Dibyendu's WallScript

What a strange logic it is! Man, who has mastered the art of discovering solutions, is equally gifted in creating problems — this I had not fully realized until now. Suddenly, the air of Calcutta has begun to vibrate with noise. A new cry has arisen: “Save the city from visual pollution!”   And what is meant by visual pollution in our city? Walls plastered with endless rows of posters, distorted billboards, makeshift shacks crowding the pavements, the naked sprawl of slums flanking the railway lines, and the beggars and hijras who line the streets. All these, in the eyes of the so-called gentleman, have become intolerable. To beautify Calcutta — this cry was raised recently, and in the name of grandeur the hawkers were evicted. Now another thunderous slogan — “Stop visual pollution!”   But this matter of visual pollution is far more complex and many-sided. Suppose a man believes that women of refined taste ought to cover their entire form in public. To him, even a woman in a b...

After proclaiming a kind of supreme faith in parliamentary democracy within a mixed social system, modern political scientists have begun to show deep concern over its structural defects and are eager to correct them. A few fundamental questions that have preoccupied scholars for some time are these:   How far does parliamentary democracy differ from true democracy? Or, is parliamentary democracy the best possible path toward realizing the ideal of democracy?   Numerous examples from the modern world suggest that a form of fascist-Marxist governance has entered into the very womb of democracy like a parasitic caterpillar. Does parliamentary democracy, in fact, nourish such quasi-fascist or Marxist forces and make them stronger?   How much liberty does man truly enjoy under parliamentary democracy? Is it only a fragment, a shadow of the freedom philosophers once imagined?   In today’s global political order and social framework, each of these questions is both valuabl...

Had Ritwik Ghatak been alive, perhaps he could never have descended to such an act — the very act now performed by Mrinal Sen and his cohort. Just before the elections in West Bengal, fifty-three so-called democratic intellectuals — writers, poets, artists — published a bizarre declaration, proclaiming their support for the Left Front. Their message was clear: let the people cast their votes in overwhelming numbers, let the Left return in triumph. The patriarch, the chieftain of this cabal, was none other than Mrinal Sen.   Many detractors often mutter that throughout his life Mrinal Sen made barely a film and a half — the rest being nothing more than propaganda reels for the Communist Party. Connoisseurs of cinema hesitate to seat him alongside Satyajit and Ritwik. Much like how the Marxists, with their Goebbels-style propaganda, pushed Manik Bandyopadhyay into the exalted company of Bibhutibhushan and Sarat Chandra, they too contrived to enshrine Mrinal Sen beside Satyajit and Ri...