The elements that make one’s life wondrous are mostly installed in one’s childhood. All through my childhood I learned the subtle flavour of living from my father. He was an excellent storyteller. I hated fish and rice, the staple diet of a Bengali house, and every night the painful moments of gulping the rui machher jhol and rice was sweetened by exciting stories, mostly of the tiger or the fish. Every night it would be a new story! He was a writer so I guess it was not difficult for him to narrate a previously unheard story every time.
There used to be the Saturday evening and Sunday morning “addas” at our place. These sessions used to be highly interesting. Many different types of people would pour in every weekend and usually would not go home the entire day. The sessions would start with “chaa” and “taa” followed by more “chaa” and “taa” and then lunch, afternoon nap, and evening tea when they would realize that it was high time that they went home. Some would stay back even for the night with very light insistence!
Sometimes, in specific groups, my father would read from his manuscripts the stories he was planning to publish. I remember listening to them and enjoying not only the readings but the conversations around them. There were also stories/ incidents/ experiences that he used to narrate from his own life and the Kolkata he grew up in which were adventurous, scary and hilarious. Later many of these narrations were incorporated into his publications, primarily in “Desh”, and in different Bengali magazines.
He was an excellent photographer and even had a dark room of his own when he was young. He never had enough money to buy a good camera during those days, so he would borrow a camera from his friends when we went on short trips to Puri or Bishnupur. His photographs of Bishnupur were also part of exhibitions in Kolkata. He was not ambitious and so could never make a career out of his skill of photography. I was one of his greatest appreciators and we would sit and analyse his photographs for hours. Mostly he taught me framing, choice of subject, exposure, shutter speed and other technicalities. When I was a little older and he could buy a camera of his own, we often went out on a Kolkata tour simply for photography. I remember one of our expeditions after very heavy rains sometime during the ’90s. We went to the South Calcutta lake; the roads were full of water and we waded through it to click so many beautiful moments. Unfortunately, we lost all the photographs as the reel had somehow opened inside the camera.
He taught me to appreciate literature, art, paintings, and music. He loved classics as well as animations, cartoons, Walt Disney, Asterix and Tintin movies. He loved RK Laxman, European artists, and the Bengal school of art. Sudhir Khastagir was a particular favourite. He took me to art and photography exhibitions to develop the creative sense in me and had introduced me to several artists through their work. As much as he liked old English (Santana was a favourite) and Bengali songs, he was equally open to new ones, always eager to hear new things. It was a continuous process of discovery and sharing. He became a great appreciator of Suman, and there were often long discussions on specific choices and why so. He liked the “Jibonmukhi” Bengali bands as well! We made choices and developed arguments around those for almost every creative field. I remember that there was a divide in our house between the senior and the junior groups (that is my father and my uncle constituting the former, and my cousin and I constituting the latter) on who is a more legendary actor – Dilip Kumar or Amitabh Bachchhan. We never had a reconciliation and never needed one.
The senior Rays were a part of our regular life. My father would often read out their stories and poems to me multiple times and I would lie on the floor and listen for hours. During these session, we would laugh together, stop and reread portions which we liked and laugh again. We felt, savoured, and saluted their genius in the same way and the sharing, the humour and the intellectual pleasure just strengthened the richness much more. Tutu Bhutu, which surprisingly I find very few people of my generation has read, was also our favourite among others.
He was solely responsible for me being a painter. His organization exported paper. He brought me all the cut out pieces that his office would throw away. These papers were of all kinds including basic quality papers, art boards, and even plastic coated papers (which I loved). He had once brought me a box of colour pencils, which at that time had costed him ten rupees, with which if you shaded and then used water with brush would appear like water colour. However cliched it may sound now, at that time it was real magic to me! Most importantly, he taught me proportions and was my greatest critique. I painted almost all the time, even till very late at night and the moment I finished something I had to ask him how it was. I remember that often I woke him up even at 2 am at night to ask how my freshly finished handiwork was and he actually commented on those at that moment without any complaint. Probably, having a creative mind himself he knew the untold urgency!
He had a small tunnel shaped cupboard which seemed like a treasure trove to me. All sorts of interesting things came out of it. Seeing my inclination towards sketching, one day he took out a box of charcoal for me (Grumbacher made in USA). The first experience of the first bold stroke on paper is unforgettable! I never stopped using charcoal after that, and it is still one of my most favourite mediums. During my school days, I remember, there was a sudden craze of playing the mouth organ. Seeing my interest, one day he took out from his magic cupboard a German made Harmonica which he had carefully preserved for many years.
A few months ago I came to know that my father was writing an autobiography which he named : “Hridoyer Purono Punthite”. I started reading his unfinished draft and I found the story of how he had been inspired and attracted to the performance of the legendary Milon Gupta (who was my father’s elder brother’s friend and lived across the road from 202), and had requested his neighbour and a friend, who travelled far and wide with a job on a ship, to get him one. He has mentioned in his autobiography that this mouth organ was one of his most precious possessions from his younger days. Now I have it, and the story makes it invaluable though with long years of lack of use it does not play anymore.
Weekends were movie time for us. We went together, just the two of us, to watch English movies. Every Saturday morning, we would open the newspaper to chose a movie and after a quick early lunch would head to esplanade. Sound of Music was my first movie but thereafter we watched so many – Jaws, The Jackal, Batman, Honey I shrunk the kids, Monsieur Verdoux, Great Dictator, Ten Commandments, Superman, Supergirl, and Walt Disney animations and so many others.
As I grew older and became busy with my own life our times together shortened though the elements of fun, humour, and gaiety remained strong. With time, our closeness weakened and the relationship became more formal. Today, as I read through his autobiography, I feel there was so much more we together could have savoured had we noticed that we were away from each other for many years and had we not lost the life of 202, where I grew up.
He died on 21st April 2016.
Sunny Side Up 