Singing praises.

(Familiarity with Bengali required for some parts)

What does one miss about the vibrant, vivacious, dazzling, crowd-clogged, loud, sumptuous autumn festivities? Well, *I* miss complaining about them. They say in Bengali that one doesn't appreciate one's teeth while one still has them, and this might well apply to the pujas... for some people. But for me, not so much. The first time I got away from them--and I left town a week or so before Mohaloya last year--I had the distinct feeling of a narrow escape. One does not appreciate being woken up by the dhaak at four thirty in the morning after being dragged around town and through an ocean of people on the pretext of 'thakur dekha' till 3AM. And one certainly does not appreciate Reshammiya or Kumar Shanu blaring from the mikes all day.

Actually, I'm being unfair. For the last four or so years, our parar pujo has chosen to play music one wants to hear: Hindi film classics from the sixties and seventies--lots of Asha, Mukhesh, Rafi, Kishore-- in the evenings, and plenty of Hemonto, Shyamol Mitro, Sholil De, Srikanto Acharjo, Orghyo Sen, Konika Bannerjee in the mornings, a nice blend of robindroshongeet and what is still called 'adhunik'. I never quit understand why people leave out Debobroto out of their playlists, incidentally. His renditions of Tagore's songs are often my favourites. In fact, if anyone has .mp3 versions of his robindroshongeets and are willing to share, I would be very grateful. But anyway, so we had these sterling mixed tapes being played for our aural gratification all day, and I would have been pleased... except that:

1. the same songs were repeated ad infinitum on a tedious loop, which, no matter how much one lives listening to Kishore singing Gulzar's lyrics to RD's music, is very, very painful.
2. the next locality had generously strung up two mikes facing our locality, so that Rafi was often superimposed on Alka Yagnik, and Shyamol Mitro on DJ Hot's "KaaNta Lagaa!".

All in all, I was quite happy to fly the nest before the Decibel Assault was launched. But in doing so, I was also withdrawing all claim on the pleasanter sounds of pujo--the call to onjoli on oshtomi mornings, the montropaath interspersed by ghonta bajano during shondhipujo, dhakir naach, dhunuchi naach [tiny video of just the first moves], the broken snatches of private conversations picked up by the microphone, people rushing around overseeing the serving at communal lunches on oshtomi and dinners on nobomi ("Bannerjee kaku ke luchi diyechho toh? Uni kintu chaichhilen.", "Ei ektu dekh toh Uma mashi khete boshlo kina, shokal theke mondope kaaj korchhen. Ei fol-mishtita diye aaye ontoto"). I even like the dhaak at more reasonable hours. In fact, provided I had managed the requisite eight hours, I quite cherished being woken up by the slightly intoxicating rhythm that gets under the skin and whispers to the blood. It gave the peaceful glow of an autumn daybreak a primal undertone of excitement--pujo eshe gaechhe!

There's also perhaps a sensual undertone to the association of the dhaak with the worship of the mother goddess. Feel free to treat this as a pop theory popped out by an amateur (I certainly do), but our goddesses are not pristine submissive vestal virgins in white, spending their days in seclusion. Or, for that matter, virgin goddesses reknowned for their intellect, but lined firmly with patriarchy. Our goddesses are far more sweat-and-blood, far more raw power that smites, far more protective love tempered by firm disciplinarianism. And although we in our psuedo-Victorian way shy away from it, far more powerfully, sensually, playfully sexual. Despite the ridiculously fake blindfold of 'Indian culture' that we wear voluntarily, perhaps this subterranean association seeps into the romantic overtones to pujo celebrations. And not just the sweetly romantic, neither. While the pujo pandals are a favourite first-meeting type place for potential sweethearts in Bengali films and novels, pujos are also the time when, slipping away from the performances like this, lovers go off to... do what lovers are always sneaking off to do. You couldn't ask for a better background score. And if someone raised an eyebrow you could always say you were embodying Shiv and Shakti, and enacting their reunion post-bijoya doshomi :-) (not that I've ever heard anyone use that excuse, but I would love to)

And perhaps that is why the only piece of commercial pujo "music" I'm missing is an ancient Thumbs Up! commercial. It's not on Youtube or Google videos. Does anyone remember it? "Shoptomi te prothom dekha, oshtomi te haashi... nobomi te bolte chaoa, tomaye bhalobashi. Doshomite hothat kaeno aakul holo praan... praan protima tumi ebar jaabe ki bhashan?"

Praan protima, tumi ebar jaabe ki bhashan? Shubho Bijoya.