Dibyendu's WallScript

A mouthful of water makes the traveler splutter. A koi fish leaps restlessly in a shallow pond. This proverb fits aptly when applied to those lecherous theoreticians—or rather, pompous intellectual mandarins—who compelled the authorities of the Kolkata Film Festival to withdraw Russian director Alexander Sokurov’s Taurus.   The film painstakingly portrays the crippled body, helplessness, insecurity, despair, and uncertainty of Lenin, the Bolshevik hero, in his final days. It lays bare the character of Lenin as both a representative of bourgeois society and leader of the proletariat. Sokurov’s fault lay in showing the prophet of Marxism not as a grand messiah, but as a mortal of flesh and blood—one who makes mistakes, seeks atonement, and is far from optimistic about the world.   In Bengal, the so-called “Stupid Federation of India”—a communist student body whose members often pronounce and even write “Lenin” as Lelin—passed judgment on the film without seeing it, or at best wi...

The festival of victory would be held today. Basishthada had summoned Pola. His garden-house lay in Diamond Harbour. For a long time Basishtha had been sunk in financial ruin. Only recently had his fortunes begun to turn. The house itself, however, was neglected, left to rot. Padma, Bibhuti, and Bilu arrived to find it swallowed by jungle. The rooms reeked of mould and damp. Thorny creepers had crept across walls and floor. A ceiling fan hung broken, one blade twisted like a crippled wing. Glass tumblers and liquor bottles lay scattered. Upon the wall where, during a past revelry, a goat had been slaughtered, black stains of blood still clung. To that same wall Padma tied a little kid goat.   By noon Basishtha would arrive from Kolkata with Pola. Their charge was to bring the imported goods. The local contraband lay hidden in jars sunk deep in the pond behind the house. Hauling them up was Bibhuti’s work. They said he could remain under water, without breath, for an hour. Wherever ...