Disclaimer: This post is not about Kolkata.
When you’re small you don’t often realise how you get into things. You are told. You are told, for instance, that you have a fever and must stay at home, you are told that you are a bad boy or a good boy, or that you are going on a camp. As it happened, one day I was told that I was going to the Sundarbans on a camping trip with a Scout troop. I was a Cub-Scout with the South Point pack, but this was with a different group who had their centre somewhere in Hati Bagan. I remember the location only because the name had excited me tremendously - just as it had disappointed by making me realise at an early age the arbitrary nature of the signifier-signified relationship.
I had been to the Sundarbans a year before that. It had been a satisfactory trip on the whole, quite luxurious to be honest. I had quickly made friends with the crew and would spend many a worrisome hour (for my parents) lurking around the kitchen, sometimes serving as food-taster. This was on a West Bengal Tourism launch. With my South Point Junior School upmarket air I greeted the prospect of the Scout camp with enthusiasm.
We were to take a bus to Taki from where a launch would take us into the delta. My expectations began to take a hit when we reached Taki. The food arrangements were modest (where were the chicken sandwiches that we were feasting on en route the first time round?), the toilets were not up to the mark, and mosquitoes attacked us as we tried to sleep. I went to sleep believing that the next day would bring us better fortune. When we reached the “jetty” I saw a boat coming towards us. One of the other Scout boys with whom I had made friends looked positively excited.
“Wait till you see the real launch”, I proclaimed to the novice.
“This is the real launch”, he replied.
I smiled patiently and said, “No, this is the boat that takes us to the launch that we will be staying on.”
“No. We’ll be staying on this one.”
I gave up on the simpleton and boarded the boat with great self-assurance. We sailed, and we sailed. The “real launch” never came. I don’t know when this idea actually sunk in. I imagine I must have maintained a safe distance from the boy. We weren’t, however, spending our nights in the boat and this came as a consolation.
We were sorted into groups and a spirit of friendly competition set in gradually. ‘Friendly’ is such a polite word, but one must play along. The group with the greatest number of points by the end of the camp would win. Win honour and prestige, that is. In the boat (the deck was made of bamboo strips) we played various kinds of games - as Scouts are wont to do. Apart from the common Scout games, there was antakshari which was popular in the school buses most of us travelled by. Sroyon and I had been placed in separate groups. Sanjoy da, who was Scout-master was one of the kindest yet most mischievous of men. And even though he realised that this separation was causing me anxiety, he did not yield.
The group-leader for Sroyon’s group was a rather sharp young man, whom we called Debasis da. On one occasion while playing antakshari (maintaining the strict orders of our groups), I thought I had Sroyon’s team cornered. Someone had already sung “Thoda hai thode ki zaroorat hai” and through some devilish ploy I had managed to end the song we were singing on “থ”. A prior knowledge of Sroyon’s stock of songs led me to assure my team-mates that we had got them just where we wanted. The counting began: থ এক, থ দুই… when we reached eight, I began to smell the fish. The smug smile on Sroyon’s face hadn’t yet been wiped off. থ নয়! And out of the blue, they started singing a song I had never heard in my life before. Clearly Sroyon had planned in advance with Debasis da who had taught him this song. The song was “থাকিলে ডোবাখানা” (“thhakile dobakhana”). The battle-lines had been drawn.
Bathing on the deck was something our South Calcutta schooling hadn’t entirely prepared us for (and I think I was a bit of a snob any way). But I am glad that we reluctantly but surely began to follow Sanjoy da’s lead. When we were not playing games we were keeping our eyes peeled for the possibility of a tiger-sighting. All we saw, as most tourists do, were a few crocodiles. Even from the watch-tower, the best we managed to spot were deer, although one guide did point out a few pug-marks. It made me happier to believe that there may be truth in his claim. There were some three or four cameras on board and they would be at the ready through out. Binoculars too, just in case. Each day would conclude with us heading back to base, which was a hostel of sorts run primarily on solar-power. This was in Hemnagar (a name I had forgotten but my mother somehow managed to casually recall while going through the photographs). And each night we’d have a camp-fire to the accompaniment of muri and some telebhaja.
Each group was called upon to perform. A large part of the day on the boat would be spent on attempts to come up with scripts. In the evenings, Debasis da’s group would usually make it all look futile. He could play his audience like Freddie Mercury. He’d do this thing where he’d say a line - quite random, really - something like “ডালে ঝোলে অম্বলে, ভাত না খেলে কেমন লাগে?” And the audience (that is us) would go nuts and say “বাজে, বাজে!” I don’t remember the full extent of his improvisations, but mostly it would be about things that happened during the day. “বাঘ না দেখলে কেমন লাগে?” was a common refrain and disappointed groans would greet him, although the faces usually cheered up when asked how it felt to have seen a crocodile or a deer.
One day, while we were sailing as usual, there was a sudden hush. The captain turned off the motor. Someone muttered something about a tiger. And although it took me an embarrassingly long time to actually spot it, I did eventually. No one was making a sound. We stared as the tiger peacefully quenched its thirst. Before we knew it, it was gone again. Not a single person on deck had managed to gather their wits enough to take a photograph. I am inclined to take the Balzac route and assert, “All is true”, but let’s not spoil it.
That evening Debasis da's chant went “ডালে ঝোলে অম্বলে, বাঘ দেখলে কেমন লাগে?” And I remember grinning from ear to ear while responding “ভালো”, because it was only when his rhymes finally took on the burden of relating what we had seen earlier, that it finally came true for us.
When you’re small you don’t often realise how you get into things. You are told. You are told, for instance, that you have a fever and must stay at home, you are told that you are a bad boy or a good boy, or that you are going on a camp. As it happened, one day I was told that I was going to the Sundarbans on a camping trip with a Scout troop. I was a Cub-Scout with the South Point pack, but this was with a different group who had their centre somewhere in Hati Bagan. I remember the location only because the name had excited me tremendously - just as it had disappointed by making me realise at an early age the arbitrary nature of the signifier-signified relationship.
I had been to the Sundarbans a year before that. It had been a satisfactory trip on the whole, quite luxurious to be honest. I had quickly made friends with the crew and would spend many a worrisome hour (for my parents) lurking around the kitchen, sometimes serving as food-taster. This was on a West Bengal Tourism launch. With my South Point Junior School upmarket air I greeted the prospect of the Scout camp with enthusiasm.
We were to take a bus to Taki from where a launch would take us into the delta. My expectations began to take a hit when we reached Taki. The food arrangements were modest (where were the chicken sandwiches that we were feasting on en route the first time round?), the toilets were not up to the mark, and mosquitoes attacked us as we tried to sleep. I went to sleep believing that the next day would bring us better fortune. When we reached the “jetty” I saw a boat coming towards us. One of the other Scout boys with whom I had made friends looked positively excited.
“Wait till you see the real launch”, I proclaimed to the novice.
“This is the real launch”, he replied.
I smiled patiently and said, “No, this is the boat that takes us to the launch that we will be staying on.”
“No. We’ll be staying on this one.”
I gave up on the simpleton and boarded the boat with great self-assurance. We sailed, and we sailed. The “real launch” never came. I don’t know when this idea actually sunk in. I imagine I must have maintained a safe distance from the boy. We weren’t, however, spending our nights in the boat and this came as a consolation.
We were sorted into groups and a spirit of friendly competition set in gradually. ‘Friendly’ is such a polite word, but one must play along. The group with the greatest number of points by the end of the camp would win. Win honour and prestige, that is. In the boat (the deck was made of bamboo strips) we played various kinds of games - as Scouts are wont to do. Apart from the common Scout games, there was antakshari which was popular in the school buses most of us travelled by. Sroyon and I had been placed in separate groups. Sanjoy da, who was Scout-master was one of the kindest yet most mischievous of men. And even though he realised that this separation was causing me anxiety, he did not yield.
The group-leader for Sroyon’s group was a rather sharp young man, whom we called Debasis da. On one occasion while playing antakshari (maintaining the strict orders of our groups), I thought I had Sroyon’s team cornered. Someone had already sung “Thoda hai thode ki zaroorat hai” and through some devilish ploy I had managed to end the song we were singing on “থ”. A prior knowledge of Sroyon’s stock of songs led me to assure my team-mates that we had got them just where we wanted. The counting began: থ এক, থ দুই… when we reached eight, I began to smell the fish. The smug smile on Sroyon’s face hadn’t yet been wiped off. থ নয়! And out of the blue, they started singing a song I had never heard in my life before. Clearly Sroyon had planned in advance with Debasis da who had taught him this song. The song was “থাকিলে ডোবাখানা” (“thhakile dobakhana”). The battle-lines had been drawn.
Where we slept in Hemnagar
মা বড়তলা (Ma Baratala) - I think that’s me trying to get off the boat
One of the campfires
Sanjoy da with me and Sroyon
Each group was called upon to perform. A large part of the day on the boat would be spent on attempts to come up with scripts. In the evenings, Debasis da’s group would usually make it all look futile. He could play his audience like Freddie Mercury. He’d do this thing where he’d say a line - quite random, really - something like “ডালে ঝোলে অম্বলে, ভাত না খেলে কেমন লাগে?” And the audience (that is us) would go nuts and say “বাজে, বাজে!” I don’t remember the full extent of his improvisations, but mostly it would be about things that happened during the day. “বাঘ না দেখলে কেমন লাগে?” was a common refrain and disappointed groans would greet him, although the faces usually cheered up when asked how it felt to have seen a crocodile or a deer.
One day, while we were sailing as usual, there was a sudden hush. The captain turned off the motor. Someone muttered something about a tiger. And although it took me an embarrassingly long time to actually spot it, I did eventually. No one was making a sound. We stared as the tiger peacefully quenched its thirst. Before we knew it, it was gone again. Not a single person on deck had managed to gather their wits enough to take a photograph. I am inclined to take the Balzac route and assert, “All is true”, but let’s not spoil it.
That evening Debasis da's chant went “ডালে ঝোলে অম্বলে, বাঘ দেখলে কেমন লাগে?” And I remember grinning from ear to ear while responding “ভালো”, because it was only when his rhymes finally took on the burden of relating what we had seen earlier, that it finally came true for us.
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