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<\/a>Standing tall, from the private collection of the author<\/p><\/div>\n
Three words making a sentence are very strong. In English. Because there has to be a verb almost always. And then, one is left with two words of which one has to be a pronoun or a proper one in most cases.<\/p>\n
\u2018I love you.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018You repel me.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018He is dead.\u2019<\/p>\n
Very strong, subtle and pungent. Like the beads of a poem. Poetry is the strongest form of literature. Cause poems can hold one captive to the pages and also, liberate her through the vacuum of emotions. Poems are strings balanced on feelings, not like birds that glide passion-less in air. Birds seldom have self-doubts, poems do. A bird doesn\u2019t evolve by piercing the air in ether, a poet hopelessly aspires to. A successful poet, an accepted one, desires to be someone different.<\/p>\n
The problem of writing is that, one can never be a failure all the time. Yet, if it lingers achingly long one may forget how to relate to with the outside world.<\/p>\n
It is a shiny morning. There is a crisp air of benevolence all round. We are discussing Van Gogh. An artist who failed himself more than the others outside.<\/p>\n
\u2018This whole business of entertainment is a permanence of erosion,\u2019 Soumitra-babu lifts\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0eyes from a book of Bengali poems that I had published a few years back.\u00a0He<\/em>\u00a0now looks at me, fully.<\/p>\n \u2018You know, we all need to move out more, out of us. Whatever we do, act or write, or paint. Just like failure puts you outside, success does the same as well,\u2019\u00a0he<\/em>\u00a0no longer looks at me though\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0head is turned towards me.\u00a0His<\/em>\u00a0eyes are still but there is a search. Beyond. Far. Beneath the heaps of praise\u00a0he<\/em>\u00a0goes to sleep every day of his life.<\/p>\n \u2018What do you take with you to sleep, every night. The successes or the failures?\u2019 I insist\u00a0he<\/em>\u00a0probes further. Before me.<\/p>\n Coffee is served in small cups with sugar-free tablets alongside. I prefer black coffee without sugar.<\/p>\n \u2018Na, I can\u2019t have it without a sweetener, that\u2019s appalling,\u2019\u00a0he<\/em>\u00a0concludes. I smile at\u00a0him<\/em>. We have previously discussed the small-sweetening life offers us, differently.<\/p>\n He<\/em>\u00a0is mixing the tablet in his coffee with a teaspoon. There is a whirring sound from the wall-mounted fan which makes more noise than the effect it is for. Occasionally the spoon touches the insides of the cup and makes a sweet sound.\u00a0He<\/em>\u00a0is stirring the coffee with all concentration, and probably taking\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0time to rearrange\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0thoughts.<\/p>\n \u2018I don\u2019t look back in general. That will make me stagnant. I love to do things, work, keeping me engaged,\u2019\u00a0he<\/em>\u00a0finally says, still looking closely at the circles of motion on the surface of coffee in the cup in\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0hand.<\/p>\n \u2018And yet, we all do. We wait, we wait and then realise the chance is gone, don\u2019t we,\u2019 I am honest. That is how it has mostly been. For me, with art. In life.<\/p>\n He<\/em>\u00a0slowly lifts\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0head and looks at me again.<\/p>\n \u2018Amitava, going to sleep every night means getting up again the next morning. Most mornings are so same. Most nights dread me of the same mornings.\u2019<\/p>\n I know this feeling. Since nothing ever changes. The lives flow on \u2013 with success or in failure, external, outside and we glide like birds \u2013 without emotions, with no remorse, no guilt. But, with a sense of defeat as we sit before our poems. Poems, which unshackle the poet more than the reader. The poet wishes to alleviate from his tragedies, his daily, painstakingly ordinary living.<\/p>\n I have come today to speak about a possible selected translation of\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0Bengali poems in English. A publisher requested me to ask\u00a0him<\/em>\u00a0if\u00a0he<\/em>\u00a0is agreeable to the idea. A selection of fifty or sixty, a first anthology of his poems in translation.<\/p>\n \u2018We will decide on the translator, later on\u2019 the publisher insisted that I mention this bit to him. So I am, today, in\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0drawing room asking for a permission.<\/p>\n There is a sudden silence in the room that we are trying to bridge with our waiting for the other to speak. It is getting late for\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0lunch. I start to feel sorry for the gloom. Is it a wrong question that I asked? Do I rub any hidden wound, a sore pain in the life of an artist? I don\u2019t know\u00a0him<\/em>\u00a0well enough to understand this yet.<\/p>\n He<\/em>\u00a0gets up, \u2018another day, Amitava. A better day may be.\u2019<\/p>\n We come out of\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0room. I have left him here so many times, in darkness, with light.\u00a0He<\/em>\u00a0pats me on my shoulders with an impish grin\u2013<\/p>\n \u2018Why don\u2019t you?\u2019<\/p>\n He<\/em>\u00a0leaves me with the three words. In the sky the stars seem to smile down from behind the luminance of noon. Their happy tears drizzle down the canopy overshadowing\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0driveway touching my head the way some grandparents caress their grandchildren.<\/p>\n Three words, way too feeble, make mornings a memory of happiness.<\/p>\n This is a preview collection of interactions that is set to release as the book Murmurs: Moments with Soumitra Chatterjee<\/a><\/em> by Amitava Nag, on 19th January 2021 to celebrate the legend\u2019s 87th birthday.<\/h3>\n
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\n <\/p>\nClick here to read all published episodes of Murmurs: Moments with Soumitra Chatterjee<\/a>.<\/h3>\n
\n Catherine Berge’s Gaach<\/em><\/strong> (The Tree, 1998) is a rare documentary on Soumitra Chatterjee. Silhouette is grateful to Catherine and producer James Ivory for providing permission to make it available to the Silhouette readers.<\/span><\/p>\n