After a rather long journey – only in time, not in road distance – thanks to the terrible conditions of the roads inside remote villages near Gushkara, West Bengal, and all those people stopping us and asking for donations for the upcoming Saraswati Pujo, we finally stood at the spot where my dad was born! Google maps was very accurate in getting us to the village. Then getting to the spot of his birth took a little more time. But the villagers were very curious and very helpful. The key was one hint – that my grandfather was a very God fearing person and that he had built a temple right next to his hut.

The temple – like every village temple I guess, has been well taken care of. On the other hand, the hut did not have any such luck. It collapsed in one of those furious monsoons (nobody occupied it for some time) and all that remains is a round mound of dirt and a lot of undergrowth.

You can see the temple on the left and the space in between (before the hut you can see on the right). That space is where my dad was born. This was confirmed by somebody else (see a later post).

He has no recollection (other than the fact he had heard about the temple his dad had built) of the place but seemed to reach an inner peace once he saw his birthplace.