Take a pledge to donate your eyes as a social duty

I don’t know any kind of statistics of blind people currently living in India. That number must be very high. All I know is that there is a shortage of human eyes in every eye bank because the tradition of donating eyes, bodies, or any other organ is very awful in India. If you read newspapers or watch news on TV regularly, you might get some idea of the reality in India. An eye is something so precious that only a blind man can understand its true value. You can’t evaluate its value by money. You might be a rich person and if God forbids it, should any of your close relatives lose his/her eyes due to any accidental or any other medical reason and therefore needs just one eye to be able to see this colourful world once again, can you just even buy only one human eye by all your precious wealth? The answer is no. I don’t know the whole world but I think organ trade is illegal in India. So, if you indulge yourself in that kind of trade either as a seller or a buyer, that would be a punishable offense. All you can do is apply for an eye in an eye bank and wait in a queue like all other applicants. Out of 1.2 Billion people in India, a large number of people belong to the educated middle class. You can imagine very easily that if most of them take a pledge to donate their eyes, bodies, or any other organs after their death, then there shouldn’t be any problem at all with the treatment of blind people or any sick person who desperately needs organ transplant to evade certain death and is expecting a light of hope that sooner than later a suitable donor will be found like an Angel. That donor might be dead at that time but his/her donation might save several lives even after his/her death. But that usually never happens in India in great numbers.

My father was born in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) and he migrated to India in 1964 to avoid religious riots. He used to live as a tenant in refugee colonies in Kolkata. I was also born in one of those colonies in Kolkata and have spent all my childhood there. The refugee colonies were the huge support base for the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPIM which has ruled the state of West Bengal for 34 years. They used to win elections since 1977 based on urban and other rural vote banks. I was also one of their supporters till there was a so-called “Paribartan” (Change) campaign organized by some intellectual people in Kolkata which influenced my decision in the 2011 state assembly election. That’s a separate issue.  As far as CPIM is concerned I didn’t know much about them and their history of socialism. All I knew was that Communists don’t believe in God. I also remember CPIM leader Jyoti Basu not only as the longest-serving Chief Minister of West Bengal but also for another reason. Jyoti Basu died in 2010 and I saw on TV the guard of honour and the procession with his dead body through the streets of Kolkata later his body was handed over to the authority of SSKM Hospital in Kolkata. Then I came to know that before his death, he took a pledge to donate his body and his eyes. It was inspirational and motivational for me. Later I read in the newspaper that many young people in Kolkata had followed his footsteps by taking pledges for donating their eyes and bodies.

I felt inside my heart that I should also take part in this noble effort. But if you are a Hindu by religion, you have to face a lot of religious barriers that don't come from any Hindu priest or religious leader but rather from your soul. I guess it’s the effect of four thousand years old Hindu culture that you have been brought up with and the sole Hindu concept of incarnation that indeed blurs your mind and prevents you from taking any bold decision. I was fighting with myself. A good friend of mine even told me that if my eyes are taken away after my death, I’ll be born blind in my next life. I immediately understood why such a big country like India with a majority of Hindu people, has such a poor record on organ donation. That suggestion helped me a lot to win over all my hesitations and finally, I decided that I would take a pledge to donate my eyes and body as soon as possible before something else forced me to change my decision.

In November 2011, I had to visit Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata for some personal treatment and then I got the opportunity to fulfill my decision. I collected the forms from the eye and the anatomy departments respectively and December 1st, 2011 was the date on which I finally submitted those forms and became the official donor of my eyes and my body. It gave me great feelings that one day my eyes would help two people to get back their eyesight and my body would be used for medical and scientific research. I want to live 100 years and see the progress and prosperity of India through my own eyes but one day I’ll be dead for sure and I sincerely hope that my family will honour my pledge on that day.

I am still a Hindu by religion and I still believe in God. I still have the habit of praying to any Hindu God while passing a roadside Hindu temple. I still have two astrological rings in my right hand which were gifted by my father for my health and peace of mind. I guess I have not yet been able to free myself from all religious prejudices. But there is another side of the coin. This kind of belief somehow makes you humble and keeps you under control because it is the fear of consequences that generally affects all the decisions people make every day for a living. I also believe that faith in God helps your mind tackle difficult situations and hard times in life and takes away some mental burden while dealing with life. This is how I see religion.

If you get inspired by my story then my effort to write this article would be successful.

Social security of the women in India

India is one of the fastest developing countries in the world. The whole world now admits that India is a rising superpower. Its economy is booming and its army with nuclear weapons is one of the best in the world. But in recent times, India itself has become the news headlines and got special attention from both national and international media for all the wrong reasons. The media was very keen to project a general view that women were not safe in India, especially in the national capital. I think that perception has not been changed yet. New Delhi came under the spotlight since the infamous Delhi gang rape which took place on 16th December 2012. It was not the first time that a rape and murder happened in India but the magnitude of inhuman characteristics and the brutality shown by the 6 perpetrators to the victims, made the people of India and abroad very very shocked and furious. The perpetrators committed that heinous crime in a moving bus without any remorse and tried to make sure that the victim wouldn’t survive to be able to bring them to justice. The victim’s male companion was also beaten severely by them with the intention to murder him. Then both of them were thrown out of the bus and left alongside the road. They were later rescued and hospitalised by the Delhi police. The male victim survived but sensing the deteriorating critical condition of that rape victim, the doctors, and the govt. of India transferred her to the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore. But on 28th December 2012, she lost her last fight and breathed her last. Police apprehended all 6 perpetrators of which one was still juvenile. The main accused Ram Singh later found dead in police custody. This gang rape case is now sub judice in Indian courts.

On 21st December 2012, the young men and women of India erupted and formed a large protest around the India Gate in New Delhi. The protesters clashed with the police in large numbers as they were trying to move close to the Parliament and the residence of the President of India. The outrage never stopped there but spread all over India. We also felt the heat in Kolkata as the city also expressed solidarity and joined the protests. Earlier we have also seen these kinds of large protests in India especially in New Delhi in support of the introduction of a strong “Jan Lokpal Bill” led by Shri Anna Hazare. All those big protests were spontaneous and occurred without any political colour or support but organised by the non-political organisations and mostly by the youth of India. Without the participation of Indian youth in large numbers, these kinds of non-political protests and movements for social cause and justice might never happen in India. How many grievances towards our system and society were accumulated in the minds of the youth of India, the whole world came to know and was surprised to see the scale of the protests and movements that took place in India. Young generations of this era now want to change their surrounding socioeconomic structures and live without any social or religious prejudice. Although we have progressed in economy, education, health, and other fields deep inside our social structure, we almost remained the same in the last thousands of years.

India is called the “Subcontinent” because of its diversity in geography, society, language, and people. India is now the home of 1.2 billion people and has become the largest democracy in the world. Being a secular country, India has given its people the right to practice different faiths and religious beliefs. However, the social structure in India is too deep and complex to be changed overnight. One of the main aspects of society is how we treat our women in India and elsewhere. Nowadays I have been watching the news that more and more physical assaults on women are being committed in India. I wonder what is more true? The number of physical assaults on women is increasing day by day in India, women are getting out of their social deprivation and getting the courage to register complaints in police stations which they were afraid to do so in the past, or the media in India itself is gaining the fast momentum and sensationalising all issues or the media in India has now become the face of India. I think all are true but I don’t have any statistics to establish my view. But the point is that physical assaults on women must be eliminated from the society of India at any cost. Many social activists and intellectuals are working in this regard but we the youth of India must take an oath to clean our society and everybody must take care of one another and make sure that these types of crimes never happen in India. I am sure that the govt. of India is also working on all legal and social aspects and their implementations to ensure the social security of women in India.

Satyajit Ray: A true inspirational human being and my favourite writer cum movie director

 

The whole world knows Satyajit Ray as a great Indian filmmaker but his name first came to me not as a filmmaker but rather as a great detective novel writer. Now I don’t remember the exact year but sometime in the early '90s, my father gave me a book as a birthday gift and I was very excited by the cover photo which looked very interesting to me. It was a Bengali detective novel for kids and its name was “Sonar Kella”. I read that book and you won’t believe how much excitement and pleasure that book gave me. That detective or private investigator’s name was Prodosh Chandra Mitra better known as Feluda. His nickname is Felu and da is the short form of dada which means big brother in Bengali because his cousin Tapesh served as a narrator and he used to call him Feluda. I was a kid and I immediately fell in love with Feluda. At that time, the author's name especially Satyajit Ray himself meant nothing important to me, I just wanted to read Feluda’s detective stories. Then I started insisting my father buy more Feluda books. But I also couldn’t wait for long and therefore started asking my friends about Feluda’s books and I discovered that some of them also used to like Feluda. So, we exchanged a lot of Feluda books and then I insisted my father allow me to get the membership of a local library. I successfully made him convinced that the subscription money for that local library would have been much cheaper than buying me new storybooks now and then. So, one by one I almost finished all Feluda books. During that time, I also discovered that there was another interesting fictional character Professor Shonku who was also created by Satyajit Ray. This character Professor Shonku was a great scientist and his adventures were all based on science fiction that was the first time I started to like science fiction stories.

There is a popular children’s magazine “Anandamela” and every year just before the biggest festival of Bengal “Durga Puja”, a special puja edition is published by ABP group, the leading media group and the publisher of the most popular and commonly read Bengali daily newspaper “Ananda Bazar Patrika”. Every year a new adventure of Professor Shonku was published in that special puja edition of “Anandamela” and every year I used to wait for that special puja edition. I think every Bengali kid even the current generation’s kids loves to read “Anandamela”. But “Anandamela” didn’t have Feluda stories instead it used to get published in another magazine “Desh” in its special puja edition which also belongs to the same ABP group. Now “Desh” is not a children’s magazine but readable for grown-up persons. Despite being a teenager, I still managed to borrow some special puja editions of “Desh”. I also discovered that “Desh” was full of romantic and little adult kind of novels. So, that was how I came to know about love, sex, and some secret human emotions and behaviours which I never experienced before. Now when I see young kids, it surprises me how smart and intelligent they are now. By their age, we were quite simple and silly.

Another thing that also astonished me was that since Feluda was a fictional character created by Satyajit Ray, especially for kids and teenagers then why did the ABP group publish Feluda novels in “Desh” instead of “Anandamela”? Satyajit Ray himself regularly published Feluda novels in another children’s magazine “Sandesh” under his editorialship but it was no longer so popular in our times. Even today, “Anandamela” is still the most popular Children’s magazine in Bengali language.

Satyajit Ray was still alive by that time because I still remember that later I saw his death news in 1992. Even then I didn’t know much about Satyajit Ray. First I saw the news that he was hospitalised. But then he was awarded “Oscar” as a lifetime achievement honour. I still remember the TV footage of him laying on a hospital bed holding the “Oscar” statuette on his chest in both of his hands and he was saying something on camera. I heard from my elders that he became the first Indian to receive such a prestigious award as “Oscar”. But his health condition was still deteriorating and then I saw the news on TV that he was no more. In India, the most popular and famous persons are either film stars or cricketers. Satyajit Ray was none of them yet I felt sad about his demise. I got the same feeling again when I saw the death news of Mother Teresa in 1997. I never got the opportunity to meet both Satyajit Ray and Mother Teresa face to face despite living in Kolkata suburbs but I saw Nelson Mandela from a long distance when he was received and honoured at Iden Gardens stadium in Kolkata by the govt. of West Bengal. It was 1990 and I have a vivid memory of that incident. I was present at Iden Gardens stadium with my parents at that great reception. Now we are hearing the news that Nelson Mandela is going through a critical health condition. I pray to God for his long life and good health.

I have read a lot of novels of Sherlock Holmes who was created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and also acknowledged as the greatest detective novel character in the world. But if you also read Feluda novels, you’ll find that Feluda's stories are not less thrilling and entertaining than those of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Both Sherlock Holmes and Feluda are considered a very very wise person and both can see and explain things and clues that a normal person can’t. Satyajit Ray also added two characters in Feluda stories and they are Tapesh or Topshe as called by Feluda and Jatayu or Lalmohon Ganguli. Tapesh serves as a narrator and we see and experience all the Feluda adventures from his eyes. Most of the adventures of Feluda took place outside Kolkata and give readers a good taste of traveling and adventure. But the storytelling and the suspense factor are a little different than other detective stories. It is not the climax scene when you will identify the culprit, but within the first phase of the story, you’ll know who did the crime. But how Feluda unfolds clues one by one, beats him just by his intelligence, and ultimately traps and catches him, that is the fun you will enjoy the most. On the other hand, Professor Shonku's stories are full of adventures and science fiction. It’s like a diary in which Professor Shonku has written all his adventures. More interesting elements are the innovations and ideas of Professor Shonku which are all based on science fiction. All these Feluda and Professor Shonku stories are very very interesting to read again and again. Moreover, Satyajit Ray’s stories are fatless but healthy which means neither less nor extra words or sentences are found in his writings.

Satyajit Ray himself directed a couple of Feluda movies based on his novels “Sonar Kella” (The Fortress) and “Joy Baba Felunath” (The Elephant God) and both of them gave so much entertainment to kids. But the most entertaining children’s movie was “Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne” (The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha). Every Bengali kid still loves that movie. Later Satyajit Ray made its sequel “Hirak Rajar Deshe” (The Kingdom of Diamonds). But the most beautiful movie that influenced and touched me a lot, was “Pather Panchali”. At that time the only television channel in India was state-sponsored “Doordarshan” and sometime in the middle of the 90s, I watched a Bengali black and white movie “Pather Panchali” on “Doordarshan”. Bengalis in nature, are emotional and sensitive and every Bengali sentiment was depicted exceptionally well by Satyajit Ray in that movie. Then I realised how talented he was and automatically deserved my utmost respect. I believe that the whole world also recognized Satyajit Ray and his talents by this particular film “Pather Panchali” (A Song of the Little Road) for the first time in history which he directed in 1955. In that movie, there were two children characters “Apu” and his elder sister “Durga”. Apu was more or less as same age as me and I felt connected with him like a friend or brother. I enjoyed their affection, their life and I also felt that somehow I became a part of their life. Then one day “Durga” became ill and died. But I felt the pain of “Apu” and I thought that I had also lost my elder sister. I have no siblings and I never experienced that type of love and affection in my life but that emotion and pain of losing somebody close to you like your sister, remained in my mind for a long time. It was merely a movie but how real and sensitive a movie might become and how a movie would affect your life, Satyajit Ray showed us very easily. He also made sequels of “Pather Panchali” as “Aparajito” (The Unvanquished) and “Apur Sansar” (The World of Apu). Satyajit Ray himself was a music composer as well and he did some music direction in his movies. I think other great Indian classical music maestros like Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, etc. also composed music for Satyajit Ray in his movies. I don’t know anything about Indian classical music but I think you’ll find a simple yet emotional and sensitive musical pattern in all the background scores which he used in his movies. All are different yet there is a secret similarity of musical phenomenon in his movies which I can’t explain. He was a genius.

Later I saw most of his movies. But right now if you ask me to talk about all of his movies, I can’t do that because frankly speaking I don’t remember all of them but I can still talk about some of them. In his film “Ganashatru” (An Enemy of the People), he showed us how politics and personal interests can make a simple man's life bitter. He showed us how complex the relations among close family members might be, in “Shakha Proshakha” (The Branches of the Tree), “Kanchanjangha” etc. There is an old phrase “A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets” and Satyajit Ray successfully depicted all-female mental characteristics in his movies like “Ghare Baire” (The Home and The World) and especially in “Charulata” (The Lonely Wife). In “Charulata”, Madhabi Mukherjee acted so beautifully. All her facial expressions, body gestures, and moods were fantastically shown in that movie. Sometimes Madhabi Mukherjee didn’t even speak a word but told a lot of things just by her facial and eye expressions. I have seen some other movies acted by this same Madhabi Mukherjee but I thought I didn’t see that kind of acting anymore. I might be wrong because I haven’t seen all her movies. If I did, now I don’t remember most of them in which Madhabi Mukherjee acted in a lead or supporting role. So, you can consider that as my general perception.

24 July was the death anniversary of Uttam Kumar who was the most favourite and popular Bengali Movie actor in the Kolkata film industry. Even today, after many years of his death, his popularity is still going high. But Satyajit Ray and Uttam Kumar worked together on 2 films which are “Chiriyakhana” (The Zoo) and “Nayak” (The Hero). I didn’t watch “Chiriyakhana” but enjoyed a lot watching “Nayak”. It seems like Uttam Kumar’s own life story. Soumitra Chatterjee, another popular lead actor in the Kolkata film industry worked in most of the films directed by Satyajit Ray. His son Sandip Ray is now walking in his father's footsteps. He is not that experimental like his father but he has also directed some good movies based on his father’s novels especially the Feluda series and probably is now working on starting a new project based on the Professor Shonku series.