Of SEZs and River Fish...

The entire West Bengal is out to agitate at Singur - One and all.

Their cause: Fertile Land is being given away to the Tatas for their manufacturing unit.

Everybody disagrees to this. Every Bengalee, worth his Dhuti & Machher Jhol, must protest to this barbaric treatment meted out to poor farmers. Everyone believes there should be a couple of songs written, some Street theatre organised and some lectures delivered for the cause. So they are out their – on a hunger strike or hartal or whatever name you can call it.

Fact is, in Bengal you can’t throw a spanner on the process of cultivating Rice! Dear me, not in Bengal.

The Bengalee psyche & physique is all about Rice (and albeit, the Fish). It starts with a bowl - for most, though, it is a couple of bowls - of steamed rice in the morning and ends with an equal measure towards late evening. All things else are an eventuality to this continuum.

So would it not be a body blow to a racial preference by building cheap cars at the cost of their basic means of sustenance. What if the others follow Tata’s suit? Where will our rice come from? Who will get me a staple to add to my Machher Jhol? No wonder Bengal feels harassed.

As a migrant Bong labourer, I have been through such questions forever. I kicked my daily bowl sometime back and decided to journey to Brown bread - predominantly because I can’t eat Zeera Samba or Sona Masuri. It doesn’t gel with my Machher Jhol.

However, would anyone ever bother to care on why, in the first place, I had to migrate?

In an irony of fate, the very lack of Industry stole my bowl of rice from me. I had to look for greener pastures because Bengal preferred to cultivate rice till death did them part. Industry was not something Bongs were supposed to engage in. They would either write poetry or grow rice – there’s no other respectable profession for a Bong.

Only yesterday I made an attempt at Bong-bashing (one of my passions) in Suvojit’s blog.
There’s so much in common to the Grecians and Bengalees. They share an immense passion for fine arts, politics, science and an utter lack of industry. It’s a pain to learn that a bunch of scientists from Meghnad Saha Institute have actually contributed to CERN’s Higgs Boson experiment. It’s a pain because all that Bengal ever did with its scientific prowess was to delve deeper into Theoretical Physics – never converting that knowledge to Industry which could have helped some labourers (like my humble self) manage a respectable daily wage in Bengal.

Didn’t I say they are like the Greeks? The Hellenics were so much in theoretical physics & chemistry when the rest of Europe was steeped in Pre-Medieval (Pagan?) superstitions.

Yet what’s happened of Greece today - Just another member of the EU with Tourism being one of the biggest Industries and Textiles one of their biggest exports. Would you expect that from the great Hellenics? Would you expect that from the descendants of Democritus, who in 5th Century AD, proposed that matter was made of Atoms. Or the great physician Hippocrates whose name is still attached to the oath every qualified medical practitioner has to take at the time of being commissioned to society’s service

If Greece is an example, it is for Bengal to learn. You can make or break a society of cultured individuals in just a couple of generations. It doesn’t take too long. And am afraid, since the advent of the communists, Bengal has just started its long walk into oblivion.

My worry though is still about my bowl of rice.