Lonely sun baked afternoons, deserted lanes, the hawkers slouching with fatigue, looking around for prospective windows, curious peering eyes of the lonely housewife bored with her afternoon siesta, enticed by the tinkling and clanking of the vendor’s wares , scouting for goodies to spice up her dull life---these are fleeting long lost images. The beckoning chants of the vendors on a lonely afternoon is a picture evoked on celluloid in “Charulata” by Satyajit Ray amidst the black and white ambience of a forgotten era. The sounds of the vendors and street performers intensify the eerie silence engulfing the dull listless afternoon.
The children, on the streets, eagerly awaiting the familiar cries of the vendors selling their delectable, colorful, lip smacking tit bits with their coins jingling in their pockets, are now busy attending tutorials after school or playing computer games or are glued to the television or visiting multiplexes inclined to pizzas, burgers and ice creams. Those melodious rhythmic cries full of innovation which the hawkers used while vending their fares seem to have faded. The magic that they created with their linguistic devices and sounds is a lost charm. The occurrence of these cries, melodies and rhymes innovatively devised by these vendors has featured in short stories and novels for more than a century.. In the treasure house of literary works by Tagore there are several instances where these cries create an ambience for the story. In “Dakghor” we have Amol eager to learn the “Daiwala’s” ( curd seller) chant while chasing an elusive dream or in the novel “Gora” a typical locality of old Calcutta comes alive with the sound scape enlivened by these cries. Kabuliwala enchanting little Mini with stories of his “muluk”( native land ) and his exotic wares is another unforgettable creation.
The lazy winter afternoon with soft warm sunlight caressing one’s back while relaxing on a worn out mat waiting longingly for the vendors to come along with goodies in a glass box is more a scene recreated by nostalgic grandmothers speaking to their grandchildren about yesteryears. The morning awakens to the newspaper vendor’s knock at the doorstep where the Bengali babu awakened with a lazy sip at his morning cup of tea savoring the day’s news served hot at his doorstep. Then came the scavengers followed by the melodious Bauls (wandering minstrels) with their “Hare Krishna” chants. The washer men came along to collect clothes to be washed from households. With the progression of the day the sounds and rhythms changed and intensified with vendors selling multifarious wares or those providing unique services like repairing things or sharpening knives and grindstones. There were also the performers who donned costumes posing as mythical characters or animals or even gods and goddesses. The evening grew quieter with the dim street lights. The summer evenings with flower sellers wafting in a cool fragrance along with their chants ,was in keeping with the relief that came after a heat scorched day. In the night the vigilant guards roamed the streets tapping their sticks and chanting “Jagte raho”.
The lonely housewives confined by the “pardah” ( curtain) system did not venture into the market place .These sounds and the vendors on the street afforded them companionship and an escape route from the dull monotony of their household chores. It afforded them the luxury of negotiating and buying goods at their doorsteps. The sounds of vehicles on the streets of old Kolkata like the tongas, palkis,rickshaws, trams or honking vintage cars orchestrated well with these cries. Today’s woman frequents shopping malls with a plethora of goods displayed amidst a lot of razzmatazz. The shopping arcades are flashy with neon signs, banners and festoons and are housed in multiplexes. Today the showcasing is of international standards. In any case the din and bustle of a busy metro can drown such archaic melodies that enchanted people earlier.
We find these vendors and their music and linguistic devices encapsulated in literature reminiscent of the past for our senior generation but more a tale and a saga for our children. Who can forget the worn out wayfarer responding to the vendors cries in Sukumar Ray’s “Abak Jalpan”. The typical scenario at a railway station comes alive in Nabendu Bose’s creation where we have vendors with multifarious war cries vying for the attention of the passengers and visitors. This is still a familiar sight in fact the sound patterns change as the train enters various language scapes. Poets, dramatists and story tellers have used these cries liberally to recreate sound patterns of the streets. The most noted amidst them was Ishwar Gupta, Kaliprasanna Sinha,Amritlal Basu and Sashi Chandra Dutta. In fact in Sashi Chandra Dutta’s “The Street Music of Calcutta” we have a symphony of these cries.
We still have our parents and grandparents recalling this sound scape of old Calcutta telling us tales of their longing for the colorful ware sold by these vendors. They still retain the memories of the rhythmic chants and cries of these vendors sometimes accompanied by colorful costumes. They actually were exponents of a performing art in an era when people had simple dreams and aspirations and cherished simple pleasures in life. We still have a generation whose memories date back to those times and they can still recount the magic of that forgotten era imbued in nostalgia. Soon will come a time when we will not be able to recreate these sounds through oral story telling which is being passed down through generations. This language, this ethos, this culture will soon be confined to the archives of the past. Stories revolve around the mysterious aura that the vendors spun and wove into a soundscape in those magical times. These vendors have fallen prey to the onslaught of civilization like felled trees. With them their linguistic glory is on the wane.
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