Historian Trailokya Jena shares his journey across the Americas, exploring culture, music, and the role of rivers in shaping modern America
Trailokya Jena
For starter, as a mid-1950s born, I opened my eyes to the world with two wars. The first was our own against China in 1962 which I had no idea at the time why we lost. The next was the Vietnam war which occupied big space on newspapers that I got exposed to. America was so big and important at the time in our consciousness for it claimed the top spot in so many areas and aspects of life at the time. For instance, we learnt that America had the longest river in the form of Missouri and Mississippi, it had the tallest building in Empire State Building, it had the longest miles of both rail and motorable roads etc. Most things we watched and used in daily life originated there. And America was big in space too and was about to reach the moon!
Into College and University, America started growing into me in many contradictory ways. On the one hand, American literature, drama, cinema, glossy and serious magazines captivated me as much as its politics, particularly against the Black and war against Vietnam, not to mention its mentoring of Pakistan that repelled us in no ordinary ways. Opposite side of the fence, the rise of China and India in recent years, albeit in different trajectories, initial signs of a fresh Cold War of different nature, the vitriols coming from American administration against us, all add new dimension to a dodgy relationship.
This time, first to US after Corona, my primary purpose was to use the State Library in New York and the Library of Congress in Washington DC for extensive research for the book I am working on. I planned meticulously to get time slots booked. But there are times when your best laid plans could go awry. The same happened to me when speculation over a government lock down gathered momentum while I was in London. And soon it became a reality before I had to take the flight. So, with a slim hope of seeing it out, I restructured my itinerary to buy time. A long cherished desire to travel across both Americas, something which was my adolescent dream ever since I read the abridged version of Huckleberry Finn, took over me. The other obsession I carried was to follow the trail of Blues and Soul music of America’s black community that travelled from South in Louisiana to Chicago in the north in course of the Great Migration of the African Americans at the turn of the 20th century.
So off I was to Canada’s Ontario. From there, I took Highway 61 hitting Duluth, Minnesota in the extreme north of US. Duluth had fascinated me for long as the hometown of Bob Dylan. That, combined with my lifelong fascination of the American river system, decided my quest for combining the two obsessions where I’d follow Huck Finn’s journey down the river approaching the course of the African Americans’ music in reverse. Duluth served as symbol of both for the all American river system that served its traditional trade and commerce with Duluth being world’s farthest inland port also meets the landmark of blues and jazz music being the birth place of Bob Dylan.
Thus the classic epic of American history spread not very long over half a millennium over American sweet waters, both of which is still in those gigantic lakes and the rest that’s flowing like veins and arteries all over its body (see map of river systems), has contributed immensely to its growth and prosperity together with that of Canada to certain extent. Statistically both these countries hold nearly one third of earth’s fresh water as I knew it from school (though AI today is confusing us with all kinds of complex categorization to hide the fresh water availability of America and Canada).
As I have come to understand after deep readings of American history together with a number of visits to its various regions, it’s this availability of fresh water and its flow covering most parts into the sea that helped make America such a prosperous and powerful country. So, at the onset of my journey across Americas, I shall first dwell on the role of its water in its economic prosperity and then go onto the evolution of its considerable musical culture that also grew along the flow of its water.
(Born in Cuttack, the author is a historian, traveler, and a former Income-Tax Commissioner)