Shyama o Shyamali

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1975 IIT KGP Campus: A Heaven for Research. Biggest Library in Eastern India.

But, my 5-year-old grand-niece would call it a Stone Age Relic. No telephones. No Xerox. No PC, No keyboard, No MS Word! A veritable Hell for bringing out 5 copies of a 250-page Ph D Thesis in Theoretical Physics bristling with Greek Alphabet and Equations.

My Guide SDM insisted he wouldn't allow any hand-written matter. For he was determined to send my thesis to Caltech, Harvard or MIT where they had all these facilities and the Examiner would compare. And there was a 'boast' in the Letter to the Examiner: "Please evaluate this Thesis in relation to Theses of your own esteemed Institution".

SDM suggested that I go to the Banerjee Typing Center which alone had 2 Remington typewriters equipped with all Greek Alphabet. He directed me to that place: "Turn right at the Tech Market, go go go till you get a Big Tamarind Tree and keep going till you see an old man sitting in an arm chair in the lawn".

I did so and found the old man. Also an old woman fanning and fawning on him; both drinking Tea and indulging in small talk. Also a dozen kids ranging from 15 to 3 playing various outdoor games. Fence bristling with blood-red Jaawa flowers. The usual mango and guava trees. Money plant creepers. Also a bael tree. Obviously a flourishing Old World Bengali Joint family. The reigning deities ought to be Shiv-Kali. My guess was right. It turned out that the working Head of the family was Shankar Prosad Banerjee. And his younger brother: Shyama Prosad Banerjee. The kids were Somnath, Gauri, Parvati et al.

As I entered the famed Banerjee Typing Center crackling with the din of half a dozen contraptions going tap tap tap I found Shankarda at work. Short, fair and plump with such a pleasing smile that all the stress and strain of the past 6 months drafting a thesis passable by SDM vanished for a while.

Shankarda welcomed me and asked who my Guide was. I said SDM. He shrank back a little and said: "Arre Baba , uni tho Perfectionist. Shyama alone can please him" and looked across the table to his younger brother. Shyama Babu was completely absorbed in his typing. After a while he looked up and asked with an abrupt stammer: "How many Pages?" "About 250" "It will take a month".

My heart sank. SDM was retiring in 5 months and I wanted my thesis passed before he left KGP. Shankarda could read my pain and said: "I can get it done by someone else in a week, but your guide will ask you get the whole thing retyped again. Better let Shyama do it".

I could see that Shyama Babu was an equal Perfectionist. He asked me to come with my hand-written Draft and sit with him for the entire month. He said it would be better I point out typing errors then and there so that the tedious corrections in the original and the 4 Carbon Copies could be done then and there. Once the page is pulled out of the machine, it would be impossible to get the alignment right and each copy had to be corrected and it would take 2 months. I agreed.

Next evening I was there waiting for Shyama Babu. Everyone else was there but him. After a wait of 15 grueling minutes he appeared, sat down on his stool and started the work. I could see he was slow and deliberate so that he didn't have to correct mistakes. Others were superfast and making mistakes dozens of times and correcting them messily with the nasty Eraser and the ugly Correcting Fluid.

First page (the most important) was done in 20 minutes and free from a single error. As he brought it out, I could see it was Caltech Quailty.

He then vanished inside the house and kept me waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Shankarda smiled and gave a shout. A most pleasing lady with her head half-covered in the traditional veil supplied everyone around with steaming chai.

Shyama Babu returned duly and took up the next page. As the Equations with all sorts of Greek alphabet in numerators and denominators were taking shape in perfect order, I forgot all the irritation and sat glued. Shyama Babu got up and went inside: "Ektu noshshi aani". Then another wait. Shankarda smiled his pleasing smile. By and by I gathered Shyama was running a vaulting BP and needed frequent breaks.

Suddenly there was a distant cry: "Shyamali aashchey!" And another repeat cry from nearer: "Shyamali aashchey!"

Then came Shyamali. By the time she arrived, everyone except me was in a hurry to close their files. What a cute 3-year-old! Everyone patted her, and kissed her forehead. I was mesmerized by her beauty. And suddenly she snatched the topmost paper from my Draft Thesis, crumpled it and ran away. Everyone laughed. Shankarda smiled apologetically: "Shyamali loves Ph D theses!" SDM should have warned me. And then I understood the booming Alarm Calls that preceded her arrival.

No worry! There was ample time to rewrite the Page from the remains that were pulled away from her before Shyama Babu arrived duly. I was irritated. But once he sat down to typing, all my pain vanished: Equation after Equation neatly falling in their blemishless places.

The month passed by and my glorious Thesis was ready. And meanwhile whenever Shyamali was announced I was ready to fend her off. And took to petting her like everyone else.

Sweets were bought and distributed all around when the Thesis was bound up. And the whole Draft File was given away to Shyamali to play with.

A decade later, Shyama Babu was hospitalized after a 'stroke'. My wife and I visited the BNR Hospital to look him up. He was advised to give up typing once for all. By then young Somnath took over as a Replacement Perfectionist. But SDM retired and was 'elsewhere' by then.

Another decade later, Shyama Babu followed.

Typewriters were becoming curiosities. Banerjee Typing Center was on its decline as more and more Research Scholars took to typing their own theses on their own PCs with Equation Editors.

Even I learned it and composed my 250-page Lecture Notes myself.

Another decade later, it shut shop.

No worry! The talented youngsters of the family grew up to various vocations and the age-old Bengali Joint family flourished.

We became family friends and used to keep up visits till I retired.

When we revisited KGP this January, 5 years after my retirement, Shankarda was also 'elsewhere' and his son Somnath welcomed us in and we had Tea brought in by Shankarda's Bahurani with the traditional half-veil:

"Kemon aachen?" "Khoob Bhaalo!" "Shonoo kemon?" "Ohr Biyae hoyeche. Uni father now" "Shothhi!"

And I found to my delight Shyamali's great-granddaughter: another 3-year-old cute kid. Maybe now fond of whatever replacements were there for Draft Ph D Theses.

Shyamali, the household pet calf, must have gifted many handsome progeny to the Banerjee Household.

Actors change but the Show goes on!

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