The day I met and lost Shibdas Choudhury

A middle aged man in a white dhoti – nondescript, bald, slim, of average height, dark skinned, who always wore a smile and a pair of thick rimmed glasses.

Ever since I knew him, I loved that vision of him. He was mostly unkempt, buried under a heap of books, manuscripts and papers. He would momentarily look up from the pile of print and smile at me as I would shyly enter his room. I was a kid in a frilled frock with lots of mischief in my eyes. But he also knew I was fond of books and would always ask if I would like to see a few illustrated ones he had. I would nod a quick yes and pick up a glossy Span that would lace his desk. There were magazines from all countries, but the ones from Russia are what I remember mostly. There could be a special reason for that, which I cannot remember now. Maybe the color or the glossy feel of them. But he would watch me leaf through them with a twinkle in his eyes. Before he could find something suitable for my age, I would scamper away in a flash to the balcony or the roof to play. He would go back to his endless notes and theses – he was my Boromesho. My mother's elder sister's husband.

I was the youngest in a brood of nine cousins. And the most pampered. I was in a hurry to grow up so that my older cousins would take me in their circle of secrecy. But apparently no one noticed my desperate rush. Soma didi, didibhai, Mantu didi, Munni didi, Sanju dada, Sumit dada, Amit dada, Raja dada – would gather at Boromashi’s at CIT road, Park Circus. Mostly it would be Ashtami or Nabami during the Durga Pujas. Boromashi’s apartment is on the fourth floor. It had no lift, no air conditioner, no extra rooms for guests, no plush carpets.  That made no difference to us. We were always dying to go there! It was a yearlong wait but worth every minute of it. The Pujas was the time of our lives.

When I was a kid there was no fancy mall to go to for Puja shopping. My mother had a knack for tailoring and had a score of DIY dress design manuals picked up from last year’s Boi Mela (book fair). The Usha sewing machine would wait in anticipation of late night labour in one corner of our house and I would hug myself in delight at the thought of hunching over Maa’s side watching her stitch my new dresses. The house that my father built before I was born was in Behala (still is!). It was a long way from Park Circus. In the 80s the EM Byepass had not yet materialized. Nor did many back then, have the recourse to the luxury of cabs. But one thing was guaranteed - while the Pujas were still a month away, Boromesho would come to our Behala residence carrying a plastic bag in his hand. I knew it.

Our Behala house had Burma teak chairs in the front verandah (sadly replaced with molded plastic ones now) overlooking the long road that leads to the front gate. Sitting on the chairs one can still see people walking down the road going about their daily business. I would wait for Mesho’s arrival with an eagerness with which nestlings wait for worms from their mamma birds. From the distance I would catch the first glimpse of his starched dhoti and most importantly the bags in his hand. His smile told us that he was as glad to see us as we to see him. I would run quick to open the gates for him and Maa would usher him in with a glass of cool water. 

He would wipe his vast forehead with a clean white handkerchief and ask: “Kemon achho tomra shobai? Dekho toh egulo pochondo hoy kina” (“How are you all? See if you like these” It was as if my life hinged upon that cue and instantly I would snatch the packets off his hand and take them inside to inspect my prize. Orange, blue, green, pink – dashes of colors, abstract prints, flowers, dolls, teddies – so many motifs to marvel at. Glee had no bounds. My Saptami was going to be memorable. What would it be? So many options to choose from: a knee length midi, a two part frock or a mini? When I grew older, he would bring textiles for salwar suits. He knew.

This is one of my favorite memories from childhood. May of the rest came from his house at Park Circus where we would huddle during Ashtami. Life was simple, even simpler were the joys of it. The taste of Boromashi’s daal and fish, the smell of her sari that she always wore in a traditional way, the hoots of passing local trains, the dull drone of the heavy ceiling fans, the whisper of conspiring cousins, the cool of the cement floor where we would be bunched together for a midday nap and the sight of Boromesho stooping to pick up a book – all priceless. We all knew he was a learned man. He was synonymous with the Asiatic Society and he was one man who could start a discourse on anything – theology, Indology, culture, arts, religion, politics, history – and even the tritest of subjects like “you”. But what made him different was the way he blended inconspicuously with the surrounding becoming the only one solid thing you could surely lean on. The reason why no one noticed him was because he preferred it that way.

Why am I writing about him? I do not know. He died last week, peacefully, having lived a life blessed with love, respect, wisdom and humility. I never knew what he was to me while he was alive. I went to Boromashi’s house last night to pay my respects only to find Mesho gone. Good people die, good times pass. We write obituaries to deify dead people, because we feel obligated to speak words of praise for departed souls. I do not need my words to canonize Shibdas Chaudhuri. People who were blessed to have come near him, knows.

I had stepped in gingerly at their house last night. Death is unsavory. I am scared of bereavement, of people in mourning. I was greeted at the door by his son, Sanju dada. I was startled to see him in white. He had puffy eyes, maybe from crying or from missing his father. Everything else looked normal. How easily do we accept death and its aftermath. No wait, was that Boromashi? A thin shriveled woman in a bedraggled white saree? A wraith of the plump cuddly woman we called “Boromashi”. A woman who liked feeding hungry mouths with ladles of her exquisite cuisine. A woman who would chop betel nuts all afternoon and push that perfectly rolled paan into her mouth reddened by the betel juice. A matriarch who had the authority to shut my arrogant father up in a minute. She was called “didimoni” by all her sisters and their husbands. She was a shadow of all the glory that was didimoni now.

She broke down in a fresh outbreak of tears – the natural tendency of people to seek newer reasons to mourn the loss, to keep the loss alive. I stood away from the scene of tragedy. It was a private loss for me – I was jealous about sharing it with anyone else. Grief for me can never be social. I can write about bereavement but can never let it show. It was sacrilege for me to demonstrate it as a ritual. There were relatives present who by virtue of their characteristics could quickly change the scene. I was watching in silence their resilience, marveling at their expertise to quickly embark on hilarious exchanges even with death around. Also practical chores had to be taken care of: could someone talk to the cook? Could someone make some tea? Could someone dance in front of a grown up son or a granddaughter? Could a skinny cousin grow obese? Could one mashi still wear nailpoish at the age of 65? Considerations – all relatively significant, I am sure, to some.

Boromashi was telling Maa how Mesho had loved me specially. How when I had last visited him, he had told her after I had left “This daughter of mine is showcase stuff, she looks like Durga”. Is that how he saw me? Is that why every time during the Pujas he would touch my head and kiss my forehead and bless me like he never did to anyone else? Did he see Durga in me?

As a testimony to the man he was, his wife said a thing I can ever forget::

“Ponchanno bochor e ekta kotu kotha manush ta koy nai  kono deen amare…amaar joto raag jhaal shob dhalchhi tnaar opor kintu uttore ekta o kotah shuni nai” (“In all our 55 years together he had not uttered a single bad word to me. I had poured my anger and complaints on him but he had always listened patiently never returning any of it”). 

No one, not a single living soul has ever seen Mesho lose his temper or self control even for a single moment his life. His was an extraordinary soul.

I remembered myself. My petty ego, my bloated self respect, my false pride – how puny, how small I looked. Mesho was a man so big, so elevated, that he understood and forgave human follies. He forgave every weakness with a smile, he never took himself seriously enough to take offence from people. Or did he know his own enormity, did he know that no one could ever measure up to his wisdom or greatness? Did he realise he had to humour our inflated personas or did he know that only love and patience can bring out the best in ordinary mortals? Whatever it was, he stood tall amidst us midgets. 

Boromashi asked me to sing a song and I sang a Rabindrasangeet. Would it be stupidly sentimental if I told you that I felt Mesho had unobtrusively come to the door of the room to hear me sing? He was fond of my songs, I know. Boromashi repeated it so many times last night that when I sang out of tune with a choked voice I saw him there. For the last time – in a blue lungi, his sacred thread hanging loose over his bare torso, wearing the same old smile.

I had lost a father.