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My dadu. The Late Narendra Nath Roy

K & I did a little prayer ceremony tonight for my grandfather on his 100th birth anniversary. The menu of walnuts was my idea. The framing of the picture was by K. Nimki came to the blow the candles!

 

The  picture above is a collage of snaps from a day in 2009 when dadu, my maternal grandfather, entered his 90s. My bother, two of my cousins and I happened to be around. Four out of his seven grandchildren and Dadu doted on all his grandkids.
He passed away 2 years later.
It’s his birthday today. He would have been hundred.
I was his eldest grandchild and had the privilege of knowing him the longest. So I thought I will share some of what I learnt from him during our time together:
– Be positive and have confidence in yourself. 
– Go after your dreams. Give it your best shot and don’t worry about the results.
– Don’t be afraid to try out new things. Don’t worry about failure. You can always start afresh.
– Smile. Don’t be grim. Enjoy life. Make others around you smile.
– Be broadminded, compassionate and forgiving. Do not discriminate on the basis of caste, religion, nationality or genders. It’s not birth but ones work and behaviour that matters. Education is the key to success in life.
– Read. Keep learning. Stay abreast of what’s happening around you.
– Be an engaging storyteller. Speak with confidence and from the heart.
– Relish every meal. Whether cooked at home (by my granny) or outside (when he would travel).
– Travel with gusto. Seek new places and experiences.
– Enjoy life. 
Happy birthday dadu. 
Here’s what my brother added: 
Perfect tribute…and to add to the learnings…..’do yoga or freehand exercise’…
His pep talks before any exam were so essential… 
He had ordered sweets online and sent them to Didu and she was most happy about it.
And my mother, his eldest daughter and first born:

My baba (father) would have completed 100 today, had he lived. He was alive till he was 91 years old and led a very eventful life encompassing both pre and post independence eras. He had seen the after effect of 2nd world war, famines and then the independence of India. He would tell us stories of those days.
A young daring man, he ventured out of his cocoon and went to North Bengal, Allahabad and lastly to Delhi, where he contributed his bit to the making of new India. He was the Chief Librarian of the Ministry of Railways and built its library from the scratch.
I had recorded a few of those stories, that he would tell us, and written them down from my memory, a few years back, in two posts. Please log in to the following links to read about the stories of Bengali ‘bhadroloks’ in pre and post independence eras.
My dad speaking to the students of the Assembly of Godchurch school, Tollygunge on the occasion of India’s 50th anniversary of independence (in the picture).
MY DAD’S STORIES DURING PRE AND POST INDEPENDENCE ERA (PART I AND PART 11)
And my aunt, his youngest daughter:
I am hearing lot of voices from him today …in bengali 😊
1.Shahosh rakhbi ( Have courage)
2.Podashuna kor mon diye ( study with focus)
Bodo hote hobe
( Have to be capable)
At that time, didnt understand the value of his advise so much. But obviously seeped in somewhere!
Also, I remember every time one of his grandkids did well in any field he would say ” kore dekhalo!!!”😊
And then he would say…”ei cheleta/meita khub boro hobe, naam korbe” for all his grand kids!! I think he loved his grandkids more than his own 🤣🤣


Sneha Senapati’s Odia food


Rushed here to update this post after dinner to tell you about something that struck me just before we sat to eat.

Our dinner tonight was from Sneha Senapati, a Mumbai Based Odia home chef, whose food K and I have fallen in love with. There are two possible reasons for this. Firstly, she is a great cook and her food (inspired by her mother’s memories) is very homelike. Secondly, for me at least, there is the shared heritage of the east that talks to my heart.

Chingudi dalma

On the menu was chingudi dalma (juicy prawns cooked in a hearty moong and tud dal base with a wickedly delicious fried onion tadka), dhaaba style chicken kassa (reminded me of the murgir jhol cooked at home in Kolkata, in simple pice-hotel style eateries or in the Howrah Bombay mail) and kishmish pulao.

And here’s the coincidence. Dadu’s favourite holiday spot was Puri and he had gone there many times till old age got in the way and he could not any longer. He would still would want to go and that pained us no end.

Puri is in Odisha and I could not have thought of a more apt dinner on his birthday. It is another matter that even on their holidays dadu would only eat didu’s cooking and they would stay in guest houses with kitchens for this!

Chicken kassa



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