Halder Jyethu

The opposite house in Agartala is Halder Jyethu's (Jyethu- someone whom my baba calls as dada - elder). He is actually my jyathamoni's (my baba's real elder brother) classmate. Both jyathamani and Halder Jyethu, whenever they meet will talk about the older school days. They'll recall some Kalu Mia who shifted to Bangladesh after partition. Also how good a football player was Kalu, they'll share. So I had come to know about their few childhood incidences also.
Though Halder Jyethu is jyathamani's classmate, he used to come to my baba more often and speak about so many things.
He is a wonderful orator. He can create the space wonderfully. Once I sit with them, I was not able to come out of it. Another beautiful thing about my parents is that they never said no to join their discussion. So I would what is happening in whose family and life.
Also Halder Jyethu would repeat the stories or incidences and till it would sound fresh every time.
He was having a knack of reading books and listening to Indian classical music. I got the habit of listening classical music after he told so many instances of great Indian artists like Bismillah Khan,Ravi Shankar ...
I remember how excited he used to get when he talked about Paluskar's movie songs -it was from a all time memorable Bengali movie.
He was very fond of the books by Swami Vivekananda. I remember once he shared about a message by Swami Vivekananda " The opposites have same reaction". The example put by Swamiji was that when there is no sun we cant see anything. Also when we see at the sun we can't see anything.
So I've a thought inside me - is it then correct that the two extremes in the number line plus infinity and minus infinity also produce the same effect. And it actually means that the two ends of the straight line is actually meeting at some point and thus the straight line is a part of a circle ! May be I'll die with this theory unable to prove, and next life I'll come to establish this idea. ( So does it mean that I believe in reincarnation? Nope. I got a strong message from Maharshi Raman - reincarnation is possible if there is life and death. If there is no life and death how can reincarnation possible)
Another time Halder Jyethu was talking about Syed Mustafa Siraj ( I don't know whether the spelling is correct, I know the Bengali correct spelling!). He is most probably one of the best human being born in the earth. He lived his life the way he wanted. And the novels written by him too good. You need to read to understand how humorous one can be.

Whenever I go to Agartala, I meet him. Ask about his health. He's now fallen sick with the diseases from old age.
Even then it's fun sitting and talking with him.

Me and Agartala

A request came from my wife to write something on myself.
I've started to write but don't have any concrete idea what I need to put down. Let me write something that comes up.
I've grown up in a very small place called Agartala (most of the people will ask me whether is from South India and I need to reply that it's actually from Tripura, a small state in North east. And then they'll say “Oh, I see. This is from Assam". Again I need to tell them nope, this is another independent state. I think their first guess of South India is from my complexion. They know their guess will work.) Anyway, I always was hesitant to say to people about Agartala as they don't even know the name of such small place. But in any case I'd tell them. Also I'll mention that I need to fly from Calcutta (at that time it was not renamed as Kolkata) and that would give an extra privilege. Most of my friends never flied in their life till that time. They'd travel by train only.
I remember that once my father was coming back from Delhi after his NCERT conference and when he was coming out of rickshaw, I thought that my life will really be great if I can go to Delhi at least once.
The most entertaining sports for me was playing marble. At that time whoever will be available in that gali (the area), we'll play as a group. I remember it used to start from 7 o'clock n the morning and go till 6pm till the sun was there. After dark we're not allowed to be out of our home. And this was a big complaint that I was grumble, all my friends are there out of their home till 9pm and we're the one not allowed.
By 7pm we'll finish our dinner. Kiran was our maid-servant. She used to take care of us, me and my elder brother. So once the rice was cooked, we'd go to her and finish our dinner. I can still remember that at 7.30pm "Dhrubojyoti Mukherji" would start reading the Bengali news and we'd finish our dinner and ready to go to sleep.
We had played all kinds of games in Bijoy Kumar School. All of us (almost 20-25 people from our chowmuhani) will assemble there and start playing our games. It could be cricket, football or volley ball or chor-police or ....
Dadu would be there sitting in his chair and see around if any one of us is passing by - he'd call me whenever I pass his house. He used to give me coconuts from his trees. And I would ask for "jambura", it was tough to get this. If we touched his bamboo made wall around his house, he'd shout "gelo amar tatti bera" (the bamboos will break).
Also I remember that we'd come to meet in the road side at 10.30 in the morning and 4.30 in the evening - the girls' school would start and end at that time. So all of us would be there to see the pretty faces.
The elderly people would also come there to join us and generously distribute their knowledge, although none of us would be interested to catch even a single word from that speech.
How can I forget the carom - it's the crazy game that you can even think of. Once we start we'll never leave the board - we'd play 5-6 hours non-stop. In this connection I remember one person called "Rankhal" - he was a poor chap and was very talented. He was angry too. People were scared of him as he used to get very angry, at any time. But he was very friendly to me. We'd play a lot of carom in the "KBC" club room. Once I reached home from my engineering college, I saw people playing a memorial cricket tournament. When I asked I was told that it was in the memory of Rankhal as he was dead. I can still see his face.
He went with us to Teliamura for a cricket match and was caught in the third man area. He was very upset that if would have put a bit more effort, it could have gone for a six.
When I look behind today, I can see what a lovely childhood period I had. I can't provide that to our son. I really miss that. And today I'm no more ashamed to Agartala, infact proud that I came from such a lovely place.
So many things to share - may be some other day.

Evening Party

Hmmm, an evening party. Last Monday,14th April.
We three people met at Andheri and started our drive to reach the party hall near Grant road. Kashyap was guiding the route as I never went to that area before (Also I run the fear always that I will get lost when I am driving).It was actually nice drive with less traffic as this was a holiday being Ambedkar Jayanti for many of the office goers .
In between I got a call from my wife and I asked Rita to pick the call, but she said that Kashyap can take the call as she is very careful about taking the calls, particularly from anyone's wife.
We enjoyed her statement.
When we reached there, I told Kashyap that it's a veg restaurant. He also got upset along with me. Veg Party ! Not a good idea. When we reached the party hall , the host was there with the DJ and other people setting up the room.
Then it started - drinks and music and dance. People were enjoying every bit of it.
I also joined them in the dance floor. I got the sense that though I was there with everyone, I was feeling more and more disconnected with people coming and joining the dance floor.And the intuition came to me is that most probably the other people were also feeling that, they were dancing more and showed that they're happy to be there.(This is simply my conversation, no truth behind it!).
One time came that the music was at its peak and I did not feel like dancing any more. So I sat in the sofaset and felt like meditating.
The surprise was that as I was meditating, the loud sound of the music and everything happening there did not bother me any more. I was connected back to myself. After the meditation I was once again grounded. And the internal conversation was no more there. I was watching people dancing. Another surprising thing came up - I was neither overwhelmed nor disturbed by the surroundings. I was just there, being myself.
I started having my food when I felt having it. Infact I enjoyed the raita and fruit salad the most.
And when I was eating the ice-cream I was asking myself why I'm having this as I was not even enjoying it, though a good one - but it did not give me any sense of satisfaction.
It ended at midnight. So we dropped Jigisha first at a nearby place. Then traveled back to our place dropping back Durgest at Malad, Rita at Borivali and Kashyap at his complex gate. Last but not the least, I got down at around 1.00pm.
I was surprised to see my wife awake at that wee hours for me. I could see the commitment she has in my life.