About Dhaka, and my Grandfather...

Have you ever missed someone you have never met? Wished that you were around the person for at least sometime, so that you had tales to tell to the next generation? And also pondered over the simplistic achievements of the earlier era and hoped that even a percent of their goodness was imbibed in you?

My relation with my grandfather is a culmination of the feelings above. He was from Bikrampur, Narayanganj. Tall, fair, dhoti-half shirt-shoes clad, expletives-speaking, stereotypical "bangal" of early 1900s, started his career in 1936, crossed the border in 1948 with my beautiful grandmother in tow as refugees. Grandmother herself was from Rangoon (Burma), moved to Dhaka during World War II, married and shifted to India with her husband. Their refugee certificates state them as East Pakistan residents.

Amongst the new professions of that period, my grandfather was a photographer. He learnt the art in Doss company (Azimpura, Dhaka). With the early horizontal black-box cameras and a few years of employment in Doll Studio (Park Street, Kolkata), he visited Burnpur for Industrial photography, following which the family shifted to Burnpur and opened the first photography studio in the small steel city.

I have heard innumerable anecdotes from Baba about his skills, the small shop with tin roof, his tools (one of the antiques still exist within the family) and the rented house where they stayed for 42 years! My initial memories also revolve around that house, where even I have stayed for the first few years of my life.

The feelings were rekindled recently when Baba was discussing the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Satyendranath Bose's 1924 research that created the Bose-Einstein Statistics, build the foundation for Bosons. Bose did his research in Dhaka  and grandfather was his personal photographer. Baba still has the certificate given to grandfather by Bose, amongst the various other memoirs.

Grandfather's skills were not restricted to Bose. He had accompanied General Ayub Khan (later president of Pakistan) for three months in his camps. Manipur's Raja-Rani had offered him to move to the state after seeing his work. He had clicked Sharmila Tagore's childhood pictures, when her dad was posted in Asansol Railways. Asha Pareekh's bengali-style saree clad picture, and bit of still photography work with Meghnad Saha (as assistant still photographer) and photographer in Eastern Talkies is also in his list. And finally Nehru, when he visited to inaugurate Mython Hydroelectric plant (DVC). The list goes on, and I remember this few.

His good nature and professionalism is what people remember him by. Sadly, the small shop he had opened up burnt down and most of his works extinguished with it. Baba had to rebuild the venture from scratch, a loss he regrets till date.

Such times bring such a hollow feeling, an indefinable emptiness, to reach out and live the un-missed moments, get pampered for a few years, just to be able to recount the love, affection and simplicity of the person who passed on his genes to you. Wish he had known that his granddaughter will be on her way to the world! Lots of struggle and ups and downs later, he gave in to his health at the age of 51, ensuing another life of struggle for Baba, who was just 17 then. Well, that is another story altogether :)

The professional success of the period was more towards sustaining families. To pull through the emotional and financial burden of leaving everything behind and begin afresh in a new country. The unsung heroes, the common man, faded away to obscure corners of the hearts of family members. The dedication of the genre of that age was so profound, their art and intelligence was several strata above what we can ever imagine to possess. Hats off to what we call the older generation.

I have promised myself to visit Dhaka (and Bikrampur) at least once in this lifetime, as an ode to the man I am proud to call my grandfather. All I can say about him is that the yearning is going to live and die with me - the remorse of never having seen him and the complaint against God, for taking him away so soon! I guess even He wanted some nice portraits to be clicked :)