Monday, February 22, 2010

Stop romanticizing, Mr. Kabir Suman

I used to admire you for some great poetry that you made in last 20 years. I used to admire you for those great music that you made in last 20 years. I have all your albums released so far, and I love listening to them while I’m on a long drive to villages & beaches of Maharashtra. I used to fight with my friends that you sing Rabindra-Sangeet well – knowing very well that you stand nowhere among those stalwarts of this genre. But Mr. Suman, I’m deeply hurt when I listened to ‘Chatradhorer Gaan’ & ‘Bonduk Hate Nile’ kind of songs where you’ve supported all those maniacs who paralyzed normal life in West-Midnapore for almost 2 years now.

Mr. Suman, though I’m in Mumbai and live a corporate life, but my roots belong to those Sal & Mohua trees; I have been born, brought up, spent the first & best 26 years of my life at Jhargram – I love the place much more than anyone who tries to be creative after having some local hooch. And my family & friends are suffering to the extreme possible level for last 2 years due to this Maoists/PCPA menace – and being a creative person, you are writing songs supporting them! Shame on you, Mr. Suman!

Entire Jhargram town suffered from strike for almost 200 days in the year 2009. One of my friends who took loan to purchase a bus, couldn’t take out his vehicle for half of the year, but had to pay hefty installments to bank – and now he’s almost bankrupt. Can you write a song on him? My mother, who is in her late 60s, needs to go to market on a normal day, stands in queue for hours to buy as much as possible as she doesn’t know when the next strike will be and that will last for how many days. Wanna write a song on her? Lots of patients died just because they couldn’t be shifted to better hospitals, why don’t you write few words for them, Mr. Suman. I have been grown up & lorded on those roads of Jhargram literally any hour of the day. Now my friends drop me home by 8 o’clock at night when I’m there – everybody is surviving with a fear of those so-called Maoists and PCPA – for what? Each & everybody including those who are fighting is also sufferer – and supporting their non-ideology driven blood-hungry movement is not a crime, but sin!

Stop romanticizing this movement; this is not a movement at all! I’m sure you’re matured enough to understand that your songs are going to inspire another few hundreds to pick up AK47 for wrong reasons. As a creative person, I understand where you are coming from. But this happens only when we want to grow larger than our shadow. Enough Mr. Kabir Suman – PLEASE STOP!

2 comments:

  1. Kabir Suman's views on the Maoist crisis can be best described as "Impractical Artistic Lunacy" He should be arrested and put behind bars on grounds of glorifying terrorism.

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  2. There are a few people in this Universe who always try their hardest to prove that they are not "One-Among-The-Crowd"...they go such way desperate in their attempts to establish their "Uniqueness" that I feel they could even start a fight with the rest of the world to prove that Sun rises in the West...at least to some parts of the Universe! Unfortunately Kabir Suman falls into that rare category of megalomaniac lunatics! It really wonders me to the extremest point that He is the same guy who has offered us "Tomake Chai" and "10 Foot by 10 Foot" and numerous all-time greats! We should feel Pity at Him! May be He deserves our Sympathy for all those "craps" He is giving us now!!!

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