But to me he is the same old Atish Sarkar that I went to first grade with.
Woke up on Saturday morning in Durgapur with the exciting prospect that I would be able to see another first grade friend of mine – the twenty sixth one that I have dug up so far, if you are keeping count – after a very long time. We got separated after 1976 and that was almost forty years back. Not sure how, but a few years back, I was able to get his phone number and I was startled to find out that he remembered me immediately. I had made a promise to visit him some time in Raniganj. And Saturday was the day.

While it is never too late to meet your old friends, in one aspect I was too late. His dad passed away long time back. I owed him a lot of things but there was one I have been ever indebted to him. It was a seemingly innocuous act of getting me an application form from Narendrapur Ramakrishna Mission school and encouraging me to sit for the entrance test. My dad and I were already set on me going to a different school where I had a guaranteed admission. I did give the entrance exam in this other school and I did get in. And against my dad’s wishes then (there is a rather juicy story behind this one – but I will leave it for later), I went to this school. And to this day, my dad and I agree that was the best decision for me. It opened up a lot of future opportunities for me.

Unfortunately for me though, I never got a chance to say Thanks to his dad. I did narrate that story to his mom and expressed my gratitude for uncle’s encouragement. I was lucky that his mom was there that day. She was visiting him and I did not expect to see her at all. It was absolutely wonderful to sit with her and talk about some of the incidents from forty years back.

One of the amusing story was a routine Atish and I had every “tiffin” period – which was basically the recess time when we had our snacks and kicked around some “kodomphool” pretending them to be soccer balls. I had this blue “tiffin” box and my mom would give me bread, banana and a boiled egg every day. He had a silver colored one and I do not recollect what all he brought – but he sure always had a “lobongolotika” (which is one of the best sweets you could find in Bengal). He loved eggs and I loved lobongolotikas. So, the first act during every “tiffin” period would be to exchange those two items. Much later in life, I realized how that must have reinforced the wrong message to both our moms seeing we had finished up all our food in the box 🙂 We had a great laugh sitting at his house and ruminating over such small incidents in front of three generations of women in his life – his mom, his wife and his daughter!!

Before long, I realized that one morning was going to be too little to go thru all our stories. He needed to get back to work. We promised to sit together as five people again and finish up the rest of the stories some day soon!

As in Delhi, many of the middle school friends in Durgapur put a gathering together for the evening that I was there. A few more did not make it, however the get together was graced by the presence if some of the spouses.

The whole camaraderie thing has remained undiminished thru the decades although the subjects of discussion have become more age appropriate. For example, for the first thirty minutes we found ourselves talking about blood pressure, sugar level, knees hurting, annual physicals and such till somebody called a time out declaring “Hey! We have become our dads”!

We all agreed and moved on to more interesting topics like work, family, school and such. But mostly, we picked on Prodipto 🙂 BTW, the last time I had seen Jyotishwar was in 1983!!

I was heading into Durgapur from Kalyani when I had to run thru my list of To Dos or rather To Visit items for the day. Other than my in laws and my own uncle – who are Must See for me – the options are as wide as they can be. This is where I grew up, went to school till tenth grade and consequently knew a lot of folks from my past. Every time, I try to a meet a few folks – some long lost friends from yesteryears and some parents of my old friends. It used to be that I would go around meeting my friends but they started losing their parents at such a cadence that I have often prioritized meeting parents higher than friends in the hope that I have longer time left to meet my friends.

So, as I was running thru the options in my list, the first person I wondered about actually had a dual identity for me. He was the dad of a first grade friend of mine – Mousumi Roychowdhury – with whom I have kept in touch (mostly by phone) throughout the years. But he was also Dr. A.N. Roychowdhury – the math professor in our local engineering college. And he helped me a lot during the tough junior and senior high school years. All those calculus, trigonometry, algebra became much simpler because of the time he took to sit me down and help me get them nailed thru my thick head. There was a summer that I had come home from my residential high school and I would show up multiple times a week to get some pointers at his home.

I not only remember him for those great classes and his mild mannered style of carrying himself and his passion for the violin but also what used to happen after those classes. Since I had a special identity of not only being a student but also his daughter’s classmate, I would meander into the kitchen area after classes. And auntie (Mousumi’s mom) would sit me down, chat with me and insist that I partake of tea and some snacks and sweets. Which was my reason to meander into the kitchen area to begin with!!! She was kinder to me than I probably ever deserved.

I called up my friend in Singapore, got her dad’s address and couple of Google Maps maneuverings later, I was knocking at a house in City Center, Durgapur. Uncle (I would interchangeably call him Uncle and Sir – it is that duality of identity again) came out. He had no idea who was at his door. So, I gave him my name. He thought for a while and asked “Bappa Biltu-r bondhu”? (he asked me if I was the same Rajib Roy that was his daughter’s and another common friend’s friend). Everything fell in place in his mind once I answered in the affirmative!

A couple of minutes later I got to see Auntie again. Age has crept up on both of them. But for both of them, the same old smile and hospitality and kindness has not left them. I stayed back for more time than I had planned. I was overwhelmed by their welcome as well felt extremely great to have seen them again. About 30 years later. I do not know about them but I absolutely had the best time of my life with them.

In fact, I missed them so much after leaving them that I made it a point to call them before boarding my flight to start my long journey back home. He asked me to Skype and email and phone whenever I could. I got to put that on my priority list when I get back home.

My best friend during middle and high school days was Avijit Bose. We have always kept up with each other and although geographically we kept getting separated – till we could not be separated any further – he is in Australia and I in US – we could not get ourselves even in the same hemisphere latitudinally or longitudinally – he is still the friend that I talk to most.

We became best friends primarily because we were nothing like each other. He was a funny, street smart person, I was socially awkward and frequently did not know how to end a joke. He was athletic. I was anything but. He wasn’t the biggest fan of math but loved biology and veered towards the medical line. I loved math and therefore never understood a subject like biology where apparently division means multiplication and consequently went the engineering route.

But we spent a lot of time together. And in each other’s house. My parents were particularly fond of Avijit. As was his parents of me. I was always a special guest at his house. Which left me in the precarious position of having to balance their trust in me and also supporting my best friend in all his mischievous misadventures that his parents would surely frown upon if they got to know of them. And that was the other difference between us – he was the mischievous one and I was the goody goody boy then!! (Not any more 🙂 )

I have a lot of memories that go back to those days about his mom and dad. His dad let me accompany him on the stage at a flute concert once (he was an accomplished flutist). His mom would make special snacks for me. She would even bribe me to see if I would spill the beans of any girls in his life. I would feign total innocence. It worked well with the goody goody boy image 🙂

His mom once took me to visit her sisters and her brother about 150 km away from where we lived. I continued to keep in touch with those relatives of Avijit for many years after that. Even when we were geographically separated, I used to write letters religiously to both him and his mom.

Over the years though it became more and more infrequent to see her. I would get updates but would see her less so. The wake up call came for me when, a few months back, I heard about Avijit’s dad passing away. You have no idea how much I have kicked myself for not getting to see him once before he died or even for that matter, simply calling him up. He would always encourage me to study hard and thanked me for being a good influence on his son (I never claimed it, but he thought so).

Anyways, I had told Avijit this year that I will be going to see his mom. And there I was today – after fighting the terrible crowd of Kolkata suburbs for two and a half hours just to navigate about 40 miles. She was certainly frail of health. She recently had a nasty fall and her locomotion is severely compromised. Add to that a host of other physical ailments. But you have to give it to her in terms of mental courage and strength. She refuses to accept help – does everything herself as much as she can and I never saw once losing that beautiful smile I remember her for.

It was bliss to sit with her and just be that middle school boy again! I have to go back and spend more time with her again soon!!!