As the car got off the highway and took a right turn into the dusty dirt road along the canal, I knew that either I was going to be terribly frustrated or another one of those multi-decade long searches was going to come to a successful end. If I had the right village name and if it was an unique name in Google maps, I was on the right path. The good news of Indian villages is that I can be within three villages’ distance from the right village and by asking about a “Nilu Mondol” and some vague history and I would still be able to find that person. On the other hand, if I was one more village away than that, I might as well have asked for a John Smith in an Indian village and I would have gotten the same stares.

Last time I played with Ranjit (“we called him Nilu”) was somewhere in 1979 or so. I think December of that year because after that we shifted to a different residence. After Moniruddin (who if you recollect, I managed to nail down at his home after a four decade long search), he was the guy I played with most. We spent a lot of time in each other’s house and his mom used to take care of all the young kids in the neighborhood whenever we needed some help.

There is a rather embarrassing incident that is seared in my mind. One of those days when I was playing, I had a big fight with Nilu. And let’s just say that I might have or might not have hit him with a stone. My ever helpful sister quickly ratted me out. My mom gave me a choice – I could either stay out and go hungry that day or walk up to Nilu’s house and say sorry to him in front of his parents.

You will be amazed how all those deep resolves of a eight year old to not heed to his parents can quickly melt away when it becomes lunch time!!

As the car winded down the dirt road, we asked the first tea stall if there was a “Nilu Mondol” nearby. I knew I had hit pay dirt when he asked us to keep going till the village came to an end. Which is what we were doing, when I thought I recognized somebody by the wayside on his bike.

“Ei, tui Nilu na?”. (“Hey, are you not Nilu?”), I asked rolling down the window of the car. A few minutes of confusion and elation later, we sorted it out. That was indeed the friend of mine who I had to march up to say sorry so many years earlier and he was coming back from the fields where he farms.

“Manju-didimonir chheley to?”. He reconfirmed that I was “Manju”-madam’s son. That being my mother. I had forgotten that he was her student in elementary school.

I had a whale of a time catching up with Nilu and his parents (who you can see in the picture). Nilu’s life took him in very different ways than most of the rest of my friends. While most of us started from some small village, moved to a small town (thanks to our parents) and then individually moved on to bigger cities, Nilu moved back to his village with his parents and went back to tilling the land.

You can see from the picture on the top how much fun I had him and his parents!!! And yes, I reminded him of that hitting him with the stone too!!!

Moments like these make me feel so incredibly blessed!!!

This trip, I have been focusing more time to meet friends from the school that I went to for eleventh and twelfth grades. This one though is about a friend that I studied with till my tenth grade.

Around noon today, I realized that I had about forty five minutes of free time and was wondering who would be my next victim to go and meet. Somehow, my mind went back to the conversation I had with Kunal on his last birthday where he freely accepted that he has great difficulty remembering most of our friends from school and therefore he almost always avoids going to any school get togethers. Realizing that I will probably never see him in any of the old batchmates’ meetings, I figured he might be a good target to surprise.

I had his house address with me – so finding his house was not a problem. His face was a sight when he opened the door and saw me. You could see the struggle in his visage. I asked “Chintey paarchhis?” (Do you recognize me?). I guess the way I asked and my shaved head did the magic!!

We sat down and chatted for quite some time. Certainly more time than I had thought I would. A big part of our conversation revolved around taking care of old parents. Both he and his wife are having to deal with the challenges of supporting single surviving parent who do not live close to them. For all the challenges I have with our parents, it did remind me how much of an advantage we have with my sister next door to my parents and my brother so close to them.

It was great catching up with Kunal after three decades and a half!! It was even greater getting to meet his wife Kakali and his two cute young daughters for the first time!!!

I was in Durgapur till my tenth grade and my dad worked in Durgapur Steel Plant. Recently, while talking to another friend, I had found out that an old classmate of mine from eleventh and twelfth grade in Narendrapur High School had become a big shot in the same place where my dad worked.

Since I was in Durgapur, I had to figure out if the big shot would still recognize me. Fortunately for me, that was not an issue with Kishore. Although, I have to say that he had done his homework and found out about my shaved head!!

Had a great time with Kishore – a friend who grew up in Agartala and now calls the same town his home that I used to call home once upon a time. We had a great time catching up on old friends. It was almost weird asking him and his wife – Chandrani’s opinion of Durgapur. Seems like we all agreed that it is a great town.

I also spent quite some time with their daughter Ankita. I was delighted to learn about her area of specialization – genetics and genomics.

I overstayed my scheduled time at Kishore’s house. We had a lot to catch up on since 1985 – which is when I saw him last! Plus I was marveled by his sense of humility.

“Excuse me, Rajib, can I bug you for a moment? I just wanted to introduce you to this gentleman – Subhra Lahiri”
“Not a problem, at all”, said I. And it really was not, since I was actually writing my blog post about the very person who was talking to me – Suranjan-da!!!

As Suranjan-da stepped back to his table to re-join his family for dinner, I realized the real reason he had introduced me to Subhra. Turns out Subhra and I have more common friends than we could literally count on our fingers. And the funny thing is that our paths had never crossed before. We had never studied in the same schools but had enough common friends that we studied with – obviously at different points of time. He was even the bench mate in eleventh and twelfth grades with Avijit who was my best friend and studied with me till tenth grade.

As we were discovering many of those common connections – some even starting from my first grade like Mallika – I realized something. His family was waiting outside the restaurant door for him. I did the quick math and realized that they had just finished their dinner and was on their way out. Torn between whether to let him go or pull his family into the discussion as I continued to plough thru the fertile grounds of “intersection points”, I did what you probably might have guessed – got his family into the discussion too!!

I certainly am glad I did since the next two minutes went something like this…
“Hello! I am Rajib!”
“Hi! I am Dipita”
….. some more pleasantries….
“So, where are you from?”, I asked
“Durgapur”
“Oh! You are a Durgapurian too?”
“Which batch?”
“1986 tenth grade”
“Aha! Which school?”
“GMPS”
“I see! Would you know a Sharmila Ghose?”
“Name certainly sounds very familiar. Cannot put a face to it though”.
“Wait”, I said and fished out my phone and showed her a picture of the subject of our discussion.
“Oh! Yes! The face is familiar too. How do you know her?”
“Well, rumor has it that I might have married her some twenty three years back!”
A few long seconds of laughter back, we caught up on Sharmila’s friends too. And by that I mean I updated her on the latest status of Sharmila’s friends!!

The one thing I want is my daughter Natasha to meet their daughter Ishita. They are the same age and have the same love for the language English. While Natasha is tending more towards the journalistic side, Ishita wants to go the teaching way. Oh! did I mention that both of them apparently share the view that parents serve the sole purpose of embarrassing their kids? 🙂 Believe it or not, we actually talked about it!!!

Somewhat reflecting, I realize we are about half an hour to the new year here in India. The day started by concluding a great three days resort stay with the three families I know the longest – my own. And then in the last six hours, I got to know three of the most wonderful families – Sujan’s, Suranjan-da’s and Subhra’s. One a classmate, one a brother of a classmate and one I had never known in my life!

If I can end every year on this kind of a note, I reckon, I am way ahead of the game!!!