Leela Mazumdar {1908-2007)
Nandini Bhattacharya
L
eela Mazzumdar’s Manimala the radio-inspired novel can be hardly understood, without a reading of the new technologies that produced it. It is not insignificant that Leela Majumdar had worked for seven years as a central government employee in the Calcutta Radio Station in the 1950s and had some say in formulating CRS’ creative decisions in those stages. She refers frequently (in Pakdandi -a spiral path, her autobiographical narrative in Bengali) to those differences of opinion with the powers -that- be, and her frustration at the CRS’s inability to creatively exploit its novel communication potential. These differences led to her ultimately resigning from her position, but not before she had made an important contribution (generically speaking) and stretched the boundaries of the Mahila Mahal (the woman’s world) radio programme, and one in which she was invested as a programme head
Radio communications made their appearance in India in 1929 with the British – controlled Indian Broadcasting Company, and with emergence of regional centres such as the Calcutta Radio Station (henceforth CRS). It was apropos that, radio communications were to be controlled by the Department of Posts and Telegraph, and function as an arm of colonial governance:iii Sir John Reith (1889- 1971) the first Director General of the British Broadcasting Company, (and appointed in the 1922 by Sir William Noble) compared himself to William Caxton. Radio technology was a communicational-ideological paradigm shift as momentous as that of Caxton’s invention of the printing press. British Broadcasting Services identified itself as “2 LO calling” in deference to and continuation of the “1 LO calling” that is the London Telegraph services identity. “LO” stood for London and when an irate American, a Mr. Pease requested doing away of such obfuscating code names, Reith switched to the more familiar “London Calling.” It is Reith who came up with the stunning idea of a periodical that would not only publish radio programme schedules but journalistic pieces as well and be named, the Radio Times. The financial success of the BBC largely depended upon the popularity of this periodical, garner as Radio Times did, huge advertising revenues. Radio Times enabled the disembodied listener of the BBC to communicate with the disembodied hosts of the radio programmes through letters.
These measures were to have a singular impact on the Indian radio services or All India Radio as it came to be called at the behest of its resourceful administrative head, Lionel Fieldeniv. Reith, transformed perceptions about radio services from being mere technological innovation to something more fundamental, enabling governmentality, enabling Britain’s hegemonic mastery over its empire of listeners.
Lord Irwin’s inaugural speech at the inception of Indian broadcasting services in Bombay is evidence of the same, laced as it is, with a high minded, avuncular civilizational intent. Irwin’s speech may be suitably compared to Rowland Hill’s pronouncements, where Hill had waxed eloquent about the virtues of posts and the prescience of the young Queen Victoria presiding over her empire through it. Irwin sees expansion of radio connectivity as a civilizational virtue, that annihilates distances, aids surveillance, brings solace in suffering, companionship in solitude, educates and entertains, and over all things- marks a devotion to new developments in science and technology:
“India offers special opportunities for the development of broadcasting. Its distances and wide spaces alone make it a promising field. In India’s remote villages there are many who, after the day’s work is done, find time hangs nearly enough upon their hands, and there must be many officials and others whose duties carry them into out-of-the-way places where they crave for the company of their friends and the solace of human companionship. There are of course, too, in many households, those whom social custom debars from taking part in recreation outside their own homes. To all these and many more broadcasting will be a blessing and a boon of real value. Both for entertainment and for education its possibilities are great, and yet we perhaps scarcely realise how great they are. Broadcasting in India is today in its infancy, but I have little doubt that before many years are past, the numbers of its audience will have increased tenfold, and that this new application of science will have its devotees in every part of India.” (“H. E the Viceroy Lord Irwin, speaking on the inauguration of the Bombay station of the Indian Broadcasting Corporation (IBC)”, as cited in Lionel Fielden, Broadcasting in India: Report on the Progress of Broadcasting in India (Delhi/Simla, 1940), p. 1, emphases mine).
The real revolution of radio in India as a part of the British empire may be ascribed to the coming together of John Reith as the Director General of BBC and his protégé Lionel Fielden in India, It is at Fielden’s behest, that the change in its nomenclature that was easier upon the Indian tongue (All India Radio) was enacted.
Another figure, Lord Birkenhead noted (in conversation with Reith) that such dissemination might have positive effects in surveillance and reaching the right ‘news’ to people, even though Birkenhead’s tone was supercilious and condescending: “Though we can hardly expect in India anything like the phenomenal growth of broadcasting that has taken place in this country [Britain] in the last few years” there seems no reason “why it should not advance fairly rapidly, and if properly handled might eventually have a profound effect in a country where means of wide and rapid dissemination of news are now so limited.”
It is to Lord Birkenhead and his protégé Fielden that, one may ascribe the shift in policy and recognition that:
if broadcasting can be made to reach the villager in his own language, the assistance which would be afforded to Government, provided a proper control over the programme is exercised, in spreading accurate information and combating dangerous unfounded rumours would be great.
The birth of regional language stations (and the Calcutta Radio Station that, is germane to our study) may be ascribed to Birkenhead and his clearly governmental intent: “The man who we wish to reach is not so much the resident in the city as the inhabitant of the small town and large village” (emphases mine). Birkenhead describes such a person as “the man who is most behind in knowledge of events and most liable to be misled.” At the same time “he is the man on whom a good influence would have the greatest result.” Birkenhead’s policy of vernacularization continues, and underscores the British policy of disseminating European thought, civility, scientific progress to the ‘poor,’ the ‘marginal’, the ‘rural’ in the vernacular; bypassing as it were the anglicized self- sufficient and likely to be intractable city bred babusv. Birkenhead notes that while in cities, where English is widely spoken “the same installation could be used for both a European and a vernacular programme as the hours during which these would be most suitable, would not be likely to clash.” He insists however that, “there must be, in order to secure effective and intelligible production in the vernacular, a separate station for each important vernacular language.” (Broadcasting in India: Private Letters from Lord Birkenhead to Lord Irwin, 15th July 1926, cited in Alasdair Pinkerton’s Radio and the Raj. 171, emphases mine). Pinkerton forges connections between Reith and Birkenhead’s promoting regional language stations with the intent of reaching out to the most marginal of Indians; to the General Strike in Britain. The strike may well have revivified the latent British anxieties about the Mutiny and reminded them of posts and telegraphs being both the target (especially the telegraph installations) as well as the redemptive agent of the Empire. Radio services were proposed to be as intrusive, as far reaching as possible to pre-empt lies, rumours and alternative information to influence the Indian subjects. Any discussion about the Calcutta Radio Station and its role must consider this overarching discursive framework that produced it.
The role of Calcutta Radio station (among others stations of the IBC) as promoting and producing the genres of adhunik sangeet (modern songs) giving a new lease of life to classical music in the modern nation state, that had so far been promoted by the landed nobility)vi, resuscitating Bengali adhunik sahitya (modern literature) -its plays, short stories, novels, and popularizing, through adaptation, world literature, has been less discussed. Indira Biswas Basu’s unpublished dissertation A History of All India Radio, Calcutta Station (supervised by Prof. Gautam Bhadra) from the Centre for the Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (funded by the India Foundation for Arts, grant period, 2007-2009) explores the various facets of the AIR, the Calcutta Radio Station and its organ Betar Jagat (the wireless world, a bi- monthly periodical), and is perhaps the only credible piece of work on this subject. Some portions of her dissertation are available in a book entitled Sambad Kathaye Betar Jagat (Chatim Publishers, Kolkata, 2017).
However, the Calcutta Radio Station (like many such regional radio stations) carved out precarious cultural space, introducing a distinct brand of bhadra bangaliyana through its programmes. To Nripendrakishna Majumdar, Raichand Boral, Birendrakrishna Bhadra, Bani Kumar, Indira Debi, Bulbul Sarkar, Leela Majumdar, and many such, go the distinct credit creating of sustaining a popular yet dignified Bengali ness through radio communication cultures. Indian Broadcasting Company that morphed into the All India Radio, was also known as Akashvani after independence, adopting the Indic name that the Mysore station was using and which later Rabindranath Tagore also proposed. Akashvani revolutionized means of communication between the 1950s to the 1970s and forged new epistolary cultures. This novel way of writing letters, that were to be read out aloud in radio programmes and the responses heard, often as a community or group, was an unprecedented community experience in epistolary cultures.
This essay is entitled Ami kaan pete roi – (I keep my ears to the ground, I listen attentively), as this authorial-interpretative community is also a ‘listening-reading aloud-writing community.’ Such a writer/listener-reader/raconteur dynamic, was a singular and well as a group phenomenon, as letters were addressed to the host of a team- produced radio programme. Such epistles were no longer meant to be unfolded in private and read silently, but read aloud, with appropriate tonal textures to a community of utkarna (all ears) listeners.
As an adolescent of in the 1970s (and when All India Radio was opening to sponsored programmes buckling under the pressure of public demand) I can testify to the phenomenon of Srabanti Mazumdar (the one who hosted the enormously popular Boroliner Sansar-the world of Boroline) and her husky, anglicized voice that had the audience swooning over hervii. I still remember singing along her famous jingle “baro mash sara ange mekhe nin/surabhito antisceptic cream-Boroline (smear over your skin, day out and in/the scented anti-sceptic cream, Boroline)” as I tripped off to school, the traces of her voice in my head, carrying with it a hint of excitement, a hint of the risque, the call of the forbidden! Boroliner Sansar was part of the Vividh Bharati sponsored programme that aired radio plays (drawn from literary classics) adapted into a dramatic form by Mihir Sen and Subash Basu. Entitled: “baraniyo lekhaker smaraniyo galper natoker asar” (session of plays adapted from unforgettable stories of great writers) had practically every theatre personality worth a name – Bikash Roy, Keya Chakrabarty, Ajitesh Bandopadhyay, Tripti Mitra and Rudraprasad Sengupta lending their voices to make these plays come alive. Eminent figures of Bengali literature, Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay, Sunil Gangopadhyay and Samaresh Basu wrote stories especially for this programme. To Srabanti (and her Boroliner Sansar from 1975) that one may ascribe the emergence of fandom and fan mail in Bengal. This is not simply because such fan-mails were not being written to other stars in the theatrical, and cinematic firmament but because such a vibrant interactive domain comprising of the radio host/the reader of letters; and the utkarna writer/ listener- whose letters are read out lovingly, with appropriate emotional textures by her beloved didbhai (as Sravanti was popularly called)- was non -existent in other performance spheres.
A transference of letter writing/reading from the private to the public domain of a nation state was in awareness of an emergent epistolary community; that was informed, and participative in nature and invested in the progress of a nation- community even before it had formally come into being. Many programmes of the Calcutta Radio Station (especially those with suffixes such as asar, adda, majlish, mahal as well as song request programmes) allotted time for letter reading letters from shrotas that were addressed to the host in appreciation, critique, or request. Such letters were pre- selected and read out with due diligence, while acknowledging the name, and location of the shrota-the listener. The letter writer/shrota experienced thereby the peculiar pleasure of being identified, respected by the programme host (and her team) and being connected to other shrotas of the programme. A vibrant epistolary community was thus born, individuated, localized and yet part of a group of friends. It is not arbitrary that the hosts frequently addressed the listener/letter writers as shrota- bandhugan (collective of listener friends).
The use of the term asar (a space of joyous exchange) as opposed to baktrirta (top -down lecture) as suffixing nomenclatures of CRS radio programme broadcasts, was debated in the pages of “Amader Katha” (our voice) in Betar Jagat. Asar was chosen over baktrita with particular reference to the Palli Mangal programme and that was suitably renamed as not Palli Mangaler Bakrita but Palli Mangaler Asarviii. The term mahal (domain) as suffixed to shishu (child) or mahila (woman) in very popular children and women related programmes (Shishu Mahal, Mahila Mahal) was equally significant, indicating as it did to an informal domain of exchange between the anticipating shrotas and a receptive host.
Thousands of letters were written to programme-hosts such as (Nripendrakrishna Chattopadhyay, Sudhir Sarkar (host of Palli Mangaler Asar dealing with rural upliftment concerns), Bela Dey (host of Mahila Mahal dealing with women issues); Pankaj Kumar Mullick (host of Sangeet Sikshar Asar that was music teaching-learning session); Birendrakrishna Bhadra (host of Birupaksher Asar, -a comic ironic talk show with characters commenting on contemporary issues; Mahabharater Katha –stories from Mahabharata, and of course the iconic Mahishashurmardini- a reading from the Chandi on the auspicious morning of Mahalaya, ushering the Devi paksha– the arrival of the goddess Durga; Debabrata Mukherjee (host of Ganer Bhelaye-or afloat on a the raft of songs); Jogeshchandra Bose (host of Galpa dadur Asar, grandfather’s story telling session); Indira Devi (host of Shishu Mahal, a children’s world programme); Bulbul Sarkar (host of Calling All Children, an English language programme for children), Anurodher Asar songs on request (later called Barnali); creating a public domain of concerned, involved community of listeners committed to the creation of stable, cultured Bengaliness (Bangaliyana)ix. Letters to radio hosts were in many ways an extension of letters to newspaper editors, as they addressed public concerns and presented themselves as part of a newly- created, participative democracy. As I peruse through the older copies of Betar Jagat, (mostly digitized) I discover that most of the CRS listed programmes such as Mahila Mahal that was aired from 1.40 after the grihinis (housewives) had completed their household tasks and could have uninterrupted listening pleasure, had dedicated letter -reading sessions and were entitled as “Chithipatrer Jhanpi” -the basket of letters (BJ, vol xxviii, no 12, 1.40 PM, p 457). The CRS Sunday programme of 1957 dedicated a session that was entitled – “Patralekha”-writing letters (BJ vol xxviii, no12, 464).
This brings us to Betar Jagat (the wireless world) the mouthpiece, a fortnightly periodical of the Indian Broadcasting Company. After independence, Akashvani was printed on top of the mast in Devnagari script while the text-Betar Jagat was scripted below-in Bangla. A close study of the past copies of the journal Betar Jagat reveals the importance of letters as shaping and indicating the popularity of the radio programmes. Betar Jagat (born on 27th September 1929) published the schedule of programmes of various radio centres along with poems, stories, plays, and informative essays, and discussions (often reproduced from a earlier aired talk show). Its opening section “Amader Katha” (Our opinion) was an address to the pathak/shrota -bandhu (reader/listener friend) to inform, create interest in radio programmes (as radio was still an expensive and often unknown commodity) as well as build up a solid, interactive fan base towards specific programmes. This chain of letters created that link between the unseen voices on radio and the common listener. Stories of how Betar Jagat survived its initial financial hurdles with stalwarts such as Birendrakrishna Bhadra selling copies of the periodical in Dalhousie Square footpaths, and getting beaten up hawkers for trespassing their domain, is now part of its apocryphax.
Members of the initial group Nripendrakrishna Majumdar Birendrakrishna Bhadra, Raichand Boral, and Banikumarxi often bought up unsold copies to save the periodical from early demise.
The editorial page of “Amader Katha” (in the first issue of Betar Jagat) was also a letter to the reader. The editors noted that they had no intentions of creating waves in the literary cultural sphere through their publishing of Betar Jagat. Their intention was to simply publicize their programmes with the express intent of forging intimate bonds (antaranga samparko) between the grahak (subscriber) -reader that is also the unseen friend (adekha bandhu) the shrota/listener of the radio broadcast. (BJ, 1.1,27 September 1929, p. 1.). The letters to the editor and their answers were simulated in broadcast programmes, as almost every host begun (or interspersed) her show with the reading of the letters from unseen friends. Grahaks and shrotas were invited to air their opinion in the office of CRS at appointed hours and a radio play.
Jhanjha scripted the very many incidents (often comical) that resulted from these interactions. Incidentally Jhanjha, a bilingual play (entitled Storm in the Station in English) that was scripted to celebrate the seven -year completion of the CRS, and that was enacted by both Bengali and English players, depicted the role of the letter writer vividly as Nripendrakrishna Majumdar is seen as inundated by listeners’ letters, and those that he struggles to answer. The letter writer is recognized as the most important link between the disembodied voice of the radio programme and the disembodied listener of the same.
‘Shrotader Prasner Uttar’ (responding to the listeners’ queries) was a novel program introduced by CRS on 19 August 1940. It read out the letters that listeners were posting daily. Since the 3rd February 1941, the program was renamed ‘Shrotader Sange
Alap-alochana’ (a discussion with the listeners) and even later- ‘Sabinay Nibedan’ (a humble submission). Incidentally the phrase –sabinay nibedan was a typical expression of the Bengali written epistle. Betar Jagat began announcing names of listeners, whose letters would be read out (and replied) in the forthcoming programs from the February of 1942. Birendrakrishna Bhadra who conducted this programme, assuming the name- “Loud -Speaker”- notes that “sabinay nibedan” had become so popular that the programme-time was extended from fifteen to twenty minutes.
Leela Majumdar’s radio novelette, Manimala, an epistolary advice of a grandmother to an adolescent granddaughter Manimala, (originally Thakurmar Chithi) is a continuation of the advice literature of a 19th century and of a distinctly Tagorean denominationxii. This war between the old and the new, their making peace by recognizing each other’s ideational validity is worked out in Tagore’s epistolary narrative Sreecharaneshu-Chiranjeebeshu. This was initially published in the Tagore family edited periodical, Balak or children. Manimala’s epistolarity is contoured by the specificity of the wireless world. It is implicated in and produced by the structure of letters to the radio hosts seeking advice, guidance companionship.
Manimala is shaped out of letters of the thakur ma (grandmother) that doles out the advice in epistolary instalments over the years, and only refers to the granddaughter’s questions within her responses. This primacy to the advice giver, the responder of the letter is typical of Calcutta Radio Station programmes, and especially where the received letters are often typical and generic. The most important part of the programme is thus the response, the valuable advice given by the informed host-the didibhai (both sister and grandmother surrogate or dadu (grandpa surrogate). The wise thakur ma (also grandma from the father’s side) in Manimala repeatedly notes that the causes of Manimala’s concern, irritation, anxiety are not distinct from those that had also vexed thakur ma when she was twelve years old, even as their manifestations may have changed with times. The advice regarding anxieties of a growing girl, both headstrong and confused, her self – consciousness regarding of her bodily changes are those that many adolescent girls or may be their mothers (as radio- listeners) would be glad to receive and especially when it was difficult to share such worries with their immediate family comprising of censuring aunts and/or (in Manimala’s case) a not so censorious mother.
The specificity of a girl child that is growing up as a young adult and seeking advice about some of her radical decisions, such as delaying of marriage, taking up employment far away from residence, and staying apart from her family for certain periods. is novel. The imaginary that Manimala was conveying– the young adult girl, independent of a father or a husband, earning her own living, and living apart from her family, was one that had little precedence in British India. Seen through the comic ironic lens of a R.K. Narayan (the figures of Rosie, Daisy in The Guide 1956, The Painter of Signs 1976, respectively) or a Parashuram/Rajshekhar Basu (in the figure of Chamatkumari Ghaparde a circus artiste in “Chamatkumari” (Parashuram Galpasamagra, edited by Deepshankar Basu, Kolkata”: Samit Sarkar, 1969, 681-688)xiii, this new single, independently earning, and living apart from her family, was a phenomenon that the Indian state was still coming to terms with and, if I may say so, still not quite comfortable with.
My choice of Manimala is also in recognition of mediating ruptures, given that this was meant to be a radio narrative, to be aired on the very popular All India Radio’s Calcutta Radio Station, Kolkata ‘kaw’-aired- Mahila Mahal programme, and the one that was hosted by Bela Dey. Manimala (originally Thakur mar Chithi-letters of a grandmother) was the result of Leela’s conviction regarding the necessity of bringing women and their desultory, trivialized routine of cooking and keeping house, into the ambit of a more publicly acknowledged domain of the new nation state. Incidentally, Mahila Mahal had an earlier avatar of Mahila Majlish and one that was hosted by Pankaj Kumar Mullick. Some disturbing letters written (by ‘women listeners’) to protest the fact that a man was conducting a show meant for women, led Pankaj Mullick to turn detective and ferret out such ‘epistolary avatars’ in person. However, on arriving, Mullick discovered these addresses did not have any real women residents. An irate Pankaj Mullick put an end the Mahila Majlish programme in 1934. In 1940, the programme was reinvented as Mahila Mahal under the guidance of Bela Dey, a redoubtable writer of cookbooks and stitch booksxiv.
Leela notes that many established litterateurs were reluctant to participate in Mahila Mahal programmes (held from 1.40 PM in the afternoon on weekdays) as they felt that anything serious or artistically worthy would be wasted upon its target audience;
the siesta -induced -housewives (adha-ghumanta shrota)xv. Leela responded with her typical tongue- in- cheek humour that discussions on the housewives’ role in managing their households and families was a worthier topic than, the oft repeated discussions about the role of fictional female characters of Bankimchandra or Rabindranath’s narratives, in such shows! She also introduced the class factor noting that, while upper class women might treat such programmes with casual indifference (given that they had alternative information and solace options) the common or lower middle -class woman that had no access to such, gave these programmes every attention. These were their only source of information regarding how best to manage a household or cope with adolescent children. Incidentally, the sheer ordinariness of the Manimala-figure is repeated at each point of the narrative, even though she does seem to share many traits with her extraordinary creator. Leela reveals that she had received numerous inquisitive and enthusiastic letter responses from this class of women, and these is turn had convinced her of the necessity of such programmes. She also notes that her Thakur mar Chithi sessions were so well received that she received fan mails from Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) as wellxvi.
It is the same conviction, that such homely tasks had been devalued and de- aestheticized that led Leela to write a wonderful cookbook, Rannar boi (cook book) that were not just recipes but a literary order of things. In a 2011 interview, in the ezine Parabas, Leela’s granddaughter Srilata Mukherjee recounts (to interviewer Anu Kumar) that Didibhai (that is how she addressed her grandma) “used to say that cooking was like creating a story and she would collect recipes from everyone because they had a history attached to them.”
The letter-reading programme aired by CRS as Thakurmaar Chithi– were later published as Manimala. The narrative comprising of a series of one -way letters, written by an indulgent but perceptive grandma, to one’s grandchild. Letters to Manimala span a period from when Manimala is eleven, and entering puberty with its attendant psychosomatic issues, till when she is about twenty-five, happily married and mother of a male child.
The readers/shrota are not allowed a glimpse into the grand-daughter’s letters but their gist is summed by the thakurma. The connecting links are in the form of thakurma’s recounting of places and spaces where she discovered or had safekept those letters. Written in a frankly bildung form, the narrative traces the growth and evolution of the Bengali middle class bhadra girl from her adolescence to her moment of fulfilment, as a mother of a male child. Such a narrative is quintessentially Bengali middle class in its choice of initiating and completing life practice events.
Manimala is also a quintessentially Bengali bhadra maddhyabitta (genteel middle class) figure in that she rebels just a bit (in choice of clothes, friends, and books); works for just a bit as a teacher (having completed her bachelors’ degree and teachers’ training course); stays apart from her family in her school quarters for just a bit; and marries just when it seemed she was going to miss the bus. There is a twist to the tale as Manimala rebels against her parents’ wishes in her choice of her partner.
The narrative comprising of over eighty letters, is nothing spectacular, in the sense that Manimala’s problems are resolved through the dual process of gentle persuasion, and gentle self- realization. As Leela’s granddaughter Srilata Banerjee notes (“Leela Majumdar: A Granddaughter Remembers” “Interview of Srilata Banerjee by Anu Kumar” Parabas, parabas.com ISSN 1563-8685, 2011) and as readers/listeners easily gauge, Manimala is Leela’s own life story. It refers to her childhood friends, her dogs, her teaching career (though not her brilliance and creative output) her father’s opposition to the choice of her life partner, and her having her first child- a male.
Manimala was the name of Leela’s grandmother and so this self- referential tale can be read along with Pakdandi as one more window into this extraordinarily ordinary life.
If Manimala was meant to be mirror for middle class Bengali girls, then I believe it succeeded in a gentle, indulgent sort of way. Manimala does not touch upon any of the traumatic experiences of middle- class girls of the 1950s to the 1970s and never once refers to the realities of subcontinental Partition or to student unrests, and grating unemployment problems of this tumultuous period. There are unconvincing references to Manimala wanting to participate in processions, and her desire to work for her country but the reader clearly realizes that, these are all gestures and passing phases. If thakur ma’s advice about not taking advantage of being a woman and allowing older, infirm men precedence in seating in public vehicles is worthy, the advice that Manimala should discontinue her teaching job after marriage as there are so many (men?) without such employment opportunities is grating, to say the least. In pages 85-86, thakur ma advises the college (probably, Bethune College, Kolkata) going Manimala to not participate in processions simply motivated by hujug– a herd instinct – but to work for her swadesh according to her convictions. This internalization of public issues and their depoliticization thereby is typical of the Bengali middle class. I am not saying that there weren’t notable exceptions.
Thakur ma however does advice Manimala to mingle with the many relatives that, often come and stay in their house (much to Manimala’s chagrin) and consider adjustment in such domestic spheres as valuable training for future life. Clearly, the middle- class Bengali girl is being guided towards her real priorities. The richest section of Manimala are those letters that speak about this complex grid of relationships in a middle -class family, its neighbours (Ali, Bhuli), its friends (Gupee), its complaining-about-aches- and- pains- mashis and pishis (aunts) and the peculiar pleasures of being embedded in such relational matrices. These are elements that are fast eroding in Bengali families, and letters describing such life evince fond nostalgia. Perhaps, the inherent puritanism of the Mahila Mahal programme and the stiffness associated with a central government organization of AIR, did not allow for more experimentation/revelation of a growing girl’s anxieties. Frankly, Leela Majumdar is at her creative best when she is writing for children. She captures the whimsies, the rainbow of the child’s joys and sorrows the best; the grim adult world is creatively inaccessible to her.
Manimala lacks the argumentative finesse of Tagore’s Chiranjeebeshu-Shricharaneshu, or the whimsy of her own Gupeer Gupta Khata (the secret diary of Gupee). This is a pallid set of letters, that are important simply because of the formal (and novel) structures of a radio narrative that, it embraces; and the interactive essence of the radio communications that her epistolary work simulates.
Manimala allows us a glimpse into the new bureaucratic cultures in which programmes of All India Radio’s were implicated and how the conversion of any radio script into a published book with separate authorial rights could be a nightmare. Leela Majumdar’s notes in her biographical Pakdandi that she ran into troubled waters, when she wanted to publish Thakur mar Chithi as a separate book, as all programme contents were the legal properties of the state- owned All India Radio and of which Calcutta Radio Station was but a wing. This difficulty and negotiation between an orally -recounted script in a radio programme and its conversion into a printed narrative with the raconteur claiming author(ity?) is a novel phenomenon in publishing history and worth investigating by itself. Today of course, J.K. Rowling’s books have audio and cinematic versions besides being part of a huge merchandise chain, and Rowling’s authorial rights over all kinds of media[ted] representations are legally contracted. In the case of Leela Majumdar (who is as important if not more, a writer for and of children, as a Lewis Carol, a Roald Dahl, or a Rowling, and whose books ought to have been translated into several languages) the All India Radio proposed a auction of the Thakur Mar Chithi script as it was the AIR’s property and for which prospective publishers could bid, as a means of transference of copyright. As this was an unheard -of procedure for Kolkata publishers, Leela felt that her effort to publish Thakur Mar Chithi had reached its dead end. The copyright issue was however finally resolved (at the advice of a kind senior in her All India Radio office) when she renounced the rights to the recounted script of Thakur mar Chithi, (and as aired in CRS in its Mahila Mahal programme) thus enabling a closure of the central government files that contained/carried on this discussion ad infinitum! She went on to publish (with Asia Publishing House, in Kolkata) the same narrative with minor changes and a new title-Manimala.
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Author Notes i This line is taken from Rabindranath Tagore’s “Puja parjaya” (devotion series) and of “Baul anga” (baul style) songs of 1922. This song speaks of a very different kind of listening, not without but to what is within one’s soul. Incidentally, “ami kaan peter roi” was made popular by one of the doyens of the CRS- Pankaj Mullick. His rendition of it, in the 1937 movie Mukti (directed by P.C. Baruah, acted by Kanan Devi, P.C. Baruah and Pankaj Mullick) was one of the many factors that made the movie a memorable experience. ii Kolkata: Asia Publishing Company, Bhadra 1362, 1956 iii Refer to H.R. Luthra Indian Broadcasting New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1986. iv John Charles Walsham Reith’s, (1889-1971) [Baron] autobiography Into the Wind, ( London : Hodder & Stoughton, 1949) describes his curious, often funny, but never trivialized efforts to create a communication revolution against the odds of beaurocratic inefficiency, short sightedness and the difficulty of finding right people for the job. v Refer to my essay “Anglicized-Sankritized-Vernacularized” in M. Shridhar and Sunita Mishra edited London: Routledge, 2018. vi David Lelyveld “Upon the Subdominant: Administering Music on All India Radio” in Carol Appadurai Breckenridge edited Consuming Modernity: Public Cultures in a South Asian World (Minneapolis. London: University of Minnesota Press, 1995, Chapter 3, 49-65). viiBoroline is the brand name of a green tube (manufactured by G.D. Pharmaceuticals) containing boric sulphate laced scented sticky cream. A cosmetic product, has turned metonymic of Bengaliness and its ‘undying traditions.’Boroline was one of the first commercial houses to sponsor radio programmes in the 1970s in CRS and subsequently opened floodgates for many such sponsored programmes whose nomenclatures included the name of the sponsoring agency. viii I am indebted to Indira Biswas work entitled “Politics of Rural Broadcasting: The case Study of Bengal (1927- 1977)” in her History of Broadcasting in India; Calcutta Station” (unpublished dissertation from the Calcutta University. Supervisor: Gautam Bhadra, Chapter V 145-170) for this information. ix This statement is in recognition that many of these programmes were a continuation of pre independence radio programmes, but Jawaharlal Nehru’s focus of radio as a tool of nation building and in recognition of the distinctness of linguistico-cultural communities. x Refer to The Telegraph article “Voices from the Sky” 18.09.15. Researcher Indira Biswas speaks to Brinda Sarkar of The Telegraph about her research on the early years of Akashvani. Chatim publishers, Kolkata, has published certain portions of Indira Biswas’ dissertation in a book entitled, Sangbad Kathaye Betar Jagat (2012). xi Bani Kumar’s real name was Baidyanath Bhattacharya. He is famed for creating the script of Mashishasuramardini script- a consummate intermixing of verses from Sri Sri Chandi, Markandaya purana, devotional songs, and descriptive links, to hail the goddess Durga on Mahalaya, the great moment, that is the beginning of a lunar cycle. This was first performed for the CRS, in 1932 and the raconteur, Birendrakrishna Bhadra became legendary through his soulful recounting of the Bani Kumar script at the eve Mahalaya. xii The Tagores (and I include Abandindranath) and the Raychaudhuris acted in tandem to create a wonderfully imaginative, and whimsical world of and for children. Leela Majumdar was the daughter of Surama Devi and Pramadaranjan Ray. Pramadaranjan was one of the younger brothers of Upendrakishore Raychaudhuri. Leela and Sukumar Ray grew up as very talented cousins and nurtured by a creative, talented family. Leela was Satyajit Ray’s pishi or aunt and has collaborated with Satyajit to revive Sandesh, the iconic children’s periodical, begun by Upendrakishore. She has also written about Feluda the detective character created by Satyajit Ray. Leela was invited by Tagore to teach in Shantiniketan and which she did for a short stint. xiii Parashuram also has a letter story entitled “Chithibaji” (epistolary posturing) in which the protagonists that are also prospective groom and bride- Sukanta Dutt and Sunanda Ghosh judge their compatibility through letters while hiding their real identities. The narrative ends on an unexpected but happy note (Parashuram Gaplasamagra, 665- 669). xiv Refer to The Telegraph article “Voices from the Sky” that was published on 18.09. 2015 xv Leela jokingly refers to her litterateur -friend Maitreyi Devi rejection letter. Maitreyi wrote a letter, rejecting the offer of participating in a Mahila Mahal programme on grounds of the futility of addressing a half -asleep audience (Pakdandi 474). xvi Refer to Pakdandi Leela’s life story as anthologized in the 6th volume of Leela Majumdar Rachansamagra. Edited by Soma Mukhopadhaya (Kolkata: Lalmati, 2012, 215-538.)
Nandini Bhattacharya is Professor, Department of English and Culture Studies. The University of Burdwan.
Nandini Bhattacharya in The Beacon
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