This is my mom’s final home – B 10/101 Pannalal Road. You would have seen a lot of pictures of this house in my posts over the last decade or more as I have tried to stitch together the anthologies of my four times a year trips here.
After leaving home at the age of 16, this is the place I made more trips to see her than any other place on this earth!
The last stop in Kalna was to visit my mom’s college. I am not sure how it looked in those days (certainly it was not as bright looking with the fresh coat of paint and the marble entrance now) but I do know how my college going mom looked from this old picture of hers that I have.
She did Political Science and Economics as I recollect in a degree that is called B.A. Honors, I think. If I am not very mistaken, it was a 3 year course. She got married right when she was finishing her last year.
Since my grandfather had moved the family from Upalati village to the town of Kalna so that his kids would get better education, I had to go find out where is it that my mom got her education…
Once I got the name of the school from her elder sister, locating it on Google Map was fairly easy. When I reached there, I had no issue getting inside and taking pictures. School was not in session. I am sure the building did not have such fresh new paint those days but I was impressed with the fact that it was established in 1901 !!
To put the inception year in perspective, most people in the world did not bathe daily, the world just got to know about the Nobel prize and Australia became a new born country!!
When my mom reached sixth grade, my grandfather decided to move his family from the village of Upalati to a nearby town called Kalna. He figured that it would be good for the education of his four kids. (He had 2 more later).
This is the house in Kalna that I have great memories of. This is truly a Bengali’s “mamabaari”. The last time I had visited this place was in the 1970s. It took me about half an hour of phone call with my uncle (mom’s brother) to try and pinpoint the house in Google Maps.
Turned out that once I was nearby, I recognized all the small markers – the two ponds, the left and right turn in the alley – in spite of the fact that modern civilizations had penetrated even this town – at least in terms of asphalt roads instead of dirt roads and covered drains instead of open ones.
Introducing ourselves to the current residents wsa less of an issue. They are the descendants of the original owner of the house. My grandpa had rented the house from him. And we are somehow related to them – multiple times removed, I am sure. I found out that the original owner’s name was Haradhan Pan. Which reminded me why my dad always made me write “C/O Haradhan Pan” (Care Of Haradhan Pan) every time I wrote a letter to my grandpa and put his name first in the address line.
I was amazed how much of the house has remained the same. The owners invited us to go around the whole house and take pictures. Which I did. Every step brought back a flood of memories… remembering the excitement when my aunt (mom’s sister) was getting married, the running to the rooftop to wave my grandfather goodbye as he hurried thru the alleys for his 7:55 train, the sleepy dinners sitting on the floor by grandmother’s kitchen under the watchful eyes of the pet cats. There was no electricity those days. It was all lanterns lit by kerosene lamps and hand fans!
As of today, I marveled at the idea that this dilapidated house is where my mom spent her time as a teenager. While I had the chance to take my mom to her birthplace once, I never had brought her back to this house!!!
This will remain, unfortunately, in my wish list for ever.
My brother and I had just checked in and then settled down at the restaurant in Westin Kolkata. The idea was to grab a quick lunch and then head out to explore all the places my mother had spent time in.
After we had placed our order, a young gentleman caught my eye. He was looking towards me. I had the feeling I must have met him before. From behind the mask, I could not recognize the face at all.
He stepped up – “How are you, sir? Everything okay?”
“Yes, yes!”, I said as I focused on his name tag. Tathagata. I feverishly ran thru in my mind the dozen or so staff members’ names that I knew in the Westin but could not still place him. The name rang familiar but I could not see the face.
I think he sensed my struggle. “I was at the JW Marriott, sir!!”
Immediately, the memories came back to me!! Of course! This is Tathagata – the bartender at the lobby level bar in JW. He diligently fixed me with a Hendricks and tonic followed by a glass of wine every evening in March when I stayed there with my siblings and their families for a few days.
“What are you doing here?”
I learnt that he had moved to Chennai (the Sheraton, I think) and then had to move back to Kolkata since his mom fell ill.
I promised to see him in the evening at his bar.
He fixed me with one of his signature cocktails. And I picked up some wisdom around “blue peas” and how to make a gin change its colors with it (and again with the tonic water). I have to try this at home.
It was good to see Tathagata after almost nine months and learn aa few things about his trade.
“Upalati gram to kon dikey?”
After 3 hours of driving – mostly weaving thru village roads (long live Google Maps), my brother and I arrived at a place that we thought should be very close to my mother’s birthplace. We saw a few elderly people gathered around the road and enquired where the village called Upalati was.
We were obviously very close since instead of giving directions, one of the gentleman asked us
“Whose house are you looking for?”
“Well, my grandfather – Harendranath Pan – used to live there. But I do not think it belongs to his family any more”.
Realizing that I was not making any good connection in his head, I rattled off my mom’s name and and then all her five siblings’ names. With each name, the head nodding became more vigorous. He knew what I was talking about!!
But instead of giving me directions, he told me that of course, he knew the house. But none of them live there any more.
In my mind, I was going “No s***, Sherlock. I belong to that family”. But I told him that I just wanted to visit my grandpa’s house.
Soon enough, I was standing outside the humble abode that my mom was born in – circa 1944. It was surreal to realize that this is exactly where my mom came to this world. Four fifth of a century later, there is still a goat tied to the pillar in the house and the poster on the wall advertises a mobile number to call to clean out (“pressure wash” is what it says) the latrine.
Sometimes I let myself forget my own humble beginnings and how much I owe back to this world.
After moving from Upalati to Kalna for her school and college, my mom’s next stop was Debipur. Back to village life from town life. She got married at the age of 20 to my dad who lived in Debipur with his brother and mother. It was one small compound with two huts – one for my uncle and his family and one for my parents. Grandma stayed in the same room as we. This is where I was born!!
Debipur was our third stop too! The hut is not there anymore – but you can see a picture of it in the small image below that I had taken in 2012 when I visited it after forty years. It subsequently got burnt down. Only the back wall remains.
I have a lot of memories of the very first few years there and the annual trips to go see grandma during the Puja times.
My mom stayed in this hut for about half a dozen years. Dad had already revolted against his family and moved away from farming. Got a day job in a steel factory that was being built about 100 km away. Eventually, he pulled my mom and me too to Durgapur once he was allotted a permanent job and a living quarter there. That would have been around 1970 or so.
It was a great evening with Sonali and Vikram. Other than the bar hopping, we managed to get in some great debate and discussion around religion and meditation. Religion can be a very divisive topic. But the debate was very healthy and constructive.
Sonali is a great listener and has mastered the art of articulating counter arguments. I found myself again in a familiar spot – having to defend a position that I personally do not believe in. (which sometimes I enjoy more than arguing for the positions I believe in).
Vikram was quiet most of the time. But he has promised to pick on his favorite divisive topic in the next meeting – the Second Amendment. Now, I have to find out which way he is going to argue. So that I can mentally prepare myself for the other view.
Looking forward to it!!
Monday evening, after work, Sharmila and I took Jay Jay out for a walk in Alpharetta downtown. Jay Jay loves Alpharetta downtown. After a long walk, we strolled in to our favorite hanging out place – Chiringa. We love the staff and the regulars there. And Jay Jay is welcome to come in!! Susan even got him an ice cream!!
