She sang Rabindrasangeet and organized dance recitals

Here is the eighteenth unforgettable character in my life …

She is a lady who has lived life the hard way. It could have been very much better but things did not work out as she would have liked. She was certainly not at fault but when the dice is stacked against you, you have to accept the consequences.
When I first met her, she and her husband used to organize majority of cultural programs in our township. Some of these were under the banner of the Bengalis, others under the banners of Officers Club or other such agencies. She was like an elder sister and was the ‘didi’ of all Bengali women. A great singer, she had the aptitude of training others to sing like her. Practically no cultural program was complete without her direct involvement. Her husband did the coordinating work and she concentrated on the actual rehearsals – the duo was always in demand and in the limelight.

However, suddenly, her husband fell sick. It was a peculiar skin disease and could not be controlled by any type of medication. There used to be blisters on the exposed portions of the body. The Doctors diagnosed it as an allergy. The illness had disastrous results because he gradually became an invalid and would struggle to walk down to the office. He opted for voluntary retirement and shifted to a rented a flat in the neighborhood. Most of his savings had gone towards his own treatment. Hence, he was in financial difficulties. Ultimately, he passed away and his wife moved over to Bangalore to be with her son and daughter-in-law.
The son had completed his Degree in Engineering and got a job in Bangalore where he met a local girl and married her. But, the mother who spent most of her life making others happy now finds herself at the end of a dark tunnel with only memories for company.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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He loved model planes and aero modeling

Here is the fifteenth unforgettable character in my life …

The young man was an Engineer, his hobby was aero-modeling which got him a huge fan following. He was also a Management Trainee and took the initiative to organize cultural programs of the Officers club. But, behind his outward appearances, there lurked a hesitant attitude. He was one of the privileged classes and, in the seventies there were a limited number of such individuals - unlike today when one takes pride in announcing that he belongs to so-and-so-community; he was uncomfortable in any group. He always felt that since he was a branded person; everyone was passing unkind remarks behind his back. He suffered from a complex of sorts.

His hobby was flying remote controlled aircraft models on Sunday mornings in the Stadium complex. This made him a darling of young girls – they would keep him company and watch wonder eyed as he readied the model, placed it on the ground and withdraw to a distance with his control box. Once the model got airborne, he would use the hand held controls to perform wonderful aerobatics. It was thus that he got involved with a school girl.
When the girl’s brothers learnt of this (they were three toughies!), they seized the opportunity to force the boy into marriage. They knew that he had a bright future in the organization and the brothers loved the catch for their sister. But, the young man found the going tough.
He longed for an escape route. He took a transfer to another unit to be away from the circle of known persons. Once there, he cut off all past links and built up new ones. The last I heard of him, he had settled down in Australia. He must have found the Australian society down South more accommodative than the Indian one.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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