Letter From Boston
Reading short stories
A few weeks ago, I received a call from Manishadi. It was a Sunday evening and I was absorbed in the popular reality show "The Amazing Race". I picked up the receiver and squinted to read the caller ID. Manishadi does not call me often, so I was pleasantly surprised to see her name on the caller ID. As the phone rang for the fourth time, I hastily pressed the on the headset before the answering machine could kick in. It was Manishdi indeed, and after pleasantries, she invited me to a literary event which she informed me was taking place for the first time in Boston: an afternoon of Bangla short story reading, or Chhoto Golpo Dibash as it was to be called.
Some of my readers might remember Manishadi or Manisha Roy, from my columns on "Apriler Poddo Paath", the poetry reading soiree organized every year in Boston. Mansihadi, along with Gouri Datta, are two of the moving forces behind Lekhoni, a literary group that co-sponsors Apriler Poddo Paath. She is also the acclaimed author of the book, "Amar Char Bari", a gripping account of her personal journey from Digboi, Assam to Boston, with detours to Colorado, California, and Switzerland. Her partner in many of Lekhoni's endeavors is Gouri Datta, a tireless organizer, writer, healer (as a practicing psychiatrist) and patron-saint of the arts, who recently received the Gayatri Gamarsh Literary Award for short story
I was flattered that Manishadi had taken the trouble to call me personally to join the group of readers planning to meet at Swapna and Rahul Ray's house in bucolic Wayland. However, I must admit that I was a little disheartened when I realized that my role at the gathering was to be a listener only. But the feeling did not last for long--I convinced myself that I should not feel bad since I have never written any short stories in Bangla, and the invitation to join the writers was a good start and probably a good omen!
So, on December 11th, I showed up at the anointed time at "Ray Babur Bari" where I felt right at home as soon as I entered since I saw some familiar faces from past Poddo Paath events. I don't how I passed the next two and a half hours while I was there--without walking around and continuously reading/texting messages on my cell phone, as is my Sunday afternoon favorite pastime--but I must say I was truly in a different world; for a moment with the village women who makes a living by entertaining other men (as in Manisha Roy's "Barbonita"), then with Shuvro as he reconnects with his long-lost love on Facebook ("Shampa's Kobita" by Niloy Mukherjee), or sometimes with the hapless women who is locked out of her office and frantically trying to persuade the guard to let her in (Swapna Ray's "Hum Tum")!
A total of 17 short stories were read, and each had to meet the 700 word limit set by the sponsors. Rahul Ray, the host, not only emceed the event, but also was the enforcer of the sanctioned word limit. Not that some of the participants did not try to fool him by using complicated "juktakkhar" or by leaving out juicy pieces from the written version but articulated them orally to add more pizzazz during the story-telling. Others, like Swapna Ray, went one step further and used MP3 files to add some sound effects to accompany her musically-trained voice! But all the Readers, both old and young, who came before the microphone read with passion. The stories, though different from each other, carried their own weight in terms of theme, style, structure, and articulation, as the titles, given in the next paragraph will reveal. The audience listened with interest and intent with their eyes and mind trained on the presenter.
The titles offer a fascinating kaleidoscope of Bangla, Hindi and English, mixed in with our diasporic existence: "Bibhrat" (Rahul Ray), "Goru, Payesh o Mother" (Partha Pal), "Chhap" (Kunal Joardar), "Bhagyer Parihash" (Sajal Banerjee), "Ham tum ek kamrey mein band ho, aur chaabi kho jayey " (Swapna Ray), "Param Bir Chakra" (Kishanlal Chakrabarti), "Shampar Swapna" (Nilay Mukherjee), "Ruchira" (Madhuri Ray), "Mrityur Janmadin" (Shankar Nandi), "Moulik" and "Smarok" (Jayanti Bandopadhyay), "Barbonita" (Manisha Roy), "Asamapto Samikaran" (Jayanta Nag), "Pratikriti" (Susmita Bando), "Ei jadi tomar bhalobasha" (Badiuzzaman Khan), "Jeeboner Ek Sandhyabela" (Soumitro Pal), "Bharatey" (Gouri Datta), and " Do Androids Have Dreams ?"' (Shankha Bhowmick).
Rahul, as the emcee, did a commendable job maintaining a steady upbeat tone for the event. His idea of sequencing the readings by drawing names out of a fishbowl--added a mysterious and fairy-tale air of pleasant unpredictability to the occasion. Many compared his role with that of a conductor of an orchestra, marking time, signaling, turning pages, maintaining tempo, deciding on the breaks, forming a link between the performers and the audience, and contributing to the gestalt of the occasion. I later learned that this was the first Bengali Short Story Reading Day for Lekhoni, and Gouri promised that this event will be an annual feature going forward..
Dr. Abdullah Shibli lives and works in Boston. He wishes to thank Gouri Datta and Manisha Ray for their generous input in writing this summary.
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