India, March 22 -- The present is never without the past and often a recent happening suddenly takes one back to memories and experiences of long ago. So it is with me this Saturday as I think of recent experiences and suddenly find myself peeping into reminders of the past-both collective and personal. Well, the wise ones say that memories are the timeless treasure of the heart so as one writes of here and now suddenly one finds the heart digging out memories that had withered in the passage of time. Interestingly, the leitmotif of this journey of looking before and after is the bicycle, first created as a draisienne or running machine, invented by German Baron Karl von Drais far back into time in 1817. Suddenly one finds oneself humming a Nat King Cole song in which a young man woos a girl called Daisy by saying that he will not be able to buy her a carriage and then adds: "You look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle meant for two!" Now, the trigger to the romance is viewing the works of a young Bengali artist named Abhijit Das who just loves painting bicycles. A student of the Masters in Fine Arts, Das paints not just one or two bicycles but hordes of them in colours that suit his mood and it was a grand display of them painted with a spatula on canvas at a recent show of his works sponsored by the Chandigarh Lalit Kala Academy at the Punjab Kala Bhawan in the city. The young and frail painter hails from an obscure village called Uttar Belegachi of the Sundarbans area of tiny islands located to the south-east of Kolkata. Born in the struggling home of a skilled carpenter of small means, the bicycle was always his dream. He talks about the worth of the bicycle thus: "Once upon a time in Bengali society the bicycle was the major item of the dowry in a girl's marriage. The two-wheeler was deeply embedded in my heart. Since I did not possess a bicycle I would run with the boys who rode them. Finally it did come to me when I completed my Class 10 and worked for a while doing carpentry with my father and older brother but my mind was set on pursuing painting." He joined The Indian College of Arts and Draftsmanship of Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata. And from there luck and fate brought him to Chandigarh where he got encouragement from his teachers. His passion is such that he will even skimp on food to buy paint. His brush with carpentry helps him stretch his own canvases and frame them. A senior alumnus of the college well known for his tribal art, Raj Kishore Gupta, says: "In his technical skills, passion and dedication, Das promises to go a long way. One finds in him the makings of an MF Husain who rose from painting billboards to becoming one of the most famous painters of the country". His professor of painting in the College of Art, Pankaj Saroj, adds, "The painting prowess and large scale of young Das as well as his dedication leaves even the teacher spellbound. His recent self-portraits have further affirmed my faith in his heartwarming talent and persistence. This boy certainly has promises to keep. Amen!" Here, Das is not an actual bicycle thief from a famous 1948 post-war Italian film (Bicycle Thieves), but he stole images of bicycles in his heart and art as he longed for the two-wheeler beyond his means. Many have been the heart-rending stories of women immigrants from Punjab to America, which calls out as the promised land. Often they are married to men abroad with the hope that they will later become the link to the immigration of their male kin. In this context the first novel by Hindi novelist Susham Bedi, who moved with her husband to the US, "Havan", now translated by Jerry Pinto for Speaking Tiger Publishers as "The Fire Sacrifice", tells the story of the courage and achievements of these bravehearts after overcoming the early struggles with rare determination. The book by Susham, who was professor of Hindi language and literature in Columbia University, New York, was released on Tuesday at the Institute for Development and Communication (IDC) by the Thinkers Collective. Launching the book, publisher Ravi Singh said that the novel was representative of the deep psychological complexity of the women immigrants who create space for themselves struggling with tradition and modernity. This project of translation of novels by Susham, who passed away in 2020, has been felicitated by her family and speaking on the occasion her husband Rahul Bedi said that his wife was a keen observer of life around her and presented psychological and cultural tensions of the South Asian Diaspora non-judgmentally. Hers was a major contribution to feeling the struggle of the women migrants and their marvelous achievements." The "havan" or "yajna" is an ancient Vedic fire ritual offering ghee, grain and herbs to "Agni" to both purify the environment and invoke divine blessings. For Guddo, the protagonist of the novel who struggles to make a place for herself in the new world, it becomes a spiritual journey representing her struggle and keeping a link with her culture. More of Susham's novels are in line for translation to reach out to a greater audience. IDC chairman Pramod Kumar, who felicitated the release, said that the increase in translations from Indian languages to English in the past decade was a good effort to find a greater readership both home and abroad....