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http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2009/10/sudhansu-datta-majumdar-genius-who.html
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Yesterday I had an unexpected phone call from IIT KGP. It was from a friendly colleague, two years junior to me, retired as HoD of an engg dept and settled in a gated community, just outside the campus, bought up by retiring professors of IIT KGP.
The handsomely courteous call started as a condolence on the death of my wife almost a year ago.
But it soon turned congratulatory for my great good fortune of living with my son and D-i-L and little Ishani. As they say:
"You win some, you lose some"
Apparently most of our seniors and a few juniors are no more. And the few survivors living there are either singletons or doubletons. All their kids and grandkids (if any) are abroad or away from their old and dilapidating parents.
And the senior citizens get together on a daily basis, exchanging complaints, and chatting away the good old times when all of us joined IIT KGP in the golden 1960s. And speak ill, rather, of the current crop of teachers and students...to their hearts' content.
That sent me racing into my own memories of 1960s in the campus, frankly for once.
The campus was a desolate place then. Forget telephones, mobile or immobile, or TV, color or colorless, desktops and internet, fridges or washing machines, cars or scooters....it had no water, running or walking. The taps were dry most of the day and occasionally a gush of dubious hissing sound emanated from them...mostly to deceive. There were no overhead tanks, sintex or metal. There were deep and dirty cemented tanks in an occasional bathroom and they had an outlet at their bottoms which had to be daily plugged in unsuccessfully by a banian or blouse.
There were no underground power cables and every gush of wind or storm meant a power outage for hours and sometimes days together.
Thefts and burglaries were rampant...I was burgled in Qrs C-23 as well as C1-97. And two of my pushbikes, one new and the other old, were stolen by a prolific gang of 'bicycle thieves'. Whenever we went on vacation, we had to get up on a chair placed precariously on a table and download all the ceiling fans and pack them up and safe-keep them in a non-vacationing friend's Qrs, if any. While I was living in the top floor of Bachelors Flats, I had to daily carry my bike up and down three floors on a winding staircase. And bachelors going on vacation biked into their offices and lodged them there for a month or more.
There were no collapsible gates and all brass taps in all the institute bathrooms were stolen one by one and sold for a peg of country liquor by needy mouths.
All trains were pulled by steam engines and there was but one sleeper compartment in the prestigious Howrah-Madras Mail. And we had to get up at 4 AM exactly ten days before our journey date and bike furiously to the KGP station...only to find a long long queue of students and staff smarter than us.
There was no cooking gas and kerosine was sold in black at a hideout 5 kilometers away in the KGP town.
The overall stench in the bathrooms of the institute and the hostels was overpowered by cigarette smoke...most everyone smoked.
There were no ceiling fans in the rooms of the hostels.
The list of troubles is endless...
But we all talk gloriously about our life at IIT KGP whenever we meet.
And I was forlorn for five years after my retirement and flew back to KGP with my wife at the earliest pretext.
And my son, who was born and brought up and graduated there in 2004, had all those missing things like a car, a scooter, a moped, a couple of pushbikes, 24x7 water and power, and a nascent mobile phone, and a color TV, and a desktop at home with an internet connection, and an 8-lane highway to Calcutta to catch a flight to Hyderabad.
And, he took the first excuse to travel to KGP to show off his alma mater to his brand-new wife...by air.
His nostalgia for the charmed place is no less than mine...I dream of KGP on a daily basis...but he is too busy to dream.
Inexplicable...
Talking of nostalgia, my son reminded me this morning that today happens to be my 34th Wedding Anniversary.
Sailaja and Ishani are away vacationing in Singapore and Sonoo is away at his office. And the bride is missing. Still, the groom is around and kicking and blogging away furiously...so it is an occasion to celebrate.
The only thing I fondly remember of my grueling 6-hour wedding ceremony all those decades ago is that I was then a chain-smoker.
So, I told my Punditjee that he had to let me off for five minutes every hour.
And he was pleased as Punch...for, that was an ample interval for snorting his hidden pinch of heady snuff...
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"...These stories are my recollection of
events thirty five years past. That is a long while. Most of the players
are sadly no more; and the rest are like me, senior citizens on their
way. Professor Majumdar was 55 then, a good 30 years my senior. And
memory falters; names forgot, and truth colored by the soft glow of
nostalgia for long-lost youth and exuberance..."
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Yesterday I had an unexpected phone call from IIT KGP. It was from a friendly colleague, two years junior to me, retired as HoD of an engg dept and settled in a gated community, just outside the campus, bought up by retiring professors of IIT KGP.
The handsomely courteous call started as a condolence on the death of my wife almost a year ago.
But it soon turned congratulatory for my great good fortune of living with my son and D-i-L and little Ishani. As they say:
"You win some, you lose some"
Apparently most of our seniors and a few juniors are no more. And the few survivors living there are either singletons or doubletons. All their kids and grandkids (if any) are abroad or away from their old and dilapidating parents.
And the senior citizens get together on a daily basis, exchanging complaints, and chatting away the good old times when all of us joined IIT KGP in the golden 1960s. And speak ill, rather, of the current crop of teachers and students...to their hearts' content.
That sent me racing into my own memories of 1960s in the campus, frankly for once.
The campus was a desolate place then. Forget telephones, mobile or immobile, or TV, color or colorless, desktops and internet, fridges or washing machines, cars or scooters....it had no water, running or walking. The taps were dry most of the day and occasionally a gush of dubious hissing sound emanated from them...mostly to deceive. There were no overhead tanks, sintex or metal. There were deep and dirty cemented tanks in an occasional bathroom and they had an outlet at their bottoms which had to be daily plugged in unsuccessfully by a banian or blouse.
There were no underground power cables and every gush of wind or storm meant a power outage for hours and sometimes days together.
Thefts and burglaries were rampant...I was burgled in Qrs C-23 as well as C1-97. And two of my pushbikes, one new and the other old, were stolen by a prolific gang of 'bicycle thieves'. Whenever we went on vacation, we had to get up on a chair placed precariously on a table and download all the ceiling fans and pack them up and safe-keep them in a non-vacationing friend's Qrs, if any. While I was living in the top floor of Bachelors Flats, I had to daily carry my bike up and down three floors on a winding staircase. And bachelors going on vacation biked into their offices and lodged them there for a month or more.
There were no collapsible gates and all brass taps in all the institute bathrooms were stolen one by one and sold for a peg of country liquor by needy mouths.
All trains were pulled by steam engines and there was but one sleeper compartment in the prestigious Howrah-Madras Mail. And we had to get up at 4 AM exactly ten days before our journey date and bike furiously to the KGP station...only to find a long long queue of students and staff smarter than us.
There was no cooking gas and kerosine was sold in black at a hideout 5 kilometers away in the KGP town.
The overall stench in the bathrooms of the institute and the hostels was overpowered by cigarette smoke...most everyone smoked.
There were no ceiling fans in the rooms of the hostels.
The list of troubles is endless...
But we all talk gloriously about our life at IIT KGP whenever we meet.
And I was forlorn for five years after my retirement and flew back to KGP with my wife at the earliest pretext.
And my son, who was born and brought up and graduated there in 2004, had all those missing things like a car, a scooter, a moped, a couple of pushbikes, 24x7 water and power, and a nascent mobile phone, and a color TV, and a desktop at home with an internet connection, and an 8-lane highway to Calcutta to catch a flight to Hyderabad.
And, he took the first excuse to travel to KGP to show off his alma mater to his brand-new wife...by air.
His nostalgia for the charmed place is no less than mine...I dream of KGP on a daily basis...but he is too busy to dream.
Inexplicable...
Talking of nostalgia, my son reminded me this morning that today happens to be my 34th Wedding Anniversary.
Sailaja and Ishani are away vacationing in Singapore and Sonoo is away at his office. And the bride is missing. Still, the groom is around and kicking and blogging away furiously...so it is an occasion to celebrate.
The only thing I fondly remember of my grueling 6-hour wedding ceremony all those decades ago is that I was then a chain-smoker.
So, I told my Punditjee that he had to let me off for five minutes every hour.
And he was pleased as Punch...for, that was an ample interval for snorting his hidden pinch of heady snuff...
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