Gypsynan

My dadu passed away today. Complications due to pneumonia, he was unable to breath, but he had a very strong heart, so he went through some 21 convulsions over 4 hours, before passing the last painful breath. It was predicted by the doctor about a week back, but my dadu was a 6 foot tall lathiyaal from East Bengal, a chela of Surjo Sen ( how many people who know who that was?) and fought a good fight. The whole family was there, all the sons, daughters and daughters inlaws and some grand kids. Thamma has been difficult - with her alzheimers , and loss in short term memory, she needed some one to keep explaining to her what was going on. She understands that he died and cied till she was put on sedatives, which is good, because we fear that she will keep forgetting and need to be reminded and will relive the pain over and over. God - let no one else live through this.

My earliest memories of dadu are in our bunglow in the hills - holding his hand and going to the bazaar - even as an adult I was inordinately pleased when dadu said " khub bhaalo meye, she would go to the market with me every day and she was such a small girl but she never asked for anything, not even a lojens" He called me honumoti and he loved gardening. Taking equal pleasure in the huge velvery dahliahs and huge roses that were of a flower show quality and a sack of potatoes grown in the back. He was earthy as my thamma was sophisticated, he never lost the bangal accent but spoke with a melodious intonation that was a pleasure to listen. Tall and fair, with a perfectly formed, shiny, bald head and a nose that is the pride of the family, (I have a ghost of it too) always dressed in white dhuti and "shirt" and the pointy toed black "pump shoe" he cut an awesome figure when I was a little girl.

He never talked much, but when in a good mood he would sing in a strong, open but untrained voice, robindro shongeet with a robust barritone no proffessional singer has ever been able to come close - in our family and we knew it. But he sang when he was happy, in the garden, after a bath, during daily puja - he never sang on request, he was not that kind of a man.

When he was young, he lived with his mother and 3 brothers in a bangladeshi village. His father, a handsome rogue, had desterted them for another woman - yes such things happened then- and the tejaswi golaap shundori brought them up in poverty and with very tight reins. But the brothers were wild in their own ways - and joined up with the swadeshis - a story that he would only talk briefly of , in sudden moments, when in the mood, to me or a few of my cousins. As a scholarship student of Physics at Dhaka university he was arrested and then deported from East Bengal and for 5 years he had to pay a weekly visit to the nearest police station in West Bengal. Studying as a English student at Calcullta Univ. he tutored 4 kids of a North Cal family in return for room and board. Then followed a series of odd jobs including the opening a shoe store in Dhaanbaad in partnership with a Kabuliwallah. He would occasionally say " juto shelaai thekey chondi paath shob shotti korechhi"

Its always interesting to me that he married my thamma, an urbanite school teacher and a history MA to boot. The well spoken, well read, petite lady that she was - her younger sister went on to be an All India General Secretary of the Congress party and a union minister - and it was a love marriage of sorts. Then they went to Coochbihaar and that is where my grandma was asked to set up the school in the hills and dadu was the add on - he completed both and MA and B ed but was always a formidable math teacher. Its interesting that in the 50s, and since then, my dadu reported officially to my thamma - as the only MA in the entire district, it was my thamma who was asked to be the principal - but there was never any doubt that the math teacher was a formidable character in his own right - physically able to wrestle with 2-3 boys and a fine reputation for teaching - not many men even today could deal with the inherent power definitions of this arrangement. When I was about 15 he once told me " its because of your grand mother that your father and others have turned out so well, she was a devoted mother" I thought that was the sweetest thing a husband could say. Especially one as taciturn as my dadu.

And dadu in later years would talk of Bangladesh - how beautiful it was. HE also said something that I have never heard said anywhere else - he believed that the Hindu landlords treated their muslim praja like dirt as they did most people and also the low caste hindus. And My bapi always said, with a reverse snobbery in effect " jaanish we are the only people of Bangladeshi origin who were poor even there, everyone else always had at least a jaagirdaari" and we would laugh, we are a no bullshit family - bangaal to the bone you know :)

And he was religious in the later years - devotee of Sri Gopaal - spending hours in the pujaa room - singing bhajans in the same strong open voice - but he always hated the BJP - that was important to me at one point.

He was happiest when after retirement they bought the baagaan baari near Kolkata - those years of keeping 2 cows and watching over the 40 mango trees and fishing in the pond - he was blissfully happy - thamma wasn't though, but she loved it because he did.

Thamma would proudly whisper of her surreptitious visit to the Intelligence bureau, when the government a last call for freedom fighters to put in their claims, and dadu could not be bothered - the officers pulled out dusty dossiers - after much pleading - and looked him up and found 5 pages of records - and said "ei ki- aapnaar husband tow mohaa dangerous lok moshaai!".
But we never knew the exact details - and its too late now.

I think I cried today after god knows how long - I can not simply remember the last time - its the end of an era of simpler times - of genteel poverty and bhadralok bengalis and their struggles - talking to everyone on the phone - I felt the connections and the pull of the family so strongly after a long time - a reminder of what is important in life.

It was a full life, well lived - rest in peace.