Thanks to Facebook and my insane habit of posting, I found out from Maitreyi this morning that she was in Durgapur today too. My first reaction was – “Maitreyi?” Meaning “Rini?” Of the “Cholo Rini, Cholbe?” fame?

I HAD TO SEE HER.

The story goes back to my previous post. This was when I was to hang out at Sharmila’s place all the time. Mr. and Mrs. Sur was their next door neighbor. They had two kids. One very docile and goody-goody boy called Kunal – probably about five years old. And a firecracker of a girl – around three years old. And that would be our aforementioned Rini.

Rini, as was her wont often, would find herself into Sharmila’s house and just park herself there and talk up a storm with any and everybody who would give her attention. One of those days, I guess, she had stayed on for too long. Mrs. Sur sent Kunal to retrieve her sister.

Kunal, if not anything else, was surely mortally afraid of her younger sister. Asking him to tell her to do something against her wishes was like sending him to the gallows. I still remember that day – Kunal gingerly walking up to the front room of Sharmila’s house and almost bleating out to his sister – “Cholo Rini, cholbey?”. Roughly translated, he was fishing for her overall take on the concept of going back home when it was too late. No points for guessing but Rini pretty much told him exactly what she thought of the concept of telling her to go home when she was not ready.

The rest of the day has always been a blur to me. Till date, I cannot stop laughing remembering that event. For ever that brother and sister was tagged with that “Cholo Rini, Cholbey?” identity in my mind.

You can see their picture in the inset. Rini was literally as old as her son is – who I had the fortune of meeting and befriending today. I think he figured that I matched his IQ and warmed up to me quickly.

Mrs. Krishna Sur has been the original inspiration for Sharmila to venture out of her educational profession (architecture) and pursue her love for paintings. Being an unparalleled artistic person herself and one of the most successful entrepreneurs Durgapur has produced till date, she has been a great influence on Sharmila during her formative years and later.

It was absolute the icing on my Durgapur visit cake to see the Sur family. Thank you Maitreyi for reaching out this morning. Memories of a lifetime gathered today.

I had finally managed to track down Smitan – or “Buri”, as we used to call her – a few months back. She is one of the last neighborhood kids that I have managed to find. I spent about three years in that neighborhood and had friends in ten of the twelve houses. I am down to one last house after this.

The last time I saw Buri was when my sister got married – that is a good two and a half decades back! I had received a few updates here and there in between. I had heard about Buri getting married and then about her dad (“Dutta Kaku”, as we call called him) passing away suddenly. But never had managed to talk to her till a couple of months back.

Surprised her last evening by walking into their house unannounced!! We continued with the reminiscing of those days right where I had left them with Bhoju and Paku a couple of days back! Got a chance to meet her husband and daughter too!

I am sure her daughter thinks I am a cool uncle because I told her everything that no other grown ups tell her – like studying to do well in tests is not really that important in life and that she should pursue what she wants to pursue (which is English, by the way) and so on…

I am not terribly sure Buri is going to open the door next time, at this rate 🙂

It was December, 1979. We had just moved to a new neighborhood. I was yet to be a teenager. One of the first kids who came to introduce themselves were these two brothers – barely 5 and 3 years old then. Found out their names were pretty long – so they went by Bhoju and Paku. Also found out that their mom was a schoolteacher like mine – although very different schools.

For the next few years, before I left home at the age of 16, Paku and Bhoju were part of our neighborhood games like soccer and cricket every evening. And during holidays and vacation, we would gather to play in the morning too.

The thing I remember most about Bhoju (the younger one) is how pleasant and uncomplaining he used to be even in those days. There were positions in the teams that were unpopular – goalkeeper for soccer or the one near the boundary line for cricket – since they were not too close to the action. It was difficult to convince anybody to man those positions. Except Bhoju. He was always willing to go stand wherever he was asked to. Never said No. More importantly, he would put in his heart and soul into the game from there!!

I had lost touch with both the brothers over time. And then thru a common friend – Antara – who had moved into the same house after we left that neighborhood too – had helped me get hold of Bhoju.

If you go to my blog – www.rajibroy.com and go to the posts of Nov 6, 2013, you will read about how I had finally cornered Bhoju in a cafeteria of a bank building in London where he was doing some projects and I had stopped by in London for half a day.

From then on, I have kept up with the brothers – certainly with those birthday phone calls. Also got to know about their wives and kids thru Facebook.

Finally, yesterday – lot of thanks to Tathapi (Bhoju’s wife) – I was able to meet the whole Chakraborty family in one place. Both the brothers and their families were there. So was Swapna masi and Chakraborty kaku!!!

As you can imagine – it was a great evening remembering those good old childhood days. We talked about the “masi” (lady) who worked as a help in their house (my neighborhood peeps who are reading this might remember her famous words after she got exasperated with the two brothers – especially Paku – “Bagaaitey pari nai, jhikimiki legey jaay” ). We talked about those neighborhood games… those “pochisey boishak” skits we used to put up and those hilarious non-acting we used to do!

The hours just went by. Eventually, it was time for me to take leave.

It was great to see everybody in the Chakraborty family. But the most heartening was to see that both Kaku and Masi are keeping up with their good health!!

Till next time!

Let me see if I can recreate all the ways we are different… In this picture you see…

Two are born Bengalis and one is not…
Two have married Bengalis and one has not…
(for that matter), Two who are married and one is not…
Two have lived in Chennai and one who has not…
Two live in America and one does not…
Two are from Corporate and one is not…
Two studied Economics for graduation and one who did not
Two who are bereft of hair on their head and one who is not…
Two who are from the same dorm in their MBA school and one who was not…

… I can keep going like this…

Not sure what strings thru the three other than having studied MBA together and being in Kolkata fortuitously together today at the same time.

The discussions were as lively as I would have expected in my MBA days. I saw Prakash (man, can I just say “Flojo”? – I struggle to even remember him as “Prakash”) after nearly 28 years. I saw Abhijit (again, “Goofy” is what I remember him as) a few years after a chance meeting at a bar a couple of years back.

Some of our discussions were a little mundane e.g. “How many of our batchmates that went around with other batchmates eventually tied the knot?” (the answer is “1” out of “way too many”). But some were a little more philosophical – “What have we learnt after leaving MBA school?”

There were some personal learnings for me in the discussions. Abihijit’s take on how he has learnt what he is good at and what he is not is something I am going to ponder over for some more time. But Prakash’s point on “it is fun to see the world from the others’ point of view” (he is in Advertising, by the way) is something I could relate to immediately.

Personally, I am still confused what the MBA classes, per se, taught me. What I have no doubt on is what I have learnt from the folks that I went to MBA classes with. Today’s lunch was a great reminder of that.

Abhijit, we live literally three hours of drive apart. Let’s not make Kolkata the only place we meet.
Prakash, for crying out loud, your sister AND your sister in law is in the US. Let’s make that maiden voyage there. I will come out and see you there. You are absolutely worth it!

Having said adieu to my parents this morning, I entered Kolkata an hour later. First stop was to visit Mrs. Mukherjee. You might remember this nonagenarian lady who had struck me as an incredibly independent minded, strong willed person in the past. One of my trips in the past to check on her, she was filling up Form 15-H (some Indian bank related stuff) by herself and refused to take help. She had a walker but never bothered using it.

“Bent, may be. But never broken”, is how I had described her.

Recently though, she had been felled by more physical complications and a terrible sodium deficiency issue that threatened to defy my description of her. She was starting to lose her will and independence.

As an aside, I am a little familiar with the sodium deficiency thing. We almost lost my dad to it in March 2005. As a personal observation (and this is my personal opinion only), most people in India are taking way too much medicines. Suffering, it would appear has taken the foreground to Pain. The willingness to prescribe medicines as well as the patients’ willingness to believe that chemicals solve all sufferings has reached a crescendo. (Again, this is entirely my personal observation).

The one downside of taking in all sorts of medications is that those medicines – being chemicals – often react with each other. In US, we are used to doctors being a lot more strict about knowing what all medications we take beforehand to try to avoid precisely this kind of reactions. Precipitous sodium deficiency is almost always a reaction of medicines a person is taking. (you can trace this back to new medicines – sometimes same medicines but different companies).

The good news is that this is treatable if action is taken promptly. And I saw this morning precisely that good news emerging. Mrs. Mukherjee is fighting back. She can hold up her energy till about mid morning. She gets bed ridden after that. And also loses her mental strength. I was afraid that I would just see her sleeping in the bed and after spending half an hour sitting next to her, I would leave.

I was not expecting to see her at the door in her wheel chair and when I asked her if she recognized me, she would say that she did not remember my name but I was Tabun’s (Amitesh’s) friend.

Had some precious moments with her.

I also want to give a shout to her son and her daughter in law. Having seen – up, close and personal what primary care giving is all about (both at the hospices and at home with my father), I have to doff my hat to Animesh-da and Smriti-boudi for the incredible effort. This being a lady patient, I have to believe Smriti-boudi is taking care of a lot of the details that we probably cannot even imagine. May the tribes of women like them – Smriti-boudi, Nilza, Ariel, Lillian – increase!!

Always impressed by every Mukherjee family member – in Kolkata and in Atlanta.