"Deb here" - My father

Gyanendra Chandra Deb
(2nd May 1903 - 22nd July 1993)

My father was formally known as Gyanendra Chandra Deb. However, he had a few nicknames, like his younger cousins called him "Pushun-da" and the older ones "Pushun", to his nieces and nephews he was "Sundar-Kaku" or "Sundar-Jethu" as applicable.  My grandmother (Thakurma) would shriek out "Pushoon"as soon as he came back from office - to complain about her imaginary ailments and ill-treatment!  Thakurma was pretty old and had a right to be delusional and secretly I feel she had dementia too. She would complain how she was not given any lunch or the cook had not bathed before cooking her food etc. etc. I do not remember Baba making any issue about such complaints from his beautiful mother, even though I have seen many times how he would lovingly assure his mother that he would set everybody straight right then. Baba doted on his mother and she lived with him always, not with her other four sons.

I believe it was the main reason he did not get married till he was knocking at 50. He would have probably stayed a bachelor if it was not for his third brother and my chhoto mama secretly arranging for him to meet my mother - Nanibala Hore. She was another doting daughter who was well past her marriageable age and happily being a principal of ladys college in Punjab and contributing towards her family. Her father, my dadu had retired as an Inspector of schools of north Bengal and my mother did not harbour any secret fantasies about marriage; even though two of her sisters had been married off.   Well, providence played its part and two confirmed bachelors got married on 7th August, 1950.

It was quite normal for my dada and I to understand that our Thakurma was the queen-bee of the establishment, although she hardly ever moved from her bed. Everything and everyone was at her beck and call. Ma, of course had resigned from her job (before her marriage she had relocated to Calcutta and was Senior Customs Officer at DumDum airport) and had become a full-time house-wife or home-maker. I mention this scenario because I found later on that it was not a normal situation in many homes - the old parent/s were quite often relegated to a corner of the house and given less heed, even in those days.  Thakurma passed away in the early 60s after suffering from serious bedsores.

Baba was very serious about certain things - study time, play time, music time, dinner time, his & Ma's one-hour evening walk and the most important - 9 o'clock news time.  He also made sure we kneeled down and prayed before bed time, often he would pray along with us.  And, yes the first thing in the morning say another prayer.  Wonder of wonders we did not have any altar in the house - no pictures of God or Goddess.  There was a nice painting of Buddha, another one of Simon kneeling down and praying to a glow of light above.  There was another of Mother Mary & infant Jesus, which I took for my school function and never brought it back. Of course, a standing picture of Rabindra Nath Tagore. If there was any touch of religion or spirituality, it was a photo of Bejoy Krishna Goswami, who was my Thakurma's Guru. But all these paintings and photograph hung around the house on different walls - more like decor.

Baba would always polish his shoes every morning before his bath, no servant was allowed to do that. Dada and I were also introduced to this ritual, that is we polished our school shoes while our ayahs watched.  The affair used to be more sombre.  Just outside the British High Commission's Zephyr car would be standing with the chauffered driver, Gaffoor standing at atention, to take Baba to work.  Hilarious? Comical? Maybe or maybe not. These were principles driven into us children - to do as much of our own work as possible.  To be completely independent.  Like Baba we too had to wash our own underwears and socks, not to be given to the washerwoman with the rest of the clothes. Soon our younger sister who came nearly seven years after me had to follow the same strict discipline. However, there was some laxity when my parents dealt with her - after all she was the baby of the family!

Baba loved good food, so do I.  He enjoyed cooking biryani on sundays. As soon as the Ic-mic cooker came into the market, he bought one and we all looked forward to sunday special lunch.  Baba would do all the cutting, washing etc himself and then spread the biryani for all to relish. He cooked this well!

Did I mention that Baba never used a toothbrush to brush his teeth? He used neem sticks or neem-datun. Baba even took a great number of neem-datun with him when he had to go and live in Europe on official work for sometime.  We were made to brush with neem toothpaste. As we grew and became aware of goods. we influenced Ma to buy Binaca toothpaste. Those days these pastes used to come with different plastic/rubber animal figures.  Quite a collection we had.

Every year in the month of Magh (January-February) we religiously went to the Brahmo samaj at Cornwallis Street and Bhawanipore. The egaroi magh was always a special day, you just had to be there, meet friends, relatives and enjoy the simple khichri, chachari, chutney, cabbage curry etc.  At the samaj we had to sit quietly while the priest read out from the Upanishad followed by Brahmo sangeet.  The priest would read a stanza and then a song, and then another stanza and then another song. It would continue for some hours till about lunch time. In retrospect, I do not remember any child or infant making any noise inside the hall while the prayers were on.  And there were no cell pnones those days, but even if there were I am sure no one would dream of shattering the pin-drop silence inside the prayer hall.  Awesome discipline!  I remember the samaj as a very sacred place but no idols were worshipped. The dias where the priest and singers sat would be decorated with lots of flowers, especially rajanigandha, Baba's favourite.

I read my paternal grandfather, Ishan Chandra Dev had the title of Rai Saheb bestowed on him by the British for his exemplary contribution towards the geograpgical society work.  Baba never mentioned about it; I read the citing behind my Thakur-da's photo in the special suit.  Baba was born and brought up in Dehradun.  He and his four brothers kept night watch beating tins to scare away bats in their 100-bigha fruit orchard.  They studied in the DAV school, where English was taught in Hindi.  For example, Baba told us how they were taught to spell 'scale' - hyess, cc, yay, yel, eee. Pronounced as - 'sacale'.  And yet Baba spoke English - queen's English, so much so when our friends used to call us they would get scared if Baba picked up the phone. My brother's friends from St.Xavier's would ask him who is the Englishman who answers the phone with - "Deb here" ?  Baba had also learned German, Spanish and French by playing the linguaphone records during his bachelor days.

Baba or Ma never revealed to us that he came from a Brahmin lineage, that my Thakurma was the first (Mukherjee) Brahmin girl to wear leather chappals to school in her young days. Both my grandparents belonged to Sylhet (in Bangladesh) and both their families were Brahmin zamindars and both their fathers had turned to Brahmo samaj when they got repulsed by the Brahmin culture of oppression practiced at home.

Discipline, honesty, respect, independence, physically active and believing in dignity of labour are my inheritance from my dad. These stood me in good stead in my tumultous life.  Thank you God for giving me such beautiful parents.