, the air sand the water with gods and goddesses who were but personifications of the forces of nature. "Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the soul." The cloud form on the horizon, gather up in the sky and then darken the space. The sky is at first blue, but it assumes a dark appearance on the approach of the vaporous clouds. From the distant and dim horizon to the highest point in the sky, the whole visible space is filled by the movements of the air. The clouds are up and spread themselves. The scattered and disorderly clouds look like the locks of the mighty West Wind personified, as seen approaching through the sky; these locks resemble the dishevelled and erect hair on the heads of intoxicated and frenzied female worshippers of the wine-god who used to dance madly about. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 47 "The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seem'd a vision,-'' These lines are very touching and highly characteristic of Shelley. Shelley was a rebel and a revolutionary. He had a restless temperament which was even at war with something. In the West Wind, Shelley finds a kindred spirit. Looking at it, he is reminded of his youth when he too was free and uncontrollable. At that time, he did not think it an impossibility to vie with the West Wind in its speed, but the worries and mysteries of this life have proved too much for him and have made him tame and weak. He had lost his old vigour and force, and he appeals to the West Wind to lend him some strength and lift his dejected spirit as it lifts a cloud, wave or a leaf. He was very much oppressed by the hardships of the world and he wants somebody to support him through his struggle for existence in this world. He was indeed tameless and wild like the West Wind at one time, but now he is bowed down by the worries and care, and calls for help. Next, Shelley describes the agitated surface of the ocean cuts a thousand deep passages on itself for the march of the terrific wind; while the rush and tumult on the surface reach the vegetable world at the bottom of the ocean, the leaves, the flowers, the sapless forests there tremble with fear and are shaken loose pell-mell at the awful roar of the mighty wind. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 48 Desmond King-Hele remarks: "The verse technique and structure of the Ode to West Wind could scarcely be improved: it is the most fully orchesterd of Shelley's poems, and consequently the most difficult to read aloud. The ever fluctuating tempo and he artfully random pauses in the long lines reflect the lawless surging of the wind and its uneasy silences. This device is not overworked: the wonder is that Shelley could use it at all when grappling with the problems of the terza rima and operating within a rigid structural framework. In conformity with this framework, which seemed to be in the Style of Calderon, the first three Stanzas are designed to show the wind's power in three spheres of Nature, in preparation for the prayer to the Wind, as pseudo-god, in Stanzas 4 and 5. The keynote of the first three Stanzas is balanced. Their settings, land, sky and sea, give equal emphasis to the three states of matter, solid, gaseous and liquid. Each of the four seasons has its appointed place, and there is a full range of coloursred, yellow, blue, grey and black explicitly, white and green implicitly. Turmoil is balanced against calm, life against death, detail against generalization, cold against calm, life against death, detail against generalization, cold against warmth, plain against hill, and so on. The varied evidence of Stanzas1-3 is assembled in support of the narrow, one-track theme in the last two stanzas: the plan is sound, but in points of detail it falls short of perfection. For Shelley, harps on his prayer rather too long...His defeatism becomes Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 49 a trifle depressing, unless when reading the poem we happen to be in the same mood as he was...the note of self-pity is overplayed in the last two Stanzas; and this must be counted a blemish in what is otherwise a nearly faultless poem." "Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulcher, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst:-O hear!" "The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.' Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 50 The Fly, The next episode manifests the truth to remind me of 'hair is lifted from her face with the force of wind and the hair is flying like the clouds in the sky. Are these signifying of the approaching storm!' ~ Babuli Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 51 (ETERNAL WHISPERS) Babuli's Ma at the house of Babuli's maternal grandmother in Madhyamgram (a suburb in Kolkata, India) while conversing to Babuli's maternal relatives. This house, mysteriously has a 'synchronous' name! [IMAGE: 3, From Album] "A deep resolute mind rises above all difficulties" Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 52 AMBIGUITY IN NATURE [REFLECTION] "Though we are eaten up of lice and worms, And though continually we bear about us A rotten and dead body, we delight To hide it in tissue:" Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 53 CROSSING THE BAR: 17th February, 2019 ''The Mother's Daughter, Babuli on a ritual......" [IMAGE: 4, FROM ALBUM] "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view ..." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 54 The Fly, "The world laughed when you entered weeping; do so in two days' existence that you will leave laughing while the world will weep for you" -The Bliss of Knowledge by Pravrajika Prabuddhaprana of Sri Sarada Math, Dakshineshwar, Kolkata (India) ~Babuli. (ETERNAL WHISPERS) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 55 10th February, 2019 My Reader, "Hold your peace, goodman boy! Speaker of Prolog: "What do you mean, sir?" ...... They had silently slid the door. A book in my pocket is always there with me. At that time, too, I was whispering the poem 'Crossing the Bar' "... ~ Babuli. (ETERNAL WHISPERS) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 56 February, 2019 My Diary, I like to quote you my father's words he says often: (as summarised translation from Bengali.) 'I do not know, self what I shall say exactly... Everything is over on sequence within 1 year 4 months. Buria, is our only daughter. Her two most favourite students were her grandmother and Ma. Hours after hours passed through with endless words on discussion and gossips among them. Today, she is left alone with a huge gap; we are beside her.... However, I believe like her mother, Babuli is 'Of Literature and Philosophy'. She'll overcome everything. Let Buria fulfils her mother's wish...' ~ Buria's (Babuli) Words on her Father. (ETERNAL WHISPERS) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 57 The Fly, 'December and midnight is indicative of a change in the existing and anticipation of the new.... The calm inside and the tempest outside are ominous; and it also implies the ravenous tempest inside my mind and heart.' ~Babuli. (ETERNAL WHISPERS) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 58 The Fly, Still now, when I close my eyes, I discern (Metaphorical Ambiguity): "Towards evening the storm was at its height. From the terrific downpour of rain, the crash of thunder, and the repeated flashes of lightning, you might think that a battle of the gods and demons was raging in the skies. Black clouds waved like the Flag of Doom. The Ganges was lashed into a fury, and the trees of the gardens on either bank swayed from side to side with sighs and groans." We were standing and waiting outside the door of ICU on fourth floor of the hospitalI had looked, once, outside the shutters of the glass windows........ Waiting for dawn! ------------'' And now, the prowling daughter cries to the World, "I want to ask, something to Ma...." ~Babuli (ETERNAL WHISPERS) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 59 18th February, 2019 The Fly, 'The flood or sea had enabled the ship, sailing on the sea, to cross the bar to finally enter the ocean...... beyond the limits of 'Time and Place', i.e. to eternity. The passenger is happy now after crossing the bar that separates harbour and sea; he would be able to see the 'Pilot', face to face, in the 'guise of a specially qualified mariner.' ~Babuli. (ETERNAL WHISPERS) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 60 "With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 61 Immortality Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 62 The house of Babuli's grandmother, who named the house as written in Bengali 'Saptabarna', later was reconstructed under supervision of Babuli's mother. The meaning of the word, 'Saptabarna' means seven rays. [IMAGE: 5, From Album] Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 63 She is the maid, belonged to Babuli's grandmother, who came to the house of Madhyamgram (Kolkata, India) in the year 1972 (January/February) -onwards. Her name is Aarati. Babuli's grandmother used to call her as 'Bou' (a Bengali word which means a bride). She, still, stands as the witness of the house, now about 75 years old. [IMAGE: 6, From Album] Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 64 ''This is she, Babuli's Ma..." [IMAGE: 7, From Album] Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 65 ''Parents of Babuli on their marriage day on 20.11.1974" [IMAGE: 8, From Album] Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 66 A sudden moment was clicked of the daughter of the house (Babuli) with her mother (right) & grandmother (maternal) at Madhyamgram (Kolkata, India). [IMAGE: 9, From Album] Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 67 Acknowledgement The diversified knowledge in the book has been progressed due to co-operation of Respected Doctors and Consultants, widely, with special mention of Dr. Amit De, MD Senior Consultant, of Narayana Multispeciality Hospital, Barasat, Kolkata (India) and many other medical associates, associated with the said hospital. Panel of Eminent Doctors, among many other Doctors: Dr. Abradip Das, Dr. Trinanjan Ash, Dr. Sunil Kumar, Dr. Tarshad Ali Jahangir, Dr. Jai Chaudhuri, Dr. Sujit Sarkar, Dr. Subhas Chandra Das, Dr. Sabharisundaravel P, Dr. Seshadri Sen, Dr. Sougoto Sanyal and Dr. Jayanta Datta. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 68 True Events of the Family from Words in the Diary- "I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.'' Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 69 Events: "27th October, 2017After the demise of my maternal grandmother at her own home in Madhyamgram on 13th October, 2017 **, Ma was slowly undergoing to depression, for first time, with severe tremor in her both hands. She was immediately admitted to the hospital by me under her Consultant Doctor, Dr. Amit De, who had his constant successful treatment throughout last twelve years with his full co-operation, even to her most critical stage... However, she was recovered under supervision of Dr. De by 31st October, 2017. '' ............................................................................. ** 14th October – ''It was the Happy Birthday of Ma. My mind was wandering something at others; as I could not think at the time what would be of the future awaiting ... I was really been very scared as I was well aware of the bondage of mind that Ma and my grandmother had..... Time passed through. Only God knew with advent of time and moments what catastrophe was going on inside me; a wave it had occurred to my Mind and Soul: Ma, who was different from her own younger sister and own cousins, was constantly on watch of me when on 27th October, 2017 immediately I had admitted Ma in the hospital." ............................................................................... Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 70 14th January, 2018- ''It was noted, after a certain call from someone during the day...Ma was too disturbed." Babuli had her continued-written words on the diary, ''Coming back from hospital on 31st October, 2017, Ma was recovering slowly. It was decided towards end of November, 2017 by Ma, self, that she would visit to Puri (Orissa, India) in February, 2018. Everyone was excited. Ma had a talk to her therapist, who also had agreed to visit with his family to the place with us. I had also a talk to her Senior Consultant Doctor on the topic. But Ma had suddenly made her world to be 'isolated' from her family members, especially from me! I could not understand the reason of her sudden change. I do remember my father's words, 'Supti, you have to live for your daughter. Without you she's nothing...' I had asked Ma a number of times on reason to make her to be isolated from us. She was reluctant to provide me any answer on the said-topic." The words on the diary have further mentioned... '' Concerning on Ma, the most changeable behaviour I had noticed on her, as to quote: '......a stronger light pressed upon my nerves, so that I was obliged to shut my eyes. Darkness then came over me and troubled me; but hardly had I felt this, when, by opening my eyes, as I now suppose, the light poured in upon me again.' " Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 71 "14th August, 2018Ma was, again, admitted to hospital by me. She was diagnosed with gastro intestinal pain and acute pancreatitis. Her Doctor, on reports, had suspected something was not right. Despite, she was recovered because of her vibrant treatment." "There isn't smoke without fire." '' 1st November, 2018Dimma's (The daughter, Babuli used to call her maternal grandmother on name of Dimma) first death anniversary was self performed by Ma (against her health!) '' "Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea," (Crossing the Bar) The diary illustrates, "Many times I had asked Ma to go to the Doctors, but she had revolted...On other hand, I was constantly in touch with Dr. De with reports and prescriptions on my every visit to his chamber and on telephone conversation regarding Ma." On 19th November, 2018, the diary tells: ''My father came at the first floor to inform me Ma was calling. It was some around 9.30 P.M. and I came down to Ma's room. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 72 Ma, wearing the eyeglasses, was sitting on her dewan. She was turning over an album very inattentively. In front of her there was a white table. Having seen me, Ma had closed the album and asked father to keep it inside her personal cupboard. Ma was very eager to call me, then, too near to her. She had expressed her desire; she wanted me to be adorned with ornamentslike a bride! With a tinge of smile, she had just opened the bag kept on that white table. "What was that album?" I had asked her. "Nothing", was only a distant answer to me. "Are you, okay?" [Though as a daughter, I was too confident on Ma that she's very particular, as always, in taking her own medicines regularly and to her family.] The Mother had the same reflection of smile on her face. She said, like other mothers, "Why, can't I wish my daughter to be adorned like a bride?" ..... She had given me, at first, one of her favourite ornaments, and then one after another...... I was finding myself looking like a perfect-bride! I had thought I must ask Ma that... but I had found she did not want to continue her conversation on my topic. She was, only, willing to see me as the bride... Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 73 I had looked at her eyes repeatedly. She had also glanced at me for a while......suddenly, she had moved her eyes from me and put her head down. "The secret was such an old one now, had so grown into me and become a part of myself, that I could not tear it away." Babuli's Ma and her Consultant Doctor, Dr. Amit De. [IMAGE: 10, From Album] .......However, leaving all aside to Ma, I came to my room to be engaged in the same novel. My mind wondered to know 'Pip's 'Great Expectations' are all proved to be disappointed......! '' "There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 74 The Daughter said in her diary, "I was ornamented by Ma on 19.11. 2018." [IMAGE: 11, From Album] "18th December, 2018On the day, Ma was sometimes restlessly panting at home. I went adversely against everyone's decision in the familyOn denouncing every situation at home, I had asked our driver to take me, then as early, to the hospital. I was waiting, to hear the words of her Consultant Doctor. Having talked with him thoroughly.....he said only, "Admit her." Everything was immediately arranged, and Ma was thus admitted to the Hospital on the Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 75 very moment at 8.20 P.M, when no sooner the Doctor had his next words, ''The Patient should be shifted in ICU immediately"......She was declared by the Unit as 'vulnerable'. " And, now the howling daughter again repeats, to Goddess Bhabatarini, "I want to ask: something to Ma...." ~Babuli (ETERNAL WHISPERS) "Tears are the words that heart can't express." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 76 The Fly, "I went through the words on 'THE IMPECCABLE DARKNESS.' The Author, your writing reminded me: 'Those who are in love, who are preparing for death, who are fighting, who are dying, all alike speak much and unexpectedly about subjects utterly inappropriate to the occasion, being evidently guided rather by consonances* and play of words than by thoughts.'" ~Babuli [*consonances: agreement or compatibility between opinions or actions] (ETERNAL WHISPERS) The Fly, 'The sky and night are dramatised as the dome of a tomb where the wind has gathered and locked the clouds that will soon burst out bringing black rain. One can be reminded of a volcano that bursts on bringing fire and lava and yet again there is destruction leading to creation.' ~ Babuli (ETERNAL WHISPERS) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 77 The Impeccable Darkness Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 78 "It was a dull and gray weather-" The door of the room was still opened. Hence the impatient father had entered anticipatorily in the room. He had found the daughter was at the study table, probably reading something. "As the heat of a fire reduces wood to ashes, the fire of knowledge burns to ashes all karma." –Krishna It was actually one of her favourite novels 'Great Expectations': 'the main character, Pip started out a lonely orphan and had become a young gentleman. He had learnt several hard truths about life, all of which can be considered as part of Dickens' message.' 'Pip's 'Great Expectations' are all proved to be disappointed......: He had learnt money cannot buy happiness, and certainly it cannot buy love. He learnt fine ladies and gentlemen who are seemed to lead such enviable and very possessive lives of leisure and refinement, are mostly belonging to be pretenders who contribute nothing to society, and are incapable even of supporting themselves. These beings are parasites that only prey on humble people around the world. He had got, however, old friends are best friends; and that real love is very rare and a precious thing. He had earned his knowledge; those kinds of people he admired and pined for associating with are often selfish, cruel, prone to be Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 79 avaricious, hypocritical: and is nothing less than prove to be a corrupted man.' "What you send outcomes back. What you sowyou reap. What you giveyou get. What you see in othersexists in you. Do not judgeso you will NOT be judged. Radiate and give LOVEand Love comes back to you." (LIFE IS AN ECHO) The supportive maid of the two storied house, named Subhra, was recently seen to go straight and turned right to enter into a room. She did not want to disturb the daughter of the house. Having served her tea, the maid on her lucid and mechanical style had silently declined from the room. Just then, a male voice was heard. He bawled out, "Where are you?" The maid was quite hospitable and very effusive to reply on her domestic aristocracy, "Your daughter is at her study room. If you want Sir, can I help you?" Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 80 The father did not reply to the maid. He went to his daughter's study room. He had something with him. The cornered room, he had entered in, was quite spacious and airy having possessions of sky-blue wall with yellowish shade, a chair with a study table on the left side of the door while you enter, with another varnish-table lays beside the study table. This varnishtable is covered with a damask rectangular tablecloth; somebody's special. Here the father of the house has kept three photographs in sequence. A beautiful glass flower vase is also arranged and kept at middle of this table. Without having a conversation with daughter, the father had walked towards this table to decorate the glass flower vase with 'Rajanigandha flowers' (Mexican Tuberose) that were with him, along with some beautiful red roses. It was glanced that tears were coming out of his eyes: but he, perhaps, had taken an oath that his wretched pain would only be concealed to himself. He had silently retarded from the room.... The daughter so long was watching everything. Looking hither and thither, Babuli had then overturned the book on her study table. Sitting on the chair, in the solitary room, she had a glance in diagonal at the serene photo that has been placed in middle of other Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 81 two photo frames on that elegant-table cloth placed on the varnish-table; Ma had once bought it from a shop at South Calcutta. Smells of flowers had already escalated in the room: in next few minutes the daughter of the house was found very overwrought. She wanted, therefore, to go upstairs. She had bulk of questions that had nestled in the apprehensive mind. Having knocked at door, she asked permission from her father whether to come inside the room. She said now, 'Can I, ask you anything?' The father enquired, 'What do you want to say?' As I was along with her, as always, I had found the daughter had thoughtfully resumed, 'I want to know...I want to know more about them...' A timid silence had pervaded in the room. ............... As mentioned in his diary, where Babuli's father's had words: ''I was never willing to share anything with our daughter, Buria: I was afraid, since a long, of coming days that now I am standing today with our daughter. Many times I had a discussion to my wife to dissuade Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 82 self from the situation slowly that she was engulfing in; at least on sake of our only daughter. But, to my wife's sentiments at her mother, I was forced to bend down self. On other hand, our daughter, with knowledge of her age slowly but partially was removing herself from the relationship of her maternal-side. This feature was becoming quite notable to some of the relatives of my in-laws. As such with days, many persons on my in-law's sides were then also not at all fond able to our only daughter. However, our daughter accepted everything because for the teachings she mainly had received from my wife. She had words to our daughter, 'Be good and pious to your conscience. If you respect me, do not have any word to anyone; these are my words to you...' (Summarised translated words from Bengali words). ...... A time, in mid, was there when I had asked my motherinlaw to come and stay at our house in South Calcutta. I had ensured her if she would want, I could arrange some other house for her in our locality: but, my mother-in-law had refused and had her knowledge to me and my wife that she could not live and adjust with city life. ...........All the times, I was worried thinking about our daughter what I shall do to her... sometimes, I also thought let me take her back from her grandmother's house to our own house at South Calcutta, but then I Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 83 had thought how could she live there, on circumstance, without her mother... Well, somewhere my wife was also too helpless on her few nostalgic feelings, wherefrom it was not possible by her to retrieve self or rather to make me to be understood clearly, it was beyond her nature-'' .............. Thereafter, the father shoved to reply the daughter, 'Suddenly, you cannot reach to a particular conclusion. You must be aware to know here the difference between Reason and Impulse.' 'Well, I want to hear about,' were the few words of the daughter. The father was sitting on his dewan, going through a journal, had moved to his desk and dragged out some old clipped papers including 'the diary' from the drawer, and the same album. The father was next identified to hold the hand of his anxious daughter, 'Come with me.' He went to the dining hall with all those ancient papers he had just taken out along with the brown-coloured diary on which it was written 2019, and the album. She had followed the father down to the dining hall. A conversation went through between the father and the sceptic daughterBl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 84 "Man is not the creature of circumstances Circumstances are the creatures of man." At the end, the father had his words to the sibling: 'Calm yourself, and go to your room. I do not have anything to say you more than this. You must be the best judge. Life has indeed proved us to meet with a gigantic wave....' Throughout the journey of the cursive conversation, I was the witness: "Great God!" ........ The Daughter came back to her study room. She deliberately wanted to overlook the diary. ** She had kept it placidly on the varnish-table. She had engaged herself to go through those papers which were just then handed over to Buria (our Babuli) by the father. Having understood what could be the album therefore, she kept it in a distant. In other words, she is not fond of seeing the other distant-images of the album. As I had also recently participated on the coarse journey, I can give a general sketch on theme of the invincible words separately, I had acquired in indistinctly among many, written in Bengali: [Translated and Edited] Words of Babuli's Ma: Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 85 'Babuli tries her best for me. But...I am more influenced to Ma's (Babuli's maternal grandmother) intense words and her thoughts, which Ma (Babuli's maternal grandmother) had spoken to me once. I cannot leave heralone in the World of 'hellish cruelty'... Ma (Babuli's grandmother) is answerable to me ...but, God will take care of my daughter (Babuli)...' "...those happy smiles That play'd on her ripe lip seem'd not to know What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence, As pearls from diamonds dropp'd." Words of Babuli's grandmother: 'I know my elder daughter, Supti, is married. She has her own family. She has a daughter. She is very dutiful to everyone including me with her loving, caring and soothing mind. I have not received such kind of mental affection which I had got only from my elder daughter. She is the symbol of 'charity' and 'sacrifice'. Hence, she is the part of my soul. It is not possible for me to live without her. I pray, Goddess Bhabatarini will take care of my elder daughter.' "Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark;" (Crossing the Bar) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 86 That night the daughter did not want to disturb her father. In contrast, the father perhaps had understood the traveller's unpleasant mind. He went towards the room, and found the door was half-opened. The father, hence, asked the daughter from threshold whether she was awakened. The daughter came out from the room. Both the father and daughter had a certain conversation, but completely in a meticulous manner. Then he went back, perhaps to his room... The daughter returned to her study table. Though her diary, 'Eternal Whispers' was opened, she was devoid of further concentration. She put her pen down. She lay down on the floor looking through the old gray 'vindauaga'*, the possessor of the still existing rusted rods but with a protective mesh. She whispered: "...or that the heavens would crack with shouting, or that the winds would burst, or that the wind wishes to blow the land into the sea, or that curled waters wish to flood the shore, as the gentleman describes the storm..." *('vindauaga' is a Scandinavian word, meaning 'window'. The word 'vinde' is wind and 'auga' is 'eye'. So, Scandinavian word literally is meant 'wind-eye', i.e. an eye or hole for the admission of light and air) The Fly, Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 87 Many times oft I was amidst the discussion of my devoted-mother and grandmother. Their discussion on 'Ultimate truth of life' sometimes went a-far: >'Nothing which is true for one mind exactly fits another. It is the method or manner in which the mind grasps and connects a series of phenomena. It is internal but not external.' [Edited] >According to our 'Vedanta Philosophy', 'Death is only a change. ''As men take of old garments and put on new ones, so the soul takes on new bodies and gains more experiences." Whatever we have gained in this life is to remain with us.' [Edited] ~Babuli (BASED ON ETERNAL WHISPERS)B lac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 88 "Speculative knowledge alone, without devotional service, is not able to give liberation. On the other hand, even without knowledge one can obtain liberation if one engages in the Lord's devotional service." (-Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 89 "I Will Fly..." (**She deliberately wanted to overlook the diary.) # After the demise of Babuli's grandfather (maternal) in 1990, Dimma (maternal grandmother of Babuli), who was a retired teacher, became too desolate. It was not possible for her to live alone in her suburb-house. She was suffering from a complete sense of insecurity. On such a circumstance, once in a telephone conversation she said to Babuli's Ma (the elder daughter), 'It is not possible for me to live alone in the house. I want you to do something for me.' Ma immediately had talked with Babuli's father. Dimma had a lot of faith on Babuli's benevolent and dutiful mother. ......... Babuli had her own words on her diary, "Time was passing through. The bondage between Dimma and Ma was becoming more-stronger than ever. I had objected innumerable times to my parents, but nobody had listened to me. With advent of my age, I was strongly Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 90 against to come at my grandmother's place (maternal). My grandmother's age was increasing..." The diary had adjoined words, "A time had occurred when Ma and I had a certain difference on our relation. I still recall my grandmother had raised a question against me accurately, 'What is your problem on staying over at Madhyamgram (my maternal grandmother's house)?' The result, as such, became more abrupt when the distance between me and Ma went a-far from each other. The situation, at that time, was too odd for me to manage anything." The words in the diary connected together to elaborate the circumstances, "My grandmother's wish was always my mother's wish, her sentiments were my mother's abrupt sentiments even against her health and my grandmother's happiness was my mother's incredible happiness irrespective of her own happiness." "At many places, my grandmother had own written words, 'My mind cannot believe anyone except my elder daughter. But, my elder daughter is not at all judgemental in some cases of relations she had since her childhood ...but I cannot tell her anything in front of her dedication to me.' \'' [Edited] The diary enumerates, ''It was 2003. Ma had expressed her desire that she wanted to live with my grandmother Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 91 at the house in suburb. We had understood her feelings, and thereby I had found no one had gone against her decision. But at, Ma was very much affectionate and dutiful; despite my disputes with her, she had her regular conversation with me and my father in South Calcutta over in phone." The diary ensures of some translated words of Babuli's grandmother [Edited] with Babuli's own words: "My grandmother on her written papers had mentioned of 'a certain distant relative' had come from a place, in between, at my grandmother's house. '' [Edited] The diary propounds, "However, on perceptual knowledge and for emotional decision of Ma, 'the new distant relative' and my grandmother could later have established again a 'sympathetic' and 'affectionate' connection between them with exchange of many words among themselves; in an aristocrat manner. Many times, I had wanted to know from my grandmother on her experiences about the re-establishment of the relationship with the newly-guest; but unfortunately, the grandmother did not want to continue her conversation with the granddaughter (me)." The diary has mentioned with straight words, "I do not want to elaborate, however on the topic of 'this certain Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 92 newly-guest distant relative' on sake of my deceased mother. Else, it would mean I am disrespecting my mother's soul. But, I have a talk to my God only...and to none else. Who should I blame!"' The Daughter of the House, who is now staying in her grandmother's house in suburb, had her written words in the diary, "On sense of threadsentimental feelings of Ma, I had always afraid of something from core of my mind: 'This is a topsy-turvy world and a crazy society; the person who deserves something doesn't get it, and the person who doesn't care about something, does get it.'" "The fault, dear Brutus, lies in ourselves and not in stars." ..... Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 93 CONSEQUENCE The diary mourns with words, "We have literally nothing to say on the Doctors. On the experience of our continuous 51 days, we had got every co-operation from all Doctors, RMOs, including the attending sisters of the Unit, employees, securities, male and female caretakers and many other associates of the hospital." ....... "It was 1st January, 2019. I went beside her and had wished Ma, "Happy New Year:" Having heard my voice, Ma had looked at me once. So lo'ng with her fragile body, she was made then and sometimes to sit in a slant position on the bed by the attending sisters of the Unit. Having looked at me, she had silently expressed me too 'Happy New Year' on trying her hand stretching at me... Holding her hand, "See, what I have for you....Once you recover soon, you will again write on this diary with all kinds of recipes you wanted to write. This is for you..." On her trembling hands and with a grim smile, my listener wanted to take the diary from meShe looked here and there around the Unit and in a low voice she said to me, "Take care of self." Though panicstricken yet with a thread of confidence and hope, prayers to Almighty, I had said to her, "Get yourself to be recovered soon. You have to go home." On hearing my Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 94 words, Ma had closed her eyes and she had behaved in a juxtaposition way: 'the world to me ground to a standstill"; she was inclining, slowly and deeply, to ''a certain state of drowsiness." "I still remember, on such circumstances, her pulmonologist (Dr. Abradip Das) came to Ma and said, 'Ma, do not allow yourself to go in the state of drowsiness. Awake yourself with intense desire and wishes.' I do remember the words of Dr. Amit De to Ma, 'You have to recover quickly...Won't you go home?' Every time, whether in ICU or in the hospital compound whenever we had met with Ma's orthopaedic surgeon, Dr. Seshadri Sen had his words to us, 'How is Ma now?' " ......'' It was noticed that the new diary was dispelling sometimes from her hands, and wanted to accept its seclusion from the Boss even on New Year's Day hands......: "Ma'.....?" "In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong." Perhaps, it was preparing for the flight-----/.....Without disturbing, I had kept the diary beside her pillow, with my thought when she would wake; she would surely want to write something for meBl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 95 "I have been bent and broken, but-I hopeinto a better shape." The fragile body of the patient was really been impossible to move. We had noticed, as a result of treatment, Ma was speaking with many fastened words that were accumulated in her mind since a long past, in many abrupt ways. On further continuous treatment in the Unit, one day the prominent words of the mother to the daughter, "I will fly with you on your success, in America..." The door slid back and I was certainly waiting outside for the dawn... a new day to begin! '' ''but the human heart has a bad habit of being hopeful." (ETERNAL WHISPERS)...... Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 96 MY WORST FEAR (''Perhaps, Ma was crying to self!")# The Fly, My maid, who is a village lady, had some words to me in her Mother Tongue, Bengali. I did not believe her words...but Summarised translation of her words in English: 'Dear, you know Kakima, (as my maid used to call my mother on a respectable term) is fighting now a 'terrific battle'; she is struggling between two worldssupernatural world and on medical science. I know you are very sensitive to your mother; I feel your mother is under influence of your dead grandmother..... Remember her words, she had written on Kakima-' ....... Later, towards the end of struggle through out 51days, but just before 4th February, 2019, when Ma had revolted against self; I had seen last time: Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 97 Ma's unrecognisable wi'de open eyes at me with the reflection of an unknown face! .....Ma was baffling and struggling in between the two worlds: World of Mortality and World of Darkness! I had called Ma so many times...she looked at me once; then she had closed her eyes; Perhaps, Ma was crying to self! My father had his words to God, '........... Do not torture her...!' ...............I end my words with deep long breath- ~Babuli (ETERNAL WHISPERS) "You are in every line I have ever read." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 98 "My protagonist's mother was mainly keen on reading Bengali Literature. The picture was taken in their house at South Calcutta. Babuli's mother came to live in Babuli's grandmother's house for the grandmother's security at Madhyamgram (West Bengal, India) in 2003 till 17th December, 2018." [IMAGE: 12, From Album] Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 99 "Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 100 Medical Science and Philosophy Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 101 Medical Journey 'When you're depressed you don't control your thoughts, your thoughts control you. I wish people would understand this.' Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 102 # REPORT OF DR. AMIT DE The Senior Consultant Doctor Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 103 # Late (Mrs.) Supti Roy Choudhury came to my hospital in 2006. Though diagnosed as a patient of Diabetes and CKD (Chronic Kidney Disease), she was always found to us as a personified, laughing, and soft spoken lady but a sentimental person with sensitive thoughts on her mother. Apart from medical side, based on her co-operation, confidence and positive hope, our every treatment (including major treatments) she had undergone was proved to be successful, till a certain time. In the year 2017, 12th January she met with her pelvic bone operation. In case of her physiology, as a patient of Nephrology and a Diabetic patient, it was a high risk operation to her. But, we had no other options, according to reports. We had to take the risk. However, everything was proved to be good at that time too. But, after 13th October, 2017 with the death of her aged mother the journey of her mind was noticed to be declined depressively, when the patient was found with no confidence, no desire, no hope to live; an optimistic person once, who had immediately changed herself into a newly pessimistic character with only tears on her eyes, and the term that was enmeshed her mind in a grave manner was only 'death'. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 104 Slowly, she became a neurotic patient. She was admitted to the hospital, and was, however recovered. During her stay in the hospital, she was advised by us many times, and with precautions, to be a positive person awakening of her self confidence; that was immediately required for her. However, she was trying to overcome the grief. But, it overturned with days of the year 2018, after the month of January when she suddenly had tightly declared of her seclusion from doctors to her daughter. She was admitted to us with diagnose on gastro intestinal pain and acute pancreatitis. This time, the treatment of her health proved to be successful but the patient's decision psychologically was on verge of both positive and negative thoughts. Though released medically, a constant communication and counselling based on reports on dates was a prominent feature on the circumstances. According to reports it was a doubt to somewhere else..... She was a very one-worded person with her impenetrable personality. .....What it should not be, it happened that. It was on 18 th December, 2018 -Mrs. Roy Choudhury was admitted to the hospital; She was severely panting. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 105 As reports proceed widely, it was adversely noticed 'a kind of declination' on her Mind-Body. This could not be the only cause of her mother's death; as doubted on reports, with days she was innately and sensitively 'shocked' at something that went massively against her mind. As such, result was proved to be more fatal in case of the patient's depressive mind. She was not deliberately allowing penetrating even a ray of light to enter into her snared world of pessimism and darkness, she had woven stealthily, going against her daughter and doctors; telling the family and her servants lie with normal behaviour, deviating self from the scheduled diet as a diabetic patient including medicines, forbidding words of the family.... ''Nobody can save me" were even her undulating words further to us. 'To a psychiatrist, there was no third level to be escaped from, even by her own.' Her psychological denunciation enumerates to us as if we were fighting against her wish! Everything was becoming toughest for us. On terms of us, she was particularised as 'vulnerable': a patient of Vascular Dementia, supported by other related causes....she had attained a 'mirror-image' of her mother...severely affected her brain......... Even though in the crucial battle, the 'fragile' patient was managed by us to bring forth physically on a certain position in midst of her 50 days in the hospital, though Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 106 after a time she had revolted us psychologically ....and accurately, thus, was diagnosed with Sepsis.... –At one time she wanted to survive for her family, but severely all went beyond; everything was finished on 7th February, 2019 by 8:20A.M: (the 51-day). ........ We pray to God the once cheerful, energetic, laughing, soft spoken lady and a Mother 'May Rest in Peace'. Thanking you Sd/ Dr. Amit De. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 107 To Note: Vascular Dementia: brain damage caused by multiple/ minor strokes. (It causes memory loss in older adults, particularly at high risk of stroke due to obesity or diabetes). 'It feels like everyone else is moving on with their lives while I am stuck here, in this hole that I can't climb out of.' Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 108 EDITED: 'No one is free, Even the birds are also caged in the sky.' [Conceptual Drawing, Artist: Miss Anushka D. (Edited)] IMAGE: 13 Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 109 "My life will end someday, but it will end at my convenience..." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 110 THE IMMORTAL FLY Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 111 "Since then 'tis centuries; and yet each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were towards eternity." (Because I Could Not Stop For Death) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 112 January, 2019 The Fly, 'The barrel near the ladder is far from full. Themes like Life, Death and the Fall of Man are treated by Robert Frost in his poem 'After Apple-Picking' through various symbols. Apple-picking takes place during the day and autumn followed by night and winter (both are times of rest). Both night and winter are traditional symbols of death. It also brings with it the connotation of the Fall of Man, often represented by Adam and Eve's picking of an apple. After this applepicking man becomes mortal. The apples must not fall from the hands, otherwise those are discarded. Even if they are not pierced by the plant stems left in the field then also they are set aside in heaps to be used for making cider. On surface, the poem of Robert Frost may be taken to be as a realistic presentation of hard work with the thought of the apple-picker, resulting in physical exhaustion, yet after a day's work the job of apple-picking is not complete. The 'Long two-pointed ladder' towards heaven is still standing through a tree. The strangeness clung to the eyes of the speaker. It seems, as if, the speaker were confused because of Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 113 the onslaught of sleep on him that has sent him into a trance. Everything seemed to me, therefore, to be suddenly blurred now-'' ~ Babuli (ETERNAL WHISPERS) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 114 'The barrel near the ladder is far from full. The apples must not fall from the hands, otherwise those are discarded. It brings with it the connotation of the Fall of Man, often represented by Adam and Eve's picking of an apple. After this apple-picking man becomes mortal.' (ETERNAL WHISPERS) [Conceptual Drawing, Artist: Miss Anushka D. (Edited)] IMAGE: 14 Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 115 ''Death is nature's way of saying, 'Your table is ready.'" Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 116 4th February, 2019 The Fly, '.... Today, the last blot fell on the soaked blotting-paper, and the draggled fly lay in it and did not stir. The back legs were stuck to the body; the front legs were not to be seen.' ~ Babuli (ETERNAL WHISPERS) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 117 From Author's Words: Babuli knows it will never return to her and she will never see it...she is feeling to be tormented; Some-body is whispering to her, 'Nevermore!' ....... Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 118 # 7th February, 2019 #Place:Cossiopore, Kolkata: "Sir, you..." 'For God's love tell it, and when You have done I'll tell the reason why I weep so soon.' [Edited] The father looked at the man in an empty face. Without any reply, the father had only nodded his head. It was found that he was fumbling some documents in a bag. He was very nervous. He was surrounded by two other young boys. The papers were actually needed to be submitted to the man, who was the officer of the hall, standing in front of the father. "We paused before a house that seemed A swelling on the ground; The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice* but a mound." [*cornice: horizontal moulding along the top of a wall.] After a minute or two, the man asked, "How is she, Sir? I remember, a year back when she came here, I had given her a chair. She had undergone an operation. You had shown me the papers. Having scrutinized the papers, we had provided her the chair in front of the main hall. She sat on that chair and had performed accordingly all the rituals, as had been said." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 119 The father had stopped for a-while. He had said, "The 'she' ..... you had given the chair exactly one year four months back, today... we have brought her. Her daughter is standing here : " The man was shocked, before to answer anything. He had a stunning cry. Sometimes after he said, "Sir, I will arrange everything. You do not need to be worried. You take care of the daughter. She had lost her feelings...." "Or rather, he passed us; The dews grew quivering and chill, For only gossamer* my gown My tippet* only tulle*." [*gossamer: It is described something extremely thin, filmy, and airy, like spider web; tippet: an old fashioned shawl or shoulder cape, and this one is made of 'tulle'; tulle: which is silky and thin like gossamer] I had found the man, who was completely an intruder, for a moment had also become a part of the family. The man did not want to allow both the father and daughter to collect and accumulate, therefore, any material thing to perform certain rituals, before the cremation to be done of the Mother by Babuli.. The daughter was standing like a log of wood..................... no tears were gushing out from her eyes...............a complete mechanical human being was standing in Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 120 front of us; .....................what everybody was telling to her, she was performing in the same way; as if a robot was working! "We passed the school, where children strove At recess, in the ring; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun." -----. Babuli was looking very minutely at her Mamma's ashen black face, she only said; "Ma is sleeping..." and looking at intensely on Ma's lips..........The insatiate soul was covered with shroud, and Ma was made to lay down on the ground which was just outside the closed gate of that cremation-chamber: She was given the respect and honour by men of the hall and pallbearers on declaring her body would be cremated at the section of VIP, Sri Sri Ramakrishna Mahasamadhi Smashan, CossioporeCrematorium in Kolkata. The inner voice of the daughter was suddenly heard to be cried out, "Ma-'', "Ma-", ''Ma." At the next moment, she looked at her father on her helpless eyes......scratching on the floor and murmuring by self, her father would surely make Ma now to be recovered very soon....but 'that plucky little devil' was coming towards them wearing a white Dhoti. The priest said to the daughter, "Dear, you have to perform certain rituals now." Babuli had looked to the priest with her abrupt eyes. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 121 She suddenly found her father had engaged on doing something. She looked at him and then very closely at his work. Blood was constantly oozing out from Mamma's nose........and the father was bending down and rubbing the blood with his white handkerchief...... constantly it was coming out- 'Its terrible.....its TTerrribble!' Babuli's Ma [IMAGE: 15, From Album] The rituals were all been performed by the daughter, as was said.......The priest was noticed to give the permission Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 122 to the gateman to open the main gate. It was heard that the gateman, when he had said, '5 months old Babuli with her mother.' [IMAGE: 16, From Album] 'Is everything been over before the body is now allowed into the cremation chamber?'-------------I had found the daughter's eyes were fixed at the deceased body..... She was murmuring something to self; it was fortuitous that suddenly a community came over there pronouncing the similar words of the daughter: "Harí bol.....Harí bol, Hari ...Haribol...*" Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 123 [*The term "Haribol...Haribol" is derived from Sanskrit. "Hari" means, one of the names of Lord Vishnu/ Krishna. It illustrates, "He who steals away the distress of his devotees and ultimately steals their minds by His excellent transcendental qualities." It is comparable to the Christian phrase, "Hallelujah", which means "Praise the Lord!" Praising and chanting is very similar."] As far as I could remember, the daughter had then looked at the community: probably whispering also along with them the words in inexpressive eyes... 'she was shocked/she was perhaps confused-' The daughter, till now cannot even remember, in particular what happened 'hence -after' she had performed the rituals. Her eyes were open but she was thwarted. [The daughter had mentioned in her diary 'They*, who are always in disguise, have stabbed my mother!'] In the crematorium hall, the father, who did not know what to do next with his daughter, cried out to his sister and brother-in-law (Mr. and Mrs. B.Y. Rao), the young boys who're ex-college students (named Swagatam and Satyaki) of the daughter; who're more than a brother to her, and the driver (named Joy): "Why did you leave my daughter alone...........?" Both the father and daughter were made to sit at a place in the outside hall: when at 6P.M., the daughter Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 124 was called to collect the ashes of her Mamma to float it; now in the flow of River Ganga....... Here, the daughter was advised by a priest: "Once, you float the ashes in River Ganga, you must-not turn back. It means, according to our rituals, you are now giving freedom to the soul of your mother from all sorts of bondage; she was accustomed to this material world. She is no more your Ma now. She is It. Let It be allowed to take a new birth with new reincarnation: This is the Cosmos World." The daughter had heard everything that the priest said to her. Having kept silence for a few moments, and looking steeply at the outside wall of the cremation chamber, she said softly: "Ha...Ma's birthday is on 14th October", when immediately the driver said to us, "Come, and let us go from here." She looked at the face of the driver in a deadpan manner... She was feeling self to be calmly tormented: Every-one was surrounding Babuli. She had closed her eyes once, and looking, at ether she whispered: [In Bengali: "Ma, ami ashchi. Godbwye*..." [In English: Ma, I am going. Godbwye...] The car took the same route to return to Madhyamgram (Kolkata, India), just like that day on 13th October, 2017: One year Four Months backBl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 125 **************** [* Godbwye: It is a contraction of the phrase "God be with ye (you)."] [By the sentence, '' ''They*, who are always in disguise, and have stabbed my mother!" the diary had the words: "Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality." "I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 126 Babuli's Ma (Left) and own Aunty (Right) 'Babuli said, ''Here's a wonderful moment of Ma was conversing with 'Pishi' (the term means father's sister) in March, 2015." Despite a man of few words, Ma was very lively. Babuli's Pishi (on right, named Mrs. B. Kasturi Rao) used to call Babuli's Mother as 'Boudi' (the term refers to elder brother's wife).' [IMAGE: 17, From Album] Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 127 The Fly, "Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so that heaven's vault should crack." ~ Babuli (ETERNAL WHISPERS) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 128 ''Babuli's grandmother, Late (Mrs.) Dipti Samaddar, was a great devotee to Goddess Bhabatarini. The picture was clicked just before the month, October, 2017 she had expired. '' [IMAGE: 18, From Album] Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 129 [January, 2019] The maid said to Babuli, 'You know, Kakima, (as Babuli's maid used to call her mother) is fighting now a 'terrific battle' between the world of living (Medical Science and Family Affection) and the world of darkness (her dead old mother).' [Conceptual Drawing by Miss Anushka D. (Edited)] IMAGE: 19 Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 130 Consequence: Babuli had written some of Ma's words, as she had said in the hospital: [Edited] 'No one can save me to meet to the ''World of turbulence"...... Where my daughter is? Babuli....Babuli... She will understand......' were some of her words, before 4th February 2019 when she was ventilated..... She was diagnosed with Vascular Dementia...and Sepsis...... They silently slid the door... [Conceptual Drawing by Miss Anushka D. (Edited)] IMAGE: 20 Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 131 Rest in Peace Late (Mrs.) Dipti Samaddar (Left: 88/89 years) and her elder daughter Late (Mrs.) Supti Roy Choudhury (Right: 70 years). On words of the Senior Consultant, '' It's better to say wisely that a passionate relation of only both the minds of the mother and her elder daughter." .....Late (Mrs.) Dipti Samaddar was blind towards the end. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 132 #Late (Mrs.) Samaddar #Late (Mrs.) Roy Choudhury in 2017. in 2018. According to Medical Science, this is the Mirror Image of Babuli's grandmother (at 88th / 89th year just on death) and Babuli's mother (at 70 th year just on death) [IMAGE: 21, From Album] Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 133 Philosophy Babuli said, once, in her diary: "We became afraid... Sometimes, it revealed to me during both day and night instead of the elder daughter (Ma), my grandmother is sitting....Perhaps, my grandmother was only for the elder daughter (Philosophy on Dualism); she proved even-after her own death! .....Something we do not believe in Reality, but we have to believe-" (ETERNAL WHISPERS) "The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living." The Daughter says: "Ma was suddenly confused between 'to be and not to be'. The situation therefore, was appearing to be very panic-stricken: Ma was moving to her 'childhood days'! The Fate had unknowingly stabbed distantly to the life of the dead that is placed in the memory of the living..." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 134 Babuli said, "After the demise of Dimma (the grandmother of Babuli) on 13th October, 2017 at 12:40P.M. Ma was performing the rituals, called 'Sraddha* Ceremony' on 25th October, 2017. [IMAGE: 22, From Album] It was one year four months after, when Babuli at same place, had performed the rituals 'Sraddha' on 17th February, 2019 of her mother (Ma); died on 7th February, 2019 at 8:20A.M.'' *'Sraddha Ceremony': 'It is a Hindu ritual, as performed, who left their physical body. It is the Sanskrit term used to refer to faith in Buddhism, faith in Hinduism.' Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 135 "Mind and body have taken the journey, but the real home place is your own heart. It is infinite and so wherever you go, you are always Home." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 136 Conceptual Drawing, Artist: Miss Misha S. IMAGE: 23 Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 137 # WORDS ON REMEMBRANCE: SHE WHISPERED IN A LOW VOICE In Bengali: ''Babuli-ke dekho..." In English: ''You take care of Babuli..." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 138 WORDS FROM BABULI'S FATHER TO BABULI'S MOTHER..... (Diary: The Lady, Vanishes into the Blue) TO ALL, 'Who will read this book, Who will collect this book but not read this book, Who will not collect this book and not read this book-' Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 139 18th February, 2019 Father looked at the daughter and forwarded a diary to her; what he had written inside on that morning. Babuli looked at it and read silently: 'We met on 2nd February, 1968 at college function in the city of Kolkata. You were tall, slim, a sharp eyed girl of 20 years. I fell in love at first look and conveyed a few days after our second meet at American Book Library, Kolkata. You being, reserved in attitude was silent. I took your 'silence as your consent'. You passed Masters in Philosophy and I was still a student of professional course yet to be completed after two years. After completion of my course and getting a service, it was time for us to decide the life mode. You were confused 'to marry or not to marry'on one side to mature the love to a boy whiles on the other hand your sentimental and emotional love to your mother. I respected and assured on your emotional love to your mother. We got married on 20th November, 1974. A sweet daughter came to us few years after. You were very much sincere to our small family life, but not detaching your mother. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 140 In between, your mother became widow. Your emotional relation to your mother had started to increase more on your sensitive decision. Our daughter had completed college. You came to your mother's house in suburb from our South Calcutta residential house, when your mother was 73/74 years old. Our daughter came later. Next year I had brain stroke. You brought me to you. By the time, since 1985 you took all efforts to construct your mother's small house in a two storied well accommodated house. Now, you were happy with all near and dear persons of your side, under the same roof. In between a time was there, when our daughter had wanted you to understand to return back to our own place at South Calcutta. I could not say you anything as I knew your sensitive decision on your mother. With time your mother had died on 13th October, 2017. You became mentally dispersed, lost all interest in life even being in family. Depression took you to be covered in: treatment after treatment was done to you by our daughter; as our daughter had done to your mother. Bl ac k ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 141 'The serpent, who can never tolerate other person's happiness, of Paradise Lost was sharp enough to spoil your happy life.' As it was noticed, your nostalgic relation with a few persons of your side suddenly proved to be dispersed from your thoughts and mind....you became too restless and everything was proved to be gory..... You were admitted by our daughter in Nursing Home on 18th December, 2018, fought against destiny for 51 days, and leaving every surrounding to be dull and gloomy on 7th February, 2019 exactly after 51 years of our first meet on 2nd February, 1968. May the departed soul Rest in Eternal Peace..." Biswajit. [Babuli had asked her father to give her the diary as she wanted to preserve the words of her father in 'ETERNAL WHISPERS' on Ma.] "WHEN GRIEF IS DEEPEST, WORDS ARE FEWEST." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 142 CONFESSION "Ma is a universal term...." ~Babuli (ETERNAL WHISPERS) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 143 # The Author's Collection ....This family is reputed as a patron of art, culture and literature is well established with facts in Wikipedia. The daughter of the house, Babuli, was brought up in the hands of her mother on a democratic style, is an established Google Scholar, a teacher and a writer whose name I can acquaint in the Web on English and British Literature: Such is the 'House on Education'. The mother of Babuli was a man of self owned personality who had her Degree from University of Calcutta in Moral and Mental Philosophy. She was an authentic speaker and a writer in both Bengali Literature and Bengali Language. Her marvellous words with her precious handwriting on composing an essay or any kind of writing skill in Bengali, was spellbound. This is well acquainted to her family, relatives and others. Her complete dedication and simple words on her family, "I like to be for my family, my daughter and my mother. I want my daughter to do something for the world. I am better on being a housewife. " The daughter, on other hand, a graduate from Presidency College, Calcutta is totally different on her own academic thoughts and ideas that she bears accordingly. As the daughter speaks in the diary, "A time was there at home, when there was a great difference on thoughts Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 144 between me and Ma. She became too frustrated on what would she do with me. She had great dedication to go through my study books and notes, when in the other room I had the greatest dedication to go through different story books. A hide and seek game's on! Ma had enormously wanted me to complete my Masters Degree like my other cousins who had continued for higher education and jobs. But at, her every word to me was 'turning ear deaf to'. I had strong objection against her words as well as to my maternal grandmother making them to acquaint on my dislike to arrest self within four walls of a textual knowledge. I had told them I would want to know 'why' in my own way but not 'what'. It took many years for Ma and my grandmother to accept my creative skill that I try according to my own way'', confronts the daughter in her diary 'Eternal Whispers'. .... "I am nothing today in Literature and Philosophy without Ma's words she had to me on Indian and Western Philosophy and on Bengali Literature", are also her respectable words as referred to in her diary." "My mom taught me many things in Life, except how to get through Life without her." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 145 Babuli's Mother was Supti Samaddar before her marriage. [IMAGE: 24, From Album] Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 146 The Chaotic World "This is flesh and blood, sir; 'T is not the figure cut in alabaster." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 147 Literature, for the World... 'The events in the play, 'The Duchess of Malfi' of Webster shows that human suffering is caused partly by the flaw in the sufferers and partly by the devilish qualities that exist in other villainous people.' Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 148 "We are merely the stars' tennis-balls, struck and banded Which may please them." The Machiavellian qualities seen in the villain's, along with the pragmatic of even existentialist attitude to life displayed by the good as well as bad characters may give a first impression that the world Webster presents in The Duchess of Malfi, is a chaotic world, but for a closer and deeper look at the play will show that the world is influenced by a moral order though this order cannot be universally enforced. Though the moral presence exists, this world remains mysterious, incomprehensible and the future of worldly creatures is unpredictable. The growing immortality and sensuousness, which the court displayed, made the citizens sympathise with the Puritans. People began to criticize the court and religion more vocally. This critical temper had its effect in literature of the time too. Times were running out and pessimism and satire arose out of the dissatisfaction among the people. The melancholy mood found in the literature of the late 16th and early 17th century was not affection, but a natural expression of the gloom and frustration that people of the time felt. The preoccupation of Webster with decay, disease sickness and death can be explained in the light of the social history. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 149 Webster excels in the sudden flash, in the intuitive but often unsustained perception. At times he startles us by what may be called the 'Shakespearean' use of the common word. In the dark night of 'The Duchess of Malfi' at the high point of tension when the Duchess is about to die her last words are: "Go tell my brother, when I am laid out They then may feed in quiet"The bareness of 'Feed' increases the force of the line, for it suggests animal's engrossment. It has too, that kind of authority peculiar to the common word unexpectedly introduced. Its impact is that of 'bread' in Hamlet's skill. ["He took my father grossly, full of bread, With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May:"] They too often remain isolated and detached from the main stream of thought. In his manner of writing such sentences come too often though they may not have a direct relation with the texture of the play. Such lines as: "O, this gloomy world: In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness, Doth womanish and fearful mankind live! Let worthy minds never stagger and distrust To suffer death or shame for what is just; Mine is another voyage", Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 150 stands out as detached expression of Webster's sententious wisdom. Many of Webster's lines in The Duchess of Malfi have become almost proverbial and can be quoted like proverbs without consideration of the text in which they occur. Tragedy according to Aristotle should 'arouse pity and fear leading to the catharsis of such emotions'. Webster, an Elizabethan and a Jacobean, possibly could not have written plays according to Aristotle's cannons. However, there is plenty in the play that arouses pity. And surely there is fear too in abundance arising out of all pervading horror in the play. As it is generally understood, a tragedy deals with sufferings and misfortunes of the protagonists of the play. "That I might toss her palace 'bout her ears Root up her goodly forests, blast her meads, And lay her general territory as waste As the hath done her honours." The Duchess of Malfi, like any good tragedy teaches us to know the world and its ways better. There are plenty in the play that are sensational and horrifying making it melodramatic to some extent, and they appeal to the morbid instincts of the playgoer. However, the principal victim of this play is not merely the sufferer, the Duchess, but the unconquerable and unsubdued human spirit of hers. In this the Duchess comes close to Shakespearian heroes and heroines. She keeps up her dignified spirit Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 151 of defiance towards the evildoers, but is remarkably humble before heaven. She displays her sensuality not only in her marriage but also in devouring the apricots with evident greed. She becomes blind in her passion for Antonio and is credulous in taking Bosola's words at face value. Her shirking of her responsibility, as a ruler of Malfi is a glaring flaw. Still the resigned dignity with which she faces the spectacle showing her dear ones as dead and her own impending strangling make us respect her unbreakable spirit. That enduring spirit ennobles us and uplifts us. Our faith in the essential nobility of human beings is reinforced, despite the damaging effect on that faith caused by the evil and villainy of others. In the case of Bosola, it is an intellectual failure. He fails to understand his personal identity and his responsibility for his actions. The play suggestively tells that sin is inherent in man and that the corruption of the body will find its way into corrupt action. The drift towards an error is natural and it eventually arrives at the natural consequence: retribution. This appears to be the meaning of the play. "Right the fashion of the world: From decay'd fortunes every flatterer shrinks: Men cease to build where the foundation sinks:" The Duchess, Antonio and Bosola share the focus of tragic issues in the play. The tragic flaw (hamartia) in the Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 152 Duchess is the 'madness' which Cariola identifies at the end of the first act. That of Antonio, mainly is ambition- "Ambition, madam,is a great man's madness, That is not kept in chains and close-pent rooms, But in fair lightsome lodgings, and is girt With the wild noise of prattling visitants Which makes it lunatic beyond all cure." Along with the realism may be mentioned the meditative energy and the capacity to realize the irony, the mysterious nature and the pathos of life. The meditative energy Webster displays is an essential part of his dramatic genius. Sometime he introduces fables or parables even when by doing so inconsistencies in character portrayal creep in. Duke Ferdinand's parable or Reputation, Love and Death and the Duchess's fable of the salmon and the dog-fish belong to this area. "Though we are eaten up of lice and worms, And though continually we bear about us A rotten and dead body, we delight To hide it in tissue:" Webster presents a moral world that is some mysterious ways that ultimately bring punishments for the crimes one commit. The devilish Arragonian brothers and their equally devilish instrument, Bosola, feel the pangs of conscience and meet ignoble death. Remorse touches Ferdinand the most, and makes him lycanthropic. His presenting a dead man's hand to the Duchess is another Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 153 indication. The sight of the dead Duchess indeed acts as a trigger in turning him fully mad. Finally he is killed by Bosola. Bosola is struck with remorse, when he finds that his much expected 'preferment' does not come to him. He declares that if he was to live once again he would not commit his crimes, "For all the wealth of Europe' Further looking at the dead Duchess he says, "Here is a sight As direful to my soul as is the sword Unto a wretch hath slain his father." Later he mortally stabs the Cardinal and the Duke and himself, is killed by the Lycanthropic Duke. Even the Cardinal, who is a cold and calculating Machiavellian, feels the pricking of conscience. He goes to the religious books for consolation but finding it futile, lay it aside. He expresses his mental agony clearly when he soliloquizes: "How tedious is a quality conscience: When I look into the fish –ponds in my garden, Methinks I see a thing arm'd with a rake, That seems to strike at me." True, the Duchess and Antonio do have their flaws but the sufferings they face appear to be out of proportion to their sins. Really their mistakes are minor and the punishment too great. Webster illustrates that the Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 154 moral order he visualizes does not mete out reward and punishment equitably. The intense suffering that is heaped upon Duchess and to a lesser extent on Antonio, is determined by the forces of evil that exist in her devilish brothers and their villainous tool Bosola. The three appear to be mentally diseased people, sadists who enjoy inflicting of pain on others. Bosola, despite his occasional moral meditations and occasional show of sympathy for the plight of the Duchess, inflicts subtle mental torture on the Duchess. "Who would be afraid on't. Knowing to meet such excellent company In the other world?" The dramatist's fondness for bloodshed, violence and horror can be seen from his preoccupation with the morbid and the macabre. The world he presents is one of corruption, immortality, cruelty, dishonesty, greed and Machiavellianism. "This is flesh and blood, sir; 'T is not the figure cut in alabaster." Altogether ten murders take place, on the stage, in The Duchess of Malfi. Tortures of the most repulsive and shocking kind are released on the Duchess. The presentation and the dead man's hand, the spectacle of the waxen figures of Antonio and children, shown as dead, the letting loose of the lunatics on to coffin, the strangling of the Duchess, Cariola and the children, Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 155 the lycanthropia of the Duke, the killing of Antonio and the servant and the final Carnage, all show the preoccupation of the author with the murky and the morbid. Further, he seems to show disappointment when he finds the Duchess unbroken in spirit, despite her effort to break it. In Webster, like in Shakespeare, the good people with minor flaws seem to suffer deeply. Revenge is not a sacred duty in 'The Duchess of Malfi'. Thus the play defers from the traditional ones. Revenge in its most grotesque form is presented here. Both the brothers, who seek revenge, are beastly villainous beings. In their rage they lose their sense of judgment and behave as depraved human beings, which they really are. Their resentment at the Duchess's marriage below rank is natural, but it makes them commit inexplicably monstrous atrocities. Their revenge is not even a wild justice but very unnatural and bestial cruelty born out of perversion. In presenting this changed kind of revenge Webster has moved away from the beaten path. "Would I could be one, That I might toss her palace 'bout her ears, Root up her goodly forests, blast her meads And lay her general territory as waste As she hath done her honours." Webster does not believe that human suffering is caused by a supernatural agencyGod or Fate. The Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 156 events in the play show that human suffering is caused partly by the flaw in the sufferers and partly by the devilish qualities that exist in other villainous people. The Duchess, who suffers most in the play, is not a blemishes person. She has her flaw, her hamartia which is her sensuousness that makes her marry beneath her. She does not care for the damage of reputation her marriage could bring to her illustrations brothers, a Cardinal and a Duke. "He and his brothers are like plum-trees that grow crooked over Standing-pools: they are rich and o'erladen with fruit, but none but crows, pies and caterpillars feed on them. Could I be one of their flattering ponders, I would hang on their ears like a horseleech, till I were full, and then drop off." The Duchess of Malfi is one of the John Webstar's finer plays. Several images are in the play which brings in tempests, thunder and earthquakes. Perhaps the best that belongs to this group is found in the Duke's answer to the Cardinal's question why the former behaves like a tempest. Very pungently he satirises the courtiers and courtly life of the time. The corruption of the court and the rewards the princes extended for devilish services is one of the major themes of the play. In the very first scene of the play we find Bosola making fun of the courtiers, and the evil patrons. Webster's skill in stagecraft is displayed in several episodes of the play. The Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 157 whole of Act IV is a theatrical tour de force. The Duchess wooing of Antonio leading to the secret marriage in Act I also shows equally great dramatic skill. The sudden appearance of Cariola from behind the arras gives a shock to Antonio. The meeting of Antonio and Bosola in the courtyard of Malfi palace, with its 'sense of the theatre' resembles the courtyard scene in Macbeth (Act II, Sc.I). Also dramatic is the Duke's stormy appearance at the residence of the Cardinal with a letter in hand, fuming with rage. The Duke's secret entry into the Duchess's bed chamber gives a dramatically arresting episode. The Duchess s surprised at the continued silence of her husband, hears footsteps behind and turns expecting him coming back, but sees her brother the Duke advancing to her with his hand on his poniard. Another, theatrically very effective scene is where the Duke suffering from lycanthropic appears on the stage muttering 'strangling is a very quiet death.' The Duke, stealing across the stage in the dark, whispering to himself, with the devastating appearance of mad man is a figure one may not forget. Despite the existence of definite flaws in the nature of the Duchess and Antonio the sufferings and misfortunes they faced would not have arisen but for the evil present in the Cardinal, the Duke and Bosola. Webster appears to believe in the predominant existence of evil in this world. The various references to the devil and Machiavellianism stand testimony to it. Such references help to emphasize the evil nature of the Cardinal, the Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 158 Duke and their tool-villain, Bosola. They are responsible for most of the sufferings and the ten deaths shown in the play. The tyrannous brothers become indignant at the news of their sister giving birth to a child, which they think to be illegitimate. The Duke is affected more and loses all self-control: He shouts in anger that he would become a storm: "That I might toss her palace 'bout her ears Root up her goodly forests, blast her meads, And lay her general territory as waste As the hath done her honours." In Elizabethan drama scenes of madness used to be shown on the stage, but they were episodic and did not contribute to the play at a psychological level. Webster too presents the chorus of madmen according to the revenge tradition. It creates, mostly a grotesque atmosphere with the antics and lunatic dance of the mad men. However there is some psychological interest too present in it. The Duke devises the scheme to torture the Duchess with the intention of turning her mad, but ironically he, not the Duchess, becomes mad. The lycanthropic madness of the Duke has still greater psychological significance. his madness is shown not only as an instrument to create horror, but to show that his crime has knocked him out of his sanity. Human beings inflict untold sufferings on his fellow beings prompted by ambition, envy, hatred, greed and Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 159 lust for power. In Webster's world it is the natural lot of man that he endures decay, disease and death. The Duchess and Antonio, the good characters of the play meet their death; one after a long suffering, the other by simple accident. Even the blameless Cariola, and the innocent children meet death by strangulation. Virtue, innocence and other good qualities appear to offer no assured safety against suffering and premature death. "If all my royal kindred Lay in my way unto this marriage, I'd make them my low footsteps." Webster's world is one where suffering embraces all, the good and the wicked. Suffering and death are inevitable. They result sometimes from deliberate contrivance as in the case of the Duchess, Cariola etc; sometimes from compulsive action as in the case of Antonio; and they can take place quite arbitrarily as in the case of the servant whom Bosola kills. Though he is a villainous person perpetrating some of the most heinous crimes, but he is also portrayed as a meditating malcontent who occasionally appears to act as a mouth-piece of the author's view of life. Seeking happiness in the world, Webster seems to say is a futile effort for pleasure and is only momentary, but suffering is inevitable and profound. The dying Antonio makes it clear, Bl ac k ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 160 "Pleasure of life, what is 't?only the good hours Of an ague: merely a preparative to rest, To endure vexation." Webster could have been influenced by a few contemporary incidents to make the play what it is. One of them is the story of the fate of Torquato Tasso at the hands of Alfonso d'Este, an Italian Duke, because of his love for the Duke's sister. Another was the imprisonment of Lady Arabella Stuart, as a punishment for het marrying Lord William Seymour against the wishes of King James I, her cousin. Lady Arabella became mentally deranged while in person. Though Webster followed Painter's line, he made many noticeable additions. This can be found not only in the plot construction but also in characterization. In the play we find the Cardinal and the Duke warning the Duchess against a remarriage. There is nothing of the sort present in Painter. So also are the part played by Bosola, the secret entry of the Duke into the bed chamber of the Duchess and the sub plot of Julia's adulterous relationship with the Cardinal. Further most of the incidents of Act IV especially the tormenting of the Duchess, by presenting the spectacle of the waxen images, the Duke's presenting a dead man's hand to the Duchess, the antics of the lunatics, Bosola's entry as a tomb maker and a bellman etc., are all Webster's inventions. Antonio's visit to the Cardinal, the Echoscène, the lycanthropia of the Duke, Bosola's decision Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 161 to turn against his master and the final death of all the three, too are Webster's additions. "I have ever thought Nature doth nothing so great for great men As when she's pleas'd to make them lords of truth: Integrity of life is fame's best friend, Which nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end." The Duchess of Malfi has an admirable exposition in the first act. All the major characters are introduced sufficiently well. Antonio, knowledgeable in the fashion and manners of French Court, the Duke and the Cardinal who are like plum trees that grow crooked and right noble Duchess' whose 'discourse it is so full of rapture' are painted with a few thick strokes . Later the Duchess shows her independence, vivacity and passionate nature by declaring her defiant attitude to the advice of the brothers and wooing Antonio abruptly and marrying him secretly. This may apply not only to the virtuous Duchess, but also to the wicked Bosola, who with determination kills the two characters. Bosola's statement, "Let worth minds ne'er stagger in distrust To differ death or shamefor what is just:" makes this point amply clear. Whether virtuous or wicked, all should boldly decide not to compromise or surrender, but persist in being what they have it in themselves. Bl ac k ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 162 Bosola by declaring: "I'll be mine own example-" And the Duchess by asserting, "I am Duchess of Malfi still" He realizes that he has to 'die like a leveret'. He does so and we feel as if he has faced the ultimate punishment for his crimes. Nemesis reaches all the three villains giving the impression that there is some moral -order that in some unknown way mete out punishments to the evil doers. The Duchess ridicules Cariola for her respect for religion and calls her 'a superstitious fool'. However she displays her belief in God by kneeling before her death. We have to conclude that, Webster does not openly negate the existence of God in the play. However, the turn of events in the play makes one think that Webster's moral world is an extentialist one. "Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman Reign most in her, I know not; but it shows A fearful madness: I owe her much of pity." Bosola's telling that "I will be mine own example" is a typical extentialist statement. The Duchess taking firm personal decision about her marriage, Duchess's disregarding the opinion of her brothers and her Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 163 accepting the consequences of that action with a resigned courage too is an existentialist attitude; so also is the detachment with Antonio faces his fate. One of the basic requirements of that philosophy, negation of God, however is not emphasized in the play. Antonio is an extentialist as far as his attitude to religion, but nothing is said to show that he does not believe in God. The fables, the Duchess and the Duke relate, too are significant for their moral worth. Bosola, though a dark and villainous tool in the hands of the equally dark brothers, during his meditative bouts brings out worthy moral; truths. About gold coins he says, "These cur'd gifts would make You a corrupter, me an impudent traitor:" He has other philosophic comments too. "Since place and riches oft are bribes of shame: Sometimes the devil doth preach." Musing over the ruins of the Abbey near the Cardinal's palace he says: "But all things have their end: Churches and cities, which have diseases like to men, Must have like death that we have" To show the transcience of happiness he says, "Pleasure of life, what is 't? only the good hours Of an ague:" Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 164 The moral message of the play comes out frequently through pithy statements. It is interesting that almost all characters utter some universal truth, some statement significant to human life, displaying the moral undertone of the play. Antonio moralizes from the beginning till his last moments. Even minor characters are often found to express moral ideas. Cariola comments on the Duchess' marriage thus: "Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman Reign most in her, I know not; but it shows A fearful madness:" The first pilgrim has this to say about the fall of the great. "Fortune makes this conclusion general. All things do help the unhappy man to fall." Julia, the trumpet too utters a pithy statement "'T is weakness, Too much to think what should have been done." Delio has something moral to state very often "Though in our miseries Fortune have a part, Yet in our noble sufferings she hasth none:" He winds up the play with a statement pregnant with philosophic truth: Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 165 "Integrity of life is fame's best friend, Which nobly, beyond death shall crown he end." All these moral statements may appear out of place in a tragedy to a modern reader, but an Elizabethan play goer would have taken it as a sign of the Author's moral consciousness. "I am Duchess of Malfi still", brings out Webster's view of life. There is an amount of self-centered thinking in her. Further she is a credulous person and susceptible to flattery. We see her gloating over the praise Bosola showers on Antonio and reveals her secret of identity of her husband to Bosola. Then, pleased with his flattering comments on her marriage she takes him as a confidant decides to accept his advice and to go to Loretto on a feigned pilgrimage. Both the actions lead to disastrous consequences. Antonio too, faces his fate partly because of his flaws. Though he despises ambition as 'a great man's madness', it is his ambition that makes him succumb to the desires of the Duchess and marry her. His passivity too led to his downfall. He does not show any inclination it out with the Arragonian brothers though he knows that justice is on his part. Many of the opinions expressed by the various characters of the play betray Webster's extentialist leanings though, the word 'extentialism' as a philosophy evolved only in the nineteenth century after Kierkgoard. Extentialism rejects metaphysics and concentrates on Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro u d 166 the individual's existence in the world. It is a pragmatic and psychologically realistic philosophy that negates the existence of a God. There is some inherent absurdity in man's existence. For, 'all human activities are equivalent, all are destined by principles to defeat", but a man is responsible for his effect on others, though only his existence is real to him, and he is ultimately his own judge. Among all these apparently chaotic happenings in this world one wonders what a man should aim at. Are there some values he should cherish? Webster answers, surely, through his unmistakable esteem for the virtuous characters in the play. He apparently advocates two qualities to be cultivated among humans: they should persist in being what they are and they should face calamities with fortitude. The closing speech of Delio may be Webster's message to humans. "The weakest arm is strong enough that strikes With the sword of justice" Webster presents in his plays, a view of the world where the destructive forces unleash their power on the individual. The inner reality one sees in Shakespearean characters is absent in Webster. He portrays only their outer nature, and even that is often absorbed into the general forces. This results in their losing even the exterior marks of individuality. After sketching their traits through narration, Webster shows them behaving in conformity with that narration. They become types, their characteristics being shared by many others in this Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 167 world. The soliloquy of Webster does not give any deep insight into the character, which Shakespeare very well provides. Webster's soliloquies only throw light into a plot and action. Further Webster removes the inner dimension of man from his tragic picture he presents. As a result development of character, as is seen in Shakespeare, is not possible in Webster. "I am puzzled in a question about hell; He says, in hell there's one material fire."... Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 168 Eternity [BASED ON FACTS] "A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots..." RECOGNITION OF THE FAMILY Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 169 WHERE DID BABULI'S MA ORIGINALLY BELONG?B lac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 170 THE AUTHOR SAYS: ''History has its own History. My portrait on this family would remain incomplete until I recognize the root of the family in my present book, where Babuli belongs, according to Wikipedia (though many facts been objected by the family) and the different historical websites, as stated. My knowledge, on the title they use, has been increased when I had words from senior members; I had talked." [The reputed family met on newspapers then under headlines of Glorious Origin of 'Roy Choudhury Family, Of Karpara in Noakhali', District Of Present Day Bangladesh.] #HISTORY: 'The earliest known ancestor of the family was Yogeswar Guha. He was in search of a better livelihood, settled at Murshidabad, the then Bengal (now West Bengal) shifting from Gupti Para of Gajali (as spelling can differ) village in the district of Hooghly, West Bengal, India. It was the period of Saista Khan (1664-1688), the then 'Subedar' (a rank) of Bengal, having capital at Dhaka of present day Bangladesh. Saista Khan with his intelligence, and long political process made treaty with the Dutch and the Portuguese. He had occupied the island of Sandwip (now in Bangladesh) and brought under Mughal administration. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 171 In the meantime, The Portuguese had taken shelter under the Mughal administration in Bhulua (later named as Noakhali). The Dutch also had shifted to Mughals. The Englishmen did not like the strict discipline of Saista Khan. Saista Khan, as such expelled them from the country. Later, however, the Englishmen were restored to earlier position by the next 'Subedar' Ibrahim Khan. The end of Saista Khan's rule had marked the end of Mughals in Bengal and caused the growth of Nawabs. Afghan Chief, Rahim Khan, who was great rival of Mughals, challenged the Mughal rule in Bengal in 1695. Europeans took this advantage of the existing political war and confusion, made them militarily powerful and had started settlements in Bengal. In 1690, the British were allowed to settle in Calcutta (Kalikata). In 1698 they bought zamindaries of Sutanati, Kalikata and Gobindopur villages. Subsequently, The East India Company grew their military and political powers. Fort William was built by the British, Fort Orleans at Chandannagar by the French, Fort Gustavas at Chinsura by the Dutch (all in then Bengal, India). The continuous tension between Prince Azim-al-Din of Mughals and Murshid Quli Khan (1706-1725), the provincial Diwan, weakened the Mughal authority in Bengal. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 172 Murshid Quli Khan became Diwan (revenue administrator) and Nizam (general administrator including justice and defence). He had reigned Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. He was the first Nawab of Bengal and the Nawab Era in Bengal started with him. Murshid Quli Khan transferred the capital from Dhaka to Murshidabad, and the office of representative of the emperor was transferred to Patna. From his time, Nawabs (a native governor) became independent Nawabs, with the right to rule against payments of agreed tax to Delhi. The Emperor of India Aurangzeb died in 1707 and his death followed wars of succession in Delhi. The Nawabs of Bengal took the advantage of it and became rulers as they were more independent. Murshid Quli Khan opened mint and introduced 'Zurbe Murshidabad' coin. Fateh Chand was treasurer of the Nawab. During the ruling period of Murshid Quli Khan, Bhagyamanta, son of Yogeswar, became an employee in the estate of the Subedar for tax collections. Barahiprasad, son of Bhagyamanta, was also an employee in the mint built by Murshid Quli Khan in Murshidabad. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 173 After death of Murshid Quli Khan in 1725, Suja-Ud-Din (1725-1739), son-in-law of the late Nawab became the Nawab. He was charitable, academic and patron of art and culture, just and impartial ruler. After death of Suja-Ud-Din, for short period Sarafraz Khan (1739-1740), son of Suja-Ud-Din became the Nawab, who was a man of valour and religious temperament. Defeating and killing Sarafraz Khan in 1740, Alivardi Khan (1740-1756) became the Nawab of Bengal, Bihar & Orissa. He was a great ruler. He had good relations with Europeans but did not allow their military powers beyond limits. Barahiprasad was sent by Alivardi Khan to Bhulua for tax collection (called as tahasilder at that time) on behalf of the Nawab and he had independent right to decide about the administration of local village. He was also given permanent settlement right there. Siraj-Ud-Doula (1756-1757) had succeeded his grandfather. British army under Robert Clive and Nawab army came to fight face to face at Plassey of Murshidabad District. Because of betrayal by Mir Jafar and many other relatives and administrators of Siraj, he was defeated and killed on June 23rd, 1957. With the death of Siraj-Ud-Doula, the payment of tax collections was practically abolished on behalf of the Nawabs. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 174 Subsequent Nawabs like Mir Jafar (1757-1760) and others were busy to save their throne and was satisfied with the najrana (share of tax collections) sent by local rulers, like Barahiprasad Guha and others. Mir Jafar was replaced for non-payment of dues by the British with his son-inlaw Mir Quasim. Mir Quasim tried to create his own army and moved the capital to Monghyr in Bihar. British did not like this move of Mir Quasim and he was defeated in the Battle of Buxuar in 1764. During these political disturbances and subsequently until the official rule established by the British, such local rulers were the masters of their own areas, given to them by the early Nawabs. Taking advantage of the situation, Durlav Narayan, son of Barahiprasad expanded his area of control including Sandip Islands. With the enforcement of law under the British Raj, against payment of tax, the right of collection of tax was enjoyed by such rulers. His son Uttam Narayan was murdered young by close relatives on the family disputes. Sensing future disputes, Durlav Narayan before his death and just after his son's murder divided properties among his legal descendants. Soon after, he had died. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 175 Young Iswar Chandra, son of Uttam Narayan, of about 8/10 year old became the owner of the major portion of the property including Sandip Islands as per family settlements with the help of British rulers. He was fortunate to have a guardian relative, who guided him till he became adult and advised him to be watchful. He was an intelligent young man and could understand that for him it would be better to live lovingly with the British rulers. In his mid thirty of age, the British gave title "ROYCHOUDHURY". Since then original title, 'Guha' became missing. Iswar Chandra was good in education, business and control of family property. Durlav Narayan started the family Durga Puja (worship of goddess Durga) and other Hindu festivals in a gorgeous way in Karpara village of Noakhali, which continued until the year of riot of 1946. During the life of Madhab Chandra, son of Iswar Chandra, family disputes rose to extreme for which properties were fragmented among the relatives. Mahim Chandra, younger son of Madhab Chandra was intelligent and good in studies, had strong foresight. From his childhood, he created his own determination to revive the golden time of the family. He became a famous lawyer of Noakhali of his time. Mahim Chandra had highhanded character, which was good for the family but not so good to others. For his strong Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 176 personalities and high handedness, he could unite the family relations. Basanta Kumari, his wife of strong personality was added advantage to achieve his goal. During his time, the family contributed many lawyers and scholars. Mahim Chandra had 6 sons and a daughter. Chintaharan the eldest son was a lawyer, The next son Rajendralal was renowned advocate, politician and social worker. He was President of Noakhali District Bar and Hindu Mahasabha, close friend and follower of Dr. Shayama Prasad Mukherjee, who was a politician, social worker and Vice Chancellor of University Calcutta. The fifth son Dr. Makhanlal, M.A. B.L. D.Litt., Shastri, Mowat Gold Medallist, Griffith Scholar, Premchand Raichand Scholar, Sir Ashutosh Gold Medallist, Ghosh Travelling Fellow, Professor and Head of the Department of Islamic History and Culture, Calcutta University, Visiting Professor of Royal University, Cairo, Kabul and Teheran Universities and was an Author par excellence. He was a student of Presidency College, Calcutta. He was professor of T.N.J. College, Bhagalpur in Bihar, India and before that of Patna College (India), Brajomohan College of Barisal (now in Bangladesh) and Rajshahi College (now in Bangladesh). During infamous famine of Bengal he acted for social work as a trusted personal friend of Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 177 Satish Chandra, 3rd son was also in educational discipline as a teacher. Priyalal, 4th son was businessman in Noakhali and Patna of Bihar. Daughter got married to a then zaminder family. Barahiprasad, the first man of the family settled at the instance of the then Nawab of Bengal in a remote place of eastern Bengal, which was at that time known as Bhulua Parganas. According to the description of Dr. Makhanlal, as he said in the house of his nephew Late Narayan Roy Choudhury in Birnagar (the District of Nadia, West Bengal, India) during the Durga Puja festival 'Barahiprasad went there to collect tax ('Kar', a Bengali word, means tax). Thus, the place where he had settled was named as 'Karpara' village, to be identified by the people during that time. ............. Chinta Haran, Rajendralal, Satish Chandra and Monilal the elder son of Chinta Haran along with several relatives had died in the famous Noakhali Riot, 1946. ............. The grandmother, I had talked was Late Niva Roy Choudhury, the daughter-in-law of Late Chinta Haran Roy Chowdhury, and wife of Late Narayan Roy Choudhury, had once her words to the family, "Presidency College, Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 178 Kolkata is not at all new to our family....more than politics, the family is named for Academic Excellence." # FAMILY HIREARCHY (**): as told by Dr. M. L. Roy Choudhury, great grandfather of Babuli during Durga Puja Festival at a villageBirnagar, Dist. Nadia, West Bengal, India in 1960. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 179 Bengal Period Yogeswar Guha Known root of the family at Murshidabad. It is said that to search for better living he came from Gupti Para of Gajali village in the district of Hooghly, WB. Bhagyamanta Last recognised Mughal emperor Aurangazeb ruled up to 1707 in Delhi. Mir Jumla was Bengal Subedar up to 1663. Saistha Khan was the Bengal Subedar during 1664-1688. Barahiprasad Murshid Kuli Khan, first Nawab of Bengal during 1706-1725. He brought capital of Bengal from Dhaka to Murshidabad. Shuza-ud-Din (1727-1739), son-in-law of Murshid Kuli Khan ruled thereafter. Sarfaraj Khan (1739-1740), son of Shuza-udDin ruled for a short period. Alivardi Khan (1740-1756), killed Sarfaraj Khan and became next Nawab. He sent Barahiprasad to develop Noakhali as a tax (kar) collector on his behalf. Durlav Narayan Siraj-ud-doula (1756-1757), Britisj Raj & company rule from 1757 Uttam Narayan Iswar Chandra Was awarded title 'ROY CHOUDHURY' by the British Ruler Madhab Chandra Mahim Chandra (1862-1937) (Basanta Kumari) Sipoy mutiny in 1857-58. Elder brother of Mahim Chandra was Mahesh Chandra. His wife was elder sister of Basanta Kumari. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 180 Chinta Haran(*) (1890 -1946) (Sarojini) Rajendralal (*) (1893 -1946) (Pankajini) Satish Chandra (*) (.... .-1946) (Prativa)Prya Lal (Usha) Prof. Dr. Makhan Lal (1900-1962) (Bina) - Monilal (*) (1915 -1946) (Sudha) Narayan (1919 -1991) (Niva) Biswajit (Supti, died on 07.02.2019) Rudrajit (mahua) Kasturi (Yagneswar) Babuli (R.) Debaditya& Diya(sister) Samrat (*) died in Noakhali Genocide in 1946 Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 181 AROUND THE WORLD Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 182 TRIBUTES TO BABULI'S MA Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 183 "I Was Raised To Show Respect." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 184 TRIBUTE TO LATE (MRS.) SUPTI ROY CHOUDHURY Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 185 "May you Rest in Peace" Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 186 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 187 Partridge Publishing AN IMPRINT IN ASSOCIATION WITH PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE INDIA Bloomington, IN Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 188 Words from Lady Pane, the Author's Book Consultant: Hello Ray, Thanks for taking the call. Yes, as a tribute to your Ma, I'll be glad to give you the kind words. As your Book Consultant and now your friend, please do mind that you are always in my thoughts and I know it is not easy for you to let go of your Ma. But I know the pain has ended, your mother has finally laid to rest and gained her angel wings. I know even the last remaining days on her bed she was thinking of you. She does not want you to suffer, the pain of seeing her. Even though her eyes are closed that moment but still she feels your presence. As a dear mother, all she wants is for you to move on with your life. Though physically she is no longer there but her memories will remain. You will treasure those moments you have with her from the time you start to remember every life's happenings till her last breath. You are a strong woman, Ray. I feel that. In this point of your life, all you need is to be happy and continue your journey. Writing will help you and I know you want to dedicate to your beloved late Ma. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg r un d 189 Always remember that every cloud has a silver lining. Never feel being hopeless because difficult times always lead to better days. Take care always, Ray. Regards, Lady Pane BOOK CONSULTANT Partridge Publishing 1663 liberty Drive Bloomington, IN 47403 Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 190 Words from Vanessa Dean, the Author's Marketing Consultant: Hello Ray, Our mother is our first teacher, companion & inspiration of what we want to become. Ray, I am really sorry about your mom. As I always tell you, whatever life throw at us, we have to embrace it & continue to treasure the good memories. I know you are really sad. I am very sad too. I wish we are there to be with you these days. You should write this book Ray. I am sure a lot of people would want to know what your mom & your family had to go through because a lot of families may share the same sentiments. Hugs & kisses from all of us. Sincerely, Vanessa Dean SENIOR MARKETING CONSULTANT Partridge India AN IMPRINT IN ASSOCIATION WITH PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE INDIA Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 191 INDIA Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 192 "Sleep peacefully, you will live forever on your daughter's lips and heart." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 193 TRIBUTE, From THE HOSPITAL Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 194 "Mrs. Roy Choudhury was admitted to our ICU on 18th December, 2018. Her painful struggle had continued a long for 51days. Towards the end, she wanted to survive for her daughter and husband. By that time it became too late. I respect her still as my Mother." -Mrs. Mita Bose (Senior Attending Sister of ICU) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 195 "Mrs. Roy Choudhury, on 18th December, 2018 was admitted in ICU at our hospital. Her severe struggle had continued for 51 days. She was recovering in midst, but she could not keep faith on herself. She talked to me, of her mother and sometimes of her childhood memories. On name of Allah, more than a patient she was to me like my Mother; an affectionate Mother we got. Every moment of those 51days is still flashing in my mind. We cannot forget her. She will remain immortal." -Saira Banu (Senior Attending Sister in the Hospital) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 196 TRIBUTE, On terms of MEDICAL PHYSIOLOGY Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 197 Tribute to Aunty "A mother is she, who can take the place of all others but whose place, no one else can take." –Cardinal Meymillod ''I had met Aunty in 2010. She was an amiable person with strong personality. She had left her own house of South Calcutta to take utmost care of her solitary old mother. Aunty was not only the symbol of her caring on others but also on her contribution, guidance, endurance along with sensitive emotions in certain events of her life. Her sudden deterioration and her death together has been a challenge to Medical Science. Being a student of Medical Physiology, I might have been shocked at first...but then I had realised Psychology is a different disorder in itself, where even the course of medicine is rendered helpless. "Rest in Peace" is surreal for her, given that I really question this phrase on this context: "Aunty, you prioritized spiritual peace over your beloved family. Is your 'afterlife' really peaceful!" '' -Kohili Chakraborty. (Student of Medical Physiology) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 198 TRIBUTE, BY SISTER-IN-LAW & HER HUSBAND Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 199 TRIBUTE TO BOUDI ''Where and what Buria would have been without you, O my dearest Mom!" An angel came in life of my niece, had her greatest impact in everyone's lives. Buria, my niece had always remained to her Mother as bundle of joy. She was a great cook. Boudi was not wrong in her life, but she had taken certain wrong decisions very emotionally. It was, also, her sheer determination that she would bid adieu to us all one year after the death of her ''beloved mother". But she would always be remained as Buria's Mother who had protected Buria from all sides, nurtured her and always encouraged her. "Yours was name for God in Buria's lips and heart." '' (Mr. B. Y. Rao & Mrs. B. Kasturi Rao) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 200 TRIBUTE, BY THE JOURNALIST Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 201 Tribute to Madam "Mrs. Roy Choudhury will be remained immortal. She is a woman of her strong personality, an aura who cannot be walked off easily. She had a set of very strict principals who she had abide by them for years long. I had seen her smile on face of adversity but she was very much possessive and too much sentimental with her mother and on certain relations that belonged to her as on regard to reminiscences concerning her childhood days. As such, it affected her health. In the struggle of her fiftyone days, a certain period in between was there when she was, however, recovering despite a sensitive patient. But it is unfortunate her recovering moment could not be holding off. A rapid declination had started towards the end. Never in my worst imagination had I thought I would get the news of her death. I feel myself to be cornered who couldn't get the opportunity to see her even for the last time. May your soul Rest into an Eternal Peace...with much respect and love from my side..." -Riddhi Nandy (The Journalist of The Echo of India) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 202 TRIBUTE, BY SWAGATAM & SATYAKI RESPECTIVELY Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 203 Tribute to Kakima (A term of Respect) 'Respect' is a term that only comes to my mind when I think about Kakima. The love she gave me during my tuition days was unforgettable. She may have compromised with pain she had undergone but her soul will remain as pure as she was." -Swagatam Bhowmick (On Journalism) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 204 Tribute to Kakima ''She was a very understanding lady. She was friendly and helpful on her nature. As she knew that I am too fond of sweets, Kakima had always kept a plateful of 'naaru' and 'pithe' (Bengali sweets) for me. After her demise, I miss Kakima. And, who had the opportunity to see her closely, could realize it is very much heart breaking to lose a Mother like her with such a beautiful nature. I mourn for the loss." -Satyaki Bhanja Chaudhuri (Journalism and Mass Communication.)B lac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 205 TRIBUTE, BY BROTHER-IN-LAW Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 206 Tribute to Boudi "A little girl of a middle class family, migrated on partition of India in 1946, grew up achieving highest degree from University of Calcutta, had attained success in life out of sorrow and many ups and downs. From my college life, I had noticed Boudi's hospitality and love for others, whoever it may be, always with a smiling face. My smiling and loving Boudi will always be eternal to me." Rudrajit Roy Choudhury (Chartered Accountant) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 207 TRIBUTE, By THE ARTIST Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 208 Tribute to Aunty "Inspiration is the foremost and salient feature that Aunty had given me most often. I shall always bear 'respect' for her but only the word 'respect' may prove to be valueless; because she deserves a lot..." Anushka Das Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 209 TRIBUTE, By THE ARTIST Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 210 Tribute to Aunty "Her every word is allegorical to me. Still her thoughts, her lessons and teachings are buzzing in my ears. She will remain to be a great teacher to me." -Misha Sarkar Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 211 TRIBUTE, By NIECE Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 212 Tribute to Mami (A Bengali term of Aunty) "More than own she was to me a great preceptor. My new born baby is really very unfortunate who is deprived of blessings from such a pious lady..." -Subhasree Das Chakraborty (Teacher) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 213 TRIBUTE, On terms of LITERATURE Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 214 Tribute to Aunty "A beaming smile would always greet me to come at her home. The smile was like a rainbow after every storm, an ever glowing and an ever beaming filling the place with her radiance. She was an angel and enigma." -Debanjana Majumder (On English Literature) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 215 TRIBUTE, BY A DOCTOR Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 216 [Acknowledgement: This person had seen Babuli's Ma and Babuli's grandmother too closely, on his frequent visit at Babuli's grandmother's house in Madhyamgram (Kolkata, India). I extend my gratitude to him on his constant cooperation: B. Sc., BCHMS (Kolkata), DMLT (Kolkata), DMRT (Kolkata).] Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 217 As far been possible a summarised translation, as originally written in Bengali: "She is free; a free spirit she is- "My visit at home of Mrs. Dipti Samaddar, mother of Mrs. Roy Choudhury, was frequent. Mrs. Roy Choudhury was desirously very much caring to her mother with her feeling of affection, devotion and dedication. With demise of Mrs. Dipti Samaddar, everything inside the home had started to change. After Mrs. Samaddar's death, Mrs. Roy Choudhury was admitted to hospital. She was recovering, when we had noticed a few months after, her behavioural change in the mind was inclining to her mother's thoughts and becoming nostalgic with her childhood days and childish words. With this, illustratively it was found she had made herself completely to be secluded from others and was graving self more to the world of darkness. She was admitted to hospital...... Everybody had tried to make her to come out from the disastrous world of seclusion she was making against herself, but- ................... ''Let her soul Rest in Peace..." Dr. Tarunendu Joardar. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 218 TRIBUTE By A COUSIN Sister Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 219 Tribute to Supti Summarised translation of poem, as originally written in Bengali: '' You have gone far away beyond our reach... And on earth, it is left only with the golden old memories. With your determination and confidence, as a river mesmerising to sea, you had fearlessly attained a certain position in your lifeIt is you who had made your parents to be boosted up with pride and made their faces to be reflected with smile... Friends and relatives had stood beside you, and you had always welcomed them with smile on your faceYou had spent a resourceful life with your daughter and husband... Give your blessings to your near and dear ones... If there's anything called 'rebirth', come again to your fond able place. '' -Santa Bhattacharjee (Retired Bank Employee) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 220 TRIBUTE, By A CHILD (*This child is eight years old, suffering from a deadly disease.) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 221 Tribute to Didun (Grandmother) Summarised translation as originally written in Bengali: "Whenever I had visited Didun's house, I found that she talked to me sitting on a chair, which was her chair only. In front of the chair, there was a walker and on other side of a table some medicines. She loved me much and used to give me Cadbury on my every visit to her. At one of my visits, I was given by her a book on Bengali poems for children. One day, I had heard she was admitted to hospital.... a phone came to my papa and papa told me, 'Your Didun is no more'. I had cried too much. I still cannot believe...." -Sneha Podder Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 222 TRIBUTE, By CARETAKER of THE house (Mother of Sneha Podder) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 223 Tribute to Kakima (A term to Respect) Summarised translation as originally written in Bengali: ''I, Subhra Podder, was appointed to look after Madam Supti Roy Choudhury, by her daughter. I had noted she used to keep her eyes always closed most of the time. She used to talk with me about her childhood mainly concerning with persons of her own like her younger sister and her dead mother. Kakima was very simple on her nature and thoughts. However, once I had asked why she always eager to close her eyes... and she replied that she deliberately did not like to keep her eyes open. I could not find out the reason till date. '' Subhra Podder Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 224 TRIBUTE, By MAID (This maid is working in the house for more than ten years.) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 225 Tribute to Didi (Elder Sister) Summarised translation as originally written in Bengali: ''Birth of human being is joyful, but rest of life is full of uncertainties. I cannot forget your blessings on me. I cannot forget your advice ''to serve every body's life for others as far as possible." You are my MA, let me touch your feet." -BINA DEBNATH Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 226 TRIBUTE, BY GUESTS Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 227 Tribute to Jethi (A Respected term) "She is in my heart as a motivator and her inspiration to me in my childhood days was bountiful. She had treated like her own daughter; without any partiality. Whatever am I today in society, I feel my English has developed because the home that I had once visited many times a week..." -Ria Paul (Hospitality Management) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 228 Tribute to Aunty "Her contribution to her family and on academic respectively is indispensible. She will be immortal for her own perfection as a teacher and as an orator on academic, as a mother to everyone. She was certainly an enthusiastic person, with my huge respect on her." -Rajdip Chakrabarty (On Science Course) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 229 Tribute to Madam "The news of her sudden demise is unexpected, shocking and inacceptable. I had seen her very closely, who can admirably be defined as a lady to give respect from core of your heart." -Monani Bose (On Professional Management) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 230 Tribute to Aunty "She is immortal for her own towering qualities on humanity and sacrifice along with self personality." -Sreeja Goswami (On Degree Course) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 231 TRIBUTE, BY OTHER STUDENTS OF BABULI TO aUntY Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 232 "When you came, Everybody had a smile But then you had criedWhen you had departed Everybody is crying, But then you had laughed." -Arnab Mukherjee (On Science) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 233 ''Aunty is immortal to me for her personality. After her death, it was an initial shock to me. She is no more, but I feel her soul is around us. It is a tribute to her implanting on guidance to others she had possessed in." Amen. -Soumyak Karmakar Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 234 '' Aunty will be remembered to me through her smile. I wish her soul be blessed and if there is anything called 'rebirth' let she be always happy." -Srijoni Banerjee. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 235 ''Aunty is in my thought for her pleasant smile and her benevolent behaviour. She was indeed the definition of 'Mother'. I shall always respect her, even though it was a short time acquaintance with me." -Debapriya Banerjee Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 236 ''My Dear Aunty, .........Let your soul rest in peace." -Bipasha Nandy ''As I had noted, Aunty is the symbol of inspiration for the words she had. She will always be respected and loved by us." -Chandrama Samadder Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 237 My Beloved Aunty '' I miss those days, Aunty used to smile at me Every time I entered the house. She might have faded from this world... But her memories are still immortal, In the interior of my heart." -Ayushi Sarkar Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 238 ''Aunty will always be remembered for her calm and lofty words to me. She is unseen, she is unheard but she is always near us. Let she be always blessed." -Snehasikta Banik Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 239 ''Aunty was a strong personified woman. She was very helpful and caring. I respect her." -Aarya Sikdar Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 240 ''Aunty will be remembered to me for her voice, when she used to call me by my name. The chair in the house reminds me her reflection. She will always be immortal in my heart." -Stuti Basu Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 241 "Respect comes from within....Everything is eternal." -Iman Das Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 242 "7th February, 2019The sad memorable day in my life. Aunty was really a blessed lady. I and my mother had seen her very closely. A wonderful lady she was who had always a smile on her face..." -Nandini Sen "She will remain to be a very valuable person with inexplicable teachings in my life. May her soul Rest in Peace." Sagnik Nag "The woman, I met, was full of her own personality and with respect. A sudden change to her behavioural mind and that strikingly affected her health was a noteworthy feature to me. As such, she made herself to be 'a completely solitary person' from everyone." Megha Dey Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 243 "It's still very hard to recover from the shock that Aunty is no more... Everything is past now; but she will be eternal for her thoughts on others and her motivation." Sumit Saha "As intensely knowing, a true mother she was who had encouraged with her positive thoughts to her daughter but a biggest mistake she had done that she had nurtured more with memories constituting on her dead mother. She will, still, remain to be as Aunty; as my Aunty-" -Rajaishwarya Biswas (On Humanities) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 244 "She will always be remembered for her embraced smile and caring heart including her impartial nature. To me, 'Death is nothing at all...It's just the start of a new life---a new journey...' May her soul Rest in Peace...." -Pritha Chakrabarty (On Science) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 245 "Every thought and word is my flashback. The words of yours on education are still borne in my mind. You will be remembered to me for your personality." -Rupak Biswas (On Science) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 246 "I had seen both Aunty and Dimma (Aunty's mother). The relation between them (mother-daughter) was to be understood from their individual point of their thoughts and words. It is too exceptional." -Sayak Mazumdar (On Commerce) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 247 "I had procured the definition of a Mother, to my knowledge." -Pramit Kanti Saha Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 248 "She was a reserved person on her behaviour and words, but with a reflection of motherly-smile on her face." -Ayendrila Pal Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 249 "Every thought is MY intense and solely. The woman, she was as I had perceived, with her worthy thoughts. May her soul Rest in Peace." -Sayan Saha Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 250 THE DEFINITION OF AN INDIAN MOTHER: (Who is Ma-) Summarised translation of the poem from Bengali in English, as far as possible: "MA means, Getting daily good foods after her tiresome cooking, Getting care day and night with her sleepless day and nights, Getting festive foods on every special day, whether a puja day or a birthday, Getting continuous air she is fanning with her hand fan in summer, when there's no electricity, MA MEANS SO MANY LOVING THINGS, Now I miss my MA ..... She is no more.... Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 251 I am searching throughout the world those happy moments- '' -Avik Ghosh (A poet on thoughts.) "God has a reason for allowing things to happen. We may never understand his wisdom but we simply have to trust His will." ............... Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 252 TRIBUTE FROM DAUGHTER TO MA ''Never forget that I love you. Life is filled with hard times and good times. Learn from everything you can. Be the woman I know you can be." Mom '' Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 253 She said, ''This is one of my best gifts to me on my birthday. Even before the date Ma was admitted to the hospital (18th December, 2018), on 17th December, 2018 Ma had wanted to hug this gift, as resembling her daughter 'Babuli'; whom the Web on English Literature identifies and recognises as Author Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri. " Spread your wings to reach your destiny: The Fly~~~ (IMAGE: 25, From Album) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 254 Words from Grandmother TO Her Granddaughter As 'Eternal Whispers' collaborates: "Till the end she could speak, her words on deathbed to her granddaughter (daughter of Elder daughter) were: In Bengali: 'Didibhai, jiboner pathe egiye jao.' In English: 'Didibhai (The grandmother used to call me as 'Didibhai'), go ahead on way of your life.'" Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 255 (ETERNAL WHISPERS) Words from 'Ma' TO Her daughter "Ma had her words often to me: In Bengali: "Prithibi bichar korbe tomar lekha diye." In English: "World will recognise you through your writing." Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 256 (ETERNAL WHISPERS) "Supti was proud of our daughter who is a teacher also, and our daughter's explanation on English Literature. Time passed through when our daughter had an explanation to her mother and grandmother on Reflective poems and Shakespeare. Even on the struggling days of 51 days in ICU, when my wife was sometimes recovering, she had her words to attending sisters of the Unit on our daughter that she's the author of Partridge, An Imprint In Association With Penguin Random House. She had always wanted her daughter to do something for others and World. I pray to God "Let Buria fulfil her mother's wish." I have never expected such gloomy day will ever come in this way in my daughter's life, so much in a sudden way. She was basically 'Mamma's Daughter'. Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 257 I understand that she requires a time...Time will heal everything. Next year, in 2020 in month of January 27, according to our Hindu rituals the 'First Death Anniversary' of my wife (Supti) will be performed by our daughter, Rituparna. We know, God is always with Buria, our daughterMay God bless you all." ~Father of Author Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri. (EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF BABULI'S FATHER: THE LADY, VANISHES INTO THE BLUE) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 258 ''Pray to almighty, to Goddess Bhabatarini to keep you in peace." The Fly, 'Every mother gave birth to a child except my mother. She has given birth to a legend. And, I am giving answers to The World!' ~ The Author (Partridge India.) (ETERNAL WHISPERS) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d 259 "Loving memories last forever. I am at a loss for words during this sorrowful time. Please know that I am thinking of you and praying for peace and comfort." MORE TRIBUTES..... "As seen very closely with my knowledge of at least 9 years, I got 'Aunty' to be as an epitome of mother and educator. Her golden teachings as treasured will be immortal to me." – Kuntal Sarkar. (Ex-student of the Author) "Words that come intensely from heart are the definition of 'Mom'. Love you Mom; you are the real God to be worshipped as a symbol of goodness, wisdom and a savior. May be on earth you were very simple, yet you are a Creator. You will be always respected. We know this....God knows this'' – Swapnil Ray. (Ex-student of the Author) Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d The EndBlack o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d Bl ac k o ve r W hi te b ac kg ro un d