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The housing made here for Central Govt. officers consisted of fourteen 3-storeyed blocks of 6 flats each. Garages were also provided, though the number of garages was about 33% of the number of flats, I guess that was about similar to the proportion of officers who actually owned cars in those days. As it is Calcutta had a fairly efficient public transport system that included double carriage trams, single as well as double-decker state transport buses, and private buses. Taxis were also in the field and were reasonably convenient because the distances were not very large. There was nothing like the present-day autorickshaws (or tuk-tuks). No tongas or horse-drawn vehicles. Though rickshaws were there - not the cycle variety but the hand-pulled rickshaws. These are attributed to a colonial hangover. They could squeeze in two adult passengers.
With the allotment of a Government Quarter in practically the poshest area of the city was indeed the best thing that could have happened to my family. It was a newly developed colony that was located in the very picturesque compound of the famous National Library. The library used to be the house of the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal during the British Raj. After the independence of the country – it was converted into a Government Library, in 1953 when it was shifted from its location at Metcalfe House, to the present location at Belvedere. It is the biggest and the best library in the country containing about 2 million books and half a million documents. It is also the second-largest public library in Asia. According to popular belief, this building was not built by the British. Azim-Us-Shaan is believed to have constructed it in 1700 A.D. After the Battle of Plassey, Vanceytart got charge of this Bhawan. He was an Italian who named this mammoth building 'Belvedierre', giving the present-day name of Belvedere to the colony. The word connotes 'the queen of beauty'. Lady Hastings was also the owner of this house for a short while. It was sold to Major Tulley in 1780. The modern-day 'Tollygunge' in Calcutta bears memoirs of Major Tulley. However, this building was put to auction after the demise of Major Tulley in 1802. In 1850, the Govt. took charge of this palatial house. Some believe that Nawab Meer Zaffar had once stayed in Belvedierre Bhawan.
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| The Majestic National Library |
Life in the colony was totally different from the paada life at Lake Place. The senior government officials were totally in a different world from the Bengali and bhadralok culture that I had been exposed to until now. In Belvedere there was a club for the Central Government Officers – having facilities for tennis, swimming, table tennis, squash, badminton, etc, and of course card tables. One could see young lasses dressed in western attires, skirts, shorts, and the like. The shortcomings of games that I felt in the school were overcome in life in Belvedere. The friend circle that I moved into consisted of only a very small percentage of Bengalis. We were literally from all over India - Punjabis, Marathis, Sindhis, UPites, MPites, Biharis, Oriyas, South Indians (includes Tamil, Kannada, Malayali, and Telegu speaking folks) Parsis, etc., strange it may sound - I do not recall any Gujratis in the colony.
Our small band of about 15 boys was into all possible games. We played cricket, hockey, badminton, football, and rugby (played with a football). Tennis and squash were also available in the officers club though all youngsters did not actively get involved in that. The spoken language amongst us was English. Most of the boys were students of Calcutta Boys School or St Xaviers; the girls were mostly studying in Loretto. Neena and I continued in South Point School. A smaller size school bus was made available for the far-flung areas, it was a station wagon or equivalent to the present-day SUV. It picked us up along with about half a dozen other children, from our area, Chetla, and Alipore.
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| Hand-Pulled Rickshaw |
The Central Government officers Quarters Area does not seem to have changed at all over the years, the Google Map still shows it exactly as it was in the fifties with all the green spaces intact. However, some more buildings appeared to have come up in the compound of the Library. There were 3 ponds, which used to have ducks waddling in them in the fifties. I was unable to spot them in the present-day maps. They have probably been filled up to reclaim the land for some buildings or the gardens.
At times I used to wonder where my childhood buddies Subhash and Indra might be. There was no communication from either side. We were too young and did not know about the art of letter writing. One evening I was going to a friend's house in the colony and suddenly I heard someone calling out to me, "Cuckoo". What do I see, Indra her younger sister Munni and their mom Mrs. Tahilraamani, just a few paces away. Indra and her mom, both had recognized me. Contact got renewed. I discovered that Mr. Tahilramani had also got transferred to Calcutta and presently they were staying in a rented accommodation in Hazra Road. Subsequently, they too moved to Belvedere - to Flat no. 72. We were in Flat No. 73 while we were there, we had moved out and we were back in Delhi at that time. However, contact got re-established and we have been in touch with each other to date since then.
Once we settled down in the routine life at Belvedere, it was very peaceful and satisfying. When we stayed at Lake Place, Pitaji had got deeply involved in learning yoga, so much so that within a short time he had become a teacher of yoga. Every morning he used to go to the maidan opposite the famous Victoria Memorial. About 20 to 30 followers (or his students) would also assemble there and they would be performing the Yogic Exercises. His guru was the well known Dhirendra Brahmchari, who shot to fame many years later, as he became the personal yoga trainer for Mrs. Indira Gandhi when she became the Prime Minister of the country. Once we shifted to Belvedere, going to the maidan was not convenient, because of lack of public transport on this route. So he just picked up his dari (yoga mat) one day and started going to the National Library compound for his exercises every morning. He was soon noticed by other morning walkers and was adopted by quite a handful of them as their guru, all wanting to learn yoga asanas. In 1957-58 yoga was very rare and not a household word as it is now. He never said no to anyone for joining the group and soon he had a bigger following of the residents of the area than he had at the maidan. It was totally free for anyone who cared to join in
During the vacations of the schools, Neena & I used to also go for yoga classes. I discovered that my body was quite rigid as compared to Neena's and to that of many other youngsters, and they could do many exercises with ease whereas I was either unable to do so or found them extremely difficult. Quite a number of my circle of friends also joined in during the vacations. Recently I met a childhood friend of mine, Prakash Karve, of Belvedere, who had also joined Pitaji's classes. He lives in Pune at present. He was remembering the yoga classes of Pitaji and mentioned it as a reason for his good health even at his present age.
In our small circle of friends, we had two brothers Deepak and Pradeep Mulay. Their father was the Deputy Librarian of the National Library. Deepak was my age. On one summer afternoon, he had ventured out to the duck ponds for a bath cum swim with another friend. He fell down in the not so deep water and he got stuck in the mud, his friend panicked and ran home and informed his father, who in turn informed Mr. Mulay. By the time help arrived, it was too late. Deepak had drowned and died. He was my age. It was the first time I lost someone close to the cruel hand of death. His death affected all in our friends' circle. It was quite an unnerving experience. It took a fairly long time of a couple of years for us to get over the tragedy.
Deepak had an elder sister, Suhasini. When Bhuvan Shome was released I noticed that the female lead was Suhasini Mulay. When I saw the movie, I was sure that it was Deepak's sister. That was in 1969, about 10-11 years after the tragedy.
Another family that had become a bit closer to us was the Mehtas. There were 3 young boys, Pradeep, Sudhir, and Randhir (Pullu). Their flat was bang opposite our flat - on the other side of the colony road. They also had a dog, a Doberman, which was very ferocious and all the dogs and the dog owners of the colony were terrified of him. Once the dog attacked a cousin of theirs who was visiting them and hurt her quite severely. After that, the colony folks put their foot down and the dog had to be given away. Sudhir was a dog lover. He now adopted a white she-dog and named her Rani. Things were not going right for the little puppy, who was now just a couple of months old. One day Sudhir fell on her while playing and she got internal injuries and died in a couple of days after the incident. The Mehtas decided not to keep a dog after that.
We often had screams and hysterics because of the girlie nature of the crowd at our house. Once a tiger moth had entered our house, my excited exclamation, "Moth has come to our room!" - was interpreted as "maut" which means death. I don't recall who all screamed but Mrs. Mehta came running to our flat to check on us.
Do you know the basic difference between a moth and a butterfly? Both can be very colorful. When a moth sits, its wings are spread and a butterfly sits with its wings folded.
Prem and Pushpa were also fond of Planchette - a practice of dabbling with the para natural. You summon Mr. Planchette and subsequently ask for the spirit of a particular dead person. At times, any random spirit could make its presence felt and it was rumored that such self inviting spirits enjoyed human contact and were had to get to leave when requested. One day the spirit of the "monkey's paw" (click here to know the story) made an appearance and it was followed by screams and Mrs. Mehta running across the road to our place. In retrospect, it seemed quite delightful and humorous.
Another couple of friends that we made at the time and who are still in touch were Pinaki Dutt-Roy, Samaresh Chatterjee. Pinaki is working freelance as a sound engineer in London, got located on Google. I do meet hin when I visit London for visiting my daughter Chaitali. Samaresh was found by a common friend, he stays in Delhi, not too far, and often meets up in our morning walks.
I have talked about my love for animals as pets. I got the opportunity to adopt a puppy very soon. There was an Anglo-Indian family in our colony who had two pets, one female dog and one cat. Surprisingly, they used to co-exist and had grown up together. Their dog had a litter and the pups were available for adoption. I went and met the lady and she interviewed me thoroughly before handing me a brown male pup. He was between 3 and 4 weeks old. We named him "Dicky".
Belvedere was sandwiched between Belvedere Road (on the east) and Alipore Road (on the west). In the north, the National Library compound's gate opened near the main gate of the Calcutta Zoological Gardens. This was one of the better zoos of the country in terms of number and variety of animals. The other entrance to the Zoo was near Kidderpore. We could frequently hear the roars of the big cats very clearly in our houses, especially in the silence of the night.
On the south of the colony, we had the Horticultural Garden - where Mataji and Neena were regulars in their morning walk. The garden was a paradise for botanists and lovers of plants. The garden also had two trees that were known as pagla trees (click for more info). The leaves appeared to have been cut in individual contours - all appearing different, Neena was a lazy child (around 14 years old, at the time) and never liked to wake up early. She would go for the walk and promptly go back to sleep after the walk. In fact, Neena used to complete the morning walk with her eyes half-closed. After coming back from the walk Mataji would sit down for her morning puja and Neena would be in bed again, sounds crazy - I often spotted her sleeping while standing near the bathroom door. Before sitting at the puja Mataji used wooden slippers, khadaon, which made a clickety sound when she got up after the puja. The moment Neena would hear the sound of the khadaon, she would straightaway bolt to the bathroom. Once Dicky was trying to play with Mataji while she was at the puja, to shoo him away she picked up the khadaon and tapped it on the floor. I am not sure whether Dicky got shooed away or not, but we also saw Neena bolting to the bathroom.
Just across the Alipore Road, that was on the west of the colony, brought us to the gate cum check-post of an army establishment called Command Hospital. It was a very huge area the other end going to the Diamond Harbour Road as one went further west. It housed barracks, hospitals, Kendriya Vidyalaya, CSD Canteen, Gurudwara, Temple, etc. The premises is an army area even at present. Our gang of young boys had made friends with the guards that manned the gate on the Alipore Road. So on one Sunday, the guard invited us for sharing the langar, the community lunch at the Gurudwara. We were a happy and a bold lot and graciously accepted the invitation and enjoyed the meal. The guards became our cronies and invariably we would go to chit-chat with them.
Once we had a visitor from Delhi, one Captain Prem Varma. He was the brother of Mr. Chandra Prakash Varma - a very close family friend. He was addressed as mamaji (maternal uncle) by us(children). Capt. Varma had been posted to this Command Hospital area for temporary duty. He was received very cordially by Mataji & Pitaji. His visit just preceded my birthday that was being celebrated in a week's time. He was also invited to attend while going that day he asked mm my choice of a gift. He wanted to know between two alternatives, one being an airgun (have forgotten what was the other). I happily chose the airgun. On my birthday he promptly appeared with a DIANA airgun along with a box of 100 lead pellets. I was absolutely ecstatic. This airgun was with me for many years and I had developed into a very good shot. I could hit a match stick at nearly 30 yards. When my son Anurag was about a year old he was staying with Varsha's parents at the Netaji Nagar Government flat, the airgun was decorating the wall near the entrance door of the flat - that is roughly after 16 years of it having been acquired by me. Neena was also taught by me in the use of the airgun and while she was studying in Lady Hardinge Medical College, a few years later, she drove the airgun shooting stallholders at a fete' that was held there, into near bankruptcy by winning all the prizes. They had to literally beg her not to try for more. Just a corollary, saw Yasmin Daji from very close quarters in the fete' - that was in the same year in which she became Miss India and Miss Universe. She was still studying for MBBS in the college at the time.
Life in Belvedere had many hues and there are many memories of incidents that van be remembered for posterity.
The National Library compound had a fair number of mango tres, which used to yield a large number of mangoes. The area had a few watchmen to look out for children like us to protect the mango trees from our stone and catapults, from ruining the crop of the fruit that would have found the way to the Librarian's house. As a matter of fact, we used to gather enough stock of raw mangoes to make an endless supply of achaar (pickle) for the next one year, and aam-panna for our individual households, to last out the summer. I even recall storing the raw mangoes in the hay to ripen them successfully.
Once I was on a prowl with friends and armed with my airgun in the library area when we spotted a snake coiled and partly hidden in the roots of a large tree. I never liked to kill birds, I thought this is a good shikar. I pumped 5 pellets into the portion of its body that was visible. The head was hidden in the roots. Hearing the shots the watchman on duty came on the double. Ultimately the snake was pulled out but his lathi and bashed on the head to strike the death blow. When Mataji came to know that I had killed a snake, all hell broke loose.
"Your grandmother (daadi) would feed snake milk if it made an appearance in the house. We are Nagpal (meaning snake keeper or protector) and we have to protect the snakes and not kill them," I was admonished and made to do penance the following day by remaining locked in the house, reading a religious text.
In the Metro cinema on Chowringhee, we used to have a special show of children's movies or cartoons on Sunday mornings. We, meaning me and friends, used to attend most of them and enjoy clean healthy fun. The tickets were also on a reduced rate and were probably less than a rupee for the show.
On the 15th of August, our friend circle decided to have a party on one of the terraces of the flats. It was going to be a dinner with each person in the group was required to bring one special or favorite dish of the family. If I remember correctly I had taken Punjabi Chhole. It was the first time I got to taste Lobster. Pinaki's mom had prepared lobster curry for us. It was delicious and very hot. It was many years later that I got to taste lobster again, with our son, in the USA.
Once there was a test match in Eden Gardens, It was India vs West Indies. We kids decided to go for that. Getting tickets was out of the question. I recall that we climbed on the roof of the All India Radio building which was in the same vicinity and watched whatever we could see of the match from there. India team got a follow on after West Indies scored 614 runs. Pankaj Roy - our opener gave a miserable performance with 11+duck in the two innings. The match finished in less than 3-1/2 days. We even lost the series 3-0.
Our colony had a massive tree near its second gate on Alipore Road. The tree had a very interesting feature that almost made a natural machan, about 10-12 feet from the ground, by an unnatural formation of its branches. How could it remain hidden from our natural explore instincts! We started using it for a treetop picnics. The flat area on the tree could comfortably seat four youngsters with their hampers.
On the north side of the library, building was located a huge green lawn area that doubled as a playfield for hockey and cricket areas. On its west corner of this green, there was a cluster of banyan tree(s) that had money plants growing wild over it with leaves going up to 1-1/2 to 2 feet size. One typical branch came down in a majestic curve just about 3 to 4 feet above the ground, which could not only seat 7-8 of us swaying gently but also bear to take up our load. That was the favorite spot of the batsmen waiting to go on the crease.
Once granny (Pitaji's mother) had come to Calcutta. She was around the age of 80. After a few days, she developed serious diarrhea/dysentery, and being frail and delicate at her age, we were all very concerned. She had to be taken to hospital and was admitted to the R G Kar Hospital. Mataji was almost in a panic, she kept praying that she should recover and not succumb to her illness in our house. Else she would get branded the evil bahu. A few days in the hospital helped her to a full recovery, much to everyone's relief.
All good things also come to an end. Pitaji got transferred and we moved to Delhi in April 1959.
I shall continue the narrative in My Story 5 - Meri Dilli, Patel Nagar. Click here to continue.
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| Belvedere - Google Image (Present Day) |
Once we settled down in the routine life at Belvedere, it was very peaceful and satisfying. When we stayed at Lake Place, Pitaji had got deeply involved in learning yoga, so much so that within a short time he had become a teacher of yoga. Every morning he used to go to the maidan opposite the famous Victoria Memorial. About 20 to 30 followers (or his students) would also assemble there and they would be performing the Yogic Exercises. His guru was the well known Dhirendra Brahmchari, who shot to fame many years later, as he became the personal yoga trainer for Mrs. Indira Gandhi when she became the Prime Minister of the country. Once we shifted to Belvedere, going to the maidan was not convenient, because of lack of public transport on this route. So he just picked up his dari (yoga mat) one day and started going to the National Library compound for his exercises every morning. He was soon noticed by other morning walkers and was adopted by quite a handful of them as their guru, all wanting to learn yoga asanas. In 1957-58 yoga was very rare and not a household word as it is now. He never said no to anyone for joining the group and soon he had a bigger following of the residents of the area than he had at the maidan. It was totally free for anyone who cared to join in
During the vacations of the schools, Neena & I used to also go for yoga classes. I discovered that my body was quite rigid as compared to Neena's and to that of many other youngsters, and they could do many exercises with ease whereas I was either unable to do so or found them extremely difficult. Quite a number of my circle of friends also joined in during the vacations. Recently I met a childhood friend of mine, Prakash Karve, of Belvedere, who had also joined Pitaji's classes. He lives in Pune at present. He was remembering the yoga classes of Pitaji and mentioned it as a reason for his good health even at his present age.
In our small circle of friends, we had two brothers Deepak and Pradeep Mulay. Their father was the Deputy Librarian of the National Library. Deepak was my age. On one summer afternoon, he had ventured out to the duck ponds for a bath cum swim with another friend. He fell down in the not so deep water and he got stuck in the mud, his friend panicked and ran home and informed his father, who in turn informed Mr. Mulay. By the time help arrived, it was too late. Deepak had drowned and died. He was my age. It was the first time I lost someone close to the cruel hand of death. His death affected all in our friends' circle. It was quite an unnerving experience. It took a fairly long time of a couple of years for us to get over the tragedy.
Deepak had an elder sister, Suhasini. When Bhuvan Shome was released I noticed that the female lead was Suhasini Mulay. When I saw the movie, I was sure that it was Deepak's sister. That was in 1969, about 10-11 years after the tragedy.
Another family that had become a bit closer to us was the Mehtas. There were 3 young boys, Pradeep, Sudhir, and Randhir (Pullu). Their flat was bang opposite our flat - on the other side of the colony road. They also had a dog, a Doberman, which was very ferocious and all the dogs and the dog owners of the colony were terrified of him. Once the dog attacked a cousin of theirs who was visiting them and hurt her quite severely. After that, the colony folks put their foot down and the dog had to be given away. Sudhir was a dog lover. He now adopted a white she-dog and named her Rani. Things were not going right for the little puppy, who was now just a couple of months old. One day Sudhir fell on her while playing and she got internal injuries and died in a couple of days after the incident. The Mehtas decided not to keep a dog after that.
We often had screams and hysterics because of the girlie nature of the crowd at our house. Once a tiger moth had entered our house, my excited exclamation, "Moth has come to our room!" - was interpreted as "maut" which means death. I don't recall who all screamed but Mrs. Mehta came running to our flat to check on us.
Do you know the basic difference between a moth and a butterfly? Both can be very colorful. When a moth sits, its wings are spread and a butterfly sits with its wings folded.
Prem and Pushpa were also fond of Planchette - a practice of dabbling with the para natural. You summon Mr. Planchette and subsequently ask for the spirit of a particular dead person. At times, any random spirit could make its presence felt and it was rumored that such self inviting spirits enjoyed human contact and were had to get to leave when requested. One day the spirit of the "monkey's paw" (click here to know the story) made an appearance and it was followed by screams and Mrs. Mehta running across the road to our place. In retrospect, it seemed quite delightful and humorous.
Another couple of friends that we made at the time and who are still in touch were Pinaki Dutt-Roy, Samaresh Chatterjee. Pinaki is working freelance as a sound engineer in London, got located on Google. I do meet hin when I visit London for visiting my daughter Chaitali. Samaresh was found by a common friend, he stays in Delhi, not too far, and often meets up in our morning walks.
I have talked about my love for animals as pets. I got the opportunity to adopt a puppy very soon. There was an Anglo-Indian family in our colony who had two pets, one female dog and one cat. Surprisingly, they used to co-exist and had grown up together. Their dog had a litter and the pups were available for adoption. I went and met the lady and she interviewed me thoroughly before handing me a brown male pup. He was between 3 and 4 weeks old. We named him "Dicky".
Belvedere was sandwiched between Belvedere Road (on the east) and Alipore Road (on the west). In the north, the National Library compound's gate opened near the main gate of the Calcutta Zoological Gardens. This was one of the better zoos of the country in terms of number and variety of animals. The other entrance to the Zoo was near Kidderpore. We could frequently hear the roars of the big cats very clearly in our houses, especially in the silence of the night.
On the south of the colony, we had the Horticultural Garden - where Mataji and Neena were regulars in their morning walk. The garden was a paradise for botanists and lovers of plants. The garden also had two trees that were known as pagla trees (click for more info). The leaves appeared to have been cut in individual contours - all appearing different, Neena was a lazy child (around 14 years old, at the time) and never liked to wake up early. She would go for the walk and promptly go back to sleep after the walk. In fact, Neena used to complete the morning walk with her eyes half-closed. After coming back from the walk Mataji would sit down for her morning puja and Neena would be in bed again, sounds crazy - I often spotted her sleeping while standing near the bathroom door. Before sitting at the puja Mataji used wooden slippers, khadaon, which made a clickety sound when she got up after the puja. The moment Neena would hear the sound of the khadaon, she would straightaway bolt to the bathroom. Once Dicky was trying to play with Mataji while she was at the puja, to shoo him away she picked up the khadaon and tapped it on the floor. I am not sure whether Dicky got shooed away or not, but we also saw Neena bolting to the bathroom.
Just across the Alipore Road, that was on the west of the colony, brought us to the gate cum check-post of an army establishment called Command Hospital. It was a very huge area the other end going to the Diamond Harbour Road as one went further west. It housed barracks, hospitals, Kendriya Vidyalaya, CSD Canteen, Gurudwara, Temple, etc. The premises is an army area even at present. Our gang of young boys had made friends with the guards that manned the gate on the Alipore Road. So on one Sunday, the guard invited us for sharing the langar, the community lunch at the Gurudwara. We were a happy and a bold lot and graciously accepted the invitation and enjoyed the meal. The guards became our cronies and invariably we would go to chit-chat with them.
Once we had a visitor from Delhi, one Captain Prem Varma. He was the brother of Mr. Chandra Prakash Varma - a very close family friend. He was addressed as mamaji (maternal uncle) by us(children). Capt. Varma had been posted to this Command Hospital area for temporary duty. He was received very cordially by Mataji & Pitaji. His visit just preceded my birthday that was being celebrated in a week's time. He was also invited to attend while going that day he asked mm my choice of a gift. He wanted to know between two alternatives, one being an airgun (have forgotten what was the other). I happily chose the airgun. On my birthday he promptly appeared with a DIANA airgun along with a box of 100 lead pellets. I was absolutely ecstatic. This airgun was with me for many years and I had developed into a very good shot. I could hit a match stick at nearly 30 yards. When my son Anurag was about a year old he was staying with Varsha's parents at the Netaji Nagar Government flat, the airgun was decorating the wall near the entrance door of the flat - that is roughly after 16 years of it having been acquired by me. Neena was also taught by me in the use of the airgun and while she was studying in Lady Hardinge Medical College, a few years later, she drove the airgun shooting stallholders at a fete' that was held there, into near bankruptcy by winning all the prizes. They had to literally beg her not to try for more. Just a corollary, saw Yasmin Daji from very close quarters in the fete' - that was in the same year in which she became Miss India and Miss Universe. She was still studying for MBBS in the college at the time.
Life in Belvedere had many hues and there are many memories of incidents that van be remembered for posterity.
The National Library compound had a fair number of mango tres, which used to yield a large number of mangoes. The area had a few watchmen to look out for children like us to protect the mango trees from our stone and catapults, from ruining the crop of the fruit that would have found the way to the Librarian's house. As a matter of fact, we used to gather enough stock of raw mangoes to make an endless supply of achaar (pickle) for the next one year, and aam-panna for our individual households, to last out the summer. I even recall storing the raw mangoes in the hay to ripen them successfully.
Once I was on a prowl with friends and armed with my airgun in the library area when we spotted a snake coiled and partly hidden in the roots of a large tree. I never liked to kill birds, I thought this is a good shikar. I pumped 5 pellets into the portion of its body that was visible. The head was hidden in the roots. Hearing the shots the watchman on duty came on the double. Ultimately the snake was pulled out but his lathi and bashed on the head to strike the death blow. When Mataji came to know that I had killed a snake, all hell broke loose.
"Your grandmother (daadi) would feed snake milk if it made an appearance in the house. We are Nagpal (meaning snake keeper or protector) and we have to protect the snakes and not kill them," I was admonished and made to do penance the following day by remaining locked in the house, reading a religious text.
In the Metro cinema on Chowringhee, we used to have a special show of children's movies or cartoons on Sunday mornings. We, meaning me and friends, used to attend most of them and enjoy clean healthy fun. The tickets were also on a reduced rate and were probably less than a rupee for the show.
On the 15th of August, our friend circle decided to have a party on one of the terraces of the flats. It was going to be a dinner with each person in the group was required to bring one special or favorite dish of the family. If I remember correctly I had taken Punjabi Chhole. It was the first time I got to taste Lobster. Pinaki's mom had prepared lobster curry for us. It was delicious and very hot. It was many years later that I got to taste lobster again, with our son, in the USA.
Once there was a test match in Eden Gardens, It was India vs West Indies. We kids decided to go for that. Getting tickets was out of the question. I recall that we climbed on the roof of the All India Radio building which was in the same vicinity and watched whatever we could see of the match from there. India team got a follow on after West Indies scored 614 runs. Pankaj Roy - our opener gave a miserable performance with 11+duck in the two innings. The match finished in less than 3-1/2 days. We even lost the series 3-0.
Our colony had a massive tree near its second gate on Alipore Road. The tree had a very interesting feature that almost made a natural machan, about 10-12 feet from the ground, by an unnatural formation of its branches. How could it remain hidden from our natural explore instincts! We started using it for a treetop picnics. The flat area on the tree could comfortably seat four youngsters with their hampers.
On the north side of the library, building was located a huge green lawn area that doubled as a playfield for hockey and cricket areas. On its west corner of this green, there was a cluster of banyan tree(s) that had money plants growing wild over it with leaves going up to 1-1/2 to 2 feet size. One typical branch came down in a majestic curve just about 3 to 4 feet above the ground, which could not only seat 7-8 of us swaying gently but also bear to take up our load. That was the favorite spot of the batsmen waiting to go on the crease.
Once granny (Pitaji's mother) had come to Calcutta. She was around the age of 80. After a few days, she developed serious diarrhea/dysentery, and being frail and delicate at her age, we were all very concerned. She had to be taken to hospital and was admitted to the R G Kar Hospital. Mataji was almost in a panic, she kept praying that she should recover and not succumb to her illness in our house. Else she would get branded the evil bahu. A few days in the hospital helped her to a full recovery, much to everyone's relief.
All good things also come to an end. Pitaji got transferred and we moved to Delhi in April 1959.
I shall continue the narrative in My Story 5 - Meri Dilli, Patel Nagar. Click here to continue.
