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A short memoir

Joydeep Singha

“Come quick, they are waiting for the bus”, Imon called me hastily after attending the 50th convocation at IIT Madras. I, clumsy as I still am, picked up an umbrella to avoid the drizzle and ran out of the hostel in the same half pant and shirt that I would wear on any typical day. That was the evening I first met Puta as well as Maa, at the bus stand near the Alumni office on the campus.

 He firmly shook my hand and I had the feeling that he intended to make sure that I feel his strong hands. I remember Maa was smiling while Puta kept a straight face. On the next day, I met them at the hotel they both were staying near the Chepauk Stadium and spoke for quite a while. Initially, I was speaking in English and Puta asked me in a sarcastic tone, “What is your mother tongue?”. I slightly shuddered, “Bengali”. He smiled and started speaking to me in fluent Bengali afterward. I was surprised by the ease and fluency in his Bengali. Later as I got to know him more personally, I learned that although I might try to show off sometimes about Bengali culture (I fail almost every time), he and Ata (Imon’s late grandfather) were far, far more well versed in Bengali literature and its cultural aspects.

 Perhaps that is the general trait of a writer or an artist who sought to be perfect in their art form, to know and understand the different cultures and the different facets of life through people’s eyes, ordinary people, like you, like me. In his stories, he always added the elements from his experience and stories he came across

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