I was a few hours away from catching my flight to the US of A. Figured there was time enough to squeeze one last intersection point. I had to have dinner somewhere anyways. What better way to have dinner than with a guy that I had not seen for about three decades?

In fact, one of the last times I saw him – if not the last time – is the picture in the inset. Avijit’s mom had called Supriyo and myself over for lunch. Supriyo is the one with the trousers with the fullest flair, as it were, and that thin stick on the other end – yeah! – that is yours truly!!!

Even after the last meeting, I had made a few contacts with Supriyo over the next few years. He was one of the few guys who had an email id at work. Even in the mid nineties, it was a novelty in my friend circle. But once he quit that job, I lost touch with him.

The trail had gotten completely cold, till Facebook came around. Without Facebook, I would not have been able to sit with Supriyo and catch up on his mom (who I remember from a trip I had made to their house in Burdwan in 1985) last evening. Unfortunately for me, uncle is no more. I was able to fill Supriyo in about the whereabouts of some of our friends from those days. And we had some laughs about a particular incident where he got into deep trouble for committing a gross transgression of our dorm rules. We agreed it did not seem that funny at that point of time.

In a rare moment for me, I had completely forgotten about his sisters. Not sure how I forgot about them. Turns out one of them is in Durgapur – not too far away from my in laws. In fact about a stone’s throw and a half. Seems like more intersections points for the future!

That was a great way for me to finish up my trip to India – catching up with yet another friend from high school that I had not seen for way too long a time!!

I am not the best writer in English. For that matter, I am not the best writer in any other language. I have run ons in my sentences, I sometimes let my participles dangle and I start my sentences with conjunctions. That said, there are two teachers in my life that I remember the most who were deeply influential in whatever grasp I have over the language English. This trip, I managed to locate one of them – Ms. Devyani (thru Mrs Bose). The other one was a Mr. Samanta.

He used to come to our house in his bicycle on his way back from Shivaji Boys High School with a “pan” in his mouth, wearing a flowery shirt and then for hours, would sit with me and help me thru the difficulty of giving expression to your thoughts in a well arranged sequence of English words.

Then I became I close to his son – Kaushik – who was of the same age as I, but we never studied in the same school. I can certainly recollect spending quite a few afternoons with Kaushik and Avijit – my best friend of those days. If we were not solving global hunger problems during those sessions, we were probably solving even bigger problems like how to impress the next door neighbor girl.

Regrettably, my long searches for them about ten years back came to the worst possible way of ending. I learnt that both of them were no more. By the time I had managed to locate them, they had both escaped me by a couple of years.

As I sat last evening with Papiya-di (my teacher’s daughter who also had become close to me in the early eighties) and Sourav-da (her husband and my senior from middle school) before getting ready for the long flight back to US, I could not help having the pangs of regret of not getting a chance to say one last Thank you to Mr. Samanta or sitting down with Kaushik for one last afternoon of getting the world closer to a few more solutions!

If anything helped me thru that struggle, it was what a great company Papiya-di and Sourav-da were. We have very similar interests in terms of adventure, visiting places that are slightly off the usual touristy interests, importance of staying fit (Papiya-di is a gym rat) and in general how to prioritize time in life. Both of them are accomplished photographers. I am no where even close to them, but I knew enough to be dangerous during our conversations.

The last time I saw Papiya-di was somewhere around the late eighties (I think it was 1989) when I walked into Mr. Samanta’s house to say Hi (I think I had just come home from Chennai) and landed in the middle of a big drama. Mrs. Samanta complained to me about some hissy fit Papiya-di was throwing about her impending wedding. In spite of me giving extreme details of what happened that day, Papiya-di conveniently washed her hands off any role in that drama. Fortunately, Sourav-da remembered enough to back my story up!

I might have to come back to spill more beans on Papiya-di till she owns up!!

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.