Birendra Krishna Bhadra’s recitations, his voice breaking with passion as he invokes Durga, is broadcast by All India Radio in the predawn hours of Mahalaya every year. Listening to Agomani, semi asleep, as light slowly creaks in through the curtains, is one of the abiding memories of Durga Puja from my childhood. In the Bengali psyche, Bhadra is irreplacable. At one time, AIR got a noted Bengali movie actor (Uttam Kumar) to recite the Sanskrit slokas. The story goes, that the people got so incensed that many started towards the radio station with brickbats (a not very surprising development in Calcutta).
In his old age, Bhadra was locked up in his own house by his son and daughter in law. they claimed that he had gone mad. A lot of people feel that they covetted his property. I wish he had a better death. His Agomani recitations are very uplifting. This year on Mahalaya, we listened to a recording that my wife has brought from India.
The puja of course is packaged into a weekend affair in USA instead of the elaboate four day thing that it is in India. None of us have that kind of time. Durga is carefully packed away every year in keeping with the environmental regulations of New York. Last year, the diyas had somehow sparked off the fire alarms in a building in Albani and a number of fire brigade vehicles had arrived.
We had gone to Dr. Mukherjee’s house for the Pujas last weekend. He has been doing this in his house for the last 25 years. For those who don’t know, Durga Puja is a fairly complex, demanding affair, rarely done at home.
Dr Mukherjee had worked in many corners of the world throughout his life. I was much impressed with the fact that he had served in Siberia for ‘Doctors Without Border’. Now old, he has retired to a a quiet town in upstate New York. He has a pacemaker for his heart. He had another heart attack last month. But his back was ramrod straight, his Sanskrit pronunciations were correct and clear, only his gait kinda shuffled and tentative.
There was some singing later on. There was this small, balding man from Mysore who sang divinely. He had that vocal range that certain classically trained southern vocalists have, that doesn’t need any accompanying instruments. I think Sinead O’Connor has that. There was a woman who sang horrible Gazals. There was lots of color, awesome Bengali sweets, disjointed conversations, cars parked in wrong places ……
It rained all day that day. Later, we drove up 87 all the way to Albani past catskill mountains vivid with fall colors . As we neared Adirondack, the trees took on many different hues. It was a great drive.
In Albani, I had the weirdest conversation with another guy:
“So where did you move from?”
“California”
“You SHOULD go back”
“Huh?”
“There is nothing here. Let the winter start. It is going to be terrible. Absolutely terrible. I went to San Francisco for a training last month. There is life there! They have the real city life out there.”
“Oh”
“Albany sucks”. He started pacing. “Connecticut sucks.”
“Hmmm”.
“Go back. Ask your company to send you back.”
“You know, we don’t have any ongoing projects in the Bay area.”
“Why don’t you join Microsoft?”
