Thursday, June 08, 2006

22nd floor: The Bong

Hilarious!
Devastatingly funny!!
I am still rolling with laughter!!!
Please read the following link....
22nd floor: The Bong
Posted by at

6 comments:

First Rain said...

:D Thanks for passing on the link!

4:10 AM
Akash said...

rocking!!!! But one thing, how can a bong discussion be complete without mentioning alu posto and pnpc (hope the term is familiar to you).

While serving alur dom for the tenth time on to the bong father’s plate at dinner, Bong mother would let loose her disgust, “Ramen-babu-r jamai ta kirokom jeno gomra type er. Biroktikor. Ar shunlam naki bhalo chakri kore … dekhe to mone hoi na..” (Note that the Bong mother met Ramen babur jamai that evening only and talked for no more than a couple of minutes.)
The Bong father would support almost promptly in perfect harmony (in fact that’s what he does these days quite habitually), excusing alur dom for a bit, “ekdoooom thiiik boleeecho.” …..

If the five-year old girl sitting quietly beside the bong father in case disagrees without proper evaluation of the climate, “Uni daroon foot-ball khelen kintu.”

That would be enough to open the crater of the volcano, “Ei tui taratari kheye oth. Ei boyosei sob bujhe gechhe …. Kaalker home task hoechhe… Aparna-r chhele take dekhe elam … ki responsible … isshh amar kopal tai kharap..”
…
My personal favorite is the monkey cap bit. I don’t remember seeing monkey cap being worn by any non-bong. It’s a litmus test for the bongs.

In case you missed it on the comments section, here I copy paste a comment by some Progga woman. I was in shreds reading that. How apt.. bong mothers are quite a unique species … here goes …

progga said...
Hysterical... and oh so true!
How about some Bong mothers who will stand at the bottom of a staircase while full-grown son is walking up to an exam, and call, "Babai, hishi korechhish?"!!
Bong mother would be very happy to spoon feed (read suckle) her cub all their life yet she wants her suckling to conquer the whole world by virtue of his courage and all.

...
...
But still I would say the tone of the piece was by and large quite pampering on whatever bong-ish despite it’s sarcasm and wit and humor …

please listen to the song Bangali Jati by Chandrabindoo.

12:18 AM
Anwesha Chatterjee said...

@FR: You are welcome

@Akash: I survive on PNPC and machcher jhol ChandraBindoo according to me is the embodiment of all the completely nonsensical things that we Bongs swear by! Their songs are really funny! I wonder if you've checked out Bhoomi's stock of recycled folk songs. Some of them are good.
Also, I appreciate the fact that Bongs have the ability to laugh at themselves, something few communities are able to do.

1:06 AM
Anwesha Chatterjee said...

Another gem of a piece that I found in my inbox

Through the jongole I am went
On shooting Tiger I am bent
Bustaard Tiger has eaten wife
No doubt I will avenge poor darling's life

Too much quiet, snakes and leeches
But I not fear these sons of beeches
Hearing loud noise I am jumping with start
But noise is coming from damn fool's heart

Taking care not to be fright
I am clutching rifle tight with eye to sight
Should Tiger come I will shoot and fall him down
Then like hero return to native town

Then through trees I am espying one cave
I am telling self - "Bholanath be brave"
I am now proceeding with too much care
From far I smell this Tiger's lair

My leg shaking, sweat coming, I start to pray
I think I will shoot Tiger some other day
Turning round I am going to flee
But Tiger giving bloody roar spotting this Bengalee

He bounding from cave like football player Pele
I run shouting "Kali Ma tumi kothay gele"
Through the jongole I am running
With Tiger on my tail closer looming

I am a telling that never in life
I will risk again for my damn fool wife.

3:17 AM
Akash said...

I survive on PNPC…
In fact, I was debating myself for sometime how pristine a Bong you are. Now I see you can very well compete for the second spot in the great Bong competition.

I appreciate the fact that Bongs have the ability to laugh at themselves, something few communities are able to do.

Very true. As sense of humor is always a prized quality, now tell me why shouldn’t we do that if we are not insecure as a community? But when I slip in the glories of Bengal, deliberately to hurt the feelings of other communities, no matter whether sarcastically or directly, the very first thing that I do is that I betray my closely guarded insecurity, what fortunately my community does not suffer from—so I do a great disservice to my own community. For example, I hate to score brownie points in a discussion participated by people from across various communities just because I speak the same language as Tagore -- the only Nobel laureate in literature from India -- did. If I do this, first of all, I’m being extremely parochial. Secondly and most importantly, I dishonor Tagore himself because he was a universalist who has transcended all the narrow confines of geographical boundaries and language barriers. Thirdly and ironically, I self-defeatingly end up weakening the image of my own community which, in fact, I’m trying to exalt. There is no doubt that Tagore, had he been alive today, would’ve been the first one to protest such tendencies. I have great admiration for Sourav Ganguly’s cricketing record and feel sorry for his dismissal from the Indian team. But if this is the only reason for me to barrack Rahul Dravid at Eden Gardens, trust me, I show my deep rooted meanness, my communal feelings, however popular such attempt may be in my own community.

The piece 22nd floor The Bong is extremely funny, well written and a delight to read; many thanks to you for the link. But frankly, as a Bong, if I were to write a humorous post on Bong culture myself, I would have felt extremely embarrassed to refer to Nobel prizes, Oscars, Best Cricketing Captain as attributes of Bong tradition time and again as done in the post, not even in a funny way. A close analogy may be a mother who goes about praising her own son to others effusively, for her son's ranking first in the exam. This is the only discomfort that I faced reading the post. Otherwise it was rocking!! The Tapas Paul bit, the modification of Rene Descartes’ quotation and many others just had me crack up. On the other hand, I liked the way Chandrabindoo portrayed the Bongs in the song Bangali Jati. Their mild, incisive, sarcastic yet affectionate criticism of Bong on many real issues only showed their true love of Bengal. Allow me quote a few lines from the song.

“amra Punjabi der pNaiya boli marowari maora
abar non-communal dewal likhi
Calcutta to howrah”





“bangalir naam-e hobe na kono aabel tobel
karon amar pantool holde to ki rabindranath nobel
ek nobel-ii eksho bochor tao giyechhe churi
ekhon sourav ese gechhe double century”

About Chanrdrabindoo, I would like to go beyond just funny and argue that they have not only shown mettle to experiment with new things, but also displayed true originality which I believe will be accepted gradually more and more with passage of time like any classic whose worth is properly evaluated over a long period, not immediately. I said it before in numerous discussions with my friends and came under bitter salvoes and I say it again now that, after Sukumar Ray I don’t think anybody has used nonsense verse so craftily and sarcastically, not to mention with an excellent command over the language of Bangla. But lo!!! The nonsense verse they use is not the one stereotyped in our mind over a long time. It has been adapted, according to me very seamlessly, to catch the rhythm of the present day. Well. I must stop now.

I’m a great of Bhoomi’s and of folks’ in general. I have all the songs they belted out till one year back and listen to them quite often. Extremely melodious no doubt. But as you said “recycled folks”.

3:00 PM
Akash said...

Oh.. that's a funny piece. You may like to consider posting such stuffs too on your weblog.

3:02 PM

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