Sometimes when all modern technologies like social media, Google maps and GPS fail, you resort to manual labor. Had a surprising outcome today trying to do that.

Having failed to track down Anindya – my friend from my very early childhood days, today I went to the house that he used to live in the mid seventies (that I could best recollect).

A middle aged person came out, rather amused by my look (clean shaven heads are not that common in North Avenue of Durgapur). “Kaakey chai”? (“Who are you looking for”?)

I tried my best to explain the situation – “Dekhoon, prai chollis bochor aage, ei baaritey Babu boley ekta chhele thakto. Bhalo naam Anindya Sarkar. Kothay ekhon thakey jaanen? Ba ke boltey paarbey jaanen”?. (“You see, forty years back, there used to be a friend of mine called Babu who lived in this house. Also called Anindya Sarkar. Would you know where he is now? Or would you know who might know his whereabouts”?

You can only imagine my reaction when the gentleman replied “Aarey Bachchu, amakey chintey paarli na? Babuda rey!!! (“Bachchu, can you not recognize me? I AM that Babuda”)

He has lived in the same house for nearly fifty years. And I had been looking for him all over social media!!!!

Thanks to modern technologies like FB and GPS and not so modern technologies like stopping a pedestrian and asking for directions, my brother and I last evening traced down another friend of mine from the early eighties – Kaushik Chatterjee!! I was fortunate to meet his parents as well as his sister who was visiting him. (His sister was all of five or six years when I left town).

Again, so many memorable moments of yesteryears were remembered in one evening that I cannot possibly jot them down.

However, the most enjoyed one was not about all those soccer games, cricket games, “pochisey boisakh” street drama events but a really hapless, sick streetdog was called “Tilka”. Kind of half adopted by a few neighbors – and by that, I mean the neighbors would yell for Tilka from the streets to eat some leftover food from lunch and dinner – this mutt was a common feature on the field during our games. And every winter around this time, she would have a litter of puppies that we – at that age – used to find to be the cutest thing ever!! Kaushik’s mom used to be very supportive of those puppies – offering rags, milk etc etc.

Speaking of playing cricket, uncle (Kaushik’s dad) had taken great sympathy towards us watching us play cricket with a bat that had outlived itself by a thousand years (those days parents buying us a bat was a rare luxury – there were way too many family priorities at every house before we could buy a bat) and unbelievably enough had actually carved a bat and three stumps out of a block of wood.
That “segun gaachher kaather” bat outlasted us and the next generation of kids from my neighborhood.

Thirty two years later, I am mature enough to understand his depths of empathy to prioritize our needs in the field over so many other things he had to do. Thirty two years later I got a chance to meet him face to face and thank him. I let him know I still think of that event as an example if why I should step back and create some enriching experience for kids!!!