SATYANESWAN

Since morning on the fourth day of our hunger strike, guardians and relatives of the students started arriving at the college campus. They were worried and excited. They formed groups among themselves and were engaged in agitated discussions. Me and Barun, one of my closest friends, were sitting near the first lobby and witnessing the progress of what was going on. During the last four days we had no visitors from our respective families. Barun belonged to a family of musclemen. Perhaps, expression of affection was not much in vogue there. As for myself, being a fugitive, I did not expect that barring my mother others in the family would be too keen to enquire about me. While on the first lobby, we were spotted by one of our senior professors, who incidentally came out from his office. He found no students nearby other than us. He called us both and started rebuking us for joining the hunger strike. Like all the conservative teachers, he found no virtue in our movement....

I read somewhere that while two Britishers meet they form a club and while two Bengalees meet they initiate a Puja.Now I understand that Gurudas,my elder ,aged 10 years then and me,8 year old were gifted with both the traits.We initiated a club way back in 1956 with an ulterior motive to organise a Saraswati Puja. The Goddess used to be worshiped in our household in most humble way but we looked for something more gorgeous.The nearby club in the locality, "Dilip Smriti Sangha", used to perform Puja with usual pomp and gay but we were not much accepted in the group as we were fairly new to the locality. We felt neglected. Neglect of this kind, sometimes, ignite a spark within the mind of persons who are creative by nature. I heard that Sir Jamshedji Tata came up with the famous Taj Mahal Hotel as he was not treated favorably in some British five star hotel.Unknowingly we followed suit and decided to establish a club. Space was not much of a problem as the roof of our house ...