Adda

 

 

(Bengali for discussion, am extended group conversation, often involving friends gathering to chat informally; considered a key part of Bengali culture)

 

There were times when

I would look past the throngs of men

All in animated chatter -

Salvaging politics, arts, and sports

Though they knew all, it was in vain

 

What intensity, what insanity!

Every word of the Statesman tied

In thick invisible tomes:

Discussed, debated, dissected

And the Argumentative Bangali - justified

 

Hugo Chavez is the messiah, I would hear

Others still stuck in Soviet’s glow

Would sadly recollect Gorbachev

While the younger ones looked askance,  

Beyond Pele, they discussed Ronaldo

 

From the birth pangs of EU

The adolescence of the sleeping dragon

To the deathbed of Jugoslavia:

For questions yet, the Adda

Already would have a solution

 

But I had no patience for these antel talks

What collective wastage of time!

And I would evade these Socrates on Kolkata’s streets,

Their collective debate  

Perhaps their biggest crime

 

For despite all their prescience, wise

Each would go back to power-cut nights

Swatting flies, sweating summer

Submitting, given up long ago

Just like that, to their daily fights

 

The world was saved, except their own

What use was then the razor-sharp head?

Why couldn’t they stem the blood-flow here

Resurrect the Politburo,

Alas, the city of lights, long dark and dead

 

Today, though, miles away

When I walk through dark and empty streets,

I must admit:

I miss those crowds, the antlamo

As I hear just my own slow hearbeats

 

The people here must have gone to sleep

Each burrowed in his wealthy cave

But there is no adda, no chats on streets

No stimulating talks: perhaps,

There is no need for any worlds to save,

 

Perhaps they bother not

With happenings in their city own,

Forget the nation, forget the world

There is nothing to chat, nothing to learn

Nothing to rejoice, nothing to mourn

 

I realise today: It was not just talks,

It was a culture, a practice, a way of life

To strive to know beyond everyday

To come together in kindred company

Despite challenges and all their strife

 

It was never about the problems of the world

Problems they knew no one could solve

It was about the talks, the debates

The will to read, and know, and learn

In a changing world, an old city’s last resolve

 

There is no adda in this city lone,

But I do see now, beyond days of youth,

Somewhere perhaps are huddled men

Challenging each other’s worldly views

Discussion, togetherness their only truth…

 

28^th Jan’ 2025