Wistfulness

=================================================================

I miss Shankar Banerjee; often.

I don't know why precisely.

Our acquaintance was confined to 30 contiguous evenings in January 1975 during which we exchanged about as many words. And many smiles for the rest of 30 years.

He joined as a Typist at IIT KGP and retired perhaps as a Superintendent...not exactly a glorious career, as careers go. But he won many hearts including my stony thing.

Without doubt he had a soothing, becalming personality not very much in abundance in these hectic times.

He was no saint...far from it...he had a large family of his own and was the lovable head of an even larger Joint Family...which he managed with as much grace as the Banerjee Typing Center...there was never a name plate or plaque like that...we just called it that since every blessed thing on this earth has to have a name.

His extended family lived in a tiny H type Qrs while its twin, allotted to his brother, Shyama Banerjee, housed two 'Secretary Tables' with half a dozen Remington typewriters crackling all the time, in front of two wooden benches and a couple of chairs.

Shankar-da was fair, short and plump. In the Institute he was always to be found in impeccable white dhoti and punjabi; but in his typing center he was always in his banian, genially typing page after page, hardly getting up. And receiving and tackling irate customers.

Being the only Typing Pool within the Campus, it was almost impossible to manage the rush. Its customers came with a variety of attitudes...Ph D Theses with 'foreign' examiners, M Techs with deadly deadlines, B Techs to be churned overnight, Applications Forms for Ration Cards, Gas Connections and an occasional legal contract and so on.

Shankar-da's job was to prioritize all these and get the streamline flow going without eddies and turbulences...not at all an easy thing to do.

But he was almost like that Preacher in Goldsmith's Deserted Village:

"...At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorn'd the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray..."

*********************************************************************************************

To me his sweet personality acted like balm.

That January I was at the end of my tether. Six months of desperately waiting for SDM's "OK-Go Ahead" signal for getting my handwritten manuscript typed reduced me to tears; and Shyama Babu, my Perfectionist Typist was as fleeting as the sun behind KGP July monsoon clouds.

And SDM was retiring in June.

Whenever Shankar-da saw me turn gloomy and dejected he would flash his benign smile and say:

"Hoyejaabe, chinta koroben na!"

And I would recover like a watered lily.

*********************************************************************************************

I miss Shankar Banerjee...

I know why...

He was not just a man but an Institution fast disappearing in these fast-paced times...


==================================================================