Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached

Bankura stay : 1971 December to 1977 November

My College - Bankura Sammilani college

(1973 to 1976)

In Bankura I could not get my admission in any of the two colleges as the admission session was just coming to an end and my marks were mediocre so I had to wait for the next year. But in 1972 my brothers were not willing to finance my further study. I was just whiling away my time by playing carom at Bankura Rly. Station platform with the Government Railway Police (GRP in short) staff and watching trains and passengers coming and going in the evenings and reading Bengali novels and stories during day time and taking some tuitions.

After two years off from my studies, I could take admission in the commerce stream of Sammilani evening college in the year 1973 with financial help from my sister. She is presently settled in Bishnupur with her family. I never expected to get into honors course as I had only a second division with 53% marks. Perhaps that year a few applied for honors course and a fewer had second division. Thus my chance brightened and I got into it.

Our lecturers and professors were very good and I owe to them for whatever I am today and making both ends meet comfortably. Our English teacher was a very unique one and his way of teaching would even attract those bad guys to join in who would otherwise hardly attend classes. His graphic description of a poem still lingers in my mind even after 45 years of his teaching. Other teachers were just all right but nothing particular to mention about.

In the meantime, Along with my studies I also joined the college union to represent our Commerce section. I won consecutively for two years. This gave me one option to award free-ships to a few students. I did award these free-ships to students who really needed it even though they were from our opposition students' union. I too got the freeship advantage as a member.

Our B.Com final examination was conducted under strict vigilance and I found our question papers to be quite difficult. However I scrape through with honors with second class scoring only minimum 40% marks.

In the meantime my 2nd elder brother got married and I too had a love affair started with a teenage girl whom I met on his marriage night. This relation continued for about 2 years . In one evening my brother when he came to know about it through a senior member of our relations, he scolded me left and right for this. He also gave me an ultimatum that if I continued this affair, I would have no place at home. I did not have financial independence to disobey him thus it ended abruptly leaving a delicate point in my heart but that is another story.

My eldest brother thought that it would be wise to learn typewriting and shorthand to get a job while with only a college Degree, jobs were scarce in those days to come by. In this typewriting Institute I came across a young man who was studying Economics in Christian College, the best one in the district. We became very close friends. He used to keep a small flowing beard and was a very serious looking person. He was Debiprasad Kundu, If I remember right. He used to dabble with Numerology and did make a lot of predictions on my future. To my surprise almost everything has come true and some are yet to bear fruit.

There was one office staff in our college whom we used to call 'Sadhan da'. He was very helpful to get administrative work done in our college and he used to live in our colony as well. After his office duties he would always be found at 'Station moar' road restaurant gossiping with friends over cups of tea and snacks.

Many of my friends joined Indian Air Force and I remember the names of two of them. One was Bikas and the other one was possibly Subhasish. I do not have any contact with them now but still I cherish their friendship.

The declaration of result of my graducation took about a year and my 'Adda' continued with friends till my my brother advised me to go to his place of work at Deolali in Maharashtra to look seriously for a job.