I met this young Bengali speaking French man in a village in the North of France during a music festival where I had gone to work as a translator cum facilitator for a group of singers from Bengal. One of the singers, Abbas fakir disgusted by the food that was being dished out in the canteen, (which was not that bad really but just not cooked in the Bengali way, that is to say the chicken gravy did not have the shimmer of oil floating on top of a thick reddish-yellowish sauce, fried aubergines and potatoes were replaced by grated carrots and boiled cauliflower with mayonnaise, and other items which were just not palatable to a seasoned Indian palate, fostered on spices and chillies and rich, thick gravies), pushed aside his plate and told me, "Didi, I cannot eat this food. Let's go to the Indian stand on the fair ground. There is dal and rice and papad.!" Abbas was the baby of the group; with a head full of dreadlocks and a luxuriant beard coming down to his chest, he was thoroughly spoiled by his mother and his coterie of sister-in laws. Though everybody else in the group had eaten the same food and I was tired , I said, "Ok, come , let's go and see what we find." We walked down to the stall serving Indian food which was in full swing. I ready to translate Abbas' desire into French asked him in Bengali what he wanted to eat. Abbas regally pointed out his choice and a handsome young men noted down his order. Before handing him his plate heaped with rice and dal and pakodas he asked Abbas in perfect Bengali, "Ar kichu neben?" (Do you want anything else?) Abbas finding it quite natural at being spoken to in Bengali by a French man thousands of kilometers away from Bengal asked for some pickles and walked away to join some friends at a table nearby. I , finding it delightfully unnatural was nicely flabbergasted and stuttered, "You speak Bengali?"
"Yes," he replied with a perfectly charming smile, "I am learning."
"How come?"
" I spent my childhood in Bengal..",
"Really," I said, and looking at him more closely spotted a necklace of wooden beads around his neck and a very discreet tuft of hair at the back of his head. . I thought "the Hare Krishna movement" but did not delve into it further. In spite of the crowd milling around us we snatched a few moments to converse and I learnt that he played the khol. This enchanted me even further taking me back to my childhood in Bengal where each morning when the air was still cool and the sun barely up, a group of vaishnavas winded down the streets chanting the name of Hari to the accompaniment of cymbals and khols. We exchanged names, addresses and to make the encounter even more marvellous I found that we both lived in the South of France at the foothills of the Pyrenees.
I got back home and like many addresses given and taken, it stayed in my notebook, a dormant potential. Then a couple of days ago when I was feeling ringed in by the mass of mountains, sinking into the torpor of summer heat and good food and empty days I called up Srimurti . He was as charming as ever and we decided to meet at his place in Mirepoix about 45 Km from our house. It was also a nice opportunity for my friend and I to bike through the undulating countryside of vineyards and blue hills rearing in the distance and the solid battlements of Cathar fortresses etched against the sky. We stopped on the way in a little village to visit an old church and broke the silence by singing. Our hesitating voices reflected and amplified by the the ribbed vault, expanded to fill up the empty space. Then in about half an hour we were in Mirepoix at Srimurti's house.
Right from the beginning it was easy, familiar but also to a certain extent surreal because of the unexpectedness of the situation. He introduced to his wife, a petite, charming young French woman who spoke fluent Oriya because she had grown up in Bhuvaneshwar, to his children who were called Vinod and Gauranga ( my cousin in Bengal is also called Gauranga ) and to his elderly friend krishnamurti who though dressed in a shorts and a t-shirt had a tilak drawn on his forehead and a luxuriant tiki at the back of his head, both signs sported by Vaishnavites all over India. Though I was enchanted I must also say that I was a little wary. I had seen quite a few films where westerners following any of the branches of Indian spirituality were portrayed as weirdos. But they were perfectly at ease and put us at ease too. We chatted and laughed and had couscous for lunch with a vegetarian stew where cubes of paneer replaced the usual chunks of meat. When I laughingly pointed out that it was not very Indian Srimurti replied that it was because his father was Kabil from Algeria and the blend of couscous with paneer gravy was his version of fusion food. On seeing my expression of incredulity and to baffle me even further he added good-humouredly that his mother was Vietnamese. Since I went on looking at him, he kindly explained that his father who used to live in Paris had enlisted in the French army as a means of escaping from the narrow confines of his condition. While he was posted in Australia he had met his mother and come across the writings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, a fifteenth century Bengali saint. The next step then had been to the saint's birthplace, a remote village in the north of Bengal.
My journey from India to France which I have a tendency to make much ado about now paled in comparison with the physical and spiritual journey of a man who had travelled across continents and cultures to embrace a way of life and thought so far removed from his own. I felt at home with my new friends, certainly because like me their reality consisted of reconciling vastly disparate worlds. I also admired their courage in living according to their beliefs, and in the process being branded as freaks or marginals by many.
After lunch we spread a dhurrie in the living room, Srimurti brought out his khol and his book of Bengali songs, Krisnamurthy took up a pair of cymbals, my friend settled down comfortably in a corner to observe and take photos. Srimurti struck the first note on his khol, the cymbals joined in and we set sail on a musical journey swaying to the lilting rhythm of the khol and melodious voice of the singers . I could not help but join in. My friend got a few pictures of me eyes closed, grimacing like a monkey, hands raised in the air like a professional singer.
The afternoon drew to a close, time to drive back home. We parted company joyously with the promise to meet again.
Arunima Choudhury
