11 pm the phone rang last night. Sumit Mukherjee asked: “Do you know?”
I didn’t, but I knew instinctively. Sumit had seen Aditi Roy Ghatak’s Facebook post and called. Both of us were greenhorns recruited by ‘Pradiptada’ (Pradipta Sankar Sen), then News Editor, Amrita Bazar Patrika – one of the oldest daily newspapers in India – that dwelt in the bylanes of Bagbazar since its revolutionary pre-Independence days.
A few days ago (Jan 25) I called Pradiptada’s on his mobile. Switched off. That had been so earlier too, a couple of years ago – and I had pushed Sumit (living a lane away) to check on him.
Last January I met Pradiptada at his reconstructed house that has a lift etc. but bereft of that unique contraption that he controlled from the upper storey balcony sitting on the old sturdy armchair surrounded by books and magazines – a tug on the rope (in response to the doorbell) attached to the alley door ছিটকিনি (latch), and Khul Ja Sim Sim!
Frail but agile in mind and his usual wry humour. Talked about our days in Patrika and Patna (besides personal stuff), and of his two grand dames since his salad days: Calcutta Film Society (“Couldn’t save the treasure trove”); and Dover Lane Music Conference (“Quixotically, post Millennium Calcuttans have discarded the one classical cultural icon they truly pioneered, while nurturing this one.”)
Everything passes…So has this gentle doyen of Kolkata’s print-era journalism.
The stars on the eastern horizon are dimming.
(Photos taken by Abhijit Sinha on 11 January 2023 at Pradiptada’s Dover Lane Kolkata home)
