My Maiden Act

Jan. 23, 2026 was Saraswati Puja Day. We, the Bengalis of Ganga Vertica Apartments, celebrated it with much fervour and warmth.

As a part of the evening cultural programme, we did a skit -- Sukumar Roy's Abaak Jalpaan (অবাক জলপান). This was a very famous Bengali skit by Sukumar Roy, meant for children. The skit was a funny one and the audience was very much in splits. And there I got to do something I never thought I was capable of: I acted!

When I was a little kid, I used to love watching plays enacted by Uncles and Aunts of the neighbourhood. Historical, mythological, political, comic and satire, even science fiction. Even at that age, the acting, the dialogue delivery, creating an atmosphere with minimal props — everything fascinated me. But never in my wildest dream did I ever think that I would ever get on stage. This was one art form I never flirted with.

When my friends suggested that I participate in this play, a part of me was terrified! How was I even in the list of possible actors?! I had no experience in acting, and consciously at least had never wanted to do it. Yet a part of me jumped with excitement! Would I too get to act? Make exaggerated body gestures? Say things with unrealistic intonations? Get to wear a fake wart on my face (as would invariably be a part of the makeup of at least one of the actors in those plays I remembered from my childhood)? I truly experienced 'Joyfear'!

This was a first time for me in several fronts: acting, acting in a Bengali play and memorising and delivering reasonably long dialogues. I have always thought myself incapable of memorisation — a trick I hardly ever used even when I critically needed it — as a student. I was so happy I could memorise my dialogues and could deliver it with acceptable reproduction. Also, as my upbringing has been outside Bengal, I am always a bit conscious about my Bengali diction. I am so happy I could gather so much courage. And I am elated by the fact that I could try a new thing at my age. I didn't get to wear the fake wart on my face, but I did all the other things. Learning need never end all life, nor does it need be driven by any aspiration of worldly greatness.

I wish Ma Saraswati keeps blessing me with the courage and enthusiasm to jump into things I am not an expert in and keep learning, growing and living life with a learner's spirit. I also thank my very talented friends -- Mr. Somnath Chatterjee for coming up with the idea and directing the rehearsals, Arijit Banerjee for carrying through the main role with such panache, and Sabyasachi Ruj and Koushik Saha for joining in and contributing with their unique style fuel to the laughter machine. 

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Ganga Vertica Saraswati Puja 2020

Essence of Learning

(Look below for my summarisation)

"Now, you see, you don't do this thing a bit better than you did a fortnight ago, and I'll tell you what's the reason. You want to learn accounts--that's well and good. But you think all you need do to learn accounts is to come to me and do sums for an hour or so, two or three times a-week; and no sooner do you get your caps on and turn out of doors again than you sweep the whole thing clean out of your mind. You go whistling about, and take no more care what you're thinking of than if your heads were gutters for any rubbish to swill through that happened to be in the way; and if you get a good notion in 'em,it's pretty soon washed out again. You think knowledge is to be got cheap--you'll come and pay Bartle Massey sixpence a-week, and he'll make you clever at figures without your taking any trouble. But knowledge isn't to be got with paying sixpence, let me tell you. If you're to know figures, you must turn 'em over in your heads and keep your thoughts fixed on 'em. There's nothing you can't turn into a sum, for there's nothing but what's got number in it--even a fool. You may say to  yourselves, 'I'm one fool, and Jack's another; if my fool's head weighed four pound, and Jack's three pound three ounces and three quarters, how many pennyweights heavier would my head be than Jack's?' A man that had got his heart in learning figures would make sums for himself and work 'em in his head. When he sat at his shoe making, he'd count his stitches by fives, and then put a price on his stitches, say half a farthing, and then see how much money he could get in an hour; and then ask himself how much money he'd get in a day at that rate; and then how much ten workmen would get working three, or twenty, or a hundred years at that rate--and all the while his needle would be going just as fast as if he left his head empty for the devil to dance in. But the long and the short of it is--I'll have nobody in my night-school that doesn't strive to learn what he comes to learn, as hard as if he was striving to get out of a dark hole into broad daylight. I'll send no man away because he's stupid: if Billy Taft, the idiot, wanted to learn anything, I'd not refuse to teach him. But I'll not throw away good knowledge on people who think they can get it by the six penn'orth, and carry it away with 'em as they would an ounce of snuff. So never come to me again, if youcan't show that you've been working with your own heads, instead of thinking that you can pay for mine to work for you. That's the last word I've got to say to you."

- Bartle Massey, School teacher, Adam Bede by George Elliot

In short:

1. You can't learn by just paying money.

2. Learning happens when you think of it outside the class.

3. You must look actively for situations where you can apply your learning.

4. No teacher can do the learning part on behalf of the student.

Can't make a more relevant statement than this one written nearly one and a half century ago.