They were our neighbours. And he, my batchmate.
Sumit Bagchi used to stay just a few blocks away. His mother, having lost her husband, was worried about her youngest. I was in college then. And she had this idea that somehow I might be the one to help her out. I became private tutor to Sumit’s kid brother.
Time flew. Life’s demands started turning tougher. And a short span of time later I had to quit my responsibility of tutoring him. The pressure of life’s demands started mounting. We left the locality and moved to South Calcutta. Old memories have this habit of giving way to the more recent ones. And Baranagar, my incubator of what I am today, became a distinct blur.
And then a couple of days ago the alert flashed. There was a scrapbook entry on my Orkut space. One Subroto Bagchi wanted to know whether I could recognise him. NO. So he jogged my memory. And how! He was Sumit’s kid brother! The little kid who was my student travelled three decades to stare at me with a beard from the screen! He told me how I happened to have been the first in his life to have gifted him a book! A HaJa Ba Ra La! Trust me I had forgotten all of it! And now he holds a Ph.D.! The guy says that the degree was just a natural culmination of a process!
Folks, if you ask me what present would I expect on Saraswati Puja? I would say more and more of him from our school!
He has already searched our site. He wants it to be simpler. But then that is a different though a relevant issue.
Suparna Pathak
So our efforts to network people through Internet is working slowly. I would much like to have our scrape book like comments against posts work. Sumit could please put your comments here too. I know you have the information of this post by now and you are registered to the site too.
Oh dear! My search for Suparnada is on public domain. Yes we lost our father before my third birthday. Believe me if my mother had not got the job both of us (meaning me and my dada Sumit) could have been child labourers. In fact my Ph.D. dissertation is on child labour situation in Kolkata. A small tribute to my could be situation. I ended up as a college teacher (believe me, it is a boring job) and my dada is now a government employee. Its all due to my mother’s untiring effort.
Guys though I get very little time after my boring job I would like to be associated with alumni and do something for my school. This is despite the fact that I think during our last days the standard of the school deteriorated unexpectedly possibly due to internal squabbles among the teachers which was very frustrating for me.
Trust me, these are things that make the bond more intense. It is important to share such life events as they create inspiratons and strengthen our values.
I wish our expat fellow alumni would take greater interest in the site.