TJ2: Nutan

Nutan is not her name, obviously, she is a real person.

Then why Tridib chose Nutan: a name that sounds as much non-Bangla as it can be? If in Bangla, there had been no word like that, as an alien but nice-sounding word it could be very much used as a Bangla proper name. But, there is a Bangla word 'nutan', the old-diction version of 'notun', 'u' not like 'o' in 'done', but as like 'oo' in 'moon'. It is an adjective that means 'new'. And because 'nutan' is so widely-used an adjective, it can hardly be conceived as a proper name for a Bangla speaking person.

In this last sentence Tridib was a bit hesitant about the word 'person', first he wanted to write 'girl' in place of 'person', then he asked himself, why? The old-diction 'nutan' or new-diction 'notun': none of them has any gender thing with them. In fact gender is hardly there in any Bangla adjective, except in some direct imports from Sanskrit or tatsama words. Actually, here, in his hesitation lies the point of naming 'Nutan' as 'Nutan'.

The gender thing is very much there in the name 'Nutan'. Nutan is Bimal Ray's Nutan, Nutan the actress as in 'Bandini', Nutan as in 'Milan', Nutan the somber the deep the mysterious the beautiful. Or even in the so innocent looking and still so endlessly emotional grace with Dev Anand in 'Tere Ghar Ki Samne'.

Tridib once saw a song, in his childhood they used to hear songs, now it has changed, Nutan and Dev Anand coming down the Delhi Kutab Minar: romancing, that is, dancing and singing together, as only happens in a Hindi Movie. Magic, so much magic was there in this song, in Nutan, that once Tridib thought of writing a story around this magic, appropriating this magic. This story talks about a magic sequence of stone blocks ─ all the stones that Nutan touched during the whole song sequence within the Kutab tower. The story says that this sequence describes a magic series, and if one can touch all the stones in that particular sequence one gets the love of one's life. But you are given only one chance to touch the stones in their proper sequence while coming down Kutab Minar. As it happens in the story, unknowingly, just by a fortunate-unfortunate chance, this happened with a young girl, and readily she got the man of her love. But, there was another young man, not this girl's love, who loved this girl, and this was the end of everything for this young man. He now goes on searching the sequence, in every possible and impossible way. After seeing the movie for a thousand times, he finally discovers that it is dissolved in the terminal dissolve of the song sequence whether Nutan touches the last stone or not, and no one any more can tell it for sure. The film has dissolved on that shot, and all the crew that made the film are dead. Now, for this young man, to touch or not to touch is the question. He is literally and poetically standing eternally on the stairs. The story ends with a dilemma for the reader: if he gets it right the love of his love's life is ruined, and if he does not, his own love is ruined, which one is going to happen, why?


Anyway, this lady-or-the-tiger is not the point here. The name 'Nutan' is. This name actually swaps the real name of the real woman that i Tridib must not mention here. She was a girl in her late teens when Tridib first saw her, and now she is a woman, no much more than that, in fact much less, she is a old woman now, prematurely old, old and crippled and rejected in every sense of the real life. And the ring of the name Nutan actually comes very near to the real name of the real woman that was once a girl in her teens too. And, every logic about the name family and films in Bangla-speaking life tells Tridib that the affects that went into naming a daughter as Nutan is not at all far from the possible affects that went into the real name. The same non-Bangla feminine aura that was there in the original is there in Nutan too.

...

[This is going to be a long post: will complete it later]