Great Expectations: Bhupen Hazarika & Nirode Chaudhury!

By Emon NC.

It was the time when Bhupen Hazarika hadn’t yet become the man he was destined to be.

It was the time when Nirode Chaudhury, stood at the distant, dreamy, peripheries of literary greatness. It was the time, when one fine wintery morning, Nirode walked along the mist smeared road and headed for the house of Bhupen Hazarika.

He couldn’t sleep a wink last night, kept tossing and turning on the rickety hostel bed. As images profound and powerful flashed through his mind’s eye, drenching him with an eloquent sense of spectacle, accompanied by a sublime soothing longing.

Great Expectations: Bhupen Hazarika & Nirode Chaudhury — Bhupen Hazarika

Jostling amidst the frenzied crowd, in the college auditorium packed to the brim, Nirode looked with an increasing sense of awe at the stage. Bhupen was singing a new song… his whole being beaming with infinite energy, as he sprinkled his rendition with novel visual elements that was not only surprising but also inspiring. He used a white screen, light and shadow to paint an abstract imagery that his lyrics try to convey.

He later explained that he was trying to imitate, the Afro American singer, Paul Robson…who in one of his shows held up a Gitar and asked his audience what it was. Everybody shouted “A Guitar”. Paul Robson shook his head and said “No, this is an instrument of social change”

This show remained with Nirode, like an inedible emotion, making a permanent home in his heart. Music or any form of artistic expressionis not just a medium of entertainment. For any community culture represents its core values.

And when culture is imbibed with meditative consciousness and social appeal, the process of art becomes a subtle pilgrimage of change. This is the message that young Nirode learned that day in the college auditorium. And from then on began following the works of Bhupen Hazarika more closely. The more he knew about him the more inspired and enthralled Nirode became.

So, when he came to know that Bhupen was in town. He couldn’t stop himself from seeking out the man he had so piously come to admire. Bhupen’s sister, Queen Hazarika, ushered him into the sparsely furnished living room. She informed that he would have to wait as her brother was asleep. She also added that since hehad other engagements,he could only spare five minutes with him. Nirode said he will wait. And he waited, with an eager sense of anticipation.

And after a few long minutes, Bhupen Hazarika emerged from behind the curtains. The tall lanky man, with a receding hairline and a beak shaped nose glanced at young Nirode with a comforting warmth. An incipient smile played on his lips as they exchanged pleasantries and began to talk. Five minutes passed, then an hour…then a couple of hours. The rendezvous lasted for five hours.

Nirode’s intend was to do an interview with Bhupen Hazarika. He wrote it and submitted it to the papers. The day it was published Bhupen came by a bicycle to Nirode’s place. Hugged him and said “ I have done many interviews. But none comes near to what you have done…you have made sheer poetry of our meeting”.

That was it. The beginning of Bhupen Hazarika and Nirode Chaudhury. An enduring friendship that lasted a lifetime. Both men plunged into the whirlpool of life, with the single minded focus and the teeming desire to create. The mad pursuit of creation…an unfathomable force to move ahead, to give back to the community, to nurture its strengthening bonds, infuse love in a world marred by hatred and keep people human when devils held sway.

Bhupen and Nirode both believed in the strength of poetry to change the world. A world where the priest and the politician were dwarfed by the grand effigy of humanity.

It was a dream that Nirode borrowed from Bhupen. He first saw its glimpse on the stage, in the college auditorium. Since then, he had held it close to his heart, never perusing art for art’s sake.

What Nirode admired about Bhupen was his all encompassing vision. His poetry, that was rooted in human toil and nurtured by blood and sweat….that rose high to embrace the sky and gazed into the multi-hued horizon. “Diganta…” the Assamese word for horizon. It was Bhupen Hazarika’s favourite word. He once lamented to Nirode “I just wish, instead of Bhupen my name was Diganta…”. In one of his song, he spoke of traveling to the horizon with his voice.

Words, prose, music, rhyme and melody…. That was how both saw and understood the world. But each had their own way of expressing it. It was quite a feat, especially for Nirode, to keep his creative pursuits away and separated from that of Bhupen. This wouldn’t have been possible without the mutual respect that they shared for each other. When a short story of Nirode was published in “ Amar Pratinidhi”, in part, because the sub editor took it to be a Novella. Bhupen, who was the editor of the magazine, wrote a long heartfelt letter, imploring Nirode not to misunderstand his “taste”.

Nirode knew Bhupen’s taste…like no other. More importantly he knew his thought process that went into liking or disliking something. The specific words Bhupen adored and the expressions he despised. It became a kind of unwritten tradition, that wherever Bhupen wrote something new, the first person to read or hear it would be Nirode Chaudhury. He had the freedom to critique his work or even at times suggest changes.

There are many examples where words given by Nirode, had found its revered place in Bhupen’s songs. In the magical realm of Bhupen’s creative universe, Nirode stood like the lone star… the lone witness. He had seen and felt the agony and the ecstasy, that Bhupen went through to create some of his immortal songs.

Whether it was Buku Hom Hom Kore, Gupute Gupute, Akshai Ganga, Ami Axomia Nohau Dukhaia, Moi Eti Jajabor etc, Nirode knew exactly when and how those songs came into being. In his flat in Tollygunge, Kolkata, he had seen how restlessness and placidity, was engaged in a continuous conflict, within the being of Bhupen, trying to give wings to his aspirations.

When Bhupen wrote the song Mur Gun Houk…he questioned Nirode, if he would ever be able to write the song, he always wanted to write…Every time, Bhupen’s quest to reach the zenith of existence, came under cloud of doubt he would always turn to Nirode. Because in him he saw the man, who could never betray him.

Nirode reiterated many times that he had offered his weak shoulders for Bhupen to step on and move ahead in life. He was so convinced in the creative prowess of Bhupen Hazarika, that he didn’t, under any circumstances, want the world to miss out on what this man had to offer. He steadfastly stood by him in good times and bad. When Bhupen Hazarika was criticized by all, it was only Nirode Chaudhury who defended him.

He tried to make the people of Assam understand the nuances of his creation. Whenever Bhupen wrote a new song, Nirode through his writing would make everyone familiar with the context and the subtle message that the song tried to convey. So, when Bhupen stood on the stage, the expectation of the audience would reach a frenzied level.

Once, someone asked Bhupen how he went about creating his compositions. Bhupen replied “At times it was the tune that came to me…At other times I would write the song first. Then there would be a tussle between the lyrics and the tune. And to find truce, I would call Nirode”. Bhupen greatly admired Nirode’s visual style of writing.

He would often shower praises on his prose, “Sometimes it is difficult to say” he had remarked “ whether Nirode is writing a novel or a poem…When his prose transcends into the realms of poetry and when poetry becomes prose…”.When asked to list out his favourite novels, Bhupen started with Hemmingway’s “ Old Man and the Sea”, followed by Nirode Chaudhury’s Mon Prajapati. Later on, he made this novel into a film.

Cinema was another common ground between Bhupen Hazarika and Nirode Chaudhury. Both were fascinated by the power of moving images… The magic that it sprinkled and its endearing ability to hold time and space for eternity.

The expansive, creative canvas that cinema offered was too tempting for both to ignore. Five of Nirode’s novels were made into films, And each time he had just one condition for the producers. “Music should be by Bhupen da”. When Chameli Memsaab, was made into Hindi starring Tom Alter & Mithun Chakravorty, the studio wanted someone from Bombay to do the music. Nirode almost walked out of the project.

Such was the reverence for this man. More than anything he never wanted Bhupen to stop creating. When Bhupen Hazarika was adored with the Dada Saheb Phalke award, he told Nirode over the phone “You have removed the thorns of my path…The path on which I had traversed and had reached where I am today…”.

At a certain inexplicable corner of Nirode’s heart, Bhupen was not just his friend, big brother, philosopher, critique or an everyday human. He was also his “ego”. But mind you, this was not the ego of arrogance, nor was it the ego of corrupt feelings or meaningless pride. It was the soothing sense of contentment that settles on a being, on reaching a well accomplished end.

When Bhupen Hazarika reached the stars, there was a lingering sense of sweet pride that Nirode also felt. He found solace in the fact that in Bhupen’s flight of greatness… in the wind beneath his wings, there was an ounce of air that he had spilled from his heart. That was his “ego”. The ego of agony and the ego of ecstasy. The ego of being and the ego of not being. The ego of great expectations.

The last time Bhupen met Nirode Chaudhury, it was in the paying cabin of Guwahati Medical College. Nirode had just been operated on. Bhupen Hazarika stepped inside the room, sat beside him and asked “Nirode I am Bhupen Da, do you recognise me?” Nirode looked at him and looked away… How dare anyone ask him about Bhupen Hazarika? And that too if he recognised him?

If Nirode didn’t know about Bhupen, then who in this world would? It doesn’t matter that “anyone” was Bhupen Hazarika himself. For Nirode this was blasphemy, of the highest kind . Vaguely looking into the distance he uttered a firm “No…”. Bhupen’s eyes turned glassy as he left the room. He didn’t even attend Nirode’s funeral. Later on Bhupen Hazarika told me and my mother that “If I forget Nirode. I will forget myself”.

Mahabahu.com is an Online Magazine with collection of premium Assamese and English articles and posts with cultural base and modern thinking. You can send your articles to editor@mahabahu.com / editor@mahabahoo.com(For Assamese article, Unicode font is necessary) Images from different sources.