Walking Down the Memory Lane
Arun Mukhopadhyay
1. When did you come to Halifax and how was Halifax at that time?
I came in 1979 with my wife Gauri and son Audri who was five and a half years old at that time. Halifax had fewer people and fewer tall buildings, obviously, but it was, and has always been since then, a friendly place. About racist attitude toward Indians, it was there, and you could sometimes feel it, but generally, it was not in your face. But I heard from Shankar-da, Dr. Shankar Ray, that when he came to Halifax much earlier, in the mid-sixties as a Ph.D. student at Dalhousie University, he had great difficulty finding a room to rent because of his colour.
There was also much less stress when driving around. We could park our car just outside the Halifax ferry terminal to go to the Fisherman’s Market which had a store a few steps from there. We could always find a spot to park anywhere in downtown. The now beautifully built boardwalk was not there, yet the Point Pleasant Park existed gloriously, same as now, but with so many more trees that you could easily get lost inside, not being able to see beyond where you were. Two events decimated the mature trees of Point Pleasant Park. First, the Japanese beetle infestation. To control it, they cut innumerable trees and either took them away or burned them in a facility they built near the beach. Later, Hurricane Juan struck, its landfall happening smack on the Point Pleasant park. While there were many fallen trees in Halifax, particularly in the South End, for which the Army was called to clean up and the city was closed for a week, the devastation to the trees of Point Pleasant Park was ten times greater in magnitude. The Park was closed for a year to clean up. Then, when the Park opened again, you would not get lost walking there; it was so bare, and the sea was visible from most high places. Different and good, but not the same Point Pleasant Park that we loved.
Gauri and I were regulars at the Point Pleasant Park. When it reopened after Hurricane Juan, Gauri wrote a poem in the Sharodiya magazine, the first line of which was:
যখনই তোমার কাছে গেছি, প্রশান্তিতে ভরে গেছে মনAnd the last lines were:
ভয় ছিল সব বুঝি হয়ে গেল শেষ; কিন্তু দেখিলাম
আলো ভরা তব বনভূমে স্নিগ্ধ শান্ত তুমি জ্যোতির্ময়ী
সে যে অপার্থিব আলো অনির্বাণ!
2. How was the Bengali community at that time?
The Indian community generally, and the Bengali community in particular, was quite small, and yet, we soon had a vibrant Bengali group with many kids with whom my son could play. For the first four or five years (memory fails) we lived at the family residence wing of High Rise 2 of Saint Mary’s University. There was a dense population of Hindu and Muslim families living in that wing, some with kids, and most of them graduate students or post doctoral fellows at Dalhousie University. And the nearby Fenwick Tower (which was Dalhousie-owned then, and now remodelled and called Vuze) was also home to young Bengali families. We were all friends and had a fun time.
There were a few families, some from older times, outside of the university area and, including them, we were a small and intimate community. More families came later, and our community grew bigger at a slow pace. We did Durga pujo together, like as an extended family, along with those outside of Halifax in the Maritime provinces.
Everyone was involved from the beginning to the end, continuously. For many years, I was the main guy scrubbing pots and pans in the kitchen of the pujo venue because I lacked other talents.
3. The changes of community now you find today from the time you came.
I sense that our Hindu and Muslim communities are losing liberalism at least to a small extent and regressing to traditionalist ideas. It used to be that Hindu women would eat an occasional hamburger, but that’s rare now. Muslim friends would eat dinners at Hindu homes not caring about halal meat. During Durga pujo in the early days, Muslim friends would come to the pujo area, especially to attend the cultural function, and I remember one occasion when one of them recited a poem on stage.
Later, when the Durga pujo was happening in Moncton for a few years, someone made snide remarks objecting to Muslims attending the pujo. That ended their participation. The Muslims are getting more dogmatic too. It’s a pity. The forward progress to liberalism should be inexorable as we are getting more informed by science, but why, and why, are we regressing?
On the bright side, we now have such a large vibrant young group of new Bengali immigrants with so much talent, that it’s a joy to behold. Great singers and artists; great talented youngsters. The community is getting culturally richer.
It’s great.
4. What are the things of the present day that you wish you had before?
I am not sure. Our small community was close-knit and good. The bigger community of the present day is surely very good too, and this young group surely loves and enjoys the community atmosphere. But I don’t have any strong feelings about what I’d rather have had those days, within the constraints of meaningful choice. To get something you have to give up something. Does it make sense to wish for an intimate community where everybody has a role in collective festivals like Durga pujo, while at the same time wanting to enjoy the benefits of a large community with many talents?
The good old days. I, who cannot sing, could also sing in chorus songs in informal gatherings. Could I do that if there were many talents around? But, if you ask the same question to those who endured my singing, they may give you more definitive answers to your question.
5. One suggestion you want to give our present community people.
I have not one, but zero, suggestion about how the young generation should live their lives. They know best about their situation, not I.