Coffee Houser
Sei Adda ta:
O, For Those Golden
Moments in Coffee House!
Bengalis would readily recall Coffee
Houser Sei Adda ta, an iconic song. Composed by Gauriprasanna Mazumdar, sung by Manna Dey, with music by
Suparnakanti Ghosh, the song is ranked 4th among 20 all-time greatest
Bengali songs according to a BBC Bangla survey.
Till the other day, I had not even
heard about this song; but a piece on Indian Coffee House
mentioned it. I found the song on You Tube, played it once, was charmed, and played
again and then again. There is something in the song that demands to be heard
again and again. It tugs a cord in your heart, and you are reminded of days
gone by. A sad yet sweet song, an elegy yet a celebration of life.
Here is the link for the song: https://youtu.be/yYKHuW_FS_U
Don’t worry even if you don’t
understand Bengali, you’ll get the song. Maybe, the song will get you!
Here is my translation of this poignant
song:
Coffee Houser
Sei Adda ta Aaj Aar Nei:
O, For Those Golden Moments in Coffee House ….
Those memorable moments in the Coffee House
Are gone now,
Gone for ever;
When and how did we lose
those golden afternoons,
Gone now, Gone forever?
Nikhilesh
has gone over to Paris,
Moidul
to Dhaka,
Haven’t
heard from them since long;
Goanese
D’Souza,
The
guitarist at Grand,
Now
slumbers in his grave;
Whom
did Roma Roy love,
Whose
betrayal hurt so much,
She
now lives in a mental asylum?
Life
is unforgiving for Amal,
suffering from terminal cancer.
Those memorable moments in the Coffee House
Are gone now,
Gone for ever;
When and how did we lose
those golden afternoons,
Gone now, Gone forever?
Of
all those, only Sujata is happy,
She
married a millionaire, it is heard,
Bedecked
in jewels and diamonds,
She
owns fancy cars and stately bungalows;
Nikhilesh
Sanyal, the lad from the Art College
Draws
posters for advertisements;
D’Souza
used to sit there,
Silent
and listening,
Though with eloquent eyes.
Those memorable moments in the Coffee House
Are gone now,
Gone for ever;
When and how did we lose
those golden afternoons,
Gone now, Gone forever?
On
that table
Did
they spend
Three
or four hours,
Charminar
fuming on their lips,
Debating
the comparative greatness of
Bishnu De and Jamini Roy.
Every
day without fail,
Come
storm or rain,
At Four
O’clock, after finishing work,
They
gathered here,
For
their daily Adda,
Toasting
togetherness,
stimulating
discussion and coffee,
Till Seven-thirty when they left.
Those memorable moments in the Coffee House
Are gone now,
Gone for ever;
When and how did we lose
those golden afternoons,
Gone now, Gone forever?
Amal
looked much like a poet,
Even
hung a jhola on his shoulder,
Alas,
he never got published,
His
talent never acknowledged;
Roma
Roy got to act only in amateur plays
Performed
in offices or social events;
Moidul,
the journalist came daily, and
Read the stories he had filed for the day.
Those memorable moments in the Coffee House
Are gone now,
Gone for ever;
When and how did we lose
those golden afternoons,
Gone now, Gone forever?
Those
seven are gone,
But
the table is very much here,
Seven
empty cups no longer on that table;
The
garden now has new buds,
Though the old gardener is gone.
How
many dreams
That
Coffee House nourished,
How
many of those dreams were
Devoured
by the clouds;
Many
are now gone for ever,
Many more will come in future,
But the Coffee House is still there.
Those memorable moments in the Coffee House
Are gone now,
Gone for ever;
When and how did we lose
those golden afternoons,
Gone now, Gone forever?
***
A Brief Appreciation
Coffee, Coffee House, and Adda
Coffee is more than a shot of caffein,
it is an aspirational drink. Sipping coffee is not a mere physical act, it is
an attitude.
Coffee House in this song is not just
any café; it is Coffee House, College Street, Calcutta – the iconic joint that
was frequented by the likes of Satyajit Ray, Amartya Sen, Bishnu De, Mrinal
Sen, Aparna Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, and many others. A premise you could enter
without paying a Membership subscription and without complying with a Dress
Code. In fact, a contrarian dress code was in vogue – kurta and pajama, unkempt
beard, tousled hair, a fuming Charminar on lips, a jhola on shoulder, and a pair of
worn-out flip-flops on feet! Before independence, India Coffee House was
for ‘Europeans Only’; post-independence, Indian Coffee House was for
anyone who had a thought on his mind and an opinion on her lips.
Adda was not merely a place to hang-out,
or to chill, or a congregation of comrades; it was a cultural phenomenon. A platform
to share thoughts and ideas, a veritable Thought Exchange! A forum for bonding;
for imbibing the intangible ambience that was exhilarating, uplifting, and
liberating. You gave much to Adda, and Adda gave back much more to you; it touched
and transformed you, and expanded your intellectual and cultural horizon.
The song is a nostalgia about those
golden moments of Adda at Coffee House; yet it is much more than coffee, Coffee
House, and Adda. It is about the camaraderie with comrades, soul-mates who sipped
coffee but were more stimulated by the invigorating intellectual debates and
discussion. Coffee House nourished its visitors with soul-drink and soul-food
in addition to a stimulating cup of coffee, singhara and ghugni, maybe.
We Are Seven!
This Adda had seven chums. Who are
they, and where are they now? This song, an anthem for the Adda, sings the
story of these seven mates. Nikhilesh is at Paris, Moidul at Dhaka, Roma at a
mental asylum, Amal fighting terminal cancer, Sujata rolling in the lap of luxury,
and D’Souza slumbering in his grave. Who is the 7th, the lyricist?
How did they play the hand that life
dealt them? Some win, some lose. Coffee House nurtures countless dreams of
which a few will blossom and spread their fragrance, but many will be nipped in
the bud. That’s how life is!
The soulful song brings to mind ‘We
are Seven’ by Wordsworth where a little child refused to count out her dead sister
and brother and insisted, ‘Nay, we are seven!’
Those seven mates may be gone, but new
buds are being nurtured by the Coffee House Adda. The song is nostalgic and
elegiac, but not despondent and depressing. It is a celebration of life despite
all limitations and imperfections!
Photo Credit:
By Manuel Menal - Indian Coffee house, Indian Coffee Worker's co-operative society., CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56520092
A Note on my Translation
To better appreciate the song, I searched
for a decent translation but was disappointed. Bing AI gave me a
reasonable translation, but put Roma Roy in Garde Hospital! No Bing, Roma was
housed in a pagal garode, a mental asylum, crushed by her unfulfilled
love!
I got the Bengali lyrics and asked Google
Translate to render that into English. That was even worse! ChatGPT
was also awful. When I asked for the Bengali lyrics for the song, it generated
a totally different ‘poem’ on coffee house! AI sucks at literary tasks for
non-English languages at present.
Exasperated, I tasked myself to
translate the song, notwithstanding my rudimentary knowledge of Bengali.
Bengali is written in a variant of the
Devanagari script, which is related to but distinct from the script used for
Sanskrit and Hindi, and was not easy for me to read; so, I resorted to the
English transliteration of the song. Since the vocabulary is very similar to
Odia, making sense of the song was not difficult.
For those who may be interested, the
lyrics in Bengali, and transliteration in English are at https://lyricsblue.com/coffee-house-lyrics/
Bengali friends may possibly help me
to improve the translation. If it is fit to be trashed, please feel free to
tell me. This is my first ever translation of a Bengali poem, and I take no
offence.
Book Borrowed from a Bengali Friend
I am not unused to desperate acts.
During my college holidays, I had borrowed from a classmate a very thin Bengali
novel with the sole purpose of impressing her. She was beautiful, charming, and
friendly. Painfully slow, in a month or more, I at last finished the book about
which I remember nothing. The smart and sensible girl married a true-blue
Bengali and has a happy married life. No, her name is not Sujata!*
***
My Friend's comment
Dr. Pabitra Mohan Nayak
Your relevant reference to We r seven appears apt.There is a logic of intellect n a logic of instinct. The little girl knows what we, adults, dont.
Lets appreciate her arithmetic. What appears real may be unreal.Things r not what they seem.'
***
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