It was last Thursday. My brother and I had already been on the road for about nine hours. We had visited an uncle of mine who has lost his power of speech, a couple of friends and their parents (you have read about them before) and dropped a fountain pen for a teenager son of a classmate of mine (I had promised him this when I had found out that he loves fountain pens just like I do). Amidst all this, we had to deal with my brother’s car misbehaving. But before heading back to dad and mom in Kalyani, we had one last (sixth, if you are counting) intersection point left for the day.

About a couple of years back, I had dug up Debasish Chakraborty from my school days. You might vaguely remember he, my brother and I sitting down by the street side right outside his office in Salt Lake in Kolkata and catching up on each other’s life over a couple of glasses of tea from the stall on the street. Eventually, I became Facebook friends with his wife Baishali and his twin daughters Tupur and Tapur (Debatri and Bijetri – although I am sure I have gotten the sequence wrong 🙂 ).

Other than the Knowers in Atlanta, I think that is the only family where all the family members are my FB friends. Tupur and Tapur are almost always guaranteed to try my puzzles and more often than not crack them. And they would sometimes send me math or physics problems that they or their school teacher might have gotten stuck with. If my memory serves me right, I had solved each one of them for them and their teacher except one. Which, nobody knows the answer of. (I am positive the question was not correctly framed).

In any case, all thru these days, I had never managed to make some time to visit them physically. Not anymore! I did show up – pretty late though – that evening at their house. Spent quite some time with the twins and Baishali and Debasish. The twins are amazing. It is like they think exactly the same way. They were even finishing off each other’s sentences 🙂

There was something very unique about this visit. As far as I can remember – and I am 99% sure of this – this is the first time I had a drink (of the alcohol variety) at any friend’s house in India. Most of the times, I meet my friends outside their home – unless I am visiting their parents too. In which case, not a chance of having alcohol (you might remember how I have wine at my own parents’ home 🙂 ).

This was an exception though. We had to toast to the outstanding (and almost identical) results the twins had achieved in the just announced ICSE exams!!! Cheers to that!!!

No trip to Durgapur, however short it might be, is ever complete without saying Hi to my long time friend Baisakhi and her family. In the whirlwind trip to Durgapur this time which was mostly to visit four sets of folks in seven waking up hours, I was able to squeeze in about half an hour or so to check on her family. I did show up very early at her house – dragging her husband out of his peaceful slumber on a Sunday morning 🙂

Like every time, quite some time was spent with her son Kintu. We talked about his latest toys – he is a fanatic when it comes to cars and just about any vehicles. He gave me a demo of a car pound as you can see in the picture. The chat with Baisakhi and Sagar was the usual. Mostly about work, family, friends and the terrible heat wave in India.

Long after I had left their home – as we were speeding down Durgapur Highway to Kolkata, I received a Whatsapp message from Baisakhi’s phone. It was actually from her son – you can see the message in the picture.

I don’t recollect exactly when but when he was very young, during my trips to Baisakhi’s house, I used to teach him new, silly stuff – you know like fist bumping, high fiving and such. Somewhere, it became a tradition for us – we would high five each other during every visit of mine. There was nothing particular to celebrate really – just high fiving for high fiving’s sake.

And this time, it completely slipped my mind 🙁 The message from him says “Rajib uncle, I forgot to high five you this time”!

I was absolutely thrilled to get the message. I realized how important that small gesture is to him. Someday, when he becomes as old as I, he will probably remember me as the “high five uncle” 🙂 But I also felt terribly guilty that as an adult I failed him on remembering our tradition. That was my job – not his 🙁

I will have to re-visit him soon…

I waited gingerly after ringing the bell, not knowing what to expect. I was starting to get tired too. This was my fourth stop in a whirlwind 12 hour trip to create as many intersection points as I could that day before going back to dad. Usually my intersection points are about re-uniting with somebody from the long past or meeting complete strangers on the road. This one was a little different. I went to meet them. But I had never met them before. All that had happened was (you can read it here: http://www.rajibroy.com/?p=8180 ) when I met Sudeshna (again for the first time in my life – although we found out she was my sister’s classmate) in Houston, we realized that her parents used to live next door to my in laws. When she called her parents up in front of me, I took the phone away from her and talked to her mom to find out exactly which house they used to live in. And in the process, I promised her mom that I would come by and meet her next time I was in Kolkata.

Eventually, auntie (Sudeshna’s mom) opened the door. I started explaining myself
“Amakey chinben na. Amar naam Rajib Roy”. (‘You won’t know me. My name is Rajib Roy’)
“Rajib to? Na chenar ki aachhey? Ei sedin to katha holo”, she put me at ease. (‘Rajib, right? Why would I not know? We talked just the other day’).

That was all I needed to feel welcome. I opened my shoes and and went straight to the big sofa in the living room. Uncle came out and after the initial pleasantries, drew up a chair very close to me and said “Ami kaaney kom shuni. Tomar khub kaachhey esey boschhi”. (‘I am little hard of hearing. If you don’t mind, I will sit very close to you to talk to you’). There was a very genuine level of sincerity and eagerness to chat that came thru immediately.

And chat we did for forty five minutes about our times in Durgapur, their visits to US, life in US, their daily routine in Kolkata and all things sundry.

Forty five minutes later, I got up to take leave. “Bongo sommelon-e aaschho to?”, asked auntie. I was a little startled. First, as a background, “Bongo sommelon” is the largest gathering of Bengali diaspora in US and Canada. Any Bengali worth his or her bite of Hilsa fish makes a beeline to this event (I am not sure of the frequency – every year? other year?) from North America. With their resplendent clothes and glittering jewelry in tow!

Turns out they will be visiting U.S. (Houston) soon and was enquiring if I would be at Bongo Sommelon (which is in Houston this year in July) like them. Disappointment was writ large on her face when she realized that I have never been to any Bongo Sommelon and that I am not in a hurry to change that trend 🙂 I am hoping against hopes that she is not going to hold that against me from now on 🙂