suman where are you?

Those were the rusty days in the college. Those were the days of knowing the world and the days of dreaming of a world one did not know much of. Those were the days of a naive teenager like me trying to make some sense of the fast changing times around him.

I was strolling down the huge splash of greenery which forms the nucleus of the engineering department of the University. We used to stroll around, lie down on the soft grass and do nothing, fool around on the grass, make imaginary priceless rings from the grass strands, and eventually fall asleep on the green bed.

Someone started singing - chedeychho to onek kichhu purono ovyesh; ashukh bishukh korar parey jilipi sandesh...(You've given up a lot old habits more or less/Candies and cakes after bouts of sickness...). The lyrics seemed strange and almost funny. For a ear trained in classic love songs in Bengali these were nothing like one had heard before. Instinctively I was about to pass a comment of damning mockery when I heard the next lines which blew me away and which started defining my core from that very moment- Chhedechho to onek kichhui purono bol chaal; Purono ghar purono dor kudono jonjal; Haal chedona; Haal chhedona bondhu, borong kantho chhado jorey; Dekha hobey tomay amay, onyo gaaner bhorey...(You've given up a lot customs worn out by age;Worn out or salvaged homes burnt out garbage... Don't lose heart.Don't lose heart, my friend, instead-- Loosen your voice, loud and strong,We will meet, you and I, At the dawn of another song!)

Thats how Suman came in. He came in in a blaze. he single-handedly shook up the cultural core of our generation in about a few months. Romantic lovers uttering sweet nothings were blown aside to make way for the rebel, prodigal son who had come back to claim his place in his motherland. He was angry, he was crazy and he made sense. Love found a new direct demanding channel through his Tomakey Chai (I want you), frustration found the deep mockery in Amader Janyo(For Us Only), protest slithered out of the spirit of the the teenage Richshaw puller in Petkati Chandyal (name of a kite), solitude and blues found its friend in Mon Kharap Kora bikel Manei Megh Koreychhey (The evening of emptiness means there is a cloud which has crept in..). Where in one hand he drew out his sword to poke fun at the hypocrisy of our middle-class existence, on the other hand he almost absent-mindedly dived into your subconscious. In a nut shell, to put it in his words- Tomakey bhababoi (I will make you think..). It was after long time that we Bengalis started thinking through our songs.

Voices were all around the place almost about to burts out of the shackles. Sumon gave that blow with his sword (or pen?) and released the creativity of a famished generation which till then suffered silently from cultural emptiness for almost 2 decades after they killed our previous generation in the name of Naxal eradication. Almost within a year there were hundreds of young dreamers strumming away their guitars and talking to us in our language, in our tunes. Nachiketa, Anjan Dutta, Shilajit, Lopamudra Mitra and so many others. Mohiner Ghoraguli- a rebel band of the 70s led by the genial Gautam Chattopadhyay made a resounding come back with their young friends. The Band music or our version of Rock and experimental music swept through the campuses. Bands like Chandrabindoo, Cactus, Paras Pathar etc suddenly found their voice and listeners.

And while all this was happening Sumon was quietly slipping into the background of the acceptability of middle aged Bengal. The rebel Sumon who had single handedly wiped out the present mediocrity of the Adhunik Gan its practitioners was quietly seeking acceptance of the same breed whom he had paupered.

By the late nineties when the experimental music was at its peak in Bengal Suman had shifted into almost oblivion. After almost 6-7 super-hit albums in as many years, he had almost come to end of his creative energies. A creative genius in frustration- he got into messy affairs in his personal life. Finally failing to make too much impact with the guitar, he has now a days stepped into a career of electronic media.

Today the new age music movement has made way for folk music and further for extremely mediocre musicians bastardizing the folk treasures that we are having in the name of fusion. That is with the exceptions of the old war horses of Bhoomi and Dohar. Genuine originality and creativity has again subsided and no one in the recent times seem to be able make an impact. The veterans of the early nineties are still dragging along and adding respectability to the music scene.

In these times one cannot help fantasize about the gush of wind which came to us a decade and a half back and made men out of us boys in the colleges. And also gave an identity to Bengali modern music which the culture of the state desperately demanded.

One cannot help crying out to Suman and demand that he meets us in the dawn of another song (onyo gaaner bhorey…).

Some lovely translations of his songs are there in the following link:

http://pages.cthome.net/india2/page62.html