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| Keya Sarkar: Some traditions still endure |
| Keya Sarkar / New Delhi Mar 06, 2010, 00:55 IST |
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Unfortunately, despite having a lot of unique qualities, Visva Bharati is in the news for all the wrong reasons. If it is not for shoot-outs in the students’ hostel, it is about the university on strike, thanks to some alleged wrongdoings of the vice chancellor. This time around, it was about how the Holi celebrations got marred by student squabbles which turned violent.
Violence, of course, now haunts many a learning institutions, but Visva Bharati has to live up to the ideals of its founder. And misdemeanours affect the morale of not only present students and teachers but also the former students, and strangely, even the larger Bengali intelligentsia. “In Santiniketan?” they ask in shocked awe as if to imply how their ideal of Tagore and Santiniketan puts a moral binding on all its present inhabitants to behave better.
Truly, this university town, doubling as West Bengal’s star tourist destination, is bursting at the seams. God is usually kind to holidaymakers and, somehow, ever so often, as if by divine intervention, long weekends get longer. This time, too, Saturday was Eid Milad-un-Nabi, followed by Sunday, and Monday was Holi. So, three days of cultural extravaganza was assured just a bus ride away from Kolkata!
By Saturday evening, pedestrians and cyclists were taking the inner roads to their destination in fear of being run over by lumpen elements in SUVs and other large road hogs. By Sunday morning, the small town took on an atmosphere of complete pandemonium — this was made even more ridiculous by the tourists’ propensity to wear yellow (the tradition in Santiniketan for Holi) and tie baskets of palash flowers to their hair.
Tourists who had travelled many miles to attend Visva Bharati’s Holi celebrations were unaware of the student squabble that had happened the previous night leading to a boycott of the celebrations by a section of the students. All they experienced was a complete lack of crowd management and absolutely no security arrangement.
Those disappointed with the cultural show cancelled by the university, put up their own. In the neighbourhood where we stay, there was suddenly Rabindrasangeet on loudspeakers. Just when I was thinking that it was the usual loudspeaker culprits (the less privileged squatters), I realised it was coming from somewhere closer. In fact, from my neighbour — one removed! The Rabindrasangeet soon turned to Bengali film songs and the volume was turned up. When I went across to request a lowering of the volume, I realised it was an entertainment programme in total Bengali film style. I wonder if Amitabh Bachchan realises how many closet “rang barse” singers he has let loose on mankind! Talking to other residents, I realised we were lucky to be treated to loud music only in the afternoon. Others had to put up with private cultural shows that ran late into the night. Tagore’s dream of celebrating the colours of spring with music and dance is turning a trifle tacky if not downright sleazy.
But, as we sat debating all this and more as the tourists made their way back on Monday evening, a friend strolled in. She was visiting from Delhi and said she had thoroughly enjoyed her first-ever Holi in Santiniketan. “I wore a new kurta,” she said, “which stayed new even at the end of the day. All that was used was powder, and strangers politely asked before they smeared any colour.” She was used to the practice in north India of assuming that if you were in a public space, you were asking for being smeared with all kinds of colours.
Felt good to know that some traditions still endured despite what seemed like a lovely ritual gone sour.
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