(This piece was written long ago.)
My last year began with teaching; conducting classes at our department’s training academy. It’s ending with teaching too. On the thirty-first, I’ll go teach a class for BGB officers. On the Customs Act.
The BGB training school is near Bandarban. I have a desire to spend this New Year’s Eve in the hills. With hill friends. After finishing the evening classes, I’ll wander around the town in the evening. Beyond the town to the village. Village on the hilltop. Hill gardens beside it. I’ll pitch tents in the hill gardens on winter nights and have a campfire. Through the chest of the hill night’s silence, there will be dancing, singing, strumming silver guitars all night long. With the simple people of the hills, bathing in sparks of fire, I’ll bid farewell to the year. The sleeping hills will wake and revel, thumbing their nose at the misty shroud, at the barbecue party. Watching the smoky dawn over the hills in winter and spending golden warm nights are two of the most beautiful gifts on earth. Such strangely beautiful scenes! These scenes can be touched, felt with the eyes, with the entire body and soul. I’ve spent two other New Year’s Eves in the hills before. I’m waiting for this one too.
That time when celebrating New Year’s Eve in the hills, I wrote these words:
Wood burning.
. Straw catching.
. . Fire hissing.
. . . Sparks flying.
. . . . Ash scattering.
. . . . . Cold shivering.
. . . . . . Mist encircling.
. . . . . . . Embers sharpening.
. . . . . . . . Bodies warming.
. . . . . . . . . Tents falling.
. . . . . . . . . . Barbecue arranging.
. . . . . . . . . . . Melodies floating.
. . . . . . . . . . . . Rabindranath returning.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Lalon practicing.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Earth beating.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conversation continuing.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Camera capturing.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hills awakening.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leaves weeping.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rivers pulling.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wind singing.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Night reveling.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Silence chattering.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Year ending.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Year coming.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joy spilling.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Love burning.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . We chattering.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sleep losing.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Time passing.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Happiness swaying.
I’ve often had to teach in training programs in my own department and other departments; since there were students from other languages in classes too—in Bengali, in English. Along with career discussions at universities or various other places throughout the year. This is also a kind of teaching. Teaching is one of the most joyful occupations in the world. It’s an old habit; I can’t give it up. Even now, whenever I teach, I feel that same first-day excitement. The desire to feel some entranced eyes gazing at you is truly irresistible. I’m tagged as a master-officer in our department.
I don’t think I’m too bad at teaching. While teaching, I’ve tried to change many people’s perspectives, and succeeded too. The pestle pounds rice even in heaven. And I don’t even go to heaven. I stay within the country. So motivational words naturally come up during teaching. I speak of this country, remind them of our debt to the nation. I teach those whose classes I take to take pride in their own jobs. They feel good about their position and dignity. So they pray for me, love me. I truly don’t know if there’s any way to repay this love! Once I taught a class to assistant revenue officers in our department. I’m sharing feedback from that class. The feedback is from younger brother Nixon. He’s also a BCS cadre himself. His brother-in-law was in that class of mine. He’s a smart officer in our department.
One evening, brother (customs officer) came home and immediately said, what a wonderful AC gave a class today. When he mentioned the name, I recognized it. Sushanta Paul. At night while eating, he said one of his sons should become like Sushanta sir, he will serve the country. Boys studying in English medium would naturally go abroad—everyone had this idea, he himself wanted the same, but after the class he felt, no, at least one son will do something for the country. I was curious to know how long the class was? ……. An hour and a half!!
At that time, a father changed his dreams about his son!
It didn’t surprise me much, because people’s expectations about Sushanta-da are quite high. Some have written on his profile, “If I were to follow anyone blindly in life, it would be Sushanta sir.”
Some have written, “Some people are born to change lives.” Some have written, “Some people come to this world to change the world.” Some have quoted him writing, “About surpassing yourself every day.” In his career discussions, there are overflowing crowds of success-seekers, and some say, “He’s not an actor, not a politician either, but I came to hear him speak.”
Though I’ve never been to any, almost everyone who’s attended career discussions has thought anew about life, created a different meaning for their lives.
I’ve never met him, just a hi-hello on Facebook once! Yet I like him—not as an assistant commissioner of customs, not for looking like ‘doesn’t know how to flip the fried fish while eating’ type (sorry brother!), not for any impossibly handsome appearance, not for the ability to speak with a smile, not for the ability to write wonderfully, not for having over 6500 books in his personal library, or for showing embarrassed ‘I did nothing!’ type modesty on TV after catching crores of taka worth of smuggled gold in customs—I like him for putting dreams into the heads of thousands of boys and girls. Thousands of boys and girls come with dreams in their chest pockets of ‘achieving something in life’ to hear a dreamer speak, and they themselves change after coming—what could be more beautiful than this?
We really needed this brave person who shows dreams!…… Stay well, brother.
……………………This is what I’ve received! This is how it’s passed, passing. Year turns to year. Work continues, life revolves. I sink in despair, float in hope, make others float.
I do more work. Do means, have to do. Tell me, how’s it going?
Writing. Correcting the writing for department souvenirs, writing the messages that appear at the beginning of magazines, preparing various speeches and presentations for seniors, writing letters on behalf of the department on various subjects (several letters have gone to the Honorable Prime Minister and the department has benefited from them, the country has benefited), contributing to magazines. Have to draft many things. Such and more.
Presentation. I’m responsible for presenting at various formal and informal programs of the department. Along with writing scripts, organizing programs, singing, reciting. Speaking on behalf of the department in various places. Have to do these tasks for hours and hours. Another thing. Well I mean, recently added to this is sports commentary! On January 3rd, I have to do commentary for our annual departmental sports competition. All day long! Seeking everyone’s prayers! (Note: I’m extremely so-so at sports. Haven’t kicked a football once in my life. Fortunately, you don’t need to know how to play to do commentary, I mean boasting.)
I’ve been beating my own drum for a long time. Now let me beat yours a little.
Just knowing how to do the job is a matter of great fortune. Job means, just the job. If you don’t know how to do other things, just doing the job is your job. And if you know, doing the job and doing those things—both become your job. Meaning, you’ll have to take on extra responsibilities. Knowing how to hide yourself at work is a great art. If you can’t hide, you’ll be caught and given some work. You can’t make mistakes in any of these. If you can do the extra work properly, you won’t get any extra reward, but if you make any mistake in extra work, scolding is inevitable for you. If you don’t know how to do other things, it’s convenient for you—you’re ‘saved.’ You can catch the mistakes of those who know how to do things. And since you don’t know how to do other work, no one has the audacity to catch your mistakes. You don’t do it, so what mistakes would you make? Only those who do make mistakes. Those who don’t, do everything correctly in their minds. We’re a nation that hits sixes sitting in front of the TV. Alas! In this world, goats and donkeys are the safest!
You know how to do it—this means everyone around you will assume they could have done the work better than you if they had done it.
You can stand on stage in front of thousands of people and speak for hours. Just put them up there once and see what happens! How many times they need the bathroom per minute, how many times their hands and feet shake per minute, how their regional stammering becomes “wh-wh-what k-k-kind and wh-wh-what wh-wh-what,” how sudden lice infestation occurs in their hair, where hands get lost, how varied and charming the dance of neck and waist becomes!
You can write well. Ask those who chatter more to write one line. They’ll give birth to unwriting like “My forehead was washed away by the water of two eyes,/ My two feet were then tied to the branches of a pomegranate tree.” Do you know the story of these two lines? Well, let me tell it. You don’t necessarily need Shantiniketan to write poetry. You need to have something in your head. Sitting in a cottage on the peaceful hillside, an educated person started writing poetry like this: “My forehead was washed away by the water of two eyes……” Then he started thinking, the forehead wet with tears! How strange! But he doesn’t want to change that line either; what an extraordinary thing my super-fertile brain produced with such effort! What to do, what to do—thinking and thinking, after a long time he wrote the second line: “My two feet were then tied to the branches of a pomegranate tree.” ……. Understand the situation!!
I believe these things are innate. In some cases, no matter how much you practice, you can’t become the best. Some things are in the blood.
Manna Dey was once asked, “What does one need to do to become a great artist?” His answer will remain in my memory forever. The answer was, “To become an artist, one must practice a lot. But to become a great artist, one needs God-given talent.”
Shrikanto was asked at a program, “Is there any sadness in your life?” His answer was, “No sadness, but there’s one regret. I remained uneducated in music throughout my life. I’m a self-taught artist.” Let me inform friends that his music learning happened through listening, through feeling. Like another great artist Nachiketa, he had no formal education from childhood. His father wanted the boy to grow up and join the Indian Civil Service when he grew up. (Thinking about this makes me feel somehow happy.) When we learn that a dying young woman lying on a clinic bed prays as her last wish just before death that Shrikanto’s “My whole day, cloudy sky, rain—I gave you” should play in her room, we think again that a little listening here and there can also make one sing well. Let some boys become scoundrels instead of becoming good people. Why should everyone become good people? Let some boys and girls go mad. We want Hemantas to leave engineering studies and come to sing. Let Binoy Majumdars study engineering if they want, then one day leave everything behind and suddenly sit down to write a “Return, O Wheel.” Did all this happen through practice