Today I woke up to a compelling query on Instagram: ‘Are you connected to 202?, Is your name Moa, is your brother’s name Ghonto?…’ and then it unfolded into a beautiful childhood memory. The address of the house I grew up in was actually used for two houses within the same premises, one in the front and one at the back. Priyanjana, the person who reached out, spent her childhood at the same address as mine, in the house behind ours. She stayed on the second floor which faced the balcony / half-terrace at the back of our second floor apartment. As children we used to hang out at our respective balconies and windows and would wave at each other. The families were acquainted as neighbours and we played dol and burnt diwali crackers in our common play area (‘uthon’) that spread between the two houses. As my new found childhood neighbour stumbled upon my Indian Express article, she dug a little more and supported by her extraordinary memory of those times, connected with me successfully!
We kept chatting over the next few days and also figured that her aunt (pisi) played the role of little Durga in Satyajit Ray’s movie ‘Pather Panchali. Karuna Sen (Karuna Banerjee after marriage) who is none other than ‘Sarbojaya’ in Ray’s Apu trilogy was her father’s aunt, and her grandmother, and lived in the same flat. She was an iconic Bengali actress who also appeared in Ray’s Devi and Kanchenjungha. In my father’s unfinished autobiography, he mentions many details of the then neighbour-families where he mentions about Karuna Sen, as Karuna Maasi! From among the treasured memories captured in black and white, Priyanjana shared a beautiful photograph of Karuna Sen with her two sisters-in-law, Roma and Shyamoli who also find mention in my father’s writing.
As much as I am enthralled, this has led me to remember two more unusual connections that happened purely based on the article on 202.
One of them is the renowned writer and columnist Manish Nandy of the famous trio – Manish Nandy, Ashis Nandy and Pritish Nandy. He was a very close friend of my father’s elder brother (Mejobaba to us, and Shanku to his friends) and also knew my father quite well. Mr. Nandy wrote in his personal note to me, “I knew Tutu quite well. In fact, he got me to work with Dinen Gupta, the director, and Kajal Gupta, the actress, his wife, on writing the French subtitles for the film, Natun Pata, based on Prativa Basu’s story, before it was sent to Cannes. But it was Shanku, the elder brother, who was my close friend.”
Among Nandy’s series of personal memoirs that he penned in The Statesman, one is about Shanku and their friendship, which he generously shared with me too. I am sharing the link here as some of you may enjoy it. https://www.thestatesman.com/…/three-is-company…
The other extremely interesting connection was with a person, Abe Thomas, from the music industry who reached out upon reading that my father knew Milon Gupta. He stayed across the road from 202, and was again a friend of one of my uncle’s, and would often join the evening addas where he would also play his mouth organ, mesmerizing everyone. Abe had been trying to put together a wikipedia page on Milon Gupta (who retains a huge number of fan-followers even today! ) for a long time, when he came across my article. There has been a lot of self-contradicting data that has frustrated him over the years and hindered his work. Our conversation turned more interesting as he went on to mention Deodar street, although he has been living in the USA almost all his life. The mystery unfolded as he shared about his job in India, when he came to open an office for distribution of Suzuki Harmonica (an initiative of his: http://suzukimusicindia.com). He also shared that he connects Indian musicians to MI College of Contemporary Music, a musicians institute in Hollywood (more info: www.IndianMI.com). We ended up chatting about my father’s diary and that he owned a German Harmonica, which Abe explained was a chromatic harmonica (invented by Hohner), having all of the 12 tones found in each octave thus enabling music to be played in all 12 keys on one instrument.
All these conversations have happened at different points of time over the past decade, and I wonder how much more is still out there that can create this kind of magic – the magic that extends beyond 202, beyond our souls who carry fragments of that house, to the wider world of yet to be known people who have been touched by the conviviality and heritage of that house!
It takes a common place of memories, stories, togetherness, laughter and cries, lump in the throat, love and loss to make a community, across generations and ages.
Sunny Side Up 