West Bengal, Thou shall be missed.
"And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core."
Yes, I feel like Yeats. I feel lost, living in a land that I don't know of. I miss my land, my city and the all the glorious its and bits of history that kept me alive. I miss my Calcutta and now of all, my Bengal.
I feel the end of world has happened. There was a big bang and another new state was formed. I here remain a survivor who has traveled through a time machine, that kept her alive to see the new state.
As soon as the news of Poschim Bongo reached my ears, I feel a part of my heart go more inside and glued more badly to the pericardium, in fear of getting snatched away by fake, desperate, wannabes of my state or the new state that it is now. It is not the name that hurts me more because the name was already there, in bengali, we used it but it is the height of discrimination and madness, the extent of desperate measures to create a new state rather than building from the remains.
Poschim Bongo. I feel our dearest CM is no less than Lord Clive. I as a person whose roots are in Bangladesh, East Bengal, precisely, feel discriminated. I feel just like Lord Clive, our dearest CM is making sure that we be seen differently than those of East Bengal. I wonder if it has come to any one's mind how brutally Bengal was divided and how even Rabindranath Tagore, the poet whom our dearest CM praises so much, tried to overcome the partition through the auspicious Rakhshabandhan to strengthen the relationship of both the Bengals.
The renaming of the state doesn't seem to be in any way good to me. Or a progress, if so ever they had in their mind. This 'namkaran' just signifies from what to where Bengal has degenerated. We have turned into a race which remains on the past, hanging on the glorious cultural that is getting slowly westernized, how we remain insecure about ourselves and try desperate things and in the end appear as wannabes to the other states. Yes. This might sound harsh but that's the truth. Changing names didn't change anything for good.
We have changed into a set of people insecure about losing our heritage and culture rather than building up new ones. We have changed into people who wants to progress for mere self-satisfaction, so that they can compare themselves with others rather than share. We have changed into a bunch of so-called intellectuals who prefer sitting in a studio, discussing or arguing about the future of our state rather than getting their ass up and working on it. We prefer to plan more than work.
Someone asked me - Give me ten differences between Bengal and India.
Ok here you go -
1. Bengal is full of people who loves sweet more than anything,
2. Bengal is obsessed about Rabindranath Tagore, even though half of them don't know the real surname of the Tagores.
3. Bengalis are supposed to be soft-spoken, friendly people. They have practically forgotten people like Netaji, S. N. Banerjee, etc. hail from Bengal. Bengalis don't fight. They only complain and shout.
4. Bengalis or Bengal is obsessed about Dada and Didi. They care ZERO about Bengal.
5. Bengal has seen no major industrial progress in the last 5 years, Yes right, we lost Nano to NaMo.
6. Bengal is totally dependent on the political netas and netris. If nothing works, we depend on Strikes and Hartals.
7. We had phutchka. Now we have KFC. *Please note Phutchka-Pani Puri and Gol Gappas totally different in taste*
8. We have KKR ran by SRK. I wouldn't be shocked if some KRK shows interest in Kolkata or PoBo.
9. We are a proud State whose people are preferred to be called Bongs and then Indians.
10. We have only one college & university - Presidency. All others are just useless time-pass.
And the list can go on and on.
Why I have put on the list in this way? Practically to show how bengalis or the 'bongs' are treated and lets just accept it, its all because we have given others the opportunity to mock us.
Someone said the word Bongo appears in the National Anthem so its well justified. Please excuse me but does Poschim Bongo appear anywhere? And if that is the way, then why not regionalise each and every state in India. Let us call Maharastra as Maratha.
West Bengal always came last in the list. Alphabetically. Poschim Bongo elevates them a bit. Darlings, had you selected Bengal, you would had gone straight UP in the list!
We had IIM-C, third in the list. Now, even though it hasn't been changed, we are IIM-K. How many IIM-Ks we have?
Now for the progress part. Since the name Kolkata came up, Bengal and Kolkata has been facing turmoils, one after the other. We have turned into one state, busy in cleaning the mess to create more MESS. The word stability has disappeared from our dictionary. Since 13th May, 2011, the city's transport has gone from hay to nowhere. And now Poschim Bongo.
We are being tagged as the PoBo trying to be SoBo. Do we have an unique identity? Our name is all up for jokes. I thought Bengaluroo was the biggest joke. We just defeated them! People from abroad and nearby also doesn't know on which planet Kolkata is and now they will wonder what kind of instrument is Poschim Bongo. Talk about pronunciation, try and record your voice.
The time our precious leaders spent in changing the name, if they had spent in changing the traffic situations, it would had been much to our delight. I seriously can't recognize with the name.
But even if we are a bunch of cribbers, we will get used to it. Like before. Although with the change of name, my identity of being a 'Bengal'i from Calcutta is lost. May be it is what we are. Sorry!! That's the people of Poschim Bongo are *am a person from Purbo bongo*. May be its right and well justified and may be it is easier for people who find it hard to pronounce West Bengal and end up pronoucing WASTE Bengal but we just changed into a bunch of people who loves dressing up to new fashion rather than changing their INNER SELVES.
Let me conclude by hoping am wrong. This isn't a hate-post but a post by a lost and hurt lover who has no idea what and how things will change for the betterment. I hope when am gone from here, and the state progresses(I just HOPE it does), someone comes to this post and replies - You were wrong, we did progress.
West Bengal, Thou shall be missed.
![West Bengal, Thou shall be missed.]()
Reviewed by Sudatta
on
August 22, 2011
Rating: 5