Thousands miles away my sweetest HOME Nainital
Palash Biswas
(You may publish, forward and circulate the write up, as I want to share the experience with you all.)
I left nainital in 1979 and came out of hills to earn bread and butter. I was an MA in English literature and language and had the ambition to be a professor in the department of English either in DSB college Nainital or Almora College , Almora. I had to do PHD. I went to Allahabad University and then for M Phil to JNU New Delhi. I had been associated with Chipko and Uttarakhand movements. Thus I went to Dhanbad to know JHARKHAND. And suddenly I became a journalist.
I was back in UP very soon in 1984 and worked for two newspapers in Meerut and Bareilly.
Meanwhile Soviet Union disintegrated and I shifted to Kolkata for a better job in 1991.
Meanwhile I never felt the distance. Suddenly in 2001, my father Pulin K.Biswas died in 2001, suffering from cancer.
My father was a real activist in every sense. He was alaways on movement. One or another. And he regularly used to visit us on way of his all Indai tour.Those yearly, half yearly, monthly and even weekly visits were so live , I never felt longing for home.As the feeling was always at home.
In 2001, tuesday, june 12th My dearest Man in the world , my father expired. I saw him suffering. I saw his friend Mr ND Tiwari, then MP and now the chief minister of uttaranchal , weeping like a little child on his bed side at home. I returned to Kolkataon job and within 16 days the final call came. Father was no more. I was away hundreds of miles. I was not present even on his bed side.
From nainital, everyone came. Professor Shekhar Pathak, Dr Uma Bhatt, Dr Batrohi, Rajeev Lochan sah, the great GIRDA, Kapilesh Bhoj, Pawan rakesh and others. I was never alone. Not even in the deepest grief. I felt entire Hills and Terai surrounding me. Even at that time, connectivity was the greatest problem We have only a direct train from Howrah to Kathgodam via Hajipur- Gorakhpur which takes us home in no less than forty hours. Yes, My father saw the hills and terai dividing. He was the leader of Dheemri Block uprising . He had friends like ND Tiwari, KC Pant, Pratap Bhaia, Shyam Lal Verma, Doongar Singh Bisht, harees Dhondiyal and others . He was a storg advocate of all community allaince in Terai and Hills.He supported us in our Chipko and Uttarakhand Movements. Even he saw danger with the creation of Udhaming Nagar. The process of divide between hills and terai began. He reprented the Bengali refugees, raisikhs, tribal , minorities and underclasses. Thus.he knew that the land mafi will grab the power. I saw his heart bleeding.
After my fathers demise i came to realise what I lost, my friends,family, relatives, village, rivers, fields, harvest, songs, rythms, dances, hills, trees and entire environment. My father, a man who never wore a shirt or upper clothes even in the coldest weather of hills, since he took an oath back in 1956 that until all refugees,the partition victims are resettled he won`t wear the upper cloths, represented the entire environment, the climate, the hills and the terai, altogether. but it was very very late. The connectivity may perhaps improve as we hope to have an airport in Pant Nagar, seven KM away from my village, the distance of time and space remains.
In 2001, i not only went to Nainital, but also visited my college after 21 yrs as the old Arts Block had been burnt in a fire and I had no courage to see the new structure. Professor Shekhar Pathak and girija Pandey physically dragged me to my old student days. Yes, I could not make a laughter as I used to do even during postgraduation. And those laughters were to echo the entire campus, pines and hills. Our dear old friends were not there. I met Mrs Anil Bisht, only who was there, my old professor.
In 2006, again tuesday, again june, the sixth June took away my mother,. Again I saw her sufferng and we returned Kolkata. On the twelfth day she expired. I talked to her on mobile a day before. She seemed to be alright.
My village Basantipur was named after her.Basnti Devi never stayed away from home , not for a single night. She belonged to Baripada, Orrissa. She never returned to her maternal home. She was a regualar vistor in every home and was apart of life, in grief and glee. But there was none besides her bedside. Mr ND Tiwari, Mr KC Pant and all political social associates of my father were absent. My younger brothers Padm Lochan and Panchanan spent the long night alone. No one came even from the neighbourhood.
Everything changed during these five years after my father`s death. I am activist, a known journalist and writer and she was the wife of a lifetime crusader. but she was all alone in last time. No news item appeared in terai or Hills.
From Nainital, Professor Shekhar pathak, Rajeev Lochan Sah, Hareesh Pant, Pawan Rakesh, Girda and evryone rang . Expreesed condolence.
But something very tender, very hearty was missing this time.
I did not walk out of my Village . I did not go anywhere either in Terai and hills.
It seems, Nainital, my sweetest home is thousands miles away and I may never return there.
Palash Biswas
Gosto Kanan, Sodepur,
Kolkata- 700110
Phone:91-33-25659551
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