Memoirs of another day - Arun Roy Mukherjee

XXIII : My father was transferred to Rampurhat, a small town then in Birbhum. Initially we put up at a mud-built two storied house in a locality near the “Chal-dhowani” pond. This was a very big pond and was the source of water for drinking and cooking for all the residents of the locality. Our first acquaitance there was with the Ganguly family who lived very near to the “Chal-dhowani” pond. The family consisted of an elderly couple and their only son who was my name-sake “Arun”. After a few months we shifted to a new brick-built house near the local police station. A mosque was just beside our house and a very big pond was also there at the back of our house. This is for the first time that I was admitted to a school. I became a student of Rampurhat High School and was admitted into Class IV. The school was very near to the local court house, Sub-division jail and the Railway station. The Town Hall and Club and the local football ground were also not very far. Initially Bhola Da used to take me to school everyday but after a few days I could make it all by myself. Bhola Da used to bring my daily tiffin consisting of a few sweetmeats and a glass of milk. My father became a member of the Town Hall club and used to visit the club every evening. The club organised to stage two drama. The members of the club played the different charecters in the drama. One was “Tatinir Bichar” and the other was a historical drama consisting a period of Aurangazeb’s rule. In “Tatinir Bichar” my father enacted the female role of “Tatini’s Pishima”.and in the other as the Rajput king Jay Singha. Mukunda Babu was the rector of our school. Much later in life I came to know that the rector of our Rampurhat School Mukunda Babu was the disciple of none other than Sri M (Mahendra Nath Gupta) the famous writer of “Sri RamaKrishna Kathamrita”.