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.

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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.  

A Very Small World – 2: Mr Mukherjee’s Nephew

For a Bong any where, Durga Puja is a big occasion; at least that is how it used to be when I was young.    In 1958 I used to consider myself to be young.   I was just about 24 years old and I felt very young.   When Durga Puja came about that year, I participated enthusiastically at the ceremonies held at Tambaram within the Air Force Station.   I was then an instructor at the Flying Instructors’ School there.    The Puja was held at the Domestic camp at Madambakkam which we could reach on a bicycle in five minutes from the officers’ mess.   During Durga Puja, it is also customary to visit all such functions within striking distance, and we followed that social norm .

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.  

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.  

On the Banks of Padma

Once we moved out of our home and moved into a temporary shelter, things moved rather fast.   Baba went to Pabna for a short visit.   He came back with a firm decision to move all of us out of Jessore.  

In Disarray

 As 1940 rolled into 1941 there was a gentle drift away from the peace quiet and prosperity in the environment that we the kids took for granted.   First of all, political talk amongst the elders became more vociferous and pronounced. 

Jessore Utsav

During our trip to Pabna, there was much talk about the forth-coming Utsav at Jessore.   At that moment I did not quite know what the references were to.   However, on our return it was clear even to my seven year old eyes that some important event was about to take place. 

A Trip To Pabna

My story today is from the memories of a six year old.   Fragmented, somewhat disjointed, but gathered assembled arranged and decorated with fanciful imagination and then cemented with love.     To understand the story, however, the reader would need a few background notes that the six-year old is not in a position to provide.   For a few minutes therefore I would have to hip-hop between my ‘me’ of to day to the ‘me’ of 1940 as I lay down the back ground, often from hearsay information from an era a decade before I was born.