Crossing the Border

It was perhaps 26th of February 1948. I am really not sure of the date, but it was certainly a few days short of 1st March. Within the family, the decision to migrate from Pakistan to India had been taken. A tentative date for the move had been fixed at 28 March.

Parting of the Way

It is not easy to uproot oneself from one’s environment of a lifetime and step forward to an unknown future, carrying forward all of one’s liabilities and none of one’s immobile assets.   In 1947, we had just lived through a series of mini civil wars laced with genocides starting from the infamous ‘Direct Action Day’ of the Muslim League on 16 August 1946 and its consequences in Noakhali in October 46 and in interior Bihar early in 1947.   I was in my very aware adolescent thirteenth year.   I was in the final year of secondary schooling, preparing for my Matriculation under theUniversityofCalcutta, and through my eyes the environment looked surreal.  

Bonding With Friends at School

I started my school life on 2^nd January 1947 as a student of class ten at Sammilani School Jessore.  On my first day at school I discovered two known faces in a group of 29 boys in my class.  

The First Hurdle

Getting selected for the ISW / AFA was my first concern.   The syllabus for the examination by the UPSC for entry into the Inter Services Wing of the Armed Forces Academy was rather sketchy;   a total of three papers, one each on English, Mathematics and General Knowledge / Current Affairs.   In those days, there were no coaching classes available for such tests in Kolkata.  The examinee was left entirely on his own.  

A Lesson in Bird Watching

It was an ordinary sort of morning.   For a student of first year Intermediate Science at Ashutosh College Calcutta in early 1949, life was seldom very exciting. The timetable indicated a period of Bengali Literature followed by a period of English after which there was a double period of Physics practical and then two free periods.   Late in the evening there were two periods of Mathematics to be done before I would be free to go home. 

Schooling At Last

Some time in the second week of November 1946 Baba told me to get ready to enter school in the New Year.   What did I have to do to get into a school?   Which school was he thinking about?   Why did I have to enter a school at this stage?  Was not I having well enough an education at home while having a whale of a time in general?  I had many questions boiling inside me, but Baba had answers to them all.  

Back to Jessore

Newspapers were intimately integrated with my childhood.  I learnt my alphabets from it.     I learnt most of my geography and all politics from it.   I even learnt the rudiments of football hockey and cricket from it.    Above all, this constant interaction with newspapers generated in me a thirst for remaining current with ‘current affairs’ that has remained with me for ever.  

The Tapovan Experiment

Baba went back to Jessore from our temporary village home in mid 1944 to ‘work’; I stayed behind with Ma at Himaitpur to become a part of the Tapovan Experiment of Sri Sri Thakur Anukul Chandra.  

Baba Quits His Job

Baba tried to visit us at Himaitpur from Jessore as often as he could.   He normally came by an over-night train reaching the village early in the morning.   Some times he stayed just for one day or two.   At other times he stretched his visit to three or four days.   We got used to these sudden arrivals and departures of Baba.  However, we always knew in advance when he would arrive.    There used to be a sweet anticipation; getting up early and waiting for his arrival. 

Skirting A Famine

We had just moved into our new and half finished house at Himaitpur. It was early 1943.   The riversides of Himaitpur were full of Jute growing to its full height.    The flood plains along the river were a very fertile tract.   The land was of course sandy and loamy; not quite fit for the cultivation of fine varieties of rice.