Recollections(3): The Sahas of Patneshwari Bakery

Abani, Are You Home?

Abani, are you home?

The neighbourhood lies in sleep with doors closed

But I keep hearing the night knocking at my door,

'Abani, are you home? '

Here it rains all the twelve months

Here the clouds roam like cows

Here the eager green grass

Closes in on the door,

'Abani, are you home? '

In my heart, half-dissolved, long-traveled

I fall asleep within pain

Suddenly I hear the night knocking at my door,

'Abani, are you home? '

--Shakti Chattopadhay

All of us are seekers, of one kind or another, in the world that is extraordinarily beautiful and unpredictably bizarre; a combination of the real and the surreal.  All of us are in search of the unknown ‘Abani’ in the terror-filled nights of our life’s journey. 

Destiny sent me to Patna at the age of 19, disillusioned with the hostel life experienced during my stay in Muzaffarpur I decided to live in a private residential area.  Mahendru  Mohalla was close to Darbhanga House, it was a comfortable walk from the side of Rani Ghat and from the Patna Engineering College, Patna Science College, beside the Patna University office, Patna College and then through the broken wall one can enter Darbhanga House,  in a short cut! But when I jumped through the chained iron gates first at the eastern entrance of Science College and again at Patna College I always think of Rousseau’s famous lines: “Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains!” Whenever I go to Banks in Bihar (and the people always talk about development!) and with great difficulty I put myself in crossing the iron chains in the grilled doors, whenever I travel by air and I remove socks, shoes, belts, watches etc. for scanning I feel ashamed of myself as  a human being who  should never be proud of being a human being as Hamlet feels for other reasons:

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—

The technological progress of mankind has not been commensurate with the moral progress!  Can’t we live in a simple way?  Can’t we live peacefully? Can’t we make our temporariness of earthy existence into a permanence of peace and bliss?  

I heard the soft taps of Chhota Dadu’s baton at my doors to wake me up to get ready for going for a walk. Both of us, clad in ‘makkhan’ jeans shorts and canvas shoes used to start at quarter to 5 am for Gandhi Maidan. Closing the doors of the iron gate of ‘thakurbadi’ we would take a right turn and again left and once again left after one minute we were on the main road. We would encounter autorikshaws near Mahendru post office, ignoring their call we would go ahead. After we crossed the ‘Thatheri Bazaar’ that we would come on the broadening of Ashok Raj Path from where the road turned right towards the Engineering College and on the left was the office of Rajkamal Prakashan. But we would go ahead, walk past Patna Science College, Allahabad Bank, University Post Office, Patna University Library, the Wheeler Senate Hall, Patna College, Darbhanga House, Khuda Baksh Library,  PMCH, Anjuman Islamia, Bankipore Head Post  Office, Bankipore PS, Church, St. Joseph’s Covent, B..N..College, Hostels, State Bus Adda and finally we reached Gandhi Maidan, the heart and lungs of Patna. Very many people would be already there doing exercises, jogging, walking and we also would join them.

After half an hour or 45 minutes of brisk walking we would be back. And again on our right we have landmarks and lanes that would lead us to the other important parts of Patna: Rows of shops, Publication Division & National Book Trust, Rows of shops, Subzi Bagh, Khadi Bhandar, Kabir Math Lane, Alankar Jewellers, Patna Market, rows of Medicine shops, Govind Mitra Road, Makhania Kuan lane, Kazanchi Road, Pustak Mahal, Novelty & Co., Trivedi Studio, House of  Col. Mahboob Ahmad  (the second Lieutenant in the British Indian Army, was with the INA of Netaji Subhash Bose),  Ritz Hotel and Payal Restaurant ,  Rows of book shops , Nursing Home, State Bank of India, Chauhatta, Second hand book shops, Azad sports, People’s Publishing House, B.M,.Das Road, Book binders, Betel shops, rows of shops for sweets, Ramana Road,  rows of books and stationery shops, and  Madarasa Shamsul Hoda and we again entered the narrow lane which would lead one to Patna City; Patthar ki Masjid, Gurudwara Patna Saheb, Badi Patan Devi, Chhoti Patan Devi, Kumhrar and Agam Kuan and many other important landmarks!  

At the time of our return now there would be life of a different kind in Gandhi Maidan! The exquisite tranquillity  of the time of Dawn would be slowly replaced by  the extraordinary pulse of life vibrating in the area as the Dawn would be breaking bathing with the  benign sunrays all the landmarks of Patna that was bliss for me as a young man  to be in that haven! But for Chhota Dadu it was a world that was changing fast: he did not find landmarks of his time! 

I had come to Patna with a hope (created in me by late Prof Kamata Charan Shrivastav of L.S. College, Muzaffarpur  who was popularly known as KCS) ; on the other hand Chhota Dadu had had his share of it with a mixed bag of happiness and unhappiness, sense of satisfaction and  regret! That’s why life has been seen as “We look before and after, /And pine for what is not!”  I was introduced to two teachers (in the course of time they became my mentors) in Patna by late Deva Anand Madhukar (Madhukar Bhaiya) and that has been an indelible impact on my life and career! That I will narrate sometime later!

This was our routine for about a year! And then we decided to go to Gandhi Ghat!

A man in his early sixties, Chhota Dadu was an unassuming and abstemious   person with spiritual predilections. He seldom went out of the Patneshwari complex. Sitting in an easy chair and brooding, talking about the once flourishing business, and comparing with the present situation when the competition was cut-throat in bakery business in Patna, was how he used to spend his time.   But on another level he was a very social person, a well-respected member of the Mahendru Mohalla community.  He always there invited and people used to come to him for his assistance and guidance whether it was the negotiation of a daughter’s wedding, arrangement for the wedding feast or to bring reconciliation between two opposed factions or families.

Both  Bada Dadu and Chhota Dadu took me  to show the ‘Aarti’ at Bengali Akhara at Naya Tola and Machhua Toli.  They saw to it that I would get the special ‘prasad.’ The same kind of ‘prasad’ used to be prepared in the annual ‘Akhand Kirtan’ to celebrate the Bengali New Year (Pôhela Boishakh'/Naba Borsho/) at Patneshwari Bakery! It has been a common belief that after the ‘prasad’ is offered to the deities it acquires divine delicious taste! The ‘prasad’ commonly known as ‘Khichadi’ indeed has the divine taste! I still vividly remember the celebration on the occasion of ‘Annakut’ when a variety of dishes were prepared with great enthusiasm and devotion and offered to  Annapurna, the goddess of nourishment of both body and soul.  She is a form of Parvati, the consort of Shiva. Annapurna is eulogised in Annada Mangal, a narrative poem in Bengali by Bharatchandra Ray.

Once on the day of ‘Annakut’ Prof. Devidas Chatterjee and his wife visited Patneshwari Bakery.  I was introduced to him though we had known one another as he was teaching us Shakespeare at Darbhanga House and later he taught me French at the evening programme for a Certificate Course at Patna Science College.  Since evenings were very boring, me and my friend Rakesh (Rakesh Chandra Narayan ) took admission in French language programme.  This helped me in scoring very high grades in one of the papers at my postgraduate exams! Secondly, Prof. Devi Das Chatterjee took us to Cine Society, Patna to show us some French movies. We enjoyed the classes and the trips to watch some movies were an extra attraction.

Patna had more attractions in those days when IPTA and other theatre groups staged plays regularly at Nritya Kala Mandir and Kalidas Rangalay.  Even today and in the nineties plays were being staged but in those days the sense of security on the roads of Patna after it was getting dark was encouraging.  During my annual visits to Patna Rajiv (Rajiv Ranjan Srivastava who is an important name in the field of dramatic arts and lives in Patneshwari  Bakery)  used to invite us to watch plays at Kalidas Ranagalay.  Our two-month stay at Patna used to be packed with cultural and academic activities. 

While writing this I get the news of the beginning of dirty politics in Bihar once again  and this makes me sad.  Are we going back once again? (To borrow G.B.Shaw’s famous quote with my apologies to him) Do we learn from history that we do not learn anything from history? Are we going  to ‘re-live’ the dark days of casteism, corruption, insecurity, insensitivity in the civic life, infighting and self-complacency?  Whenever I visited some other universities in India and abroad, my heart has been ‘sore’ to see their progress compared to our universities in Bihar. If the leadership had been wise the campus of Patna University would have been unique in the world! From Gulzar Bagh to Gol Ghar there would have been one riverside campus!  We have wasted our time, energy and public money for personal idiosyncrasies and gains. Now let us rise to build a new Bihar! I know it is difficult but not impossible!

I have been trying to keep myself fit for travelling so that I could visit Patna and my native place from time to time.  As time passes the physical strength will diminish, the longing for my birth place and the places where I lived during my formative years will increase.  Human beings cannot be rooted to one place for ever.  But they have been always filled with a deep sense of what V.S. Naipaul has said “dispossessed rootedness.”  I place myself with my ancestors and see that within the last 300 years they moved from one place to another in Bihar itself and think of my movements and think of the following lines from one of the greatest poets of Bengali literature, *Jibanananda Das:

“Hajar bochor dhorey ami poth hantitechi prithibir pothey,

Shinghol- shomudro theke nisheether ondhokarey moloy- shagorey

Onek ghurechi ami; Bimbishar- Ashokar dhushor jogotey

Shekhane chilam ami; aro dur ondhokar bidorbho nogore;”

(It has been a thousand years since I started trekking the earth

A huge travel in night’s darkness from the Ceylonese waters

To the Malayan sea

I have been there too; the fading world of Vimbisara and Ashoka

Even further- the forgotten city of Vidarva)

--from “Banalata Sen”

*(I thank for the lines I have taken from the link, courtesy: http://khurpi.com)

(To be continued)