Old times in South Kolkata

Attended the Shraddh of Tapas Pal’s mother at the Chaitanya Institute near Rashbehary Crossing with Debasree Roy. I visited the area after a long time and old memories of school days that I spent there came back to me. I had spent a couple of years there as I used to stay at Dharam Das Row – the lane next to Rashbehary Gurdwara opposite the Sitala temple.

Bang oppose the Chaitanya Institute there used to be a shuttle taxi stand where I used to wait for my turn in queue. The memories of my daily commuting on Mini Bus Route No 117 to my school Shree Jain Vidyalaya (picture) on Brabourne Road are still very vivid in my mind.

Coming back to the Shraddh ceremony, I met Tamal Mukherjee, Sohini Pal, Indrani Halder, Pallavi Chatterjee (file picture: at dinner in my house with footballer P K Banerjee) and few TMC MLAs and MPs. After the ceremony had lunch with Debasree in a restaurant housed in Hotel Metropole near Maharani tea shop. Talking of Maharani tea shop, well that used to be our adda joint in the evenings during college days.

Over lunch, I and Debasree discussed future plan-of-action for project Karuna. Debasree is really someone who is very passionate about dogs and their well being.

Today evening I will attend the premier of Ekti Tarar Khonje at Priya.

Life now-a-days is very busy with often little or no control over time and preferences. I, on an average, attend 3 to 4 public function in a day and work 14 hours and still have to listen to so many complaints wherever I go that I have not attended their function or I haven’t spent time with them for a long time. No wonder people say that school and college days are the best time of one’s life.

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