Telemedicine: A Retrospective

Around March 1997, we got an invitation from the Department of Electronics (DOE), which is now called the Department of Information Technology (DIT) under the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT), Govt. of India, for writing a proposal on a low cost telemedicine system. During that time the concept of telemedicine was just beginning to catch the imagination of the medical world. However, there were quite a bit of confusion and myth around it not only among laypersons, but also among many doctors and health administrators. Some of them considered it as the replacement of medical professionals, and had a negative and sarcastic attitude towards its adoption. Some thought it was a utopian sci-fi solution for the future generation. The net effect was that none took it seriously and there was a lack of enthusiasm in using this technology for improving the health care delivery to the people.  In fact, when we approached the then Health Minister of the Govt. of West Bengal, we got a lukewarm response. The proposal though got a push due to the enthusiasm and energy of a doctor, Dr. V.K. Gupta. At that time he was the Head of the Dept. of Leprology of the School of Tropical Medicine (STM), Kolkata.  Previously he had been collaborating with us in developing an expert system for treating leprosy. So exactly a year after we proposed to make a telemedicine system using low bandwidth channels like POTS, for treating the patients of chronic tropical diseases, such as leprosy, Malaria, Kala-azar, etc.  It took almost one more year to get the sanction from the DOE and the project started in the January of 1999. We got an able partner with us, Webel Electronics System Ltd. (WECS), Kolkata in the execution of this project, and since then the partnership has been growing strong in executing different other telemedicine and related projects.

First Telemedicine System

Within a year and a half (August 2000), we developed a prototype system on a Windows-NT platform. We named the system TelemediK. As the system was meant for low-bandwidth data communication we took care of the following for reducing the requirement of bandwidth.

(i)                 Adoption of  store-and-forward methodology for data transfer supported by organized capturing of patients’ data in a back-end RDBMS, and

(ii)               Design of an online graphics communicator for data conferencing between two doctors against medical images with annotations, file transfer and text chatting.

The system went through several test runs using ordinary telephone lines between distant places, such as Kolkata and Bhubaneswar, with Kharagpur. As our Institute has centers at these two places, we could perform these experiments conveniently as and when required. Finally the system was installed in the STM, Kolkata in November, 2000. The first beta test between STM, Kolkata and IIT, Kharagpur took place in February, 2001.  We found that our system can work with a data rate as low as 5 Kbps. In our design, we kept a separate telephone line for audio conversation and there was no scope for video conferencing. We made some attempts on supplementing the consultation with online video frame transfer at a very slow rate of 1 frame per second.  However, it failed to clear the acceptability test from the conversing participants. In our early days, we went to several places, such as Christian Medical College, Vellore; Westbank hospital, Howrah; Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Wardha; Sikkim Manipal Instititute of Medical Sciences, Sikkim, Elitex exhibitions held at Delhi, etc.,  to demonstrate the system and got appreciations from different corners. At that time, a few commercially available telemedicine systems used impromptu data transfer for tele-consultation and were not bothered about their organization and archival for subsequent uses. Our system was a departure from that trend, as it used a back-end RDBMS. Gradually, other systems also started using data bases for archival and retrieval of patients’ data during telemedicine sessions.

In 2002, the first telemedicine network in West Bengal was set up with the referral center at STM, Kolkata, and two other nodal centers at the State general hospital of Habra, North 24 Parganas, and at the district hospital of Coochbehar, a place at a distance of  about 500 Km. from Kolkata.  The doctors at referral centers were supposed to provide their expert opinions to their peers at nodal centers. In the later versions of the software, however, we removed this distinction and two doctors at two ends are able to participate with equal roles and rights for consulting over patient’s data.  WECS did excellent work in setting up the network and building the local infrastructure at those centers. They also provided necessary man power support for its daily operation. A good number of referral cases were discussed using telemedicine services during the project-period. Around 1400 patients of these two nodal centers were treated in next two years. Interestingly, by observing a large number of referral cases in dermatology from Habra, the Health department posted a dermatologist there. Naturally, this reduced the requirement of referrals. This also shows the evanescent nature of telemedicine. Through planning aided by its history of referrals, or training to a non-specialist by tele-consultation, the intensity of its use for the same purpose diminishes with time. However, as medical knowledge is dynamic and expansive, it is expected that there will be always a need for such consultation, with an improvisation on the quality of knowledge sharing.

Expansion of Network

In the year 2003 the network was expanded to include a few more hospitals, including referral centers at NRS Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, Chittaranjan Cancer Hospital, Kolkata,  Bardhaman Medical College and Hospital, Burdwan, and North Bengal Medical College and Hospital at Siliguri. The nodal centers were set up at district hospitals in Darjeeling, Purulia, Suri, Medinipur and Baharampur. This time we made several changes in our system as it used relatively higher data rates of 512 Kbps from the West Bengal State Wide Area Network (WEBSWAN) of the Govt. of West Bengal, which run on fiber optic links owned by BSNL. Some centers were also connected through ISDN links. The system was also supplemented by video conferencing functioning independently over the same link. The formal inauguration of the services took place on the 26^th January, 2004, by the then chief minister of West Bengal, Mr. Buddhadev Bhattacharya.

Another stage of expansion followed soon with a new version of TelemediK (TelemediK-2005) installed in 16 hospitals (including the previous hospitals) across the state. In TelemediK-2005 we removed the distinction of referral and nodal centers, and made provisions of multi-referencing of a patient. During the project period a number of patients (about 3000 patients in six years) were treated from remote ends using this infrastructure. In particular, there were regular referral cases from Purulia, Baharampur and Raiganj. However, the usage was largely dependent on individual doctor’s enthusiasm and dedication. Many of the centers remained practically defunct since their inception. In spite of our repeated urge and suggestions on increasing the awareness of patients and doctors about the infrastructure, we failed to enthuse the officials of health department and local administrators for integrating the systems in their environment.  We visited some of the centers and met the doctors to discuss their problems on using the system. We conducted a few workshops and conferences with demonstration of the system. A few meetings were also held in the Department of Health and Family Welfare in Kolkata for planning and coordination.  However, they were not enough to overcome the inertia of the physicians for using the system. At one point, WECS wanted to make awareness campaign locally with hoardings and posters for drawing attention of people. Even the content of the advertisements were also provided for the approval of the Health secretary. For reasons unknown to us, the approval never came. Naturally as soon as project periods were over and systems were handed over to the State Government for their maintenance and sustenance, the telemedicine services were stopped. Even the active centers like Baharampur and Purulia stopped functioning due to lack of proper maintenance, planning and coordination from the Department. Presently, those infrastructures still exist in some of those hospitals, but they remain largely unutilized. Ironically, due to its operation during the project period, Govt. of West Bengal bagged the “National award for exemplary implementation of E-Governance initiative – 2004 on Telemedicine Project in West Bengal”.

Telemedicine in Tripura: A different experience

Our work in the hospitals of West Bengal drew attention of other state governments.  In particular, the Government of Tripura showed interests in its deployment throughout the state. They were encouraged by the then undersecretary of DIT for putting forward a proposal in this regard. So in the summer of 2004 we went to Agartala and discussed a proposal with Mr. S.K. Ray, at that time the Secretary of the Govt. of Tripura for Health and Family Welfare. He was also the secretary for the Department of IT of the state. He had given us the options of connecting either district hospitals (DH) or sub-divisional hospitals (SDH) to two tertiary hospitals in Agartala, namely GB Pant Hospital (presently it is also a medical college) and the Indira Gandhi hospital, which handles child birth and gynecological diseases. In Tripura SDHs are not so equipped and they fall in the category of Primary Health Centers (PHC). From our experiences of West Bengal, we opted for connecting PHCs, as we felt they have more needs for availing telemedicine services. The district headquarters have better infrastructural support with digital connectivity through Tripura’s SWAN.  For initiating a pilot program, DHs would have been convenient for us for a speedy implementation. On the other hand, many subdivisions were situated at places, where physical transportation itself through hilly terrains and bad road conditions was a nightmare. The problem got aggravated due to insurgency problem in the state reigning at that time.  No one was ready to move without the security cover provided by the state. At places, even a distance of 50 Km. would take about 4 hours to pass through in those days. Apart from poor communication infrastructure, they also lacked several civic amenities. However, we took the challenge of setting up the centers in subdivisions instead of district headquarters, as we needed no new proof of concepts of our technology. We were eager to see its usage in health care services. The decision proved to be crucial for the success of the telemedicine in this state, a very different experience from what we had in the state of West Bengal.

In Tripura, four of the five proposed centers (at Amarpur, Gandachhara, Kanchanpur and Chailengta subdivisions) started functioning within a year of the sanctioning of the project. The network was inaugurated by the Health and Family Welfare Minister of the state on 9^th June, 2005. We must mention about two persons, who played vital role in the speedy deployment of this network.   Mr. Rajat Bhattacharya, the then Asst. Executive Engineer of the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of Tripura, took all the trouble and care for providing logistic support from the Govt. of Tripura in identifying the centers, allocating space, arranging escorts and transportation to remote interior places of the state, etc.   The other person is Dr. J.N. Maiti, the Director of WECS. He with his dedicated team of young engineers, who braved all odds in installation and training of the system, supervised and monitored the execution with passion and diligence. From the very beginning the doctors at the SDHs and PHCs  took the telemedicine services for consulting with specialists of  two hospitals at Agartala. The local populace also enthusiastically welcomed the facility and put pressure on hospital administration, if the system remained non-operational due to failure of links or machines. With the increasing use of tele-consultation the Govt. of Tripura requested for more deployment and the DIT supported expansion of the network in three stages connecting 11 SDHs  / PHCs with their two resource centers. About 14400 patients were treated in five years (from June, 2005 to October, 2010) using this network. It is heartening to see that every year the number of patients treated through telemedicine is increasing. Presently from these centers over 4000 patients per year are getting the benefit of this technology. The State Government is also proactive in the sustenance of the services. After the completion of the project period, the state government took special initiative for arranging funds for maintenance of the systems and supporting trained manpower to the telemedicine centers.

iMediK: Telemedicine over internet

TelemediK was developed as a peer to peer application. Though it was designed as an internet server, individual hospitals would require hosting this server for communicating with their peers. From this model, we moved to a more cost effective centralized server based system, which would be able to cater services to its clients over the internet (or intranet following standard application layer protocols).  We named the telemedicine server iMediK, which processes clients’ requests in a four layered architecture providing much needed security to patient data from their unauthorized access. The centralized server based system reduces the cost of installation to a great extent.  The client end does not require any special application software other than an internet browser. Similarly, the cost of communication link was also brought down, as it does away with the need for a dedicated link for data transfer.  In the four layered architecture, a request is handled through a proxy server, which initiates a succession of internal sessions for accessing the data from data base, processing it and presenting it to the user in the form of a HTTP response. This methodology of data access prohibits their direct access and allows only controlled access through query processing at the business logic layer, which sits atop the database layer. The presentation layer on the other hand isolates the process of data formatting and has the flexibility of supporting client specific modules for presenting the result of a query.  For example, we made separate modules of presentation for processing requests from clients of desktops, PDAs and mobile phones, while all of them use the same set of functions of business logic layer, which is immediately below the presentation layer in our architecture.

iMediK was installed in Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata in the year 2008. It has special modules for treating pediatric patients of HIV and drug resistant tuberculosis. iMediK also has an improved user interface, where a doctor could get the summary of patients’ record relevant to the diagnosis and treatment of a disease. The summary page is customizable and different for different diseases. It has also features of tracking patients’ visits, and presenting temporal trend of any measurable attribute through graphs and tables. HIV pediatric module also has a decision support system for drug administration and patient follow-up. Around 530 patients were treated from April 2008 to October 2009 using iMediK. During this period mostly patients were referred from the Raiganj SDH.

m-Medicine

The term m-Medicine is coined against telemedicine over mobile devices. Our research group is one of the few, who explored the development of this technology in mobile platforms at a very early stage.  The TelemediK system was integrated with applications developed on WinCE based Pocket-PCs. Through these applications a user could enter patients’ data from a hand held device and also browse them, which may be available in the form of graphics, images, audio-clips, text and structured text. In our design we took care of constraints imposed by the limited memory space and small display screen of the device. For displaying medical forms, an intelligent text fragmentation algorithm was developed. The technique adapts the number of fields to be displayed in a single view by accessing the data related to screen size and resolution of the client device from HTTP request header. Further, fields are also displayed in order of their relevance, determined a priori. The relevance map is generated through a statistical analysis of number of occurrences of key-words of related documents fetched from internet using a crawler. Moreover, we have also used abbreviations for text compression and assigned color codes to highlight the normal or abnormal ranges of values. A large image is displayed using an adaptive partitioning scheme and by showing the position of a partition with reference to its thumbnail. We have also developed an interactive downloading scheme for browsing images through selection of the region of interest with varying level of compression.

While integrating with iMediK, we changed the design paradigm. Previously our approach was to develop client applications in mobile devices, which directly interact with patient databases. However, due to the security measures imposed through four layer architecture of iMediK, this direct interaction is prohibited. Moreover the advancement in mobile computing and technology makes it possible to work with the new generation of devices, which support internet browsing on LAN and WAN. In iMediK we moved all the related computation of data formatting and image partitioning to the server, in its presentation layer. This also increases the portability of the system.  Like desktop computing, in this case also, we do not require any specific client installation. This is the technology we used in integrating decision support system and other modules for treating HIV pediatric patients with mobile devices. It got recognition from the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of the innovative technologies in their report entitled “Compendium of new and emerging technologies that address global health concerns 2011”.

New directions

It has been more than a decade that we are involved in the research and development of telemedicine systems. We are grateful to the DIT, Govt. of India, for their patronage and constant encouragements in our endeavor. We started with the design of telemedicine system in peer to peer network architecture and moved to a centralized server based system. We also considered other architectures of distributed systems, where a combination of nodal and centralized servers share the task of handling local and referral patients, respectively. Another interesting variation of peer to peer model is a hierarchical-referencing model, which is usually practiced in Government hospitals for patient referrals. For example, a patient from a block primary health center (BPHC) is referred to an SDH or a DH, whereas from a DH doctors refer to tertiary hospitals only. We carried out testing and performance analysis of such systems in a simulated environment. Their large scale deployment, however, requires planning at the central or state level.  We hope to see such planning and deployment of this technology in the public health care system. Our experiences from the state of Tripura show that rural population of our country could immensely be benefitted from telemedicine, as it brings the quality health care at their door steps.

08/09/11

The Head Teacher

We addressed him ‘Master-mashai’, sometimes qualifying it by adding the word ‘Head’ before. ‘Mashai’ is a colloquial abbreviation of the Bengali word ‘Mahashay’, used for addressing a person respectfully, closer to the use of ‘Sir’ in English. Usually in village areas we used to address our male teachers as ‘Master-mashai’ and a woman teacher as ‘Didimani’.  I think in many of our villages, still some people use these addresses, though it is common now-a-days to address our teachers as ‘Sir’ or ‘Mam’ (Madam).  Our Master-mashai was also the head teacher of a primary school. My mother newly joined as a ‘Didimani’ of that school then. It was in the year 1971. I was a kid of eight years old, and was about to repeat a year in my third grade for failing in Mathematics twice, both in my half-yearly and annual examinations.  I was reading then in another school of our town. As a kid, I had little idea how serious the matter was. But it must have been very tormenting for me even at that stage, as I still have the visual memory of those red-inked letters on my mark-sheets, in one of which the number 19 was written, and in the other a little improvement with 25. The qualifying mark was 30.  From my school, my parents were advised to make a prayer to the school administration for my promotion. In stead, they decided to keep me in the third grade itself. It must have been a very painful decision for them too. Just a year before, they were proud parents of their son, who stood first in the final examination of his second grade. One day in the last week of December of that year, my father announced it to me with a happy smile. I naively asked him, “What does the first boy mean?” He laughed and presented me two badminton rackets with a plastic cork, “Play with your brother.” Both my brother and I were so excited with those bats, that without bothering for any further explanation we rushed to our playground. Incidentally, that was also my first year in a school, where I was given a direct admission to the second grade.  Initially, my parents thought about putting me to the first grade. However, after going through my performance in the admission test the teachers there advised my father to get me admitted into the second grade.  So when I failed to clear Mathematics in my third grade, they might have thought that the early advancement of a year of study was taking a toll on me, and decided to keep me in the third grade for one more year.  

Before her marriage, my mother was a teacher in a nursery school. She had gone through the Basic training, a year-long education program of Government for nurturing primary school teachers. After her marriage too, she was teaching for a few months. Then my father got a transfer, and they came to the town of our present dwelling.  Mother had to leave her job, and she could not get any, until she received an appointment as a primary teacher in the village school, I was talking about. On the very first day of her service, she took me with her to the school. The village was at a distance of about five kilometers from our residence. There was no public communication for going there. Its nearest railway station then, was the railway station of my town. That was also about three kilometers from it. We needed to cross the railway station on our way to the village. The path from the railway station to the village was non-metal. A considerable portion of it ran through paddy fields.  During rainy season it would become so treacherously muddy and slippery, that even the cycling and walking were difficult. So in a good weather, the comfortable option was to travel by a rickshaw, and in any season the other feasible option was the long tire-some walking.  My mother mostly preferred the latter, as the first one, even if available, was not sustainable by her paltry salary.  Today I cannot remember, whether we enjoyed a rickshaw ride on our very first journey to her school.

The Head Teacher of the school was waiting for us. He was then in his fifties, of medium height, with a head-full of curly hairs, lean and stout, wearing a Dhuti (a typical dress for a Bengali gentleman consisting of a piece of robe, worn in a specific style covering the lower part of the body), and a Fatua (a long and loose shirt without any collar and with a full covering of both hands), and having spectacles on his face.  He welcomed us and introduced to his only colleague there – a very old person, who must have crossed seventies by then, but was still in the service. My mother became the third teacher of the school. The Head Master-mashai called me, “Babu (The little master)! Come here. What is your name?”

 On my mother’s prodding I touched his feet for his blessings (a common gesture for showing respect to elders) and told my name. Then he asked, “In which school do you read?”

I told my school’s name. The next question was too embarrassing for me. He asked, “Which class (grade)?”

 I remained silent and was hesitating how to explain him about my state of academic misfortune. My mother replied, “He was supposed to be in the class four. But he failed in Maths. That’s why we decided to keep him in three (third grade) again.”

 He stared at me. I could see from his expression that I did not satisfy his expectation, and was repenting on the fact that I came with my mother to this place. The Head Master-mashai commented, “But he looks so bright! What is his problem?”

“Oh! He could not do a single sum correctly,” mother replied dejectedly.

“They were big numbers, and too many of them!” I tried to defend my inability by asking for a little more humane consideration on the difficulties of handling large numbers.

Master-mashai told me, “Is it so? I always thought there is a fun in adding numbers. Let me see how you perform.” 

He gave me to add a few four digit numbers on a slate. I like an obedient student, engaged myself on that fearsome job, and was careful enough to run my fingers several times on my palm to keep track of serial accumulation of numbers in my computational steps. Master-mashai snatched the slate from my hand, “What are you doing?”

I was surprised and also apprehensive whether I made any heinous crime of committing an error in between.

“Why are you counting your fingers? That is the stupidest thing to do in adding or subtracting numbers,” he exclaimed.

I kept mum, as it was what I learnt for doing a summation. He continued, “Do it mentally. There won’t be any error.”

Then he started asking me the sum of a pair of numbers, the last one being a single digit, and I had to respond fast to each of his queries. I felt at ease, as there was not a single mistake in my instant responses. Finally, he told my mother, “Let him study in my school. Why should he lose a year? I can guarantee you that he would get a scholarship in the class four board examination.”  

In our time we used to have a board examination in grade four for each district. From each district, a few top rankers of this examination were used to be awarded with a scholarship (or Britti in Bengali) from the Government. That is why this examination was called the Britti Pariksha.  It was a matter of pride for the teachers of a primary school, if any of its students gets this scholarship. During the rule of the left front, in early eighties this school board examination was abolished, and the tradition of a competing atmosphere among the schools for showing good performances in the board examination was also lost. 

My parents were initially hesitant and a bit reluctant to accept Master-mashai’s suggestion. First, my age was relatively young compared to the grade I was studying. They were considering whether it was prudent to allow me to continue further. Next, the village school had a very poor infrastructure compared to the town school, I was studying then. My mother’s new school had only one large hall under a tiled roof, with a few partitions to segregate classes for students. Its foundation was of brick, but a part of it was still built with mud and bamboo sticks. There were no separate entries from the outside for each partition, where classes were held.  For attending any class, one had to get inside using one of the two doors of the hall-room and move to a specific class.  As a result, the humming and uttering of students and the teacher of a class were clearly audible by all others present in the school. There were effectively two teachers, including my mother, for all the students in the school starting from grade one to grade four. The old Master-mashai was about to retire, and he had been given partial responsibility to teach only students of grade one, who used to sit on the floor to take lessons from their teachers.  Other than grade one, each class was equipped with a few benches, a table for the teacher, and a black board. The school in my town was run by a Hindu religious organization with strict adherence to discipline and punctuality. We used to get a number of teachers according to subjects even in the lower grades. We had separate class rooms and, the school building was being newly renovated and expanded that time. But, the most worrying factor for my parents was the distance of the village from my home. They were concerned whether I would be able to walk such a long distance regularly to attend the school. Still I do not know how they were persuaded by the Head Master-mashai.  Our new session in my town school was yet to start. So I was still going with my mother to her school, and used to attend classes with others. For a few days, I did maintain a state of fuzziness of my belongingness to the school, saying to my friends that I would stop coming once the session at my town school begins. After a few days, to my delight my mother informed me that they had decided to shift me from the town school to her own, and I would be studying in the fourth grade in stead of repeating a year.

Suddenly everything around me changed. I was feeling myself at the center stage of an exciting experiment, where our Head Master-mashai electrified me by his guidance and encouragement. He told me, “Do you know the story of Arjun from the Mahabharata?  While aiming his arrow at a wooden bird kept on a tree with his bow, Arjun was asked by his teacher Dronacharya, what he was able to see then. Before him, all his brothers replied to the same question differently. Some said the tree, some said branches, or some pointed the bird. Arjun replied that he was seeing the eye of the bird only and by saying he sent the arrow straight into the bird’s eye. You should also prepare in the same way for the scholarship.  I know you will be able to get it and make us proud.”  

Those were not his mere words of encouragements. He believed in my ability so much, that he proudly declared to the villagers and teachers of other schools that, that year his school was going to produce a boy with a scholarship. So I was enjoying the attention of the villagers also. I was quite naïve in my attitude towards any success or failure at that stage.  My Head Master-mashai instilled his belief in me so strongly that I never doubted that I was going to achieve what my teacher was saying.  However, my mother must have felt the pressure of meeting the expectation from her son. She often advised me, “Try your best. That is what finally matters.” She used to teach me every day, and helped me solve old question papers of the final examinations of different school boards of districts of my state.

That was the year when I started enjoying my schooling. Even walking such a long distance was a fun for me. My mother was always with me, and I used to keep her busy with all sorts of queries on the subjects and objects, which would appear on our ways. I learnt to recognize many plants, trees, flowers and birds in those sessions.  More so, I was amazed by the unfolding of beauty of nature before me, as if my text book poems were throwing their rhymes on the three dimensional canvas surrounding me. In the last part of our journey to the school, we used to cross a large field. The path curved through it mostly uncovered and unshaded. There were only a few land marks in this part in the form of a lonely thorny Babla tree (gum tree) or a fence of a single farm house.  On winter days, it was lovely to enjoy the mist and coolness of the air across the open field. During that period, in stead of treading through the non-metal road, we could use a trail winding through the empty paddy fields (called aal in Bengali), which would shorten our journey to some extent. In fact, our school building was visible, from a place very near to my home, throwing an illusion of its proximity. But it used to take more than an hour to cover that distance. The rainy season was the hardest season, and we had to follow the longest path, along the railway track, to avoid the mud. Even so, we needed to negotiate some stretches of muddy segments. Sometimes my mother tried to keep me home during this period. However, unless I was sick, I always wanted to go with her.  The most enjoyable season was the autumn. During that period, the paddy fields were at their prime, filled with different shades of green. The sun and clouds used to play their usual hide and seek game on top of them. The village life also made some impression on me, though my interaction with the villagers was brief, as I had little time to spend there.  There was a large banyan tree in front of my school. It was the signature of my school.  Even from a running train, by identifying the banyan tree, we could easily locate the building of our school. During the recess, many students used to enjoy their rides on the hanging trunks of the banyan tree. One day, some of my friends took me to a field where peas were grown. They also plucked a few of them. When we returned, some villagers complained to my mother about my presence with them. I was not sure what the nature of complaint was. But on my denial of any wrong doing, my mother got very angry with me, and she started scolding and beating me very harsh. It went on for sometimes, until the Head Master-mashai intervened. I was still in the mood of defiance without understanding what grave crime had been committed by me.

After a few weeks from the beginning of our session, preparations for participation in the annual sports event started.  All the schools in a block (an administrative area covering a number of villages and the town) were used to compete in this event. Head Master-mashai took a great interest in identifying the suitable competitors for each event. A school was entitled to send only a limited number of participants for each event. There was an in-house competition for selecting the students for representing a school in those events. I was never good at sports. Moreover I was relatively taller, and that put me in the category of seniors (among the students of primary schools) in the sports. I failed miserably in all such events, running, long jump, high jump, etc. Master-mashai told me, “Still there is one event for you. I think you can win a medal for us.” I was not sure. He suggested, “Compete in the Maths race.”  It is a funny race. In this competition, one has to run for fifty meters, add a series of four digit numbers, and then run another fifty meters to finish the race. The winner of the race is the person, who reaches earliest with the correct result of the addition. In my whole life I won medals thrice in any sporting event. All were in those years. All were from Maths races, the first one was from the sporting event, I was talking about. The next was from the event organized for a circle. A circle consists of a few blocks, and the sports meet for a circle was the next higher level, where winners from blocks could participate. The last one was from a sporting competition organized in the village of my school.

My mother used to teach me all the subjects in our home. She would have preferred to keep me away from walking to the school, unless she felt my need of having lessons in Science and Maths from the Head Master-mashai. My parents grew a great respect for him as a teacher. He was indeed great. It is not that he had dumped us with fundas, and clear explanation of everything around. He was simple in his approach. He was friendly with his students, and could point out mistakes with a smile. Hardly had he scolded anyone in the class for not doing an assignment, or not able to comprehend a topic. He tried to raise curiosity among our young minds by telling different stories.  One day while teaching us planets and stars, he told us such a story. He would start, “Let me tell you a story of creation of these planets.” Then he went on narrating, “Do you think these planets were there from the beginning of creation? That is not true. There was a time when our Sun was a lonely star. He was big, but had no planets revolving around.  One day a foreign star came near it. It had lost its direction, and ways.  It became quite close to the Sun. Now these large bodies are able to pull each other. So they raised a fight. Each one tried to draw the other towards it.  The Sun is very hot, and its matter is made of gases. So the pull from the foreign star could tear many of its portions. Those portions went toward the star, but could not overcome the pull of the Sun. So these gaseous pieces started revolving around it. In the mean time, the foreign star also went far away. Those smaller pieces after cooling became planets. Our Earth is also one of them.” I understand this is far from our modern scientific explanation of creation. But it was good enough to confront us against our beliefs on stories of creation from mythology.

The year was also marked by the year of Bangladesh’s war of liberation. That time the country was called ‘East Pakistan’. After the event of March 26, we were closely following what was going on in that country. That evening my father came grim faced from his office, and told my mother about the brutality of the Government of Pakistan against the Bengalis. Then came the stories of sufferings and sorrows of refugees from the other side of Bengal, who took shelter in this part. Soon the guerilla fight started, and even as a kid, I was keenly following the news broadcast from radios, and also the reports of newspapers. The talk of liberation of East Pakistan was every where. Every night we used to listen to a special radio channel, which broadcast Sheikh Mujibur Rahaman’s famous speech. We had almost memorized it. A part of it even plays in my mind with his distinct thunderous melody, “ ….Our fight is the fight for liberation!  Our struggle is the struggle for independence. None of you can crush us! …”  Some of my friends could recite the full speech mimicking his voice.  Around that time the slogan, “Jai Bangla! (Victory to Bengal!)”, became so popular that people attributed it to every holy or unholy thing, which made a guest appearance in that year. We had “Jai Bangla” Saris (Dresses for Indian Women), “Jai Bangla” shirts, caps, rings – even that year the common eye disease conjunctivitis widely spread in different parts of our state. People named it “Jai Bangla”. I was also not left out from its blessings. For two or three days, I was kept inside with my swollen red eyes.  I also had personal experiences of watching refugee camps in a border town, where my grand parents (from my mother’s side) lived. We had no doubt about the victory of the liberation war. For us kids, then the adult world was painted with black and white only. There were either good fellows or bad demons, and who doesn’t know that the evil will be finally defeated? So we strongly believed that the liberation war would be won, as we also knew that America would be defeated in Vietnam. In our play time, we transformed the hide and seek game into a new form. We made it as a mock-fight between two warring parties, where one had to kill an enemy by shouting against the opponent soldier, as soon as he or she was visible. The shouting slogan was ‘Jai Bangla!’, and the name given to the game? – Naturally, ‘Jai Bangla!’

The formal war between India and Pakistan started after my final examination was over. But by that time, as far as I remember, Pakistani army was almost defeated. The local liberation army had already dealt a vital blow to them. It took only a few days to finish the war. It was a moment of glory and happiness for all of us. I have no particular memory of my examination days. I could remember that my mother used to wait to receive me after the examination. Head Master-mashai also used to visit the center and encourage us to perform well. After my examination, our days were full of excitement with the news from the war front, sensing a possible victory and the birth of a new country, which speaks a language of our own, and where my parents had their roots.   During this exciting period, Master-mashai came to our house in one afternoon, and with a radiant face he congratulated me, “You did it! I knew you would get the scholarship. You proved it. I was waiting for this day.” He was quite emotional. While returning his blessings on my respectful bow to him, he told, “Grow up and make us proud!”  I did not realize then what a tough assignment he was setting for me. The scholarship was much easier!

22.11.11

An American Life

In my first visit itself, I had been impressed by the single most fundamental character of the American society – the freedom and flexibility it provides to an Individual for choosing his or her life. I am aware of the fact that America is a big country and my observation is limited to only one of its states. It is also true that the spectrum of opportunities vary from rich to poor, among different races and colors. Yet, my conviction got stronger in my subsequent visits to that country through my interaction with different persons there.  Incidentally, my first trip to USA was also my very first in any country outside India. As a consequence, during the whole period of my stay, I had been carrying the excitement of a discoverer of a new world, and what a wonderful experience it was for me! After two and a half months, when I came back home, I not only enriched myself with new knowledge and experiences in my own domain of academics and research, but I left also a few friends behind, whom I longed to meet again, and who influenced my views and understanding of the West.  Ingeborg Comstock was one of them. I rented a room in her house during my visit.  My host Sanjit-da (Prof. Sanjit Mitra) told me, “You are fortunate to get a room for such a short visit.  Usually rooms are occupied by graduate students. The rent is also fairly reasonable, in fact, cheaper compared to the market rate. Your landlady is a remarkable person.”  Indeed she was. Ingeborg, around 74 years’ old then, lived alone on her own.  She was suffering from cancer on her hipbones. A few weeks before my arrival, she went through painful chemotherapy sessions. Unless she tells you, you would never know that she was bearing such a pain, that too all alone in her house. She was engaged in all the routine house-hold work with a smile on her lips. If you were a keen observer, you might have noticed that while walking, she was careful enough to put her every step on the ground. She used to walk slowly.   

On the first day of my arrival, I had a quick lesson from Sanjit-da for settling myself in the new environment. In fact he took all the possible trouble and care for the task. He himself received me at the LA airport after waiting a long hours of my immigration check, took me to lunch and brought me to Ingeborg’s house at Goleta, which was about two and half hours drive from LA.  After putting my luggage there, immediately we went for shopping for my daily essentials. He took me to a departmental store, showed how to get different items from its aisles, and introduced to me to different kinds of fast foods kept in a freezer, which were meant for heating and eating only. So that evening after my dinner at Sanjit-da’s house, when I returned to my new place of stay, I was totally exhausted and straight away went to the bed.  Next morning, I had to rush to the University. I got up early and was looking for preparing my breakfast in the kitchen. The kitchen was common to all four of us. There were electric stoves and a microwave oven.  I was planning to make bread-toasts and heat a cup of milk. I needed also to pack sandwiches, fruit, yogurt and juice for my lunch. So, I was looking for the utensils on the racks, and also examining the ovens to know how to operate. I did not notice, when and how Ingeborg stood behind me and was smiling at me.  I greeted her, “Good morning, Mrs. Comstock!”

She answered back, “Good morning!”, and then apologetically told me, “Your name is very difficult to pronounce. But I must try. Please spell it to me.”

I told her, “You may use a short form.”

“No, No. I would like to get the full word.”  

After a few trials she could get my name. Through out my stay she never faltered again, but was always careful to pronounce every syllable distinctly. Then she told me, “Call me Ingy! That’s what others also address me.” 

She showed me then how to use ovens, the places where utensils were kept, the system of throwing trash, the washing machine kept in her garage.  Finally she introduced me to her two pet cats, Pontam and Comura. She said to me, “Meet these two – a gentleman and a lady.  The lady’s name is  Comura, a pure Siamese breed. She is quite shy. She may ignore you all the time. But, Pontam, the gentleman, may try to draw your attention.”

My first day in the University went very fast as I was anxious to settle to my work place with the arrangement of the computer, and restoring my archived data and program in it.  In the mean time I was also getting introduced with other members of Sanjit-da’s lab. Some were visitors like me, and some were MS and PhD students. I was introduced to a few of the faculty members of the Department.  In the evening, when I came back to my new house, I found that the front door was closed and pressed the door bell.  But there was no response from inside. I did it for a few more times. Then I thought that Ingy must have gone for a walk nearby.  I guessed that among her tenants, I was the only person, who came back so early. My other two house-mates, Shan and Aaron, were PhD students, who should be busy enough to spend long working hours in the University. It was quite true. Though I could meet Shan in holidays or in the morning hours (and we became very good friends there after), hardly had I met Aaron during my stay. Anyway, I came to the drive way and started looking for Ingy. She was indeed found around. She was cutting hazes from her premise, which were stretching their branches to the sidewalk. She looked pretty tired and exhausted of her work. By drawing a deep breath she told me, “These are to be cut. Otherwise I may face a penalty for neglecting this work.”

I offered my help to her, but she refused by saying, “I am almost done.”

I asked about the key of the door. She got surprised, “Oh! It is open. Just push it and enter. We never lock the front door.”

“Even at night?” I was confused.

She smiled, “Even at night. Not only that front door, none of the doors, including yours, has any more key. Probably they are lost. But don’t worry. Nothing had happened in my house last thirty seven years or so.”

I never thought of cooking during my stay. I had a full week’s ration of frozen semi-cooked stuff for my dinners. But after two days, I could not simply tolerate their smell and threw all of them to the trash-bin. I requested Ingy, whether I could try my experiments with her microwave oven. I preferred it over regular oven, as I considered it would require minimum manual intervention, as well as washing would be easier. She was hesitant. But I showed her that in the microwave’s front panel there were controls for cooking different items including rice and boiling vegetables. She agreed though it seemed with some reservation. She also gave me the manual of the microwave oven on my request. The fact is that I was also quite nervous to see how it would go. This was the first time I was using a microwave oven. However, I was too desperate to get something eatable to my taste. Fortunately, it clicked. By trial and error, I could get the right combinations of power and time for preparing a few items of my choice. My constraint was that there were no Indian stores nearby. I had to get everything from American stores. But I was happy with my limited options, of rice, red lentils, eggs and a few vegetables, mostly boiled or fried in the microwave. I was thrilled with my innovation. Like every cook, I also got impatient to demonstrate my skill to others, and who could be a friendlier critic than a person who had the least idea of Bengali food. So I invited Shan and Ingy during lunch in one week end for a treat of my indigenous preparations. Shan readily agreed.   But Ingy was initially reluctant. She told, “Chemotherapy has destroyed my taste buds. I do not wish to eat at all.” I told her, “You may try them for a change. This may help you regain your appetite.” She finally agreed to take a little of my preparation. As usual, appreciations were duly received. Shan’s observation was brief,  “It’s good.” Ingy was careful enough to take the pieces of peppers out of the dish.  Soon Shan and Ingy reciprocated. Shan made a Chinese preparation of pork in one week end. Ingy made salads of avocadoes, and boiled spinach. In one afternoon, she treated me with boiled artichoke and taught me how to peel its petals, and savor its lower part with a tip of mionese.  Her garden had an apricot tree, which was full of fruits by then. In one week, she picked a good number of them and served us delicious apricot pie. Soon she became comfortable with my preparations and we used to dine together almost every evening. After our dinner, we used to chat, and sometimes played a few games of backgammon, which she taught me once.

Ingy was a great fan of tennis and golf.  She would never miss a match of Wimbledon, which was being played during my stay. She also liked to read fictions. She introduced me to the world of Tolkien and gave me those hobbit-trilogies to read. She got quite surprised to know that I had not read three volumes of Harry Potter, which created a sensation world wide by then. However, in India, Harry Potter was yet to catch the imagination of our kids. Ingy loved to read those books, and was impatiently waiting for the release of its fourth sequel.  On the day of its release, three of us, Shan, Ingy and I, went to the book-store to get a copy of it. Ingy wore the gown of a witch and gave me a magician hat to wear on. It was fun to see happy faces of all those kids and grownups with their Halloween dresses at the book stores.  Sometimes in the week end, we used to go nearby places. Shan also joined our party. In fact in all such trips, he took us in his car. We visited the Mission Church, on the occasion of the Memorial Day. There an Italian street painting festival (called ‘i madonnari’) was being held. We also visited Solvang, a small Danish settlement, famous for its bakery and crockery. One morning, we went to the botanical garden, which had a fine display of flora and fauna of California.  Ingy told me about her life on various such occasions. She told me about her parents, her sons and sometimes mentioned about her husband, who divorced her long before. From her, I could get a few glimpses of American life, which truly amazed me and made a lasting impression in my mind.  Below I provide a few excerpts of her memoirs.

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She told me how her parents and family members migrated from Germany to USA.  She said, “My father, Rudolf  Henry Meling, was an accomplished carpenter. He used to make home interior furniture and other wooden stuff. My uncle, Rio, was also a carpenter. He came to San Francisco after the earth quake, as there was huge demand of wood work for reconstruction of the city. My mother’s sister also came to San Francisco around that time. They could make a little property there.  Father worked in German army during the First World War. Immediately after the war, Germany’s economy was in a shambles. During that period, in the year 1926, my parents came to San Francisco. I was born there. My mother wanted to call me ‘Theodora’ - ‘Theo’ from my father’s name and ‘Dora’ from my mother. American nurses in the hospital gave me an American name in which those two parts were punctuated and put into a reverse order - ‘Dorothy’. But later my parents changed my name to Ingeborg. After coming here father started his business of making wooden staircases. It was running well.  Then, looking at the improvement of US economy, my father hoped the same for the Germany also. So he sold his business and took us back to Germany with him.  I was three years’ old then. My mother used to say that I did not want to talk in German at all. All the time I used to speak in English.  We did not even stay for a full year in Germany. There was no improvement in German economy during that year. Moreover, the society was going through the turmoil of political anarchy. My father decided to come back to USA again. I never asked my parents, why we came back here. The question never occurred to me in my young age. Later, I did not have the opportunity to ask him.”

Ingy also told me about the days of initial struggle of her parents after their return from Germany, “We went through a lot of hardship and a period of economic uncertainty after our return. Though, my parents tried their best to keep us well fed and nicely dressed. We had very little idea about what was going on.  Those were the years after Great Depression. For two years my father had no job. My mother was working then at a food-store. The family was dependent on her income. After a few months, mother had a fairly good amount of knowledge and experiences for running such a store. She took a loan from a German lady and started her own business. Her business was doing well. Our family got the stability. In the beginning of the Second World War, the navy needed carpenters for building ships. My father got a job there. He was there till the end of the war. In the mean time, my mother sold her business. She wanted to spend more time with us.

At the end of the war, father came back, and once again started his business of carpentry. He used to get many customers, who were looking for new designs of fancy home furniture. One day while working on a roof of a single storied building my father fell from the top. He was badly injured, and had broken his legs. For three months he had to be bed ridden. We thought that he would never be able to walk. But he had a strong determination. He used to do all sorts of exercises to move his feet, and later used to walk in his room with the beats of marching songs.  When my father joined the rehabilitation center for physically handicapped persons, the management there recognized his skill for carpentry. They employed him for training others the workmanship of wood crafts. My father was quite aged then. Still he took this job with a firm commitment and great liking. Everyday he used to go there formally dressed, and taught his students passionately. From there my father retired from his job.

After his retirement, my parents went back to Germany, and lived in their ancestral house.  Every two years they used to visit USA to protect their citizenship here. Second time when they came here, one day my elder sister rang me, and requested to take father from her place. He was suffering from a bad headache. As the kids were making noise at her place, it had been becoming very painful for him to sleep. My mother was visiting one of our relatives then. I went to my sister’s place, and took father to a near-by hospital for a check up. The doctors there looked very concerned, and informed us that the condition of the patient was quite serious. He needed to be admitted immediately. Next day on their advice, we brought my mother there.  Till he was conscious, my father passed all the details of his property and stocks to my mother. He had invested in many good companies. That is why after his death, my mother did not face any economic hardship.  She continued her visit to USA every two years, and lived a full life. Unfortunately my father went quite early. He could not enjoy his life after retirement. He was only sixty five then. That was in the year 1965.”

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Ingy was proud of her two sons, “They are now established. But they worked hard for it. As a person, both of them are gentle, kind, sensitive and good at heart. At times, they had to take critical decisions on their professions and personal life.  When my younger son was graduated from his high school, he almost decided not to go for higher studies ever. It was around 1972 or 1973. We were fighting in Vietnam. Most of the boys in our neighborhood were opposing the war. The Government could get volunteers from neighboring villages, mostly from families living on farming. My elder son was also supposed to join the army.  Fortunately, somehow, he managed to get a reprieve. Of course, the younger was not of that age, and did not face the similar trauma. From his childhood he was fond of gardening.  During that period, people were becoming increasingly interested in decorating their gardens with local plants and flowers. My younger had a passion of hiking over the mountains around. While trekking, he collected varieties of seeds of wild plants, and grew them into saplings in my garden. My garden was full of such small pots containing those saplings. He often sold them in local nurseries. Besides gardening, he had another hobby – to build wooden houses. At the backside of my house, he built a wooden storehouse for keeping the tools and material for his work. He also built a tree house, and used to chat with his friends there. One day, all on a sudden there was a fire on it. It reached to our door steps. That evening I was having guests in my house for the dinner.  When we came out, we saw smoke all around. We called them loudly. They were still in the tree house and came out one by one with caution. I also rang the fire brigade. However, before its arrival, with the help of my neighbors we could control the fire. From his young ages, my younger son used to put someone as his ideal, and he followed his every advice and action devotedly.  So if the person betrayed his expectation, he would get hurt deeply.  When he was in his middle school, one of his teachers planned for staging a drama on “Alice in wonderland”. My son participated with great enthusiasm and interests. He took the role of “Tweedledee”.  But after a few rehearsals, for some reason the idea of holding the drama was dropped. My son got so disappointed and angry! He was practicing hard then – all the time imitating the voice of Tweedledee. His all efforts got vanquished by a single decision of the adults.

One of my husband’s friends had the knowledge of carpentry. My younger son joined him for learning to build wooden houses. When his teacher got an assignment at LA, he took my son with him. My son spent three years there. Then one morning, he came back, and was reflecting on his next course of action. I suggested him to go to one of my friends, who was a professor of English, and who could enthuse others to go for higher studies. The day he visited him, my friend gave him the form for admission to our city college. Next day he took admission. For five years he studied in that college, and did various course work. His interest in his studies grew rapidly. At the end, he used to demonstrate other students different laboratory experiments.  There he developed his passion for Biology, in particular in Botany. Next he completed two years of graduation at UCSB in Botany.  From the UCSB he joined the PhD program at University of Utah. Even after completion of PhD he had to be there for some months. He was not getting an assignment of his liking. Once he got a faculty position in a new University at Nevada. But he was against working in a state, which is run mostly by the earnings from gambling. After some times, he got a position in an independent research laboratory in the campus of Cornell University at Ithaca. Of course, he has to arrange his salary on his own by attracting research grant from different agencies.  He has to write different proposals to these organizations, and if they get approved, then only his monthly salaries for a few years are ensured. Presently he is busy writing such a proposal. He is also an adjunct professor in the University, for which he has to take a few lectures per week and students are also permitted to do project under his supervision.”

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Ingy was fond of her daughter-in-law, and told me how her son got married to her.

“My younger son’s wife is a specialist in green house. She works in the same University, and her responsibility is to maintain their green houses. Two years back, she went to Europe to provide consultation on green houses there. She has a pretty large family – a number of sisters, almost all of them married twice, and having close bonds with their family members. My son met her during his stay at the University of Utah, and married her around ’90-91.  During the ceremony, my husband and I were the only two persons representing from the side of the groom. My elder son was accompanying his brother on the dais as his best friend.  In contrast, the number of members of bride’s family was more than sixty. So during the oath taking ceremony, when the bride asked the assembly of her family, whether they agree to the marriage, there was a great uproar, cheers, and laughter after wards. When our turn came, we shouted to our best to match them. It was really a great fun.

Initially my daughter-in-law was reluctant to go to Ithaca. She did not want to leave her house at Utah, where she spent her previous ten years with her three kids from her first marriage. My son convinced her by nicely summing up that the house where they would stay would become her home. They came to Ithaca and searched for a house. My daughter-in-law got some money by selling her house at Utah. They used all of it for buying a new house there. It was to avoid paying the capital tax on the sale. They wanted to stay close to the University. But they bought an interesting small house a bit far away from it.  The builder of this house did not follow any existing plan of an architect. The main attraction of this house is a twelve acres land around it. There my son grows vegetables, and his wife cultivates flowers.  They are quite happy there. My son made a mark in his research area. He is a member of NSF, and review proposals submitted to the foundation.  My daughter-in-law initially faced problem in getting the right job. Ithaca is a University centric city. Not many opportunities are there. First she was working as a specialist of cultivation of flowers, but could earn little. Then she got an employment in teaching gardening to school kids.  Finally, she got a call from the University, as it was looking for a person to maintain its green houses.  After going through her bio-data, the Director of the University himself gave the appointment. I wished to be with them. But, I could not go there for last two years. I have become too weak to travel far.”

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Ingy also talked about her elder son, “He has been an idealist since his childhood. He was always calm and quiet, not so lively like his brother.  But they had one similarity. He also did not go for higher studies immediately after his graduation from the high school. He was totally devoted to music. My husband was always cross with him, as he was not favoring his obsession.  So as soon as my son turned eighteen, he left the house and rented an apartment in Santa Barbara. The days were not easy for him. How could you earn money just by singing at that age?  Whatever job he got, he used to do it to meet his expenditure – at least to pay the rent and telephone bill. Number of times I also paid his telephone bills. In between, he went to Toronto, Canada and worked to repair and maintain swimming pools. Still today I am not sure what kind of job that was. He thought of settling there. But, in one winter all on a sudden he came here with his four Canadian friends. He was still then an obsessed musician, leading a life like vagabond. When he was around thirty, one day a string of his guitar got torn. The electrical system of the instrument also got so damaged, that it became ineffective. He got quite upset, and became desperate to mend his favorite guitar, but could not get any help. Then he had a strange idea - to learn electrical engineering and   mend his guitar.  Well!  He may not be pragmatic always, but he is passionate. So he took admission in the city college and did different course work, which would help him to get an admission in the Electrical Engineering program of the University.  He developed so much interest in his subjects, that he started teaching mathematics to his juniors. He could earn more than what he used to get previously.

At the age of thirty four, he took admission in Electrical Engineering in the University. He had to take loan for paying his tuition fees. He did his Masters at the age of thirty nine and joined National Semi Conductor in the Bay Area. He was advised to do PhD, but he preferred to work. He left Santa Barbara unwillingly. He was in that company for five years. Now he moved to a new venture of one of his friends. He has to work a lot. He could not get much time for his music. Only in his leisure period, he sings on his own on a guitar. He also has another hobby – charting stars in the night sky. He has a very powerful telescope, and knows how to operate it.  My elder son often visits me. Now I think his relation with his father is eased out. He meets his father, whenever he is in the town.”

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Ingy told very little of herself. She was married around 1948 and the newly wed couple went to Germany. There they remained for a year or two. Then her husband came to Princeton for doing PhD.  She told me, “While we were at Princeton, I used to see Einstein having a stroll on the road. I would try to draw attention of my kids toward him by saying, look, who is walking?” After his PhD her husband took a faculty position. They came to Santa Barbara in the year 1963.  In between they spent a year or two in England and had wonderful times together. However, slowly their relationship got estranged due to an affair of his husband and around 1970, they were divorced. After the divorce, her husband moved to a new house, and married again. Ingy retained their family home as a part of the agreement. She had to struggle in her initial years. Before her divorce, she did not think about joining any profession. She took training on nursing, and had been working as a professional nurse since then, till she has been diagnosed cancer in 1998.  Once she told me, “I have no regret in my life. I am fortunate to live in a wonderful period. I saw the development and growth of my country. I experienced the changing lifestyle with the technological progress and modernization.  I always marvelled at new inventions and discoveries, and enjoyed their fruits of success.”

 On my day of return to India, she came to see me off at the Goleta bus stand, and told me, “You must be very eager to meet your family in India. I am very glad to see your excitement of meeting your son and wife. Your stay in my house was brief, and sadly for me, it went very fast. Before you came here, I was so weak. I had no taste, and was not confident about my movement. But surprisingly I gained my weight, and also regained my appetite. Thank you very much for your company. Do write to me.”

I was glad that she said all those kind words. I also thanked her, and suggested whether she could manage   to continue with my recipe on her own. Sanjit-da, who was also present, told her, “I am planning to bring him every summer. You may see him next year.”   Ingy smiled, and bid me good bye.

That was the last time I saw her. She lived only a few more months after I left, and died in the first week of May next year. I went to Santa Barbara next summer too.  Her memorial service was being held on the day I reached there. Immediately after my arrival, Sanjit-da took me to her house. We paid our homage to the life of this remarkable lady.

12/11/2011

Bhashaan

Sayanti requested me, “Uncle, why don’t you join us?” Sayanti is the daughter of my friend Shyamal. She was a student of tenth grade and her mother had complained me that she had been obsessed with her exams and overstretching herself with study and home-work.  I expected Sayanti to be a bookish and sheepish kid. Instead I found her very jolly and lively. So when I turned down her invitation, stating that I had to return home early, she had a queer expression on her eyes, a mix of surprise and disappointment. I went there to meet my old school mates. Shyamal was one of them. Two of my other friends, Swarnendu and Aloke, were also core organizers of the event. They were busy with the preparation of Bhashaan (immersion) of Goddess Kali. Like many other clubs in my home town, my friends’ club also organizes Durga and Kali Pujas (Two popular Hindu autumn festivals in Bengal held three weeks apart) every year. In that evening, they and other members of the club with their family and relations assembled there to take part in the procession, which would carry the idol to the river, and immerse her into its depth. After many years, I was in my home-town during Kali Puja and could meet my friends on such an occasion. I had a pretty good idea about this kind of procession. The idol would be placed on a matador (a type of motor-van). A generator would be carried on separately on a rickshaw-van to provide power to high-beam incandescent-lamps, which would illuminate the idol and also a section of the procession, where all kinds of people, drunk or sober would dance at the beats of the marching drummers (called Dhulis in Bengali).  There would be high volume of music, usually the most recent popular Hindi song with catchy tune and beats.  In my younger days, I took part in such processions, mostly by managing the crowd, for a while by dancing with my friends. Usually these were gala events during the immersion of Goddess Durga. In those evenings, the main road of our town, which runs across it like its spine, would be completely blocked for any other traffic. Only the processions from different clubs for the purpose of Bhashaan were allowed to move on the road. Along the sidewalks, for a stretch of about two kilometers, there would be gathering of spectators in thousands. Sometimes a casual onlooker from the crowd would step down from the platform of the footpath and exchange greetings with their friends in a procession, by dancing and embracing.  However, the whole affair was an all male affair, where females were the passive spectators of the celebration. The road, on which the processions moved, shares a part of it with the bank of the river Ganges.  All such processions were used to cover that stretch. Their final destination was always the place, where the river turns away from the road. Usually the immersion would take place there, as it was easier to push the idol into the water from that spot. Nevertheless the job required strong muscle power. It used to involve eight to ten persons to lift the idol on their shoulder. Then they would have to make a few rounds carrying the load, and at the same time, maintaining their balance on slanted concrete base of the river-bank (for protection of soil erosion). Finally, the ritual was completed by lowering the idol gently into the river.

Compared to Durga Puja, the Bhashaan of Kali Puja was used to be a low-key event. But the procession itself had the similar characteristics. In this case, it was unusual to have the sidewalks crowded with enthusiastic onlookers. If there was any, most likely the person was out in the street for a different reason. The road was also free for ongoing vehicle. So a major task of the organizers was to guide the procession without obstructing the moving vehicles. However, the whole event would run till midnight. That was the reason for my unwillingness to be part of the party. But, after looking at Sayanti’s disappointment, I felt the guilt of a deserting soldier from the battle zone. So I decided to join them.  

Our town was a small place. In our boyhood, we used to know almost every school going boys of our ages and meet regularly to play at different play grounds. We grew in this town with our clubs. There we played games like soccer, cricket or volley-ball almost daily, hold dramas and musical evenings on the occasion of Rabindranath’s or Najrul’s birthday, celebrated Durga and Kali Pujas, hoisted flags in the morning of independence day, observed Netaji’s birthday, organized sports for young and old,  and were involved in many such activities round the year. Even when we were kids of seven or eight without any serious association of a club, together with a few of my friends we formed our own fictitious sect with a set of rules and observance to our playful events.  My association with Aloke was from such early days.  As we grew older, Aloke started taking lead role in organizing various club activities. In fact, with his shrewd leadership, the club in our village could acquire a playground of its own and got registered eventually. This was the time when we started our college education. However, due to conflict of several interests, very soon, he found himself isolated in that club. So he withdrew himself from it and joined the present one.

It took a few hours to prepare for the final march with the Goddess. The idol was brought out from the pandal (the temporary place of worship during the celebration) and placed on a platform facing it.  Then it was the turn for the married women to perform the baran of the Goddess. The ritual was meant for bidding farewell to her, though for some reasons, the event is called baran, which literally means ‘to welcome’. There was a makeshift staircase, riding which the ladies could reach the Goddess. They greeted her by offering sweets on her lips and tongue. They also pasted the red vermilion (called ‘sindur’ in Bengali) on her forehead. One of the ladies took quite some time to perform this ritual. Like a priest, she slowly waved her folded hands in a circle in front of the idol. She repeatedly carried on same action holding different items and then greeting the Goddess with them. Finally, when all the ladies were done with the event, they played with each other by throwing and pasting vermilion against their faces. Then they started making fun with the men, who were present there, by putting vermilion on their foreheads and cheeks. We also could not escape the attack. I was having a chat with Swarnendu and Aloke and was watching the proceedings. First Shyamal’s wife came and put a decent red tilak (a short vertical line segment centrally placed on the forehead) on us. Then the lady priest caught us. My cheeks became red with her blessings. Swarnendu was the most pathetic. His dresses also got anointed with the blood-red powder.  The kids were also not left out from the fun. Aloke’s daughter came to him complaining about his cousin brother, who was chasing her with the powder. Aloke told, “What is your plan?” She showed him her two bloody palms, and said, “Now it is my turn.” 

When the Goddess was about to be moved up the matador, I noticed that someone was covering the pandal by drawing a curtain, while a lamp was burning inside. On my query, Aloke replied, “No one would have the courage to enter that empty space tonight. This is a ritual from tantra (a set of practices and rituals for worshippers of Goddess Kali). We are following this custom for long.”

I asked, “Is it not dangerous to keep the lamp burning within that premise out of everyone’s sight?”

He said with conviction, “Nothing would happen. Nothing had happened. This is what faith is. You see that boy, Uttam. He donated the thakur (the idol) this year. It means that within a year he is expected to get a job. That happened for each of us, for last forty years. So we have the tradition of getting the idol every year from one of the unemployed youths of our club. It is to be considered a great honor for the boy. He looks forward for this opportunity in his life time.”

Aloke was an avid reader of Bengali literature and essays. He was also a good student in his school days. After the higher-secondary examination, he got admission into a medical college of Kolkata. But, he became so actively involved in the politics of student union, that he could not continue his study and left the college after two years. Then he did his graduation in a general stream. Whenever I used to come to this town, I was a regular visitor to his house. His room was in the roof top, from where we could have lovely views of the river. He fitted a hammock in his room, and I used to enjoy its swing, occasionally used to have a puff on a deshi tobacco strip (called Biri in Bengali), and watch the slow moving ships across the horizon. The river in our town is so wide that its other side offers only a view of dotted horizon. In our sessions, we were absorbed in all kinds of discussion with our youthful dream and interpretation of our own world. In late eighties, Aloke joined the government service after clearing the PSC (Public Service Commission) examination. Around late-nineties, I came to know that for some personal reason, he had left the town with his family and built a house on his own near Kolkata. Since then hardly we met. In fact, we might be meeting after a gap of fifteen years. His father died two years ago. So he took additional responsibility for looking after the family property. His father was a rich man. But he was a very simple hearted person. He started from a very poor condition and through his diligence made a considerable property in our town. He had a business on making iron grills and gates for buildings. However, in later years, he gave up his business to his workers and engaged himself in farming, which involved a wholesome activity of cultivation, fishery, dairy, poultry, etc. Presently Aloke is taking care of his father’s farm and visiting the town more often in the week ends and holidays.

I noticed that Shyamal was standing in front of the deity by riding on the high platform. He was keenly observing the idol and sometimes he was touching her, as if to pick something from her body. I asked Aloke what he was doing.

“He is removing the gold ornaments from the Goddess.”

“Real gold! Do you put them on the idol every year?” I was surprised.

“Oh! There are quite a few of them! Those, who got jobs after donating the thakur, gave these ornaments to her.” Swarnendu replied.

I thought, having ornaments for a deity could only be a custom for temples, or private house-holds. So I wanted to know how they manage to keep them in a safe custody.

Aloke explained, “During Kali Puja, donors themselves give those ornaments to the organizers, and the Goddess is decorated with them. After the puja, they are returned to the donors.”

“In fact, there were more in the past. Now we have only a few.” Swarnendu added.

“What happened to them? Were they stolen?” I asked.

“A sort of. Some of our members put charges against us for stealing ornaments of Goddess.” Aloke smiled mischievously.

“How come?” I wondered.

“Oh! It was dirty politics.” Swarnendu commented with a dejected voice.

Then Aloke narrated the incident. I am providing a summary of it in his own words.

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“It was the time when the CPM (then the ruling left party of the state) was trying to take control of local clubs. One day, a very powerful leader of the state committee of the party came to us and suggested to convert our small club house into a three storied grand palace. The ground floor would remain to us. The middle part would be a conference room and the top floor would function as their party office. With folded hands, I said to him, “Dada (Sir)! We are habituated in taking simple food on banana leaves. But, we enjoy our meals. We do not want to eat  Rajbhog (a typical Bengali sweet, or etymologically ‘a feast offered by the King’) from golden plates by sacrificing our freedom.”

The leader went with a grudge and then some of our club members including the then vice chairman of the municipality, who were also party cadres, started pushing the agenda. Many of them were the office bearers and went on creating pressure using local administration. A few of us were getting odd calls from the officer-in-charge (OC) of our police station. Even the Sub-divisional Police Officer (SDPO) got interested in this affair and tried to coerce us in agreeing their proposal. But we did not relent. Then some of them indirectly threatened me for my life. I simply caught hold of a few  and flatly told them to go ahead with their plan, if they were bold enough to become so mean and low.  Finally, when they found that majority of us would not relent at all, they threatened with law-suits. You know, I also did left politics in my early days.  I had a fairly good idea, what kind of manipulation these people could do.  I knew where the notebook of minutes of the meetings was kept.  I removed it immediately from that place and kept it with me so that no one could change those minutes. Finally, we had a lengthy meeting with them in presence of their lawyers. All of them tried to convince us about the rights of the executives, which were written in the club constitution. They placed all sorts of arguments, and had almost convinced most of us. Then I played my card. I told them, “If there are rules in the club-constitution, there are also rules for amendments. How are you sure that the executives are given rights to take such a decision which most of us do not subscribe? Show me the minutes of the general body (GB) where the construction and all those proposals were approved?”  They started looking at each other. I produced the minutes from my pocket and showed them that it was clearly resolved by the GB that no such action would be permitted and if they require changing this decision, they need to call again a GBM. So they lost. Even those experienced lawyers could not utter a single word after that. This was the time, when they became nastier. They charged a few of us for stealing the ornaments of Goddess Kali, which they themselves have in their custody. That is the custom here. Every donor brings them out during Mother’s (referring to Goddess) puja and again keeps with them after the ceremony. But we were heavily harassed by the police and threatened to be put behind the bar. Even they were not allowing us to hold the Durga Puja that year. So we met the SDPO and requested his intervention. He asked us, “Why are you so interested to run this club?”

I told, “What is your opinion on this matter, Sir? Do you think, we run a business here?  Do you consider, we earn money for our living from this club? Swarnendu is a Homeopath doctor, respected in the town. Shyamal is a sub-assistant engineer working in PWD. I myself work in a Government office. Many of our members are like us. We are quite busy with our profession. So why do we still meet here, spend our evening,  organize pujas, cultural eves, play cards and table tennis? Why? Is it very difficult for you to understand? It is a part of our life. We enjoy it. I would rather ask what interests the CPM party has in running their office in the premise of our club. Is it also very difficult to comprehend that they would like to dictate us all in their party’s interest?”

The SDPO finally gave us the clearance for holding the Puja. When we went to the police station and asked the OC for the permission, he cut a caustic remark on us, “You went for grasses ignoring the horse! We would see how you manage the affair.”

We said, “Your boss has permitted. So act accordingly. We do know how to manage.”

From that year, a few of our members, in allegiance to their party, left the club. I am sure by bringing false charges against us, they are now repenting. They still have those ornaments, but cannot do anything with them. They cannot sell or display them. Again, they cannot bring them out during pujas. It must be very tormenting for all those poor fellows.”

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Finally the procession started, and I mentioned in the beginning how I joined it in spite of my initial hesitation. Swarnendu informed me that in recent years they were not permitted to immerse the idol in the Ganges. But the administration made a good arrangement for immersion in the canal of our town, which connects the main river. The place is quite near to their club. The procession would require covering a distance of a kilometer or less to reach that spot. This might be the reason why it was advancing so slowly. No one wanted to finish the celebration so quickly. So at places, it halted on demand from the dancers, who wanted to perform their road show for a while. Sometimes due to the ongoing firework in the front, it slowed down further. Aloke, a bit high and spirited, was at its front. Swarnendu, the gentle and the sober, was in the middle. He was pushing and guiding semi-drunk dancers to bring them into order. Shyamal was at the rear holding the cable of the small generator, which connected the matador carrying the idol, and the rickshaw-van fitted with a sound system and the generator itself. He was cautious about not letting the cable go under the wheel of the slow moving vehicle. A few senior members of the club were also controlling the gathering. There were ladies, wives and family members of my friends and other club members, their sons and daughters including kids starting from age four to fourteen. A few young girls among them were dancing with the beats.  The kids were walking with rang-mashals (fire-sticks producing flames of various colors) on their hands.  They were regularly supplied with those burning sticks by their elders. All of them were marching with great excitement. I found their parents, present there, were not too bothered about their safety, while giving those burning sticks on their hands. One of the club members made a good number of tubris (a type of sparklers) on this occasion and roughly at a distance of every ten meters, a tubri was put to fire producing an instant shower of flowering flames.

When we moved a few steps away from the club premise, Aloke called me and showed me a group of persons sitting on benches in a stall just beside the sidewalk. He told me, “Those were our past members, who left after that incident.” The group consisted of persons from mid thirties to mid sixties. Aloke went to them and exchanged greetings with a few of them and then came back to me. He lamented, “It’s a loss for both of us. All those seniors should have been here and guide us. Otherwise, how our young ones will understand how we had been groomed?  From where, they would learn to respect seniors, if they do not find examples from us? It’s also a loss to all those people. They have now become mute spectators. I requested them many a times. Please come back again and join us. Forget the past. But, they are very much ashamed to enter the club. The party-politics in our clubs has destroyed our culture. Our town was always neutral on this aspect. But it is not so now. The CPM started it, and now the TMC (the present ruling party) might follow soon. Who knows?”  I also have the similar apprehension. It is rare to find a club now, which does not have a political color.  Aloke continued, “The club in our village also has the same problem. It has become now a den of anti-socials. In the initial years, I tried to convince some of the elders not to bring those outsiders. But they were following the party-line. A few years back, one of their houses got robbed. I told the victim, these were those very persons, whom they welcomed earlier. Now he wanted to move from the neighborhood. It’s a sorry situation!”

However, his sadness did not prevail long. Soon he engaged himself in the proceedings. Sometimes he was dancing with the beating drums, sometimes was managing the crowd, and having occasional chats with his friends. It went on for an hour and a half. Then we came to a junction, where another road met from a side. The bridge of the canal was also a few steps away.  The immersion would take place after crossing the bridge at the other side of the canal. At that junction, Aloke made a signal to halt and asked to stop the sound system. He told the senior-most dhuli of the band, “Kaka (Uncle)! What is happening? How are you playing your dholes (indigenous beating instruments)? This is not the first time your group is performing in our procession. But why are we not getting the fun, as we used to have?” Others also supported him on this aspect. He continued, “I am an experienced listener. So far, you have only used three boles (rhythms). You should have played at least six boles.”

The senior dhuli agreed, “Babu (Sir)! What can I say? These are my drummers. They are inexperienced. Never used to do that much of practice. All of us work as laborers. Only during these Pujas, we come with our instruments and play for you. From where would they learn?”

But Aloke did not agree. He addressed the young dhulis there, “Look brothers! I understand you are not experienced. But that is because you do not give time. You do not care to learn. I am also a kaora (slang for the word ‘kahar’, the Bengali caste whose trade is to play drums). I know how these dholes are played. In fact there could be thirty-four boles. Kaka! Am I right?” He looked for confirmation from the senior person. The poor chap was nodding his head with apprehension.

“So, you need to learn and show us your skill. Otherwise, no extra bakhshish (tips) for you!” Aloke added and all the dancers around him cheered at his words with their consent. He further continued, “Follow this man.” He pointed to the senior dhuli. “He is the most experienced. As he plays, you simply follow his rhythm.”

One of the young dhulis then replied, “Dada (Sir)! We will be trying our best. Give us a chance.”

Again the beating started. The dhulis were doing their best with variation of different boles, shaking their heads and exchanging expressions among themselves for better orchestration. The crowd got settled with their rhythm. The kids and young girls too joined the group. My friend started dancing swinging his waist and twisting his legs by raising the right hand with a finger pointed above, while the left hand was glued against his hip. A small kid of five or six year’s old, was giving him the company by trying to mimic his moves. Then, with the change of the rhythm, he kept on making nice synchronized moves by stepping forward and backward. In this process, he became totally engrossed in his feats. He continued dancing without bothering his surroundings. Sometimes he was looking downward, sometimes upward. Sometimes he was shaking his body to the left and sometimes to the right. His moves looked simple, but lively. With the increasing loudness and rapidity of the beats, some of the dancers became more and more hysteric and frenzy with their random jumps, cheers and whistles. My friend went on among them with rhythms and spontaneity with his natural grace, absorbed in the proceedings without worries and woes. Next morning he would be busy with his daily routine and other domestic affairs. But that moment, he was in complete ecstasy with a smile of happiness on his lips. Swarnendu told me, “The party has just begun. Still a full night is left before us. A long way to go.”   

(In the above, names are fictitious, but characters are not.)

5/11/2011