Sometime around last year, I had traced this classmate of mine from eleventh and twelfth grades (junior and senior in high school) – Debasis to no other place than Kalyani – where my parents live! During my previous trip, I went to his house and met his parents. But he and his wife Joyoti were away on a vacation to Delhi. Some might even suggest that they had caught an early wind of the fact that I might be coming 🙂

This time though, when my sister and I walked in, we were able to meet all four of them! I saw Debasis for the first time after 1985. I remember him as a very studious and easy to get along person from my dorm building – Gouranga Bhavan. I used to visit his medical college to meet some of my other friends – later in life – but for some reason, never ran into him.

It was, as always, very exciting to catch up on an old classmate’s life journey. You probably will not be surprised but I found some intersection points with his wife Joyoti too! Her neighbor during her childhood days in Ranchi was my teammate in a job – much, much later in life. Also, she was classmates in college with a few of Sharmila’s friends from school!!

But undoubtedly, the exhilarating part was talking to his parents. Specially his dad – who, even at this advanced age keeps himself occupied in more ways than I can dream of. Of all the activities that he talked about that he gives his money and time to, the most intriguing was how he has been helping out about 100 prisoners in a penitentiary center by getting them involved in various activities – educational, sports and spiritual.

Unfortunately, my sister and I did not have much time since we had to go back to my dad. But I will be back. Specially since Debasis and Joyoti suggested we should go out for a drink some time! 🙂

“Are you Rajib Roy?”, asked the deceptively young looking gentleman as he got up from his chair in the verandah of his house.
“That I am, Sir!”, said I, fumbling with the gate latch.

It had taken me a long time to find Sir Patrick Moore – my class teacher from sixth grade. I got my lucky break when I had met Pratap Bara at the airport a couple of days earlier. I got Mrs. Moore’s number from Pratap and then a few phone calls later, I had set up my tryst with the teacher that I had last talked to in 1978 !!! Three hours of car journey later, I stood face to face with him after almost four decades.

He did not remember me – which I would not have expected him to. But he did remember the two classrooms we sat in while in sixth grade. I remember that we were in the very last room on the ground floor. And one fine day, we were shifted to the room next to the library on the second floor. Sir Moore remembered that incident vividly since – according to him, it was he who had instigated that change after getting headaches from the chemical smell from our chemistry lab next door!!

I told him how he used to often ask us some very interesting questions and then ask us to think about it or even ask around about it and come back with answers the next day. I reminded him of some of the questions he had asked us…. He had just finished teaching us about how ancient people had discovered fire and how that was a big change for civilization. Then he asked us – “What was another discovery or invention of ancient people that changed civilization dramatically?”.

Or when another time, when he had just finished teaching us about the solar system, he asked us to think about what was a man made object that is visible to the eye from the moon.

I had an equally great time with Miss Yvonne (Mrs. Moore) (who was a teacher in our primary section but I never studied in that section of our school) discussing about life, my own life journey and learnt about theirs.

Finally, I offered my heartfelt gratitude to Sir for influencing me in no small ways to be whoever it is that I am today.

In the bottom picture, I am the one sitting in the same row with Sir, next to next to him, on his right.