I had promised Santanu a few months back that I would make sure I visited his family and parents during my next trip to India. Since he was very high on my list this time, I had fixed the time and place to meet him even before I started from USA. Of course, the place was going to be his home since I would not have expected his parents to travel.

On my way from Kolkata to Kalyani, I dropped by at his house. Normally, I refuse to eat at anybody’s place in India. It simply takes away time from the limited time I have to meet my friends and their families. Especially if one of them is busy in the kitchen.

Santanu, being very special, was the only exception where I had said that I would be eating breakfast at his place. To make sure that I do not miss out on “talk time”, I stayed for a little more time in his place. I am glad that I had allotted more time to the visit to his house because I spent a lot of time with his dad as well as him.

As you can see in the picture, his dad and I spent quite some time on the terrace where he took me thru his life journey from undivided Bengal to Jalpaiguri to Kolkata. He talked about his days in Public Works department as well as introduced me to the different types of plants he had planted on the terrace.

Santanu’s mom was quiet for most of the time. She is recovering from some long sounding ailment that Santanu explained to me which I cannot remember but the good news is that she is pretty much fully recovered.

Spent some time with his wife – who had cooked the delicious luchi-torkari-dim breakfast for us – and his kids.

With Santanu most of the time was spent on discussing psychiatric patients (my mom is one and he is a psychiatric doctor), our Ramakrishna Mission, our old high school and the batchmates from there. For once, I got more updates about friends than giving updates. Santanu is very active in keeping up with our classmates.

Hope to see him and his family again. I have to anyways come by to return a couple of books that I picked up from his place.