A moment from school

Yeah, this is a bit nostalgic post. When were leaving the school we took a group photo. I studied in a govt. school (Purulia Zilla School) where the focus was always only on studies, extracurricular activities were not encouraged much, it was mostly upon individual to pull out a good show. So there was no culture of photo session for the school leaving batch, but my batch was a trend setter one, hence we started this. Suryashankar was instrumental in taking this picture and all of us knew were going to treasure this pic forever. After we left the school, carrier came as priority and most of us had forgot about the photograph, its a long gone story when I remembered about the photo, my family had shifted from Purulia and I had lost all contacts with Surya. The photo remained permanently in my memory, suddenly after a gap of 11 yrs almost, I got a chance to find Surya and all thanks to orkut. The whole memory refreshed and I desperately wanted the pic, thankfully Surya too kept the pic intact, so he scanned and sent the pics to me. It was a treasure for me, so good to see all my friends. I was happy that I could recollect most of them. We had a pretty infamous batch in school but most of my friends, though were bit casual, still were very talented. When I tried to locate all of them I could find they are spread across all continents and every corner of our country, well done mates, we will meet again at the same stairs someday and feel proud about our batch of 1997, cheers….

Apologies for the poor quality of pic :)

from right bottom: Ritwik, Arijit,Subhajit, Debdutta, Apurba,Amartya, Shantanu,Ujjawal, -,Rupesh,Me,

2nd row: Indrashis, Tuhin, -,-,-,Ghochu(Indrajit), Arup, Atin,Panna, Subhajit2,-, Subhasis 3rd row: Subhra, Sushil, -,-,Amit,-,-,Debjyoti, Pushpendu, Anjan,-, Rudra, Surya, Rajib

Standing: Mukul and Sunil

Our teachers: From left: Gorapada Dey, Ashok Mishra, Debbrata Goswami

From right: Late Kamalesh Dutta, BaridBaran Mishra, Maniklala Das

The unidentified characters are mostly because of the poor image quality :)

Nostalgia

Our T-board gang is almost non-existent now. Guru was the last man standing and he left today. We had a big gang comprising of 12-13 people, with our fixed 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. T at the T board. I may not recall all the names but lets try, It was Shankara, Phanikumar, Sudhir, Phaniraj, Sarvavanan, Krishanu, Guru, Kottada, me, Basa, Ln(rao), Manas, I am sure I forgot few. Extreme weather or tremendous workload could not alter the schedule for a single day. Even during student’s symposium days we used to find 5 min for the T. I remember Shankara used to sleep for 2 min if the time at the clock wasn’t showing 2 p.m. sounds crazy right, that’s how grad students act. The discussion at the T-board used to be pretty much informal, and at times there used to be a technical discussion. Boy, I am sure that must be one rare opportunity to see the beautiful minds at their best. Honestly speaking there were much technical stuff which I picked up from these sessions, but interesting was gossips, they were really hilarious! I won’t divulge who used to crack what kind of joke but they were really some enjoyable moments. Change is the name of life and there is always something better happens all the time. I am sure this will give away opportunity for different people among us to come together and form a new fresh group. Renowned singer Manna Dey has a famous Bengali song on "coffee house"; I am trying to translate the last few lines:

“… Those seven chairs and the table are still there, even the cups are also not empty; new buds have come in the same garden only the old gardeners have disappeared…”

Best of luck mates we will share a cup of T again :-)

All smiles!!!

From left: Ln(rao) in Mcgill Univ Canada, Sahoo in Japan, Basa in Leuven, Belgium, Kotts in Karlshrue Germany, Saswata and Me right here, Guru will be in Northwestern USA, Sudhir is in Boulder USA.

The tree in the background has also disappeared from the T-Board

A place named Purulya

I grew up in Purulia. One of the most peaceful places I have ever seen. Irony is that whenever I mentioned to someone that I hail from Purulia, they immediately recognize the place, “oh! Where the arms dropping took place?” I am sure soon people will identify the place again, for wrong reaons: “Oh! Where there is lot of unrest because of Naxalites?” No. This is not Purulia, and the people who did or doing all these are also not from Purulia. I was born in a place where, nobody was aware of peace because they had never seen violence, but it was quite an isolated district in Bengal more because its late inclusion in the state. Although the district was lagging behind in terms of economy, education, food crop production, yet culturally is much ahead of the other districts in the state, and fortunately, partition couldn’t touch it. “Chhau” the dance is considered as one of the cultural symbol of not only of west Bengal but also in some cases India, but then like “kathakali” we did not have money to protect it, and it is difficult to practice culture when you earn a meager meal once a day! then there was “Tusu and Bhadu”. “Sankrnati” is celebrated as the harvesting festival in major part of India, Purulia is also not an exception, but there is “Tusu and Bhadu”. Crop harvest is very small in the district and that’s being one of the major causes for economic fall in this part. “Bhadu” is a festival of woman and they make nice structures like temples with colourfull papers. You will see a procession of woman singing songs, they are not written anywhere! People memorize it. I heard recently that there is an effort to have them in written form. So this is Purulia. In our childhood we knew more about “Pataliputra” than Calcutta.
Purulia is extremely politically impassive and religiously indifferent district. It has more than one third of villages staying below poverty line. Industries were opened and shutdown came sooner than expected, thanks to the unions which were very active in these cases. A perfect situation for exploited by the Maoist groups. The recent killings in Bundwan can not really justify any cause. Its good if someone comes ahead and fight for the people’s right, but violence can take it anywhere. I remember a place called Duarsini, near Bundwan we went for picnic when I was in school, now that place even armed men wont venture to go. Its valid for Kuilapal another beautiful landscape was developing as a tourist spot no longer a destination for tourists. A little more attention would have changed lot of things, still I believe people don’t like violence but at the same time their affinity towards government probably is not mention worthy.

Changes that took place certainly were late; development is taking place from the middle of nineties. Town wise Purulia has advanced quite a bit, you can get mobile phones servies from atleast four to five service providers. The huge pump storage power project in collaboration with Japan in Ayodhya hills has really changed the roads, economy of this region. Even 15 years back it was a nightmare to go to the hills in rainy season, it has improved now. Government although not new is trying to boost up the economy. Its almost 8 years since I last visited Purulia, wish when I go there next time it will be the same cool and hot "Purulya".

Cricketing memories

.....Its a quite old event, i mean its 3 months old event, before i broke my finger and before we faced all kind of problems. This was our first match in league and we won it as we had won the last one. These are the big stars of IISc cricket team, and the small stars are at the bottom. partha got 6 wickets and I scored 75 in that match. Most of the team performed in similar fashion in other matches but unfortunately Sandeep's camera couldn't catch them. Kapil the caps is not here. ViveK, Mahesh are also missing.

Srini, Sachin, Partha, Atul, Kumar, Venu (star faculty), Jackie (Santanu)
Sandeep, Uncle (Surinder), OP, Saru(Sarendra) and me

Me and Partha

home "together"

I was standing at the door of the compartment, while the train was slowly crossing the bridge over Krishna. Sky was full of clouds rain drops were piercing through my skin; I was really enjoying it as I was going home. It was dusk and Krishna looked beautiful, with water reaching from one corner to the other and the river met the horizon. I was standing at the door because my seat was occupied by some students from Ramaiya College; I tried to raise my voice but gave in to the teens. I didn’t sleep well in the night, not only because of the extravagant students but also for the unusual bed, but I didn’t complain, as I was going home. Early morning I woke up and the first thing that I heard was that the train is running late by 6 hr. Bad times were still sticking with me! The whole day my walkman was really helpful, the girls and the guys were enjoying a lot and making plans for diwali I found myself an odd man out, realized that I have crossed some stage of my life, but I was happy like others: we were all going home. That whole day I finished a book which “kotts” gave me mentioning that as a mediocre book, “interpreter of maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri, it’s a collection of short stories and except the name story, I found most of the others quite good. Then came the last night in train, by the time it was running 8 hr. late. I remember one girl was traveling to Patna and she was going to miss her train from Howrah, it was such a helpless situation for her and her family that, her father started travlelling from Patna to Howrah to take he daughter along with him, it didn’t bother me much you know; I was reaching home! Finally the train reached Kharagpur, after a delay of 11 hr. It was a bright sunny day, finally a bright day, I don’t after how many days I was enjoying a bright day. Last four months it really poured heavily in Bangalore. My big bro rented a car and came to pick me, it was a nice time. My house is at a beautiful place called Jhargram, of course to me. This place is just 7 Km. away from my home.

photo courtsey: My bro Debraj

I was really feeling great; Not only “dada”, Chiku also came along with him, we had a ball of a time in the car, and then after 47 hr. after leaving the lab finally I was at this place…

From bro's cell:appears bluish in reality not so much

No prize for guessing, yes! So I was at home !