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ExploreMélange is a celebration of artistic and literary expression. It brings together writers, poets, and thinkers whose words reflect both the diversity and unity of human emotion. Through each edition, Mélange strives to blend imagination and intellect, creating a timeless dialogue between art and the written word.
Arunava Roy, Editor – Mélange
Welcome to the Edition V Vol 3 of Mélange
I settled with a friend now, a long distant, a long time travelled friend. Though I was a bit worried if I lose this friend of long time! Worried, because my habit of non speaking would increase for more days! If the habit of not speaking increases one more week, month or years!! One day increases for a long time and then forever. There is no control over our mind. Is there not? Who knows. When the conversation ended, I didn't know that it would ever happen again. My relationship with him was during that Santiniketan period. Now he is retired. So am I.
I have lived a significant time of life of failure rather than achievement. He was one year junior to me. But he gave eight papers together in M.A. And he ignored the frowns of all the professors of the economics department and got first class at one go. I passed the previous year. After a lot of effort, I somehow managed to get 50 percent. This number fallacy had made me a "choro ki barat". Then I got a radio job. My world opened up. Now I don't suffer from depression anymore. The horizon has been busy with work, and it was nonetheless charismatic.
Opined with my new ego, the writings he sends now are not as active as I hope, so a veil has been created with him.
My wife looked to my apathy to him from a distance and today morning advised me why you are so stoic with him please patch up. I spoke like a loyal husband, the old warmth returned.
After that drama, I started crying and I have to go to his house today. If I don't go there is no freedom. My wife said that I have to do a lot of work. I am ashamed to hear that! It was a bit dramatic, now I'm not ashamed to admit it. We are inseparable. A strange example of the variety of marriages.
I am living with all this. We do a deep study of how a friend will be, how a wife will be, but is it reciprocate?
There is a chip of thought in my mind about how he will be when I die. Jealousy hides much more than the uncertainty. I shall die and he will be very overzealous. The crooked path of the mind is created without my knowledge.
The strange motion of the mind is in this number of Melange in the Mahabharat story, written by Pinakpani Bharadwaj. In addition, Anil Bhattacharya has told with his poetic power that Goa's women's strength has tied us in a strange harmony, and there is also a sweet writing by Seema Chaudhry. Of course another Chowdhuri is here with his intellectual vibe, though in Bengali, Arijit Chowdhuri. Overall the Melange is substantially rich this time. Your cooperation is desired.
Explore the latest reflections and literary works in this volume.
Welcome to the Edition V Vol 2 of Mélange
Bengali Language: The Future of Language
There is nothing to be alarmed in the direction the Bengali language is moving now. The language is a flowing river. There are many curiosities, some questions, and immense possibilities in the bends of the river.
It still has these three characteristics in the Bengali language,and it has not died. It has been measured in many ways on the geo-political scales, it has also had to bear the ridicule of being the language of this country, the language of the other country. Nowadays, the Bengali language is very popular, but very clumsy.One more thing like that, if there is any superhero in language, it is the Bengali.
If you can't pronounce Baliganjio diction of Kolkata, it is not the proper Bengali. There is a lot of this tradition practiced in Akashbani Kolkata. Who gave them this right to speak Bengali? I have done it, I have got genuine respect from the people of the remote areas. When the mother tongue is imitated as the language of the great aunt, the language is also insulted.And the rhythm of the language itself has also been hindered. To give space to the regional language, we have introduced programs in the department so that the regional people do not cringe during the broadcast.
Of course, this event follows the grammar and undisturbed help we got from some of our fellow juniors . They are the ones who have given courage, we have become very encouraging while matching with their inquisitive minds. So called traditional beliefs had hurt many people in the beginning who love Bengali in an ornamental atire;who is this kalapahar in this world, he does not obey any rules; Later, they are the ones who blessed. I can swear that the experiment that I did that day with language when I came to Doordarshan, but that experiment was simply clicked.
Once I met the then Director General of Bangladesh Betar in an international conference. I spoke to him. He was a little hesitant. I communicated with him my Bengali accent that was Baliganjio,under those notion. I understood, so when I tried to communicate with him in Bengali dylactic, his comfort came back, we also shared our faith and dignity. No one speaks English anymore, this is our rare achievement in an international conference.
There are many more reasons to be proud of Bengali language. You know nuances. Those who live outside the greater Bangabhoomi know what a language festival is! It may not mean anything to the dilapidated, multi-habited Bangabhoomi, but the proximity of the language in the diaspora warms the heart; Most importantly, the regional language of the other province also enriches our mind to speak Bengali more comfortably.This is one of the glory of language practice! People have lost their lives in many parts of the world for the love of language, and many people in this world have proven that love is a prerequisite for the pursuit of a good language.
Even in the Parliament, recently one can see MPs asking their questions in Bengali, lest we forget that Bengali is also the national language along with many languages. Hindi,on contrary is the official language for official work.
Along with Bengali, Konkani, Marathi or Kannada are also the national languages of the country.
This India is so diverse to see the union of diversity.
So let there be all languages;if we speak many languages then there is no harm. The primary purpose of any language—being a means of communication—ought to be the sole basis on which love for language should blossom.
We await your reading.
With warmth,
Arunava Roy
Editor, Mélange
Welcome to the Edition V Vol 1 of Mélange
Smriti: The Work of Remembering
The word Smriti—Memory—enters this issue not as a metaphor of storage, but as an act, a movement, a living process of remembering. Memory is often mistaken for a bodily organ, something fixed and locatable like the eye or the ear. This is a comforting illusion. Memory does not reside in any single place, nor can it be touched, extracted, or neatly preserved. It is not an object we possess; it is a condition we inhabit. Memory is an idea in motion—one that animates thought, emotion, and imagination.
We are accustomed to picturing memory as a cabinet of labelled files or as a miniature supercomputer humming quietly inside the skull. Contemporary science unsettles this image. Memory, we now understand, is dispersed rather than centralised, dynamic rather than static. It emerges across neural networks, shaped continuously by perception, emotion, language, and time. Memory is relational. It does not merely recall experience; it rewrites it.
This restless, generative quality of memory forms the thematic core of this edition of Melange. We rarely know how much joy, grief, desire, or meaning lies buried in the sands of remembrance until something—an image, a sentence, a silence—brings it suddenly to the surface. In this context, Smriti Satta Bhobishyat by the much-acclaimed poet Bishnu De stands as a luminous point of reference. The work offers a profound philosophical inquiry into the triangular relationship between past (memory), present (being), and future (becoming). Memory here is not archival; it is creative and ethical. It does not simply hold what has been— it actively shapes what and gestures toward what might yet be. This vision bears the unmistakable imprint of Vishnu De’s singular poetic and philosophical temperament.
Psychology, too, has expanded the horizons of how we understand memory. In 1979, psychologist Ellen Langer, building on earlier research, argued that memory is not a passive recording of lived moments. Through attention, awareness, and mindful engagement, memory can become regenerative—a source of renewal rather than repetition. Taken seriously, this idea suggests that cultures attentive to memory may resist stagnation and rediscover vitality. In a lighter, popular register, the same intuition animates Back to the Future, where revisiting memory alters not only personal fate but the structure of time itself.
And so we circle back—back to memory, back to the future. When I was asked to write about my childhood, the words refused to arrive. Perhaps memory does not respond to summons. Perhaps it prefers to emerge obliquely, in fragments, colours, and unexpected contrasts. Memory may resist narration, yet insist on presence.
What, then, unfolds in this issue? You will encounter Arijit Kathanchit by Arijit Choudhury, Memory for Sale by Ranadhir Mukhopadhyay, and selected passages from the recently launched book Theory of India—works that do not explain memory so much as inhabit it, question it, and sometimes unsettle it.
How do these voices speak to one another? How do they echo, interrupt, or contradict? That conversation is not concluded here. It begins with you.
We await your reading.
With warmth,
Arunava Roy
Editor, Mélange
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