My Life
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About this ebook
Memories of the author in first person language. Starts from 1935 when India was under British rule, and ends in 1990. The service life spent both as a railway employee and as well as a contractor employee working with Railway. Contains Black and white photographs taken by authors and as well as the color pictures taken in simple camera, Author was awarded prizes for his B&W photographs in 1955.A list of books authored is given in the last page.
Dilip Kr. Bandyopadhyay
Retired from service since last 20 years. Writes in Bengali mostly in rhyming poems. Interested in travel. Happily married.
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My Life - Dilip Kr. Bandyopadhyay
My Life
Dilip Kr. Bandyopadhyay
(Spicydilip)
This e-book is dedicated to my elder brother late Dipak Banerjee, whose endless support led me to complete this autobiography, It would be unjust also if I do not mention the support given by my daughter, Shubhra and her son Abirbhav to let me publish the same as an e-book. Readers are requested to contact me at [email protected] for their queries.
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2013 Dilip. Kr. Bandyopadhyay
License Notes: This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this e-book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
ISBN No. 9781301133901
Price $ 1.99
Chapter 1
My Childhood (1935-1944)
When I thought about jotting down my memories it was nothing but an ambition to share my experiences to my successor about how to deal with the ups and downs of life cycle. Others may think how can be an ordinary lay man be my teacher, but be assured that I will not fill up this book with lessons of what to do or not. It will be a potpourri of incidents during the last 78 years of my life. Some incidents were forgotten during this write-up, and as such were omitted.
It was on 27th June, in 1935 when I have seen the lights of this planet. I was born as the third son of my parents at the Lady Dufferin Hospital Calcutta (presently known as Kolkata).My eldest brother could not enjoy this planet more than ten days and left us early. This is my de facto birth date, though the de juror date is 01-03-1935. As practised then, a scroll of handmade paper containing my future deeds and accidents were made after calculation of the stars and planets, by one of the colleagues of my father. The same paper is not available now, as it could not withstand the pressure of time. But I’m sure, there must have been something written about my courage to jot down my memories.
The picture given below shows my maternal uncle, father and a family friend Sri Biren Kushari (standing back row); mother, my grandmother with my youngest brother and my aunt (sitting), I and my elder brother (front row). Reference is from left. The photo was taken sometime in 1938 end at Calcutta.
My father was Sri Sharada Charan Banerjee, third son of Bireswar Banerjee, of Kharjala Para. Santipur, Nadia, a small town in Bengal, India. In fact my grandfather was from village Amla from where he shifted to Santipur and started living there. He was a landlord, known for his magnanimity. It is said that being happy with the services rendered by his washer-man (dhobi) he gifted about an acre of land with a house to stay. The house that I have seen at a later date was built on an area of about 1/2 of an acre and had in addition gardens on both sides of it. The gardens were having some good fruit bearing trees where we used to play at childhood days, whenever we went there.
My father, born in 1899, passed out his Matriculation Examination from Santipur English High School. Thereafter he has not told me about his life story in detail. Only thing I know of that he once went to Delhi to his eldest brother who arranged for a government job there. However he left Delhi soon and came back to Santipur to join in the freedom movement of India. He joined the Anushilan Group
, a revolutionary group, who believed in use of violence if required, to overthrow the ruling British Government. During this period he stationed himself at Dacca, presently capital of Bangladesh. His main job as a freedom fighter was to collect the particulars of the government forces and their movements. My cousin brother, Sri Dhiren Chatterjee (eldest son of my aunt), who was of father’s age, also joined him. It was during period my father met with my mother.
If you look closely on the photograph of my father you may notice that there is a tumour like growth on right forehead. Somewhere in 43 or 44, he applied some medicine on it. After a few days the growth burst out and some pus like thing came out. Thereafter it subsided leaving a scar. Later some of his acquaintances asked him, whether he got a bullet injury in ‘42 revolution. Funny guy, as if a person receiving a bullet injury on forehead would remain alive to narrate how the bullet was deflected or entered in the brain.
My mother was second daughter of Sri Kamakhya Charan Gupta, a native of village Baghia (Vikrampur) in Dacca district of East Bengal, who had been working as a Post Master in Assam. My grandmother shifted to Dacca after death of my maternal grandfather. She was also a freedom fighter. Her duty in that was to hide the revolutionary members and their arms and ammunitions. The contact between my parents was this freedom struggle.
While father withdrew completely from his revolutionary friends except some like Sri Narayan Banerjee, Sri Amar Mukherjee etc. people like Anant Singh, Kalpana Joshi, Loknath Bal, visited our house post independence. In fact, daughter and sons of Sri Purnendu Dastidar, of Chittagong Armoury Raid, stayed in our house for studies, while he was a Member of Parliament of the then East Pakistan, and was in jail for his political views.
After shifting to Calcutta, my parents joined as primary teacher in the Free Primary Schools run by the Corporation of Calcutta. Luckily both of them were posted in the same building which was holding boys section in the ground floor and the girls section on the first floor. The school was situated at 10, Simla Street, in the northern part of Calcutta. The reason of giving this particulars is that my early life, till I joined in service, was spent in and around this area.
As colleagues of my father I can remember Sri Baidyanath Mondal, Troilokynath Chakraborty. Father was known more as Sarad babu, famous for his knuckle hits to the naughty boys of the school. Luckily that was reserved for the students only, most of who stayed in nearby area.
My mother’s colleagues were Mrs. Angshulekha Banerjee. Mrs Parimal Sen. Mrs Bjloli Biswas. Mother was more known as Boudidimoni
or a teacher who is recently married or who looked as recently married. I could not make out the reason of such naming. My sister informs that Mrs. Parimal Sen, mom’s colleague used to call mom as ‘bou’ from which the word Boudidimoni evolved. During my childhood I had participated in the children’s programmes in the All India Radio under direction of Mrs Angshulekha, who was also the headmistress of the school and brother of a renowned Rabinrda Sangeet singer.
In Calcutta, we stayed in rented houses. The rent was never cheap, considering the rupee value computed in gold standard. But as the population in the city was low it was a pick and choose affair. If the house did not fulfil your requirement after a month or six you could always change it. I can remember that from my age of about 4 or so, we must have changed our residence not less than eight or nine times within a period of fifteen years.
As I see backwards the first incident that comes up in my mind was a fire at southern end of the city. It must be in 1939 or 40. We were staying in a four storied house on Vivekanand Road. About eight in night, we could first notice a glow on the southern sky and then the flames. Later on we came to know that the fire was somewhere in Tollygunj area. It may sound really funny that there was nothing to obstruct our view