More about me and father.

Addendum : More about me and father. ----- by Dr. Bibhash Chakravorty. I was a cricket all rounder and remember playing the game often with my Cornfield neighbors and friends Bappai, Partha, Bani, Bablu, Santu and Biplab. I used to love the game and was first introduced to it by Sir Gary Sober's illustrated book on cricket called ' Cricket Advance ' which I have still kept as a treasure ! We also practised the game in our College with Deus ball ! I recall participating in an all India ( Bengal, Bihar and Orissa ) intermedical college cricket tournament as an opener batsman held at NRS Medical College cricket ground. I didn't perform well though I remember a straight lofted shot over the bowler's head for a boundary ! Saumitra scored a gallant 65 runs. However we lost the match to Orissa ! But our cheerleaders during the match were our college girl friends who provided enough inspiration to carry on with the game and keep a very positive attitude and sportsmanship spirit ! I can still remember Meenakshi, Rosy, Pritha and Sunita and Rosina too ! It was with Saumitra 's newly bought cricket bat that we reaped the harvest of excellent strokes during our practice. I also remember playing cricket against the senior alumni of our college on our reunion days at Presidency College ground. My friend Bablu's mother at Cornfield Rd. was always complaining about our mischievous behaviour to our parents. Once I decided to teach Bablu a lesson ! With my father's Remington typewriter with which he often typed official papers, I typed a letter addressed to Bablu's family with a hint of kidnapping him lest the ransom money is not paid ! I dropped the letter surreptitiously inside Bablu's letter box ! Obviously the letter did not carry any name. The next day while we were playing cricket we saw Bablu and his family going out somewhere in a Taxi. When we curiously enquired where they were going, Bablu's mother exclaimed, my son is being kidnapped, we are leaving for our hometown in Bihar !!! You can jollywell understand our mischievous mirth, ho, ho, ho !!! It was with Partha that I went to Kathmandu in 1979 after my secondary Madhyamik exam. I remember taking Rs. 500 from my father for the journey. I recall tasting American Chopsui in Kathmandu for the first time. We went by train to Muzaffarpur and then to Birganj and Kathmandu by bus through the winding mountain roads.We visited the Casino at Kathmandu for the first time but only saw the Pashupatinath temple from outside ! Once after marriage I went to Mukteswar alone to join a NGO. You could see a beautiful 180 degree Himalayan Mountain range from top of the mountain there. I had written a letter to Swami Lokeswarananda offering me to join their organisation as a doctor preferably in hilly areas at a paltry salary of Rs. 2500 but didn't get back any reply from him. Now I feel what happens, it happens for good ! This was after my marriage and when my daughter was 3 months old. I remember Animesh my college friend seeing me off at the railway station. At Mukteswar I remember a sadhu known as Bangali Baba offering me tea when I met him at the top of the Mountain. He was observing the ritual of silence then ! Everybody thinks I am very studious whereas I was just the opposite. Throughout my childhood and also at Medical College too I used to play games both indoors and outdoors, spending quality time with my friends and doing mischievous things more than study. However I used to read many books kept in my father's book rack. This included Perry Mason, James Bond, Robinson Crusoe, Robin hood, Oscar Wilde ( especially the picture of Dorian Gray ) and some classics, Earnest Hemingway especially the old man and the sea and many other books from our Ballygunje Institute library including famous five series by Enid Blyton, Sherlock Holmes, Mopassant, Alistair MacLean and Agatha Christie ! Not to mention comics on Tintin, Asterisk and Obelisk, Phantom, Mandrake and Lothar, Bantul the great, Tarzan, Archies etc. I was a science fiction fan having read many books by Issac Assimov, especially the end of eternity and the foundation series, Arthur C. Clarke and many others. I used to go through the magazines Science Today and Reader's digest which father used to subscribe and the Statesman newspaper. Books and articles on Astrophysics and Astronomy fascinated me especially by John Gribbin ( British popular science writer ) and Stephen Hawking especially, The brief history of time, A life in Science --- his autobiography and Steven Weinberg the Nobel laureate in physics, especially The first three minutes, which Sudhanya da our College senior and now Associate Consultant in Gynaecology and Obstetrics at EEDF first let me read. Sudhanya da by the way has a very in-depth knowledge in Cosmology apart from many other subjects. I remember reading with intense interest, How a star is made, an article in Reader's digest, lying in our small bedroom at Cornfield Rd beside father probably in class 7 or 8. Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason made me love courtroom drama, even now ! I had posted an article in Facebook a few years ago regarding Sir CV Raman and his nephew Subramanyam Chandrasekhar, both Nobel laureates in physics and astrophysics, named, Making India Proud ! Needless to say I used to devour Satyajit Ray's Feluda series and Professor Shanku and his many other books including the Penguin translation of few of his books in English ! Infact come to think of it there were many similarities of character between father and Satyajit Ray ! The books, Bharater Sadhak and Ami Subhas Balchi used to make me emotional ! My uncle Dilu mamu ( about whom I have mentioned in my post, About my father. ) first urged me to write like my father. However I started writing from the day after I cremated my wife 29.08.2009,. Before this I had translated some spiritual poems and had written a few articles on Cosmology. When my wife was alive I used to note down my self realizations in my diary which my wife used to go through but she turned very angry if I told them to others. She loved me so much that she couldn't tolerate someone saying wrong behind my back. Infact I still remember her stopping all communication with one of her relatives for 5 long years, for them saying something against me. She had wanted her dead body to be cremated over Kali Ma's platform of funeral pyre at Keoratala cremation ground. I had tried my utmost to arrange that but didn't get the necessary permission. Then I had told her, My beloved, you will glow like Ravan's funeral pyre eternally in the sacred, guarded flame of my heart, never to extinguish and I consider this a much more holier place than Samsan Ma's platform !!! I recall refusing dowry before I married Madhurima and father patiently making me understand to let her father present her with whatever he wishes. I used to play chess at our College canteen mainly with Krishnendu even upto 9- 9.30 PM and defeat Sudip ( now a renowned Gynaecologist and Obstetrician ) at Table Tennis in our College. Infact Sudip happened to be the then Bengal junior champion in TT. Saumitra taught me to play Bridge at College. I also used to play poker and other card games with Abhijit. Once during our internship in Psychiatry, I had curiously exclaimed to my friends, then who is real mad ? I said this since Psychiatry did not define any madness. It defines many types of neurosis and psychosis and abnormal behavioural traits and phobias having specific names but not madness. Rather come to think of it madness is found in literature where it is often referred to in a not so derogatory sense, like, To create magic you need madness --- meaning incredible passion ! I remember asking Mejda ( Yogibar Sri Abanimohan Chattopadhyay --- Late ) grandson of Yogiraj Bisuddhananda Paramahansa, people are mad after money, women, lust, power, bricks and unholy qualities but why aren't they called mad ? He had replied, you are absolutely right son ! When we were completing internship we decided to print a souvenir where a brief comment and a photograph of each person of our 1981 Medical College batch would be published. I remember my photo with the following comment written below, Once he said, Ke Pagal meaning who is mad ? We really wonder who ! The name of the souvenir was IMAGE ! It must be lying somewhere at my home, I intend to find it back ! I remember Arif da ( Dr. Arif Ahmed ) our senior and a brilliant student inventing a very simple blood test for assessment of successful vagotomy in peptic ulcer patients just by measuring postprandial blood pH or the postprandial alkaline tide! His paper was published in the British Journal of Surgery when he was only a student or a housestaff !!! This is our great pride !!! Before this the assessment of successful vagotomy was a very cumbersome process ! This part of my remembrance is not only meant for my doctor friends but is also projected towards others as well because, devoid of the technicality it proves that it is the simple things in life that matters most and the take home message is simple living and high thinking which separates us from the ordinary ! The source of our pride and SELF pride happens to emanate from this TRUTH ! Long live Arif Da !!! Partha and I used to go to Esplanade every Sunday to watch movies at New empire, Lighthouse, Globe and Metro and Minerva, Elite and Tiger cinema halls etc. I remember being refused entry at New Empire to watch, Enter the dragon as it was an adult movie ! However I saw it later with my brother in the 75 paisa line, via the metal wire cage which everybody knows, from the topmost floor of New empire. My friend Sandip's dadu was an official at Metro cinema and I remember me, Sandip and Saumitra going to Nizam restaurant from our College and having beef kabab and parotha follwed by watching a free movie at Metro owing to Dadu. We were nicknamed 3 musketeers by our College friends. We stayed at Cornfield Rd. from 1970-71 to 1981, the year I passed Higher Secondary and also the year of my joining Medical College on 17th September 1981 from our S R Das road residence. I remember my friend Pinaki calling me up by phone and congratulate me on getting a chance at Medical College. So almost all my childhood neighbouring friends are from Cornfield Rd. I remember the deluge and the infamous flood of 1972 and 1978 at Cornfield Rd when my father's car kept in the garage below our mezzanine floor got entirely submerged in the flood water and I could touch the dirty water with my hands extended down from our mezzanine floor windows !!! I wouldn't like to recall any further events of this horrible peril except remembering sadhus of Bharat Sevasram Sangha distributing food and potable water to the terribly affected people by sailing in small boats !!! My brother had saved a drowning stray doggie at that time ! Cornfield Rd was a dangerous place then owing not only to the flood but also due to the open manholes through which some people had drowned ! We had a panncha shiber temple at Mamarbari and I recall Ananta da distributing gunjia prasad after worshipping Lord SHIVA !!! I still remember the unsavoury, bland mutton Prasad from the Kalighat temple without any spices or onions or garlic but cooked with turmeric only that Ananta da used to bring us ! An interesting anecdote : Father had kept a bottle of Chivas Regal whiskey presented by his patient inside his Almirah . Though he didn't take alcohol regularly I had seen him enjoying a bottle of beer with my chotomesho at our Cornfield Rd residence sometimes. Just for the sake of curiosity me and perhaps my brother too often used to take a sip from the Chivas Regal and then fill it up with water ! However father didn't suspect anything ! This chotomesho of mine about whom I had mentioned earlier in my post, About my father, had his own furnace at his house. in the ground floor where he used to manufacture metallic alloys for his business purposes. Once I was reading Ian Fleming's James Bond storybook Thunderball safely hiding it under the facade of a school study book and I was going through an interesting description of a female character ! Lo and behold, I suddenly heard my mother's angry voice who snatched the study book facade and slapped and thrashed me for this deception and also threatened me that she would complain this to father. However father didn't tell me anything. On the contrary he was rather nonchalant !! Once me and my College friends were returning home by train completing our tour of some place that I don't remember now. At some place I saw a mastan type/ thug, man entering the compartment and bully other passengers and even women too ! Having self respect from childhood I ventured to protest against this outrageous act, even knowing that the goonda was physically much stronger than me. When I was confronting him he suddenly kicked me in my chest and I fell on the laps of other passengers situated 4 feet away. I don't exactly remember what happened after this except my friends going out and requesting an army troop present inside the next compartment to help us out when the train reached a station ! That day I remember accusing the other passengers for their cowardice ! We the 3 musketeers, me, Sandip and Saumitra are bosom friends and still keep in close touch with each other. After the Durga Pujas me and my son accompany them to visit different tourist spots wholely sponsored by them ! They are my closest friends and the fact that they help me in various ways cannot be overemphasized !!! Once we went on a tour of Gangotri Gamukh and Kedarnath by train and then bus from Hrishikesh. At Gomukh we stayed at LAL Baba's ashram where his disciple Gopal da was preparing for a river journey down the Ganga. I recall Gopal da who happened to be a Bengali addressing me by my name, Hello Bibhash , while cooking food for the Ashram pilgrims including us. I remember walking through the boulders alone right up to the Gomukh, supposed to be the source of the Ganges and standing on the transparent glacier below which I could see Ganga flowing with ice hails falling from the top of the Gangotri glacier ! We had planned to visit Tapobon crossing over the snowy mountain glacier of Gangotri but for Sandip who backed off ! From Gangotri we went to Kedarnath. At Gourikund we took a comforting bath in a hotspring and then dined at a pice hotel ! Very early morning the next day we started our journey for Kedarnath via the winding mountain roads, walking , and each one of us carrying a wooden walking stick which was a very necessary tool while climbing up and down the mountains. I remember reaching Kedarnath first. We stayed in an Ashram which Sudip , had booked earlier. While sightseeing there we walked by the side of Mandakini river with me losing my goggles into the river. We also visited a cave called Brahmmagumfa where devata Brahmma supposed to have meditated ! Finally when we were coming down we visited the Kedarnath temple where I still remember praying Lord SHIVA for granting me some virtues ! The stone which symbolises Lord SHIVA here was supposed to be created when the Lord was running away from Bhim of Mahabharat in the form of a bull and entered the earth with his hump remaining outside just at the site of the stone symbolising HIS bull form ! At Hrishikesh I remember swimming and bathing in the rapids of the Ganga there along with my friends. I also recall crossing Lachmanjhola bridge over the Ganges at Hrishikesh afoot and buying various types of pickles there. Once we went to Phonselin and Sikkim via Jalpaiguri before my marriage along with my College friends and stayed over in my would be wife's home. Then it was a tiles and tin or asbestos roofed place where we four or five of us huggled together over a creaky bed under a heavy rug in the cold winter of Jalpaiguri. The same thing had happened at Lalbaba's ashram at Gomukh. I remember stepping the narrow, treacherous mountain roads to Lalbaba's Ashram at Gomukh with Ganga seeming like a small tortuous stream from the dizzy heights of the canyons on both sides of the Ganges !! At that time my wife's extended family ( Akannabarti paribar ) could not afford to make available a single whole egg for each of their children including Madhurima. At that time they couldn't afford shampoo and Madhurima used Nirma washing powder instead of shampoo to wash her hair clean !!! However I have seen aristocracy, pride, in-depth education, modesty, humility and faith in this family ! I came to know after my marriage that father who approved my brother's marriage to Madhurima's elder sister Kumkum, now my Boudi ( sister in law ) of course, had also personally selected Madhurima as my would be wife at the very time he selected my Boudi by saying to their family, I will be taking your yonger daughter ! Notwithstanding the fact that my wife's family being an educated and perhaps not so well to do as far as money was concerned, it is interesting to know that Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee the tiger of Bengal was not a very distant relation of their's !!! He happens to be my wife's great grandfather's brother ! My wife's grandfather was a renowned criminal lawyer at East Dinajpur before Bengal partition and often used to roam the Himalayas by temporarily sacrificing his roaring practice, in search of peace. My father in law and his brothers were bank managers and lawyer. Mejda who was the lawyer was a philanthropic and often used to fight complementary cases. Madhurima's Barropishomasay as I mentioned earlier was an enlightened man whose book, Atmaupalabhdhir Katha , meaning the story of SELF REALISATION, which was published after his death in 1986 in a book fair in Calcutta, was almost singlehandedly instrumental in providing me the inspiration, NOT TO EXPERIMENT WITH TRUTH but TO CHALLENGE THE TRUTH !!! I consider Prabhat Kumar Bandhopadhyay the Barropishomasay as the greatest devotee of Lord Srikrishna !!! I still remember father operating on his obstructed groin hernia at Infirmary nursing home with me and my brother assisting before he succumbed to his oral cancer in 1986 ! During our stay at Jalpaiguri I got a chance to engage in romance with Madhurima. Later I remember visiting her Mamarbari at Bagdogra alone with many adoring Mamas, the centre of attention being Madhurima. I was too most welcome there! An amusing and mirthy story ; At that time I used to perform Jogasans at home. At Bagdogra I was trying to flaunt my skill ( I knew 9 varieties of Sirsasan and many more difficult asanas ) in front of Madhurima's maternal close relations when I farted while showing them Sirsasan !!! You can imagine my embarrassment when each and every one of my spectators bursted out laughing !!! I remember having romance with my fiance at Bagdogra and Siliguri as well. The head of the family at Bagdogra was Bunu, my wife's grandmother who was very fond of me and had approved me as her Natjamai ( grandson in law ). I still have a picture of Bunu with her sons which I had shot with my camera ! After Bunu's demise Khokon Mamu became the family's head representative Mr Sisir Ghoshal. Khokon Mamu was associated with jurisdiction and my wife's each and every Mama uncle loves me as much they loved her. I have seen the same pride and self respect in this family too though they are very well to do ! When I returned home from Kedarnath bringing my walking stick home too, I was overjoyed to see Madhurima whose family used to visit us at Calcutta at least once a year staying over Madhurima's eldest uncle, Jatha who had a rented flat in Gariahat and later made his own house at Survey Park, Santoshpur. He was a good man, my late father in law too and his brothers too. I was loved by everybody in this Joint family along with her Pishomasays and Pishimas ! Anyway I proposed to Madhurima after returning from Kedarnath, not for marriage which had been fixed by my father before I knew it, but letting her know gently and lovingly that I would like to love her and expect the same from her side and would very much like to hear from her soon through mutual letters. She smiled and nodded her head in acceptance. Then we along with her brother Badsha went to my personal room at SR Das road to play carram. We had moments of romance too here. Still I have with me some romantic pictures which I had shot by camera timer at Bagdogra ! Our Intense love affair was initiated at least from my side when my Boudi had shown me one of Madhurima's picture along with her brother Badsha or Sougata Mukherjee. But it actually started from the day I had returned from Kedarnath. I recall stealing this picture from my Boudi's photo album ! We loved each other for 4 long years before we got married. You will find our story in my post Smritir Srote mainly written in Bengali. I will be finishing soon after telling you a hilarious true story ! Once I took bet with my Boudi that I could show her enough courage to tell father that I would like to marry Madhurima ! All of you know that I used to address father as Apni meaning respected sir, and I gathered enough courage and faced my father, who was then reading some book in his bedroom lying on the bed, seriously. I told him Baba, I am facing difficulty concentrating on studies without Madhurima which was an exact truth that you can jolly well understand because our heads were in the clouds then. And I also added, you have to take care of us until I get some decent job ! Father didn't say anything but I could guess a faint smile of mirthy humour at the corner of his mouth ! I left the place as soon as I could and went to collect Rs 1000 as bet winning money from Boudi with a great sense of gallant achievement !!! That very evening I went to Lake Market telegraph office in order to convey my wish to marry Madhurima as soon as possible, to her father !!! You can understand why people call me a crazy lover !!! Ho, ho, ho ! We were finally tied in the holy knot of matrimony on 29th April 1988. I believe in the fact that a Man is not complete without loving a Woman ! Once Madhurima was suffering from pain abdomen and we went to a sonologist near Srikrishna nursing home. When he was checking my wife's tummy with his probe, he suddenly uttered addressing me, What you are searching for is inside you and your family !!! By the way my brother in law Badsha is a professional Rabindrasangeet singer who can sing other songs equally as good and a professional dancer too having learnt Odissi dancing from Guru Kelucharan Mahapatra who loved him very much. He also works in a NGO dealing with sex education. However I never used to indulge in anything where I didn't have a passion and which didn't give me satisfaction ! This is still true ! I would like to say that my children love me as much as I loved my father and I consider myself very lucky for this. Probably this proves the fact that the ocean returns back to the shore whatever is thrown into it ! Rudra 's friends call me Bapi meaning father ! I have realised that life is a blank page, you have to fill it up according to your own choice ! Amongst my children I love my doggie daughter Deejay most and I really don't know what would I do without her ! She has developed early cataract and now approaching 11 years a vulnerable age for her kind !!! She can empathise with me and silently conveys her affectionate love for me through her incredibly deep innocent eyes !!! We had brought her home as a 3 month old puppy ( a golden retriever pedigree doggie ) on a Paila Baishakh day on 15 th April 2007 when my wife was alive. I recall she went below our bed and was afraid to come near us until my wife coaxed her with a plate of milk ! Speaking of doggies I had delivered the babies of Liza and Jenny on our bed in the middle of night with my wife assisting me as a midwife. I had strictly followed the procedure aseptically as we do as doctors to human patients and even tied their umbilical cord with boiled and sterilised mersilk and cutting it with sterilised scissors. My wife used to feed the puppies Lactogen milk feeds with a Jhinuk after they sucked on their mother's teats ! Once our doggie pet Dino who used to play with me at night before I retired for sleeping, went to our terrace at Lake Range with my wife and had accidentally jumped over the terrace wall in order to catch a flying crow which was sitting on the wall and fell to the ground over a parked car. Our's is a G +4 building !!! She had still enough strength to come to our home in the first floor by climbing up the stairs only to pass away in my wailing lap when I hurried home from EEDF emergency where I used to work as an emergency Medical Officer sometime in 2002 or 2003, after having learnt about this sad, heartbreaking news from my wife !!! That day I had accused my wife for taking Dino to the terrace. Poor her, how could she have known ? Alas, that day I could not help but cry miserably holding the lifeless body of Dino in my lap ! She was my beloved daughter like Deejay !!! I would like to conclude this story by saying, " IF JESUS CHRIST CAN SAY --- FATHER ( referring to GOD ) YOU AND I ARE ONE THEN I TOO CAN SAY TO MY FATHER THAT HIM AND I ARE ONE !!! Below appears my parent's picture.