Network Past Issues

More than a pilgrimage
A much-loved colleague’s untimely demise takes the writer to a far-off destination with a touching revelation

Getting off at the train station I found myself grumbling inwardly. What on earth had made me agree to this journey? It was a journey I had begun to mentally register as ‘unnecessary’? Visiting West Bengal had been on the cards for a long time, true. But not this dusty mofussil town, nay village, surely.

It had been barely two and a half months ago that we lost Monark Bag, IRMA’s youngest faculty member, in a freak accident. The grieving family, forming a bond with me, had tearfully requested me to pay them a visit whenever I happened to be in West Bengal. In a burst of emotion I remember having mentioned the visit I had scheduled to Kolkata in late November. The “visit” was meant to be a pilgrimage to Belur Math and Dakshineshwar. Once again, in a burst of emotion, I cancelled my Dakshineshwar trip and curtailed my Kolkata visit by a day.

Catching the Hazarduari Express by a hair’s breadth (thanks to a wild combination of misunderstanding and misinformation) I was off to a part of the country I had not known hitherto. I had to get used to the stares of my fellow passengers in the general compartment as they took in my jeans and fancy top along with my high-heeled branded footwear with bemused scepticism. Words of jest from a well-meaning female colleague came rushing back, “You are too snobbish to travel with the hoi polloi!” Perhaps, I said to myself, as I shrugged into my seat with obvious unease. Not that I had never travelled in an Indian Railways’ general compartment earlier. This time, though, I found myself surrounded by a different breed of people speaking a new lingo, a coarse variation of Bengali. It hardly sounded like the Bengali I was accustomed to, the language ranked among one of the world’s most sonorous by linguistics of distinction. The female fellow passengers were arrayed in saris; I found myself hardpressed to find a salwar kameez clad figure in the compartment. But then I was in West Bengal, I had to remind myself, not in north India where I have lived all my life. Where men and women spoke a different dialect and well... looked a bit different.

The vendors sauntered in with snacks like jhaal moori and shaur bhaja instead of chana, chole, and samosas. A blind flautist rendered popular baul ditties and Tagore songs instead of Bollywood ballads. The farm-studded landscape too, appeared different as the train chugged away into a northern corner of the state, closer to the border of Bangladesh and, later, heaving with a great jolt at Krishnanagar Station.

I had been told to stay close to the Enquiry booth; someone would come to pick me up. A fruit seller informed me that I would have to navigate the steep over-bridge to get there. “Coolies?” I asked.”No coolies at this station didi,” he shrugged. There was no way I could have climbed those steep stairs with two pieces of luggage on high-heeled sandals.

Drat! I cursed myself in unfamiliar American slang. What had made me undertake this foolhardy mission? I couldn’t bring back the dead, could I, by visiting his family? What was I trying to prove? And to whom?

It did not take me long to spot Monark’s aunt, Lekha, who had left her household chores to pick me up from the teeming wayside station. I was to appreciate later how hard the lady slogs to put the food on the table and to keep the family together.

A festival honouring the local deity – Jagatdhatri (another avatar of Durga) – was on in full swing, so that finding transportation was becoming difficult. Finally a ‘to-to’, a local version of the South East Asian tuk-tuk (also seen in Paris around the Louvre), was located and we set off towards mean little streets and tiny gullies winding our way through the milling crowd.

I spent the entire day exploring Krishnanagar, Monark’s hometown, plunged in the midst of festivities. A neighbour by the name of Shukla took it upon herself to show me around the clay hub of Bengal, a place called Ghurni in the district.

The next morning it was time for me to depart for Kolkata and thence to Vadodara before getting into Anand. As for the warmth and hospitality of the family, the sadness of having lost a son who, apart from being a wonderful human being, had held out the promise of a better life.... I feel too moved to even write about it. All I can say is this: words can never justify an experience that goes down so deep. Rest in peace Monark, wherever you are!

By: Indrani Talukdar Email: indrani@irma.ac.in