End of an Era

Have you ever thought of something, which looked inevitable but prayed for some miracle? I did that for last couple of days. We knew Bhupen Hazarika at 85 was fighting another battle. Not that he has ever been battle sigh; his life has been a journey full of struggle and battle, battle for humanity, battle for his belief, battle for Assam. But then those were days when his mental strength and his stamina were complimented by his health. This last battle was different, made more painful by lose of his main weapon, that thunderous voice and may be the will power. We lost the person, but his spirit, his values and his songs will continue to inspire us. He gave us an identity. Bhupen Hazarika along with Jyotiprasad and Bishnu Rabha has laid down the base for Assamese socio-cultural framework. He will remain alive through his songs and will continue to inspire us.

Our journey to the musical world began by listening to Bhupen Hazarika’s immortal songs. We were lucky as my mother had worked with Bhupen Hazarika in his IPTA days and had some amazing stories to tell. Of all the songs, following are my favorites

1.

Bimurto Mur Nixati jen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbRt7show8w

Floored by the lyrics and the tune. Never will there be a more romantic song.

2.

Bistirna Parore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcO6hIcN1A0

Nothing to say. Assam is Luit and Luit is this song.

3.

Manuhe Manuhor Babe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbASMnwzDaw

If this cannot shake you up, nothing will.

4.

Dola he Dola

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wI808FqbYM

The original.

5.

Moi eti jajabor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oYM_75_opo

Only Bhupen Hazarika could weave magic between Luit and the rest of the globe. He loved to be called a Jajabor.

6.

Buku Hom Hom Kore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EwtBNibGic&feature=related

Love you Bhupenda.

7.

Sitore Semeka Rati

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ6FkZo4wlI&feature=related

Speechless. Amazing lyrics and equally inspiring tune. Can die for these songs.

8.

Protidhwoni Xuno

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhZ32ZntPIc&feature=related

I loved the original.

9.

Aai tuk kihere pujime

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM9AbOPfRHU&feature=related

Great salute to motherland.

10.

Axom Amar Rupohi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3lqSi8di5w&feature=related

Nothing could have described Axom better.

This is a very small list of songs I could recall immediately.

There will never be another like him. May his soul rest in peace.

A Map is not a territory

Unlike any other known life form, humans have evolved a capacity to create and manipulate symbols and to compare them with the outside word ( "outside world"  means anything external to human body). This capacity allowed the transference of symbols from the mind to symbols outside the body and mind. By creating unique vocal patterns or artful scratching designs on stone, wood, or papyrus, somehow we learned how to compare the sounds and designs to thoughts in the mind. By learning and teaching how to remember the symbols through the use of a common code, an alphabet, we gained the ability to communicate our ideas through space and time. With these linguistic tools emerges the spoken and written language.

Automatically, the invention of written language produced a special and exciting result. What an innovation to store thoughts on a physical object, giving it to a messenger, and transferring your thought to another human being that lives miles away, or at some future time. Writing allows the storage of ideas that one can recall after a day, a week, or years after. It must have seemed magical to those at the dawn of the invention of writing.

 Unfortunately, out of linguistic thought emerges a dangerous flaw that stems from a lack of understanding the difference between the symbols and the things they aim to represent. We sometimes confuse the two by believing in them even when their representations no longer exist. The originator of general semantics, Alfred Korzybski came up with the phrase, "A map is not the territory" meaning that a map can describe a territory in some similar structure that allows us to traverse the land, which gives us a useful tool, but that our perception of the map can never equal the territory, but only our version of it, our map. All symbolism acts in this manner. All information comes to us as second hand. Everything we perceive from the outside world comes delayed, even if by only a few milliseconds, and processed by our brains into linguistic symbols. We may live in the present, but our thoughts reflect the past. We only have maps to refer to and nothing else.