Category: Miscelleneous

Let me start this blog by wishing all of you a very Happy Puja.
I had not visited this page for quite some time now. Neither have I posted any reflections also for quite some time. But as one of the founding members of the alumni association and as the current secretary, I thought it was time that I went on record with an attempt to provide a semblance of sense to the aspirations zipping across the electronic space and the dejection at the Baranagar addas. 
The positives first: We must realize that this association started with the school calling its alumni in to celebrate its 50 years. And on that fateful day a few from across the batches came together and decided to form this association. Since that day to the present we do not even have a permanent office. (With Gopeswar da offering a room, this problem may just become a part of history though). So the meetings were held at Surojit da’s office at the ESI Hospital, with Debansu and I brainstorming and setting tasks over mails and Debansu, Binoy and Pradip with Dibakar delivering the goods at the ground level. And Indranil Sen providing his academic inputs and holding us together with his strict stance over issues. Subsequently, with Surojit da’s transfer, Binoy’s house has catered to our needs.
Folks, we must understand that if the alma mater shows constant reluctance to accept its alumni, it becomes difficult for the association to generate a source for its sustenance. In no enlightened institution would one find such an attitude. E.g. St Xavier’s, South Point, IITs, IIms. You name it and they have it.
Unfortunately, however, the same cannot be said about our alma mater. It is a shame. But then if the institution concerned refuses to leverage the skill of its alumni to move forward, it cannot be helped.
But irrespective of the constraint we have moved on. Gathering funds to honour our past teachers, and current successes. A reunion every year and finding new glories from the alumni and to bring them into our network has been our sustenance. But it has not been easy.
But what next? That is a point that bothers me. It is not good for any organisation/association to depend on one single source for a specific activity. It infuses boredom. It forces a recurrence of of same ideas. But as of now, there seems to be no one willing to take up the cudgel of carrying the activities forward.
As for Amit’s appreciation of Debansu’s effort I have an agreement and a disagreement. Folks, for any organisation raising funds is a major issue. Though there are people in the association itself whose generosity would definitely see us through these tough times, we have yet to get any positive response from them.
Amit and rest of the folks should know that barring a few there has not been any substantive response to funds regeneration. So much for the philanthropy.
However, reading this least one gets a negative impression I must hasten to add that I am writing this to give you an idea about the ground level constraints that we work with.
An association of this nature can only survive and prosper, if all of us put our efforts in. Everywhere else, there are people to push others into action. But there has to be actions. There are unfinished agenda. Like funding a few students, standing by our gurus in their times of need. These agenda have to be operationalised by institutionalising them. It is a big ask because there are a few willing souls. It would have been nothing had the soul been willing. But let us not despair. I am sure we would succeed through dispassionate introspection and incremental growth as we have witnessed since the birth of this association. A faster growth would have pleased us all. And that really is the issue.
Regards.
Suparna Pathak  

I’m posting this from my browser plugin named SribeFire. This is an important test of our website’s ease of updation. Usually site updation means :

• Login to the site
• Add a page
• Publish it

Now in scribefire I have just configured it with my username and password. I’m writing this inside my Firefox browser and just clicking Publish to
“Baranagar Narandranath Vidyamandir Alumni Association” .

I would suggest all the lazy souls to give it a try so that posting in our site is not blocked your ……………………….

Thanks all for responding to our call to help the cyclone Aila victims. I’m attaching a photo ( Once again taken from a device not meant for taking photos primarily ! ) of Dhrubada ( Dr. Dhrubajyoti Roy ) handing over our contribution of Rs. 20000/- to Bharat Sebashram Sangha. I shall attach more details later to this post since I lack info on date of hand over etc.

The state of West Bengal was badly hit by cyclone Aila on 24th and 25th May 2009. Devastations are massive. An estimated 40 lakh people have lost their homes. I don’t have the exact figure of death and other indirect losses. Humanity in the southern bengal region is in crisis. At this situation we, as an organisation of the state, can’t sit idle – ( thats what my instinct says ) .In view of the magnitude of the disaster the alumni association has decided to donate Rs 20000/- to Bharat Sevashram. In order to help the association stay engaged in such activities please donate to the association’s fund whatever amount that might consider appropriate. Those who are in Kolkata and close to the EC members of the association please contact Surajitda / Suparnada / Binoyda / Indranilda / Pradipda etc. directly. Those who are remote like me please transfer your donation to the associations bank account . The details of the same is :

In favour of Baranagar Narendranath Vidyamandir Alumni Association
State Bank of India , Cossipore Branch
S/B AC No. 10774585290
IFSC Code : SBIN0002043

Once you have completed a successful transfer electronically, please update this post by commenting with your amount of transfer, date of transfer and transaction code ( if any ) . It will be easier for Dibakar to issue receipts of the contributions. Please remember at this point this donations are not tax rebatable since we as association have not yet received such a rebate tag.

-debansu

Its an unusual one. Ranjanda ( Ranjan Basu ) and his wife Tukundi drove me through 85 , 101 ( yeah these are the names of expressways there ) on the Santa Clara hills to see the Pacific . It was a bad day when cloud and rain played with us and we prayed for Sun. We discussed what could be done from the associations’ forum. Ranjanda was explaining his ideas on projects supporting students where they can be trained in areas of knowledge required by overseas Industry. He expressed his desire of providing active help on such projects as he learned all these skills from scratch during his struggle for existence when he landed in the U.S. with only under $ 100 bill in his pocket .

Attaching some of our moments here. We two –

Tukundi got us together

Here is the person –

And me now

Kestobabu and Subirbabu were partners. One in the first left room once you enter the school and the other in the adjacent room before the laboratory collapsible gate. They were Headmaster and Asst. Headmaster of our great school for a long period, almost the entire time I was in secondary. They managed the school in turbulent days. I really don’t understand why I used to run away and get into my class room with the very sight of any of them. None of them ever even scolded me. We lost Subirbabu sometime back. The alumni association did not get any chance to felicitate him before he passed away. I posted the other bad news too in my previous update to the site. But we did not miss to honour him this time. The association felicitated Krishna Chandra Chakraborti ( popularly known as Kestobabu ) in its last reunion on 14th Sept. 2008. He could not make it to the the reunion venue due to his prolonged illness. Jogajibanda went with our small memento to his residence and handed him over the mark of our deep regards. We have two snaps of the occassion from Jogagibanda’s phone camera. Those are not the best works of Jogada I should say. But it captures the moments. So thanks Jogada for mailing those snaps – otherwise we would have lost the moment too ….

another

I don’t have enough information to write an obituary on him. As far as I know, he was born in Kolakopa ( presently in Bangladesh ) and was a scholar from his childhood. He got Calcutta University gold medal in Education. He was not a left hander but I was just inspired when he drew the outline of map of India with his left hand in just about 30 secs. I was in class VI then I remember not flapping my eyelids for sometime. When it was needed in class X , I practiced to finish it in 40 secs though with my right hand of course .

দেবাংশু যে এই কাজটা করে ফেলতে পারবে এবং তা এত তাড়াতাড়ি তা ভাবতেই পারেনি। এটা বেশ ভাল হয়েছে। কিন্তু আমাদের বন্ধুদের সবাইকে এটা জানাতে হবে, তাই না? ফলে কাউকে একটা manual লিখে ফেলতে হবে। How to do it – এই লাইনে। এবং এটাও দেবাংশু তোকেই করতে হবে।
সুপর্ণদা

আমি বাংলা হরফ পরীক্খা করে দেখছি ।

After a very short burst of activities, the site is now suffering a very strange bout of silence. I guess the events within the state and outside in India and then ofcourse the global disaster may have contributed to the prevailing pall. How I wish that we could all sit down on a Puja day in the school and turn nostalgic while renewing bonds with the friends. But then we cannot realise all our wishes. Can we?
Enjoy your Puja and come back to share your experience with us. A very happy Puja to all of you.
Suparna Pathak

The Sundays aren’t really that good these days. You have the kid’s issues to settle. Then she wants you to vaccuum the books that you keep buying with the hope that you would get to read them some day. And instead of reading them, you end up ruining your holidays by cursing your ill-found aspirations! And one Sunday in a year you curse more because you have the reunion to go to. Or was it my eagerness to reach Jamuna Bhavan that made everything else so redundant!
Perhaps. But the point is I did everything required of a good husband, good father and a good son. So everybody was happy. The next clever thing I did was to ring up Surojitda and ganged up with him for the 25 km drive from home to Jamuna Bhavan — the venue for the reunion.
September 14, 2008, would go down the history of the association for many firsts. Let us start with the first first. In 1965, Hiren Sinharay stood first in HS from our school. He was the first first. Till the 12th of this month he was just a statistics that I had promised my elders I would get in touch with.
Gopeswar da was after me. “Find him.” My entire journalistic skill was on the verge of being questioned. So I said,”Enough. If this guy is someone that everyone is claiming to be, the net would throw something up about him.” But the search drew a blank. Little did I realise that it was my lack of application. I was not spelling his name right!
It was August. I was talking to my kid sister in Germany. She is a big time potential and an engineer manager. We were on skype. I asked her whether she had heard about someone called Hiren Singha Roy in the banking cirle. She asked me to look him up in Linkedin. I said,”Hey, he ought to be there, if he is what the others are claiming him to be.” And he was there. Hiren Sinharay! Ooops! So I wrote a mail to the effect that “if you are the one, please get back.” Every single minute from then on was straight out of the pages of a suspense thriller.
And then the blackberry groaned. The inbox had a star. Hussh! Here he was. Hiren babu. Within 3 days he was Hirenda. He was coming to Cal on 7th. Yeeeeeeeees. 14th our reunion. Sadly, sadly he would be leaving on the 14th. Can we meet? Oh, please can we meet? Yes. Shall we decide on the date later?
I heard his voice about 9th. Untinted by any strain of living away from home for such a long time, his clear crisp yet affectionately firm tone took me by surprise. And then a few days later we met him at a city club. Handsome by any definintion. Straight and emotional. And still very much an alumnus of the school.
I will leave Hirenda here and get back to the second ‘first’. Our original intention of felicitating our teachers, who made us what we are today, could at long last be implemented. We started with Ramadi and Kesto babu. Ramadi came with her grandson who clicked away as a member of the audience while his grandma sat on the dais absorbing an emotionally surcharged environment.
When Indranil gave her the mike, she just could not speak. And us? We did have a big catch in our throats. Kestobabu could not come. Jogajibanda went to his place the next day and gave him the mementoes. Folks, we will have to wait for the pictures from Jogajibanda.
We have also enlarged the spectrum of prizes to felicitate the students who have done well in the HS and madhyamik. And at long last we have been able to progress towards funding the cost of study of a few deserving students of our school. The modalities are being worked out by a committee consisting of ex-teachers and executive committee members who in their professional life are also teachers. They would first draw up the norm for selection. Their recommendation in this regard would be binding on us. Unless ofcourse the executive committee in conjunction with the empowered committee wish to elaborate or improve on the body of recos.
Well as the curtain came down on the formal programme and the entire group dispersed to the lawn for the revelry, Narayan da came over. He wanted to have his friend Hiren’s address and contact nos. So I rang up Hirenda and caught him on his way back home from the airport in London! Well, folks, reunion is about emotions and there was no dearth of it at Jamuna Bhavan. But then I have no way of showing you the pictures, as I had, like I said, left home in a hurry and the price was the forgotten camera!
Suparna Pathak