THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES

Don’t be deceived into imagining that this post has anything to do with Charles Lamb’s poem of the same name or with nostalgia as such. In fact, I do not intend to romanticize the ‘characters’ I met on 10th November—members of the audience at the Second Nobel Laureates’ Lecture, delivered by the South African writer Nadine Gordimer at Town Hall. The event was organised by the Union Ministry for External Affairs (scope for enough entertainment there—what with Pranab Mukherjee’s done-to-death English accent). Gordimer was to deliver a talk on Witness Literature—‘Witness: The Inward Journey’.

I will not dwell on the lecture, because that is not my intention in the first place and because Gordimer’s lecture was thought-provoking only in the lamest way possible, if at all. It did not move or provoke a thought in me and I will type the reason soon enough. It was not even insightful. She spoke on the social responsibility of the writer and although relevant, it was hackneyed to my ears (YAWN!). Three years of preparing for the dreaded ‘essay’ at the undergrads (English) will do that to anyone. From Czeslaw Milosz to Sartre and Heidegger, she mentioned all kinds of writers and philosophers but the lecture was not, I am sorry to say, Nobel Laureate material.

Having said this, I have to concede that public lectures are not designed to be too cerebral or obscure and why should they be? They are meant for even the average man and not just hard-nosed, armchair intellectuals. In this case, a lecture by a nobel laureate did ensure the presence of the usual bespectacled academics, students, bureaucrats and the ‘halo-ed’, enthusiastic, ‘aantel’ Calcuttans, those self-imposed and self-appointed denizens of ‘Intelligentsia’ who always manage to gatecrash at all such public lectures and gatherings.

In fact, they do a good job of hopping from such lectures and seminars to film and theatre festivals. Their happy hunting grounds include The Academy of Fine Arts, Nandan, Rabindra Sadan and the Kolkata Book Fair. (I am sure there are other such hallowed grounds that I cannot think of at this point.). They are vocal—nay, vociferous. God help us! Give them a microphone and they will be heard. They are chronic sufferers of ‘mike-itis’—a psychosomatic disorder they share with both small-time and big-time politicians and self-important Malvolios of the society. Speaking of Malvolio, I feel compelled to think that ‘mike-itis’ stems from a poor sense of self, from years of knowledge the sufferer has that perhaps he will never quite make the cut. Numerous such specimens graced the occasion I have mentioned and as usual provided me with ample entertainment.

At the end of the lecture Gordimer took five questions, three of them coming from the ‘specimens’ whom I have described. Predictably, all three questions from them left the more discerning audience speechless or annoyed or in various stages of trying to suppress laughter. One had chosen to ask Gordimer whether the 31-year domination of the ruling party in West Bengal was not similar to apartheid? There was a not-so-veiled reference to the Singur-Nandigram issue and ‘atrocities in the name of development'. Gordimer’s quip, only apparently nonchalant: ‘That is your problem’. Isn’t it just a bit too much to expect someone from South Africa, albeit a well-read and much-travelled nobel laureate to know about the political cacophony of a state in India, let alone give pat answers?

And it was not just for the questions that were out of context, it was in the manner of grabbing the microphone, in not letting go of an opportunity to speak aloud and in shouting ‘Madam, Madam, Madam…’ incessantly until heard that the Calcutta ‘aantel’ cut a sorry figure. The ‘cultural capital’ of India must have made a dismal impression on the State guest. I want to make my stand clear. I have nothing against ‘aantels’ but an elitist at heart, I have a problem with anyone who tries too hard to prove what one can never be. ‘Aantlami’ is an art that the French and the Bengalis have had quite a reputation for. But what now goes by the name of ‘aantlami’ in Bengal today does not have that touch of class, that refinement which most intellectuals of yore cared for. Counter culture attacks shock me and I do not care for them any longer for 1) I am way past my rebellious teens and 2) I am too opinionated at 32.

I seem to have repeatedly digressed—in fact, I have rambled on in this post. Perhaps I am still reeling under the effect of that evening which has left me at a loss for precision. I will make two more observations before I conclude. The discerning audience choose never to ask questions in any public lecture. I really do not know why but it is a safer stance than asking foolish questions, I suppose. And as for their faces being familiar, I’ll say that is was the nth number of time that I bumped into them and vice versa—at such places and for such reasons. The same goes for the poor ‘aantels’.

I have seen all these people—the ‘old familiar faces’—as many times as they have seen me. That leaves me wondering—if they have given me as much thought as I have given them, how do they categorize me? Ugh!