Meeting the Bengali Community
West Bengal is a land of loud people. It is not to be construed offensively but if you’re visiting a tourist place and the only people being loud and cankerous are the Bengali’s. People of Bengal believe in utilizing their energy to the maximum point. We have so much to talk and share, we can’t help but be loud.
Nonetheless, it is the most wonderful thing about our kind. We stand out that way, being loud and humorous and opinionated about issues ranging from the culture to the politics to the entertainment industry albeit some times in a negative manner due to it being misconstrued as too forthcoming and dominating. But well, the Bengali community is a “treasure trove of knowledge.”
The language of West Bengal was derived from Sanskrit and Magadhi Prakrit itself and then modified and polished to sound like the colloquial Bengali. Bangla as we call it, is a beautiful language which sticks very close to Sanskrit and much to the chagrin of all the Hindi speakers around the country sound very familiar to it, especially some of the more common words. Tum kaise ho, becomes tumi kemon aacho. Ami bhalo bashi is the common consensus amongst the people of the land which means I love or I like. We bengali’s love everything. We love our food passionately, we love our yearly trips to Puri or Kashmir or North Bengal or Digha, we love our Didi(or not, I don’t want to get political here.)
We generally speak in superlatives. We express ourselves in greater magnitudes in all forms and expressions be it in our art, it our speech or in the way we lead our lives. We like living with that extra bit of grandeur that life brings to us. It’s fascinating and exciting at the same time. Bengali’s aren’t complicated at all, as opposed to popular belief. One thing that excites any Bengali is meeting another Bengali anywhere across the world. We feel a kinship to them, away from home and we immediately bond over the lack of good fish, posto or khus khus and how non-adjusting the place we live at or how over accommodating someone is. We find solidarity and brotherhood within ourselves and we’re mostly a very self-sufficient community, by initiating Durga Puja clubs almost everywhere across the globe.
In a typical Bengali family, a child is taught how to talk the right kind of Bengali. This is because of the difference we have in the two different kinds of Bengali’s that co-exist harmoniously in West Bengal. One is known as Ghoti Bangla who were essentially people who were already existing in the State before the partition took place and are more commonly referred to as the more posh Bengali and while the other is Bangaal which was commonly spoken by people residing either towards the south of West Bengal or of migrants who moved into the State post Bangladesh partition. Bangla is posh, it’s what the elites in Kolkata speak and are so proud to find themselves and their kin talking and conversing in. But according to me, Bangaal is more Bengali in its nature. It’s more rustic, stands out and is different from the other common languages in India. It is unique with its own words and features and comparatively more difficult to learn.
Turns out though, not only is the divide more in the face of dialect, this Ghoti-Bangaal rivalry is more ingrained in the daily lives of West Bengal than one can imagine. This divide is apparent when it comes to supporting the two famous football clubs in West Bengal. Mohun Bagan is the team supported by the Ghoti Bengali’s while the Bangaal Bengali’s would bleed red and yellow for East Bengal Football club. On game day, the Salt Lake Stadium is divided, with tension apparent among the spectators as to who would take the prize away. Sometimes family break into two for Game-day, with one side declaring to swear off Illish if East Bengal FC lost and the other side more confident there would only be a delicious gravy of Prawns post the win of Mohun Bagan for dinner. There is another tradition that used to be very popular in the 80’s – 90’s was that if you were a club member, especially a Mohun Bagan one, every Sunday at this stadium known as Mohemmedan Sporting Club, there would be a feast of Mutton Curry and rice for all club members. This tradition was what most families were so proud of being invited to. Another football event which creates a divide among the city is when supporting the teams of Argentina and Brazil. All in all Kolkata is a crazy football loving city who is open to encouraging any other team, but if there’s a match between Brazil and Argentina, the loyalty between brothers get tested. The entire city gets donned in Blue and White and Yellow and Green and discussions of football strategies is all that anyone and everyone wants to talk about. Coffee House is full of sextagenarians discussing witnessing legends like Pele and Maradona being on the field, while the youth roots for the Stars of today like everyone’s favorite Messi and Neymar.
Yet when there is a match between India and some other team at Eden Gardens, the entire city comes together in celebration and support of the Indian team. A match at Eden Gardens is an event of such magnitude that the roads from Esplanade till Edens are jam packed with memorabilia and other goodies for the support of Indian team. Kolkata Knight Riders is another team that the entire city gets together to celebrate.
The Bengali language is seen at its zenith when reflected by its literature. Growing up, I have been exposed to a set of sing-along folk tales that every family has been passing down generations is Thakumar Jhuli or Grandmother’s Tales. It’s a set of folk tales that talk about demons and rakshasas and princes rescuing princess and cursed land. As a child the exposure to these kind of folk-lore which is quite central to the imagination of a child.
Compared to such folk-lore, there is all the illustrious freedom-era literature ranging from poetry to Novellas to full length novels and plays. Essays were also very highly regarded in that period and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee is one such name synonymous to it. When you think about Bengali poetry, the first names that come to one’s mind are Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam. Another poet who most people turn to, who is also a pioneer of Bengali Drama is Michael Madhusudan Dutt. Meghnad Bodh Kavya, the work that garnered him most fame is a tragic epic and is a book worth being in on one of the top reading lists everywhere. When you talk about short stories in Bengali literature, both Rabindranath Tagore and Saratchandra Chattopadhayay are acclaimed in it. The Last Poem by Tagore is one of my favorite short stories to name a few. This period was most commonly known as the Bengal Renaissance because free thought was finally encouraged being able to break through the shackles bound by the British Raj. Although most of the poetry and other literature never saw the light of day, thought process and the all-round intellectual prowess had increased by a few hundred folds by the people who held those ideologies truly for the more intellectual development of Bengal. This also saw an increase in women contributing to literature like Maheswata Devi and others.
The, language and the people in Kolkata are as bright and as illustrious and they go hand in hand. Apart from “fine dining” restaurants, not a single eatery in Kolkata will be quiet and dull on any evening. Bengali’s believe in spreading warmth and affection by way of speech which is one of the few reasons why we get made fun of by Hindi speakers for the lack of gender in our speech and almost always for “eating water.” Yet, we’re an unflinching kind, striving on to spread our wings of joy and banter all across the world.