I was born in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, in 1982, but can barely recall anything from that town. My father worked in the Fertilizer corporation of India (FCI), Gorakhpur unit, during 1980-1986. I only remember that it was 2 BHK bungalow-type house (Quarter # C-153), with a tin garage, where my father's white Fiat car stood. It was a small family: father, mother, my elder sister, my grandfather (father's dad), and myself. (My father's mother had passed away in 1970). The hedged boundary had a wooden gate, on which my sister used to climb. My Father left for work everyday at 7 am on his light green scooter, and returned for lunch. He again left at 3 pm, to be back by 5 pm. My mother ran the house with a domestic help (Kailashi). When she was busy in the kitchen, my grandpa baby-sat me, while my sister went to school. Because the kitchen was cramped, the refrigerator (100L white Voltas) was placed in the drawing room. During midday, she used to tag us along in the neighborhood for catch-ups. In the evening, my grand-dad and sister used to walk to Jungniya gate to get milk. I remember breaking a few glasses while drinking hot milk. Most of my time was spent with my grand father. There was a niche in my grandpa's bedroom wall, where he placed deity idols and worshipped them. I watched him curiously as he went about his morning ritual of praying with flowers and incense. In the backyard, my mother used to bathe me in a tub, and grandpa used to relax on a folding cot, telling stories to my sister. My father watched the news on the new OSCAR TV Set, while having dinner. At night, I slept with my parents, while my sister slept with grandpa. Relatives from Kolkata would sometimes visit us. The house was often attacked by monkeys from the nearby forest, drawn in by the vegetable garden of my parents. Winters were harsh in the Terai, and my parents often lighted a heater in the bedroom. But the summers were hot. I saw that on the ceiling there is something called a fan, which had three arms, is placed on the ceiling, and it rotates and cools the room. I saw that the kitchen, where my mother spent most of her time, did not have this 'fan' thing. I found it very unfair. I asked my dad, and he told me that cooking requires fire, and the fan extinguishes it. I was convinced, but then another question cropped up : why is it only my mother works there? I started feeling sorry for her and womenfolk in general.
My first conscious memories are from Sindri, a small industrial township in Dhanbad District, Jharkhand (erstwhile Bihar), Pincode 828122. In mid-1986, my father was transferred here. It was the first fertilizer factory in Asia (pictured above). We drove from Gorakhpur to Sindri by road in the Fiat. After a few weeks in the Guest house, we settled down in Quarter # RK1-206 in the Rorhaband area of Sindri township. It was a 2BHK house with a common wall with the neighbor's quarter (RK1-205). The big kitchen had an earthen oven with a chimney. This time the white fridge was in my parents' bedroom. The house was surrounded by a garden of 30 m by 15 m. My parents had a flower garden in front of the house, and a huge kitchen garden behind it, where my sister and me played every late afternoon. There was a bounded courtyard, where my grandfather sun-basked, and my mother dried the laundry. My father had a similar work schedule as before, five-and-a-half day per week. The flower garden had a lawn, where we played badminton in the winters. My parents grew lots of flowers, both in summer and winter. In summer, I used to pick the mogra flowers every evening and made garlands of them. In winter, the garden became colorful with dahlias, crysanthemums, petunias, etc. My parents had a part-time gardener to look after their garden. Different types of vegetables were grown : potato, onion, carrot, radish, beetroot, cabbage, cauliflower, brinjal, tomato, lettuce, maize, and many more. There were banana plants, guava trees, drumstick trees, and papaya trees growing on their own.
This was my first school, Rabindra Parishad (pictured above). It was a 10-min walk from home. It was actually a community centre, when socio-cultural gatherings were organized on important days in the Bengali calendar. It also housed a library. There was an open air theatre outside. During 1986-87, my grandpa escorted me there at 8 AM every morning, and picked me up at 12 noon. He carried my small yellow jute bag and I wore the water bottle like a garland, and we walked back home, with my mother waiting at the blue gate. Sometimes, my father came instead on his way back from the factory. I made my first friends there : Kankana Karkun and Rituparna Guharoy. I went there for about 6 months, and sat in 5 different rooms (I don't who why!). Unfortunately, I do not remember the names of any teacher from Rabindra Parishad. Holidays were spent with Grandpa telling us stories, and narrating the epics Ramayan and Mahabharat. He also started teaching me to write Bengali alphabets. When he napped, I tri-cycled around the house or played with my sister. We used to play ludo, snakes and ladders, bagaduli, block games, or doll-house. Sunday mornings were for watching Ramayan in Doordarshan. Dad watched the huge 'Oscar' Television, with a red ON/OFF button at its lower right hand corner.
My sister was already in Mount Carmel School, Digwadih, a 12-km bus-ride away. In the next academic year, I was also admitted in the same school in kindergarten, while my sister was in Class 7. Our school bus (run by FCI) picked us up at 7 AM. Wearing a white shirt, navy blue tunic, black shoes and white socks, carrying a school bag and a water bottle, I trundled along with chaddi-buddies : Kankana Karkun, Amrita Mitra, Jaya Prasad, Swarnima Sushil, Komal Prasad, Ipsita Sarkar. The dust-laden road ran through the fringes of the Dhanbad Coal field area. The school began at 7:55 AM with a morning assembly, and after 4+4 classes of 40 min each, with a 20 min tiffin break, it was dismissed at 1:45 pm. We boarded the green bus (#12) and were back home at 2:30 pm, dusty and tired. After a refreshing bath, mom served us lunch.
I went to Mount Carmel School (Junior Section) for the first time in March 1987. It was in a huge compound, with a long 2-storey building. Sister Ann Imelda was our principal. The day began with a morning assembly in the huge playground in front of the building. After a prayer, 'thought-for-the-day', news bulletin, and a song, we were led back to our classrooms in a line. Our classroom, KG1-A, was in the ground floor. It had two rows of blue and red tables, and color-coordinated chairs. My first class-teacher was Ms. Isabella. She helped us learn to write, count, recognize pictures, color, role-play. She was quite strict, and demanded obedience. There were bulletin boards on the walls, in which she put up pictures of animals and birds. The walls also had racks, lined with toys. She taught us from the morning until the tiffin break, and after that, we were supposed to "put our heads down" on the table, and nap. If we did not, we were spanked! Children's Day (November 14th) was the Sports day, where each class had various races. In my first race, we had to run and burst a balloon on a chair by sitting on it. I burst a blue baloon.
This summer vacation saw my first trip : my parents took us to visit Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka. My grandpa stayed back in Kolkata with my mother's parents (This was the first time I realized that my mother has her own parents, too!). It was my first long-distance train journey. My sister and me enjoyed every moment of it. We visited Madras, Mahabhalipuram, Pondicherry, Madurai, Rameshwaram, Kanyakumari, Tiruchirapalli, Thiruvananthapuram, Ooty, Mysore, and Bangalore. I had never seen the sea nor such beautifully carved temples nor English-speaking people. Till then, I had thought that English was spoken only in school and in the Doordarshan News at 9:30 PM. It was the Ramayan and Mahabharat tele-serials that taught me spoken-Hindi. During Ramayan, I was too young to catch the Hindi dialogues, so my parents explained them to me. By the time Mahabharat was aired, I could understand several of the dialogues. Sometimes, in the evening after work, dad played his record player to enjoy his favorite Rabindrasangeet. It had a huge black record spinning, which I used to watch curiously.
Early in 1988, my father met with a small accident on his way to the factory post lunch. He fell down from his scooter while trying to avoid a school bus that suddenly appeared at a crossroad. His right ankle was injured, and he had to spend four days in the FCI hospital, about 400 m from home. My uncle (mother's brother) came from Kolkata to see him. After he was discharged, he was still at home for recovery. Slowly, he gained strength, but a colleague picked him up for work and dropped him back for a few weeks. After that, he discarded his scooter and bought himself a LML Vespa.
The next year, in KG2-A, there was Ms. Seema Das. This classroom had brown wooden desks with benches for two students each. The desks were arranged in four parallel rows, with aisles. We learnt basic English, Bengali, and Maths. We started to learn to read. My desk partner was Bhavna Aggarwala from Gaushala. Behind us sat Rituparna Guharoy with Smriti Dixit from CFRI. I remember that Smriti has once asked what each of us wanted to become in future, and I had said "Police". This year we began using crayons for coloring our picture book. We also started dance classes. On the Sports day, we had the spoon-and-marble race. Soon, I made friends in the neighborhood, too : Neha Jha, Heena Singh, Khuki (Priyanka Murari), Baby (Priyanka's elder sister, who succumbed to polio in 2002), Minu, Nikki, Roohi. We played various tag games, badminton, blindman's buff, etc. Meanwhile, my mother took me to join a weekly Kathak dance class, taught by Ms. Nandini Ghosh, a family friend's daughter, who was a couple of years older than my sister. I fetched milk for the family now, from the neighbourhood family who reared several cows in their courtyard. A large joint family stayed right opposite us : the Singh family. Uncle was much older than my father, with two sons and three daughters. Aunty was an experienced matriarch. We used to gather in her house every Chhath Puja time and help her made the huge quantities of thekua. There was also a Malayali family nearby, where all we neighbourhood girls gathered to make the Onam Rangoli. Rituparna left school that year, because her father was transferred to Talcher in Odisha, where FCI has another unit. Sindri, being located on the Chhota Nagpur Plateau, witnessed Kalboishakhi (nor-westers) during April-May, which was a crazy afternoon thunderstorm (sometimes hailstorm) with strong winds and threatening dark clouds and heavy rain, lashing from the West and lasting for 1-2 hours. On such afternoons, our courtyard used to get water-logged and we floated paper-boats there.
The year 1989 was exciting. I was in Class 1A, with Sister Zelia was our class teacher. Studies became interesting. I loved my colorful school books, especially the English book with recurring characters of Prem, Maya, Anu, and Mohan. We were introduced to science also. We began recognizing fruits and vegetables, plants and animals, insects and birds. In Maths, we learnt to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. This year, we started Origami. My desk partner was Krupa D. Doshi, a Gujarati girl from Jharia. Bengali teacher Dulu Miss was too strict : we all were petrified of her. Summer saw a 15-day extended-family-trip to Uttarakhand : Kedarnath and Badrinath. My father's sister also joined us from Kolkata, along with her husband and two daughters. It was the first time I saw the Himalayas. We walked up halfway of the 14 km trek from Gaurikund to Kedarnath, and then rode a horse for the rest for the trek. It took the whole day. Kedarnath was freezing cold. It was impossible to touch water. One of my cousins collapsed, and was revived with hot milk. After an overnight stay and a temple visit on the next morning, we descended to Gaurikund by the next afternoon. I also rode a ropeway cable car in Haridwar. The long-distance train journeys were again, exciting. Badrinath temple was beautiful, surrounded by snow-clad peaks. Haridwar was on the plains.
This summer, Dad taught Didi to drive; first in the Kalyan Kendra playground, and then on the road. She picked up quickly. When he took her for her practice, I accompanied them in the backseat of the Fiat. In this year, we started our P.T. (Physical Training) classes with Sir George. There was a gymnasium behind the school, where we had a couple of hours of P.T. every week. Summer vacation was filled with reading Bengali fairy tales like Khirer Putul, Thakumar Juli, Aabol-Taabol, among others. On the Sports Day, we had the Charlie Chaplin race (Walk with a ball between your knees while spinning a stick in your hand). At the end of that year, I went to the stage for the first time on the Parent's Night celebration. I wore a white gown and group-danced to the singing of our Music Teacher Ms. Ajanta Jha. There were classmates like Priya Deovanshi, Manali Banerjee and Kushmoh Durgesh in the team.
My parents maintained a strict discipline in the house. There was a daily routine which we followed to the T. We were supposed to sit down to study at 6 pm and continue till 9 pm. Didi studied at her desk in my parents' bedroom, while I studied at an old centre table in the storeroom. At the end of the study session, we were supposed to pack our school bags for the next day's time-table, and then arrive for dinner. Weekends and holidays were spent doing our homework. Sunday morning was also for studies, from 7 am to 11 am, under dad's supervision. But 4:30 pm - 6 pm was for outdoor games. Meal-times were fixed and were followed strictly. We were not supposed to watch TV without dad's permission. Anyways, Doordarshan had intermittent telecast during the day and mostly it was the News which we watched. From the TV, the only thing I knew was that a man named Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister of our country. Neither did we have a tape recorder. I heard the Bollywood song "Ek Do Teen" from Bhavna Aggarwala in school! Some girls at the school bus-stop used to mention a name called 'Aamir Khan', and I used to wonder 'Who is that'?! We were not even allowed small pleasures like the mango drink called Frooti (forget about ice cream). We had a a big black intercom phone at home with a round dial and a heavy receiver. Dad used it often for his work purposes. But mom told me that I cannot call my Granny in Kolkata using that. My mother spent her mornings in the kitchen from breakfast to lunch. She supervised her domestic help very strictly and meticulously. But she did not like anyone else in the kitchen. I think she enjoyed her solitude and remained in a 'flow' during cooking. Dad did the groceries in the evening from the Shaharpura area of the township, and then spent a whole hour reading the newspaper ("The Statesman"). He often sat in the garden at night, star-gazing and teaching me the various constellations. On Sunday morning, he got fish and chicken/mutton. Grandpa was a strict vegetarian, and avoided the dining table. He sat on the floor of his room for his meals. He followed Ayurveda and made several herbal medicines for himself, after collecting herbs from the kitchen garden.
I was still spending a good amount of time with grandpa. I found him to be a frustrated man. (I later came to know from my parents that he was penniless). He had wanted at least one grandson (I came to know this from my other grandfather. When I was born, my grandpa had remarked, "There is no one to carry forward my lineage"). He openly told me, "It is good to have a son, and bad to have a daughter; because the daughter goes away to another house upon marriage". I had asked my mother, "Why do we get married?", to which, she had said, "If you don't get married, who will look after you in your old age?" This was when that I decided that I will have a my own legal house, which will neither be a Maayka nor a Sasuraal. Yes, I was barely seven and I had decided my future.
This year was also when I was subjected to intense bullying by students from Class 3, the senior-most batch in Junior School. It was a particular group of 2-3 girls (Kuntala Karkun, Shradhha Jha, Sujata Pandey), those who traveled in the same bus. The cruelest one was Kuntala Karkun, the elder sister of Kankana Karkun. I was continuously beating the younger sister in class performance. Both appeared to be obsessed about putting me down (Does jealousy strike at that early age? Perhaps yes!) They used to tease me and call me names during those 30 min of the bus ride back home. I had spent many afternoons crying while returning home. I used to tell my mother, but she said that 'school seniors behave like this everywhere'. I now wonder why I had not yet complained to my class teacher, or the teachers who traveled in the same bus. Guess what: I had read the story of Cinderella and thought that a long-suffering person will one day be saved and the perpetrator would be punished. Well, no fairy Godmother came to my rescue and I continued to be bullied. Then one day, when my self-esteem was mauled to death, my patience gave way; and I walked to their house (RK1-173, just 5 minutes away) after school hours without changing my clothes and without taking a bath (my mother was able to feed me lunch with a lot of cajoling). I, a 7-year-old, was seething with anger. I complained to her mother about both the sisters. I told her everything about her daughters' doings. Seeing that I had not changed my school uniform even after 2 hours of returning home, the lady understood that the matter was serious. In my Rudra-murti, I spelt out every misdeed of the two sisters. Their mother listened with mixed embarrassment and concern for her daughters. After venting out all anger, I returned home after 15-20 min. Since then, the sisters stayed away from me. Incidentally, their father was my father's engineering batch-mate (from a different department) in Jadavpur University, Kolkata during 1963-68.
In Class 2, the class teacher was Sister Nicolette. My desk partner was Manali Banerjee, who stayed in Pathardih. Since my sister was in Class 10 now and had to prepare for her school-final exam, my dropped me at Kolkata in my grandparents (and uncle) for the whole 5 weeks of my summer vacation, with my books. My Granny taught me stitching and embroidery. I also learnt to use the sewing machine from her. When she worshipped in her Puja-Ghar, I sat next to her and watched all the rituals. When she cooked, I gave her company in the kitchen, and also fetched her stuff from the store. Daadu taught me lots of Bengali vocabulary. He showed me that there was another channel on Doordarshan which only the metro city audience could enjoy. He also took me around in the nearby parks, and showed me how Ambassador cars are used as taxis in this city.
When my mother came to pick me up, I learnt about grandpa suffering from herpes back home. He recovered, but lost his immunity. In a matter of two weeks, he deteriorated from an independent perfectly-ambulant man to being bedridden. He had to be hospitalized. After a week under artificial oxygen supply, he passed away on July 1, 1990, at an age of 80, in the FCI Hospital. I saw my aunt sob hard standing near his body outside the mortuary of the FCI Hospital. My father was composed, busy with the formalities. A big truck with many men came and took his body away to Domgarh for cremation. For a few weeks, the 2BHK house was packed with relatives from Kolkata. Family friends, neighbors, and dad's colleagues kept dropping in. All the Hindu rituals were performed. I was overwhelmed with the activity around. But somehow, this death did not affect me. Maybe I was too young. (Perhaps facts like this do not usually dawn upon you when you not first in the line of mortality).
Grandpa has been sharing the room with Didi. From now, I was to share the room with her. She started using his study table, and I started using hers (located in my parents' bedroom). From this class, we started studying history and geography. I saw the map of India for the first time. I began recognizing the states and big cities, whose names I had heard on Doordarshan news. I also came to know about mythological stories of Dhruva, Prahlad, Shakuntaka, Aaruni, Abhimanyu. Maths became more exciting. I kept performing well and the class teacher became very fond of me, particularly for my Maths skills. Halfway through the year, I became the class leader. This was a huge confidence boost. The bully girl Kankana was reduced to just-another-girl now; though she tried her best to get me into trouble in class, without much success. This was my first lesson about the world : Duniya mein sar uthha kar jeena hani toh har kadam par apni kaabiliyat dikhao. A found a friend in Amrita Mitra, a girl with a strong personality, who stood by me and that indirectly prevented further bullying. This year saw the Parents' Night replaced by an afternoon PT Display in the Jealgora Stadium few kilometers from our school. Our batch performed an umbrella dance, while my sister's batch performed the lotus dance. We had put in three weeks of practise, with the final week in the stadium itself. Incidentally, my Kathak dance classes got discontinued from this year, since my teacher was preparing for her college entrance exams. I learnt to play carom this year and often defeated my father. My sister was better in outdoor games. She was more into rough-and-tumble, while I was the meek one. She used to climb on the six-feet tall 8-inch-wide courtyard boundary wall and walk over it : I could not think in my wildest dream to even attempt that!
I was selected as the class leader once again in Class 3. Our Class teacher Eva Miss was a terror. She taught English, Maths, Science, History, Geography, Moral Science. My desk-partner was Neha. History and Geography classes became more exciting. Harsha Miss taught us craft. This summer, we sisters tried our hand in swimming in the Officer's club of the Sindri township, with our mother watching over us. Didi picked up freestyle, while I barely learnt to float. I also learnt how to ride a bicycle under Didi's supervision. I read three classic novels : Gulliver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe (most intriguing), and Treasure Island. I won the 3rd prize in the Bengali Elocution competition this year. In this year, Didi finished Class 10 with flying colors and moved to De Nobili School for class 11-12. I saw her school uniform change to a salwar kameez, with a starched white dupatta, and white shoes. On Saraswati Puja, she taught me to wear a saari. During the Puja vacation, we had a short 3-day trip to Betla National Park, in the Palamau district. I saw lots of wild animals in their natural habitat, which was very different from what I had seen earlier in the Zoological garden in Kolkata. After the Puja vacation, we learnt to write postcards to all relatives in Kolkata, sending Bijoya greetings. We went to the Durga Puja celebration of RamaKrishna Sevashram every year, apart from visiting a few more pandals in Rorhaband, Saharpura, Rangamatia. For Kali Puja, the best ones were Bhratri Sangha (near Officer's Club) and Amar Club (near Lions Public School). In Spring 1992, we had a week-long trip to Puri. Seeing the Jagannath temple was overwhelming. I had never been a part of such crowds. The sea was magnificent with incessant plunging breakers. We also went to NandanKanan National Park in Bhubaneshwar. Also, it was the first time I saw foreigners as ascetics in and around the temple.
The next year brought us to the senior school (pictured above). The school tuition fees, which was INR 100/- per month, became INR 130/- per month. This was also a long 2-storey building, with a play-ground before it and a basketball court and gymnasium behind it. Sister Mira was our Principal. The tunic was replaced with a navy blue skirt. The white blouse now had a breast pocket bearing the school monogram in blue thread. Our classroom was in the first floor. The two sections from Class 3 were mixed up. The bully girl was no longer in my class. This time, I was elected as the class leader by 19 votes in a class of 64. Being a class leader meant maintaining silence in the class in the absence of the teachers, fetching the attendance register, depositing the pile of collected notebooks in the staff room, cleaning the blackboard, etc. It was the first time were began writing with a pen, instead of a pencil. I got an ink pen (because 'ball pens destroy your handwriting') and used a Chelpark ink bottle to fill it every night. In the craft class we learnt embroidery with Ms. Chandra Singh. We made a pair of doormats on mat-cloth, and added piping on the periphery. Crayons were replaced with Color-pencils. Our class teacher was Ms. Riva Roul, who taught us English, History, and Geography. Ms. Neelam Kalra taught us Science, while Ms. Sutapa taught us Maths. I loved our very friendly Bengali teacher Ms. Basanti Biswas. Also, we started learning Hindi as a third language, taught again by Ms. Neelam Kalra. Those who had Hindi as a second language studied Sanskrit as the third language. I felt deprived of an opportunity to learnt this language. I promised myself I will learn this language later in college (and I kept my promise 15 years later in the Univ. of Michigan). This was the first time we saw much older girls (uptil Class 10) in our vicinity. We were quite scared to them, especially of the discipline ministers. However, our floor had Classes 4-6, and the "big didi-s" were mostly out of sight. Studies became even more interesting. I loved the stories in the English book. Maths and Science were both fun. In Geography, we did map-work for the first time. Our first map was a world map, where we had to color the different continents with different colors.
In winter, we shifted to a larger house which my father was allotted by FCI upon his promotion as the Deputy Chief Engineer of the Electrical Dept., Ammonia plant, S.M.P. (Sindri Modernization Plant). It was the culmination of his career. The house was numbered F-122. It was a 1500 sq.ft bungalow situated squarely in a 50 m by 30 m area. Behind it was the famous Seven-lakes Priyadarshini Park of Sindri, behind which ran the Railway track towards Dhanbad Junction. It had two bedrooms, a study, a big hall (drawing room + dining room) and a big kitchen with storeroom. It also had a big garage (accommodating the Fiat, the Vespa, and the blue bicycle) and a servant house. We felt we have come-of-age as a family. My sister studied in our bedroom, while I studied in the study room, which also doubled up as a guest room and my mother's Puja-Ghar. Our bedroom had an attached bathroom, which was a luxury by the previous standard. The two bedrooms did not have a common wall anymore. Our bedroom also had a storeroom attached to it. We had a larger garden to play in. Since there was no common wall with a neighboring quarter, the garden encircled the house completely. A tall coconut tree stood outside my bedroom's window. There as a big neem tree at the blue gate. The front garden had a tap, where we washed our feet after playing. My mother got a new water tank and a chimney installed in the kitchen. There was a huge balcony at the front of the house, where my father relaxed after a long day's work with the newspaper. My parents also placed several potted plants in the balcony parapet.
Soon after, we left for Kolkata to attend my uncle's wedding. It was the first time I saw a family wedding consciously. My Dadu's house in North Kolkata was flooded with people : relatives, friends, family, neighbors, family-friends. For 4 days, there were endless functions and rituals. Beneath all of this, I silently kept observing all activities and their implications and nuances. (Yes, I was only 10 and yet I was able to understand). I saw blatant patriarchy. I saw patrilocality. I saw the dehumanizing of a woman. And finally, I saw dowry. The bride brought in a bed, almirah, dressing table, and more stuff. By then, I had already learnt about dowry in school, and I knew it was wrong. Then why was this wrong thing happening? No answer. This was when, for the first time, I lost respect of elders. I was both dismayed and amused by the whole event. I was so suffocated that after 6 days, when we returned to Sindri, I breathed free.
My sister got very busy with her college-entrance-exam preparations. She wanted to be a doctor. She was at the study table for at least 10 hours a day. In this new neighborhood, I found no one of my age for playing. I made friends with my next-door (F-121) neighbor grandpa Mr. Biswas and granny. I used to spend everyday between 430 pm and 6 pm with them, listening to stories. Their daughter-in-law, Dr. Anusua Gupta, worked in the FCI hospital. My mother was her patient for a few years. They had a boy-servant Naveen from a nearby village, a little older than me. I sometimes played with him, though he mostly played with other boys in the neighborhood and flew kites. There was a big playground in front of the house, where a community Saraswati Puja was held by Naveen's friends. There was Ms. Dipu Das (Das-Kakima), from whom I started taking Rabindrasangeet lessons. I liked studies more and more. The academic performance in this year (1992-93) awarded me a double promotion to Class 6 (actually it was a brainchild of my sister, who gave the idea to my parents, and my father placed this request to the School Principal, who reluctantly agreed after 30 min of persuasion). This meant I had to study with a senior batch from the next year!
...............................................to be continued.
